Collaborations with GUITARIST Sandy Williams
My friend (and collaborator on the Someday Songs project), guitarist Sandy Williams, has invited me on a few occasions to participate in a really cool event sponsored by DePauw University and also for events sponsored by The Arts Council of Greencastle, Indiana. Here are some links and other content for some of those events...
"HOAGY CARMICHAEL STARDUST MEMORIES" AT GREENCASTLE ARTS COUNCIL "BONNE SIOREE"
https://www.suncommercial.com/banner_graphic/article_f4fde804-9358-50de-851b-2ad49e9fd3bf.html
"BOB FLANIGAN/THE FOUR FRESHMEN TRIBUTE" LUNCHBOX CONCERT
On October 22, 2024, we will again perform at a "Lunchbox Concert," this time as a tribute to Greencastle native Bob Flanigan, one of the founding members of The Four Freshmen, a post-war vocal and instrumental group that came out of the Jordan Conservatory of Music at Butler University in Indianapolis. There is A LOT to talk about when it comes to The Four Freshmen, and a LOT of it is about how Bob Flanigan's musical talents and determination drove the group forward and helped them achieve such success and worldwide acclaim.
One not-so-well-known (outside of people who are Freshmen fans ore who have a deeper knowledge of vocal Jazz and Pop groups from the past 75 years) facts about The Four Freshmen was their influence on a young Brian Wilson, who would become fixated on the chord progressions and interpretations of Standards Wilson heard in their recordings. Wilson became (his words) "fixated" on The Four Freshmen, and spent an entire summer learning the parts to every song of The Four Freshmen to which he had access. In the book "Becoming The Beach Boys," Wilson writes extensively about how the musical innovations of The Four Freshmen deeply affected his own creativity, and how the sound of The Beach Boys is inextricably linked to the sound of The Four Freshmen.
Here are links to several very interesting videos that feature both Bob Flanigan, founding member Ross Barbour, and Brian Wilson:
https://youtu.be/E1KagX4UR3w?si=Wb6dOqmEDlv5ioru • The Four Freshmen (and Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys) on BBC 2012.
https://youtu.be/XnjmGuiQBdA?si=2dxxICBDL2iKRQYy • WLRN Broadcast (with some earlier Don Barbour & Bob Flanigan footage in the first few seconds), broadcast in NYC April 2000.
https://youtu.be/qLPqOBL0NAY?si=HKsdlC5ekhw-aGEu • Great tribute/montage of images and songs as a tribute to Ross Barbour and Bob Flanigan.
https://youtu.be/JM2OJzeGfFk?si=ZyvzaU7AQ7aP2xru • A Conversation with Bob Flanigan, Sun City Center, May 2009.
https://youtu.be/dSWj9LTWLSM?si=pkyLso7C8_5rJEdH • The Four Freshmen on CBS Sunday Morning 1994.
"SOMEDAY SONGS" CD, 2023 DEPAUW LUNCHBOX CONCERT
YouTube Music Link to "Someday Songs" Album by Sandy Williams and David Glen Poncé: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lPKa8oMXdGedTHVaeUf2yVyTDpOZzE6h0&si=onJFCinLbvoMu28u
In February 2023 Sandy and I performed the "Someday Songs" CD tracks and had a great time sharing our stories about the project and about the songs themselves. We received really nice coverage from the Greencastle Banner Graphic, and from (fmr.) reporter Jared Jernigan. https://www.suncommercial.com/banner_graphic/archives/article_0737a12e-727a-5bb4-a1a0-f3a15fed5ff9.html. I've pasted the text below.
David Poncé is not the first person to record an album of standards. To say there are hundreds of such collections drawing from the Great American Songbook might be an understatement.
But Poncé might be the first to record an album of standards specifically for his grandchildren.
Yet that was the purpose of “Someday Songs,” a release with Sandy Williams, at the outset.
There’s more to these songs, though, a fact that Poncé acknowledges in the liner notes written directly to his five granddaughters.
“I came to this concept of ‘Someday Songs’ because these songs gain meaning as we learn and grow,” Poncé wrote. “What might be enjoyed now for the engaging notes and rhythms will be more someday, as lyrics and melodic movements echo and validate experiences.”
