Photo by: Photo by CATHY KAPULKA The group "Skinny McGee and His Mayhem Makers" play Saturday night at the
Osceola Tavern in Dade City. Mark Hannah on guitar, Chris Bell on harmonica and Skinny McGee [Shawn Gravitt] on the stand-up
base.
DADE CITY - Shawn Gravitt becomes Skinny McGee when he begins strumming
the bass and playing rockabilly with Chris Bell and Mark Hannah in the trio Skinny McGee and His Mayhem Makers.
When Skinny McGee sings, some listeners swear he has become someone else all together.
``It's scary how much Skinny sounds like Johnny Cash,'' Hannah said.
Gravitt and Cash share the same birthday: Feb. 26. Cash was born in 1932 and his sound-alike in 1971.
``That's kind of eerie,'' Gravitt said.
So it made perfect sense for the trio to book a recording session at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tenn., on Feb. 26 to celebrate
two birthdays and musical roots, and to feel the ghosts of a studio made famous in the 1950s by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis
and Carl Perkins.
The trio, which perform regularly at the Osceola Tavern in Dade City, made the pilgrimage to Sun Studios to record 16 songs
in a three-hour session at $75 per hour.
``It was definitely eerie being in that studio,'' Gravitt said. ``It gives you goose bumps. You could feel them all in
there.
``I felt a nervousness like I'd never had before. I was bone nervous,'' he said. ``It was in that room where people recorded
all the music I've enjoyed. And to stand on the same spot as Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley and be recording ... man.''
Hannah said James Lott, who has been at Sun for 18 years, recorded the session.
``He'd met Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis and talked to Johnny Cash on the phone,'' he said. ``You could hear their spirits
in your head. We got everything down in one or two takes, though, and recorded 16 songs.''
`A Real Rockabilly Shrine'
``But it was a setting that made you nervous, a real rockabilly shrine,'' Hannah said. ``There's photos of them all up
on the walls.''
The trio hope to produce a CD from the session, which included three original songs and six by Cash, including ``Leave
That Junk Alone,'' which the musical legend recorded but never released.
``It's about leaving alone liquor or whatever demons you have,'' Hannah said. ``It's haunting, and a song that needs to
be heard. I've got a friend who was gripped by this song.''
Cash, who died in September, owned a house along the Cotee River in Port Richey that he considered a retreat after taming
his substance abuse and marrying June Carter in the 1960s.
Gravitt wrote two of the original session recordings, ``Let It Rain'' and ``I'll Never See The Light,'' for Cash on a flight
from Calafell, Spain.
There, the group played a tribute to Cash during a rockabilly festival the week he died.
``We got a standing ovation and did three encores,'' Hannah, 37, said. ``The festival was on a beach along the Mediterranean
in Calafell. It was beautiful and such an emotional and spiritual gig. We were on a cloud after that.''
Bell plays acoustic guitar, fiddle and harmonica, and sings background. Hannah plays guitar.
``I also tried to pay tribute to Luther Perkins, Johnny Cash's guitarist,'' Hannah said. ``I try to pick like Luther, and
Skinny sings like Johnny.
``And we're just like an early Johnny Cash group. It was called Johnny Cash with the Tennessee Two.''
The trio formed in 1997 and produced two albums, ``Skinny McGee and His Mayhem Makers'' and ``Model A Blues,'' before releasing
its 2002 CD, ``Mint Juleps & Sweet Magnolia,'' available on the trio's Web site, www.skinnymcgee.com.
The trio have played gigs and rockabilly festivals in Holland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Orlando.
``This is a self-supporting habit for us,'' said Hannah, a sign painter and shirt and cap screener. ``We save our money
from playing gigs to go to festivals, and do our own recording at Skinny's house in Winter Haven with vintage equipment.''
Gravitt, a 33-year-old hairdresser, contrived his stage name from ``Gilligan's Island.''
``Gilligan had a buddy named Skinny Mulligan and another friend named McGee,'' he said.
Bell, 38, of Winter Haven, is a band and concert promoter and former restaurant owner.
Trio Get `People Going'
``Skinny and I were in Winter Haven bands that broke up and we got together,'' Bell said. ``I'd met Mark and we added him.
We've been together seven wonderful years, and we're excited about the future. We get people going, young and old.''
The three men have formed a bond.
``Playing is a relationship,'' Gravitt said. ``Starting a band is like meeting a girl one day and marrying her that day.
You have to learn if they put the cap on the toothpaste or not, all the idiosyncrasies. Mark and I understand each other now.
It clicks.''
Reporter Steve Kornacki can be reached at (813) 731-8170.
This Old House Inspires Cheers By GEOFF FOXgfox@tampatrib.com Published: Jan 23,
2004
This page has old newspaper articles and old pics taken over the years. Just like everything
else...It is a work iin progress.
DADE CITY - Jim
Clayton mingled outside The Osceola Tavern on a recent Saturday night, a glass of Guinness in his hand and a satisfied smile
on his face.
Clayton was in the tavern's front yard on Seventh Street, where a fire flickered in a portable fireplace and
Time Warp, the evening's entertainment, easily was heard doing a version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's ``Simple Man.''
A cool breeze blew through, and neon beer signs sparkled in Clayton's eyes as he said: ``In Dade City, this
is the most happening place. And it's not just the beer. Before there was good music here, there were just good people. Now
there's both.''
Time Warp, formed by a pair of Saint Leo University professors in 1984, was in the midst of a three-set show.
The group played everything from the Beach Boys to The Doors to The Wallflowers.
The night before, a Zephyrhills band called Spin-Lok rocked the house with classics by Black Sabbath, Led
Zeppelin, ZZ Top and Rod Stewart.
Other regular entertainers include Skinny McGee and His Mayhem Makers, a rockabilly band; a blistering blues
act known as Murphy's Law; Pacific Wind, a male-female duo; the brother-sister act Starburst; and Rob Beaumont, a blues guitarist
with a penchant for rock 'n' roll classics.
A $3 cover charge applies only when there's live music.
Roger Hughes and Patty McLeod, both of Dade City, have been coming to the bar for about five years.
``There aren't a lot of nightspots around here, so once this got going with the music, we've been coming pretty
regularly,'' Hughes said.
Mike Agnello bought the three-story, 6,000-square-foot house in the early 1990s, first running a shelter,
then a rooming house. The building, built in 1897, became The Osceola Tavern in 1998.
A former disc jockey who counts Jimmy Buffett as a friend, Agnello hopes to transform the tavern - which boasts
20 beers on draft and 150 varieties of bottled beer and other malt beverages - into a smaller version of tourist attractions
such as Seville Quarter in Pensacola or Church Street Station in Orlando.
``I want this place to be a destination,'' he said.
Close Quarters
Inside the tavern, a growing crowd gathered around the bar and the band.
There wasn't much choice.
The dance floor at The Osceola is about the size of an average living room - and the bar takes up about a
quarter of the space.
But Time Warp and the people watching, including a group of middle-age men and women, and goateed, ponytailed
college students, didn't seem to mind.
There is no stage, and bands set up in what might at one time have been a sewing room.
Time Warp was flanked by dangling disco balls. Above the group hung pictures of classic cars, beer signs,
a row of lights and a miniature Budweiser blimp.
Staring at the band from one wall was the stuffed head of the wild boar ``that killed old Earl,'' Agnello
said.
``Old Earl was one of the hunting dogs that helped capture it,'' he added.
The space is so tight that Scott Moschetto, Time Warp's diminutive drummer, often climbs to his drum kit through
a nearby window.
``It's not the best as far as setting a band up, but it's cozy with a lot of color,'' said Terry Danner, Time
Warp's harmonica player. ``Any time there's music here, it gets pretty packed.''
Frank Murphy of Murphy's Law said the intimacy of the environment is what makes the tavern one of his band's
favorite venues. Murphy's Law is playing at the tavern Saturday, starting about 9 p.m.
``We're all local guys, and we really appreciate the fact that Mike is trying to create and nurture a local
music scene,'' Murphy said. ``For us, the crowds are wonderful; many of them are good friends. It's always a party atmosphere.''
Skinny McGee, whose band plays at venues around the world and in February is recording at the legendary Sun
Records studio in Memphis, Tenn., where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Waylon Jennings made their names, said the tavern
is one of the most unusual venues the band plays.
``The fact that it was an old house makes it a little different,'' McGee said. ``It's a nice, cool crowd,
though. They're just there to have a good time.''
Where Everybody Calls You Names
The Osceola Tavern is named after a Seminole Indian leader who lived in the early 1800s and fought in the
Second Seminole War. The tavern originally was known as Wood's Tavern & Hotel. Before Agnello bought it in 1993, the building
was vacant about a year.
