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Toledo Lucas County Public Library welcomes all to, Live at the Library, a concert series featuring musical talent as they tour the country. This month, we welcome folk duo, Ordinary Elephant.
Toledo Lucas County Public Library welcomes all to our new series, Live at the Library, a concert series featuring musical talent as they tour the country.
We are excited to welcome folk duo, Ordinary Elephant!
"Keep kind all that rises from your chest to your tongue. Don't ever let your words undo the work you've done," sings Crystal Damore on "Worth the Weight," a song that beats at the heart of Ordinary Elephant's potent new album, Honest. In the song, it's a two-line enjoinder from an adult to a kid. In life, though, it's a mission statement for ourselves as much as for others. And the work that Crystal, along with her husband Pete, has done on Honest is both filled with kindness and worthy of praise.
Interestingly, if not ironically, in order to accomplish this new work, Crystal and Pete had to set aside the work they'd done previously, as a veterinary cardiologist and a computer programmer, respectively. The two met at an open mic in College Station, Texas, in 2009 and soon moved to Houston together. With her on acoustic guitar/lead vocals and him on clawhammer banjo/harmony vocals, the work of music continued on the side as both had full-time jobs, until they threw all caution to the wind and hit the road in an RV.
Leaving the stability of a day job and the security of a career didn't come easily for Crystal. "It took a lot of time -- and help from Pete -- for me to get to the point that I was okay with leaving the career I spent my whole life in school working toward, to the degree that I was leaving it," she admits, adding, to be okay with the fact that it may not be what other people want, but it was what I needed, and that was the important part."
Bitten by the creative bug at an early age, Crystal had set most of that aside to focus on school and work; "Living on the road, before doing music full-time, gave my creative side the breathing room it needed to come back out."
And, boy, has it ever come out now that they've both committed fully to Ordinary Elephant. In song, after Honest song, the Damores take on what it means to follow your heart and eschew all the expectations, assumptions, and limitations, projected upon you by others.
Food and refreshments will be available for purchase or donations made to SAME café.