What Poncé did not anticipate was how much meaning his renditions of these classics might take on to other people. He’s been learning since the album was released in May 2021. On Tuesday, Poncé and Williams will have the chance to reach a new audience with a Lunchbox Concert at Music on the Square, 21 N. Indiana St., Greencastle
Poncé emphasizes he is not a working musician, but a father of four grown children living in Lafayette who grew up singing these songs. His passion for music came back to the forefront in a discussion with his wife.
“I’d like to hire a small group of professional musicians and sing some of these songs like I grew up listening to on my mom’s Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra records,” Poncé said at the time.
“You mean like a jazz jam?” wife Jennie countered.
“What’s that?” Poncé asked.
He soon learned, attending infrequent jams in Lafayette before learning that one such event takes place weekly at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis. He soon became a regular participant, trekking from Lafayette to the northside of Indianapolis each Monday.
Then Covid happened.
Even when the Jazz Kitchen reopened in November 2020, Poncé had fears of what an infection might do to his rediscovered love of singing.
“I was feeling pretty vulnerable about the daily crises that came as hailstorms of information and misinformation, battering all of us during this divisive, difficult, dangerous, sometimes depressing period,” Poncé wrote. “It occurred to me, ‘What if I’m struck by this lung-wrecking pandemic, left incapable of singing? What if my granddaughters won’t remember how much I have loved singing?’”
The idea grew from there. He mentioned it to musicians Fred Withrow and Bob Wilson, who said, “Call Sandy Williams.”
Yes, that Sandy Williams — Greencastle native Alexander “Sandy” Williams, perhaps still best known locally for his work with the Average House Band, but whose wide-ranging musical bona fides include work with John Mellencamp, Michael Feinstein, Steve Earle, Liza Minnelli, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Carrie Newcomer and Bill Gaither, among others.
It quickly became clear that Williams was the guy when Poncé mentioned his vision was based on four albums Ella Fitzgerald made with Joe Pass between 1973 and 1986.
It quickly became clear that Williams was the guy when Poncé mentioned his vision was based on four albums Ella Fitzgerald made with Joe Pass between 1973 and 1986.
“The first thing Sandy did was send me a picture of his best friend and Joe Pass standing on Joe’s patio,” Poncé said.
That’s a Greencastle story, as Williams’ lifelong friend Denny Hardwick came to know Pass well before the jazz guitarist’s death in 1994, with Williams even meeting Pass several times.
“Denny Hardwick was actually really good friends with Joe Pass, used to house sit for him and even wrote a book with him,” Williams recalled.
Acknowledging he is no Joe Pass, Williams set about pouring himself into the project.
“It was fun,” he said. “It was the middle of the pandemic, and I was playing a lot by myself.”
Williams would read the sheet music only to realize it wasn’t the same as the Bing Crosby recording, for example. Then he would figure out the arrangement.
“I did a lot of homework,” he said.
he album was recorded over the course of several months, three or four songs at a time, at Aire Born studios in Indianapolis. Poncé is still amazed at the care Williams put into it.
“I didn’t think this would be interesting to anybody else, and by anybody, I mean Sandy Williams,” Poncé said. “I paid him for his work, but I still owe him so much.”
Once the CDs were pressed and sent to his granddaughters, Poncé got an even better surprise when he arrived for a family visit in Texas, where granddaughter Lucy was waiting.
“She met me at the door and said, ‘Grandpa, I want you to sing to me,’” Poncé said, clearly emotional. “That moment I thought, if nothing else comes of this, this is a win.”
Much of the week that followed was spent in a hammock, singing with Lucy.
The meanings of the songs are getting through as well. One of Poncé’s other four granddaughters, who live in eastern Indiana, made an observation recently.
“That song, ‘I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,’ it’s just not true,” she said. “You give us lunch, you take us to the children’s museum, you give us gifts.”
Thrilled to be discussing the meaning of the song, Poncé explained that those weren’t his words, but it was true for the narrator of the song.
It’s a big reward for someone who thought they would get the album, look at it, listