By Jinae Kennedy
Local music lovers are trying to carry on a tradition of Wednesday morning jam sessions in Lexington by moving across the street from the coffee shop where they had been a fixture for years.
A loose-knit cadre of musicians began setting up in artist Marjorie Kasch-Hansen’s second-floor studio on Jan. 21, across from their old haunt, the Lexington Coffee Shop, 9 W. Washington St. By Wednesday morning, they had played their second session in their new digs.
Kasch-Hansen offered the space after Lexington Coffee owner Brian Butterfield ended years of live pick-up bluegrass and other music in the back room of the coffee shop. Butterfield canceled the sessions after seeing a story in the Staunton News Leader that music licensing giant Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) had filed a federal suit against a Staunton restaurant for hosting live music without paying a licensing fee. BMI licenses the public performance rights of some 8.5 million songs.
Butterfield said he had not been contacted by BMI but decided to take preemptive action rather than risk being sued or paying about $400 for the yearly licensing fee.
“I’m sorry to see it end,” Butterfield said. So were many of his regular Wednesday morning customers and the musicians who entertained them for free.
“This is a community tradition being killed by a lawyer in Nashville,” said Andy Wolfe, himself a BMI copyrighted artist. Wolfe had showed up with other local pickers on Jan. 14, the last day the music was offered in the back room of Lexington Coffee.
Musical backstory
The tradition began about 20 years ago a few doors down, at Sweet Treats Bakery. It moved to Lexington Coffee about 12 years ago, musician Burr Datz said.
As on most other Wednesdays, what resulted at the last session was what fans and players call a music laboratory. Anyone was welcome to bring an instrument and sit in, taking turns choosing a song and a key. The choices covered bluegrass, folk, original pieces and a few covers, Datz and local musician Roy Fauber said.
When the sessions end, some of the musicians head to day jobs in the community or at nearby Washington and Lee University or VMI.
Kay Lera, who said she had been listening to the music for most of the 20 years, motioned to local legend Freddie Goodhart tuning his banjo, and to shop owner Butterfield nursing a cup of coffee.
“Nobody’s making any money,” Lera said. By 8 a.m., Lera was surrounded by regulars waiting for the music and passing around the newspaper story that had caused all the fuss.
The musicians are mostly retirees, longtime customers and friends. Butterfield offers free coffee to the musicians, and he does not collect a cover charge from customers. But copyright rules on live music assume that the music boosts business for the host, so the business should pay the licensing fee.
Paying for the rights to rock
BMI, one of three major music copyrighting organizations, says 87 cents of every dollar it collects is distributed to its artists in royalties.
BMI reaches out to local business owners on a daily basis to educate them on performers’ rights and licensure, said BMI public relations director Leah Lupo. The license fees ensure that artists receive compensation when the public enjoys their music, Lupo said.
When it comes to local businesses, “we don’t want them to cancel music, we want them to become licensed,” she said, adding that discounts are available.
At Sweet Treats, owner Shane Gonsalves said he paid BMI a little more than $300 for a one-year license after getting a letter from the company. Gonsalves offers live music on the first Friday every month. But unlike Butterfield, he pays his bands and acknowledges that he makes money in food sales.
After he paid BMI, Gonsalves said, two other licensing agencies also contacted him about buying their licenses, too.
“I’m not going to do it,” he said. “We have to make sure that any of the music that they’re playing is not represented by those other two companies, which is not a problem.” Most of the songs offered by his musicians are original, he said.
At Lexington Coffee, local musician Datz acknowledged that the jammers could limited themselves to original work or traditional songs that are in the public domain and not subject to copyright laws.
Picking a new home
A week after the last Lexington Coffee session, a half dozen musicians and about a dozen regular listeners gathered across the street at Kasch-Hansen’s studio for its first Wednesday session. A sandwich board sign outside on the sidewalk guided them upstairs. Most of them had stopped at Lexington Coffee on their way to pick up a cup of coffee.
Local picker Pat Mayerchak was among them.
“For a room like here with 10 or 15 people, it’s crazy to pay hundreds of dollars a year,” Mayerchak said.
A week later, the music was still being offered in the studio. Lera, who had helped make the move happen, remains hopeful.
“We are looking for ways to let music happen in this spontaneous way without being harassed,” she said.