Despite a recent smoking ban and regulations that made Agnello's barbecue- serving aspirations a surefire
money loser, he seemed to enjoy the ongoing house party he manages for a living - even if he sometimes works 20 hours
a day.
A politically active husband and father - of three boys - who will say exactly what he thinks when
he thinks it, Agnello compared the atmosphere at his tavern to ``the real Cheers.''
``Sometimes you wanna go where everybody calls you names,'' he said with a laugh.
Besides booking live music for Fridays and Saturdays, Agnello plays disc jockey and offers karaoke. There
are separate rooms for foosball, darts and pool. Off the billiards room is a courtyard with palm trees, tables with umbrellas
and benches.
Some day, Agnello hopes to open the second story for tavern patrons.
With a 6,000-square-foot building, there are options.
``It is a living work of art when everything comes together,'' he said. ``It's almost magical. I'm exhausted
and tired at the end of my long day into night. But at the end of the day, when everyone else has been asleep for hours, I
wouldn't trade places with anyone.''
It certainly wasn't the first time I had seen a drama of love and loss played out at the bar of the Osceola Tavern. In
fact, I've been a bit player in a couple of those of the real-life variety myself since I began patronizing the closest thing
Dade City has to an esoterically avant-garde watering spot.
But that only made it easier Saturday for me to lose myself in Shattered, a one-act play by Saint Leo University student
Amber Ernest, an aptly named serious young woman who made her off-campus writing and directing debut with the Osceola venture.
"It's not exactly dinner theater," Osceola owner Mike Agnello said while explaining to the usual crowd of bikers, journalists,
competitive beer drinkers and chess players who wondered why there was a new guy at the bar and why they couldn't be. "But,"
Agnello added, his face brightening, "we do have some chili left if anyone is hungry."
I was turned on to the play by an old pal, Rebecca Hubert, also a Saint Leo student, who handled lights and stage design
for the play when it was produced by Theatre Playhouse 90 at the university, but who got a night off to enjoy a bout with
influenza while the Osceola provided real-life set and lighting for Ernest's play, which is set in a bar.
The play had done well in two performances at the university, but its principals say they were asked to tone down the language
for on-campus productions and decided simultaneously to give the off-campus route a shot.
Forewarned, I had entered the bar with my knickers almost pre-bunched but heard only language that was about on a par with
an average NYPD Blue episode except for one word that was only used one time.
And despite that the play deals with a writer's relationship with a psychic vampire who drains him dry of both talent and
its product, the only near-sexual content (except for a chaste kiss or two) was one character's exclamation about sex, "How
can anything that feels that good look that bad."
Maybe things have gotten a little tense at Saint Leo since the last production I attended there, which was, admittedly,
a while back.
There are raunchier jokes in Melville and Shakespeare and worse language in Chaucer, but what do I know?
Language aside, Ernest's play is about Zack, the writer, meeting Victoria Knight, played well by a suitably vampiric Avena-Lyn
Smith, and going away with her for two incredibly productive weeks as a poet and, we are led to believe, lover.
His ex-girlfriend, Tess, played by Jackie Gay, and his friend, Mort (Death? One wonders, if one knows about Ernest's neo-gothic
interest in things vampiric) don't like the new woman, who comes on as less than warm and cuddly in a couple of clashes with
the ex, and are there to comfort Zack when he comes back without new girlfriend or poetry.
And, mostly because I've always wanted to use the word Faulknerian, I have to make special note of experienced actor David
Jay Strauss' playing of Mort's mentally challenged younger brother. Sometimes you wonder if Strauss' character, Cade, obsessed
with a toy statue, a coloring book and his occasional responsibilities as a waiter, isn't one of the more together people
in the play.
The one-shot production either drew a fairly hefty crowd or found one, as the tavern's parking lot was full, and, along
with the students and parents in attendance, there was a crossover contingent of bar regulars enjoying a welcome break in
the monotony that can be a Dade City Saturday night.
Ernest, a writing major who wants to go to graduate school to further her writing career, did a little pacing as actors,
props and audience showed up late but survived long enough to smile during a curtain call that had no curtain but plenty of
applause.
Oh yeah, lest anyone think that I am miffed because Odie Green, who writes for the biker magazine Pushstart, got the nod
to play the part titled DRUNK, and not I, let me be the first to say that Green, who admitted to substantial method-acting
preparation for his role, played an excellent drunk.
