An Appreciative Audience

Rodney Harwood / Daily Record Billy Maguire, from left, David Parker and Jeff Hill get together and play music at the Meadows Place retirement community.

Musicians perform at Meadows Place Assisted Living Facility

By RODNEY HARWOOD staff writer

The evening started off with Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay.” The acoustic guitar and singular voice was a familiar fit for a song Dylan actually quit smoking to record. But the accordion accompaniment was probably more Dylanesque than anything, in that Dylan has reinvented himself and his music over the years, changing the words, changing keys, playing the slow ones fast and the fast ones slow too many times to count. Even though the song ended to silence in a room with people sitting at every table, the music was a pleasant change for a demographic of people that had been under literal isolation since the pandemic safety restrictions went into effect in March of 2020. Acoustic duo Jeff Hill and David Parker have been busking at the Rotary Pavilion Friday afternoons from 3 to 5 p.m. during the pandemic. Now they have extended their music to include sessions at Meadows Place Assisted Living Facility in Ellensburg. Local favorite Billy Maguire sits in every now and then, adding a second guitar, voice and harmonica. “My mother was in an extended

living facility, so I like coming here and making people happy,” Hill said. “The bottom line is, we like to play and this is way to do that.”

Maguire would agree. “There was one guy that must have been in his 90s. I could see real a twinkle in his eye. He was really enjoying the music. It was worth it if just for that moment,” he said.

The song list is a combination of music that shaped their generation in the ‘60s, blended with the accordion music made famous in the 1930s and ‘40s.

A little Bob Dylan here, a little Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell there, throw in some Grateful Dead and a little bluegrass to go with Parker’s virtuoso accordion work and the music flows like good wine on a summer day. They have been playing a little bit together since Hill moved to the Kittitas Valley from Chicago a couple of years ago. Parker is originally from New Jersey. They just gravitated together for the love of music, and if they can put a smile on someone’s face, all the better.

“I started playing in the late ‘60s when guys my age wanted to be either Bob Dylan or John Lennon,” Hill said with a laugh. “David is such a skilled musician with the accordion. Nobody does what he does in terms of our type of music.”

Said Parker, “I’ve been in Ellensburg three years,” he said. “We play for our own pleasure. I played organ and piano for seven years over on the coast. We just started playing down at the pavilion just to get out and play and that’s been fun.

“Playing at Meadows Place is as therapeutic for us as I hope it is for the people that live there.”

With the live music scene gaining traction this summer, look for Hill and Parker downtown or anywhere the wind blows because the answer really is blowing in the wind when it comes to the music of this acoustic duo. u

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