By John Pluntze

Well, once again this week's Wood River Valley music offerings are sooo numerous and eclectic in nature -- including a hugely-popular singer-songwriter-guitarist from Minnesota who often immediately conjurs up images in people's minds of Bonnie Raitt and/or Melissa Etheridge -- we'll once again have to cover them in a two-part music column article, beginning with today's (Thursday) musical events.

This afternoon, from 2:30-6:30 p.m. at the Hailey Farmers Market (213 N. Main Street, next to Bank Of America), the local group Some Strings Attached will be the featured band there.

Also in the South Valley today/tonight, the seriously high-energy, country, alt-Americana band, Dallas Alice ( http://dallasalicerocks.comhttp://www.myspace.com/dallasalicerocks
http://www.myspace.com/alicerocksdallas
http://www.cdaby.com/cd/dallasalice ), performs at Mahoney's Bar & Grill in Bellevue (104 S. Main Street/ 788-4449), starting around 6:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. (Dallas Alice is also playing this coming Friday and Saturday at Whiskey's in Ketchum, starting around 10 p.m.: www.whiskeyjacques.com ).

At the Ketchum Town Square tonight, from 6-8 p.m., the very last free, outdoor concert of the season takes place there -- this one featuring the band, Low-fi ( www.myspace.com/lowfi ). Bigggg thanks to SV-Ketchum Chamber/Visitors Bureau staffer Stefany Mahoney for booking all the many verrry eclectic and entertaining musical acts there this summer for those increasingly-popular Thursday concerts -- particularly the Cow Says Mooo, All Nite Diner, Voice Of Reason, and Up a Creek bands!!!

Also in Ketchum this evening, at the Zenergy Health Club & Spa (245 Raven Road/ 725-0595), the very last poolside concert of the season will take place from 5:30 until 9 p.m. or so -- featuring a Boise-based musician who quickly proved to be one of the most eagerly talked/raved about of the many performers that Zenergy featured during their free poolside concert series LAST summer: Gayle Chapman ( http://www.myspace.com/gaylechapman )

When I talked with Chapman last night from her home in Boise, she was obviously extremely excited about the notion of returning to the Wood River Valley again, and particularly to the Zenergy poolside concert series.

"I was REALLY flattered by the amount of love and support I got last summer -- Derek (Agnew) and Jim (Lee) there could NOT have been nicer to me! -- and I was more than a little surprised by how beautiful that whole Thunderspring-Zenergy complex there is, too!!" Chapman said, adding that the last time she'd been in that part of the Wood RIver Valley (where the lovely Zenergy-Thunderspring complex now stands) a dilapidated, ugly and long-since-shuddered Holiday Inn was standing in that very same location.

Someone whose smoky and seductive voice is often immediately compared to that of Bonnie Raitt and Melissa Etheridge, Chapman, who regularly performs at a wide variety of venues in and around the Boise are -- at Chandler's Steak House, The Piper Cellar Pub, The Buzz Coffee House & Cafe, the Hillcrest Country Club, the Owyhee Lounge, the Flatbread Community Oven, etc -- and who also currently serves as one of the co-managers for the Eagle Saturday Market, got her first big break in Minneapolis back in 1978, after she was hired as keyboard player and backup vocalist by the artist who would soon to be known as Prince ... a gig she enjoyed for more than two years.

"It was a verrry educational experience for me in many ways -- good and bad," the Duluth native said of her early musical years there in Minnesota, who then quickly added that Idaho winters have nothing at all on Minnesota ones. "You sometimes expect frozen birds to fall out of the sky and hit you square on the head there!" Chapman said, laughing about those gruelingly-long Minnesota winters she obviously doesn't miss one bit.

Having taken up the piano at age two and the guitar at age nine, Chapman's unbridled love for and involvement in music -- which also includes stints in New York City and Los Angeles -- has a long and eclectic history, but she says the kindness and generosity of people of Idaho had a lot to do with her first moving here back in the 1980s, and also inspiring her to remain here (she's lived in Boise since 1987, after a brief stay in Pocatello that, at the time, seemed like an "eternity" to her).

"The people in Idaho often remind me a lot of those in Minnesota; there's a genuine sincerity and strength about people here that I've always found very heartening and exciting, and I certainy think that's true of the people there in the Wood River Valley, too," Chapman said, adding that she was likewise very flattered and excited when Papa Hemi's Hideaway co-owner Matt VanderNoot began booking her AND also her frequent musical partner there in the Boise-Eagle area, Sandy Sanford, for well-attended gigs at THAT Ketchum establishment as well -- partly as a result of all the universally-positive things VanderNoot was frequently hearing from patrons about Chapman (after her extremely successful gig at Zenergy last summer).

Before performing alongside with Sanford, this highly-acclaimed blues-jazz singer used to regularly perform with Jan Skurzynski, whose own poignantly-emotive lyrics and harmonies were a good match for her own. Chapman and Skurzynski formed the band Black Diamond, during which they produced a CD ("Black Diamond -- Change Of Direction"), but eventually stopped touring together full-time in 1996.

Later, working as a solo artist, Chapman produced a bestselling and critically-hailed jazz standards album ("Standard Laments") and, in 2003," her very own self-titled "Gayle Chapman" album -- all of which are still selling well at www.itunes.com (the latter, self-titled album will also be for sale tonight during her eagerly awaited Zenergy follow-up concert).

Tonight's Zenergy final poolside 5:30-8:30 p.m. concert of the summer is open only to members of the Zenergy Health Club & Spa -- and also to residents of the adjacent Thunderspring condo complex -- so be sure to ingratiate yourself accordingly today with someone who is a member or resident there!!
************************************************   
Questions or comments regarding this "Harmonic Convergence" (local music scene-oriented) column can be sent to John at: WriteStuffIdaho@gmail.com .And to read any of John's previous "HC" columns -- which include raves on local faves Gayle Chapman, Paul Tillotson, Cheryl Morrell, Bruce Innes, Molly Venter, Jeff Rew, Ethan Tucker, All Nite Diner, Cow Says Mooo, FourStroke Bus, and FOX's hit musical-comedy series, "Glee" -- simply type "John Pluntze" (and also "Music Rules") into the SVO search engine here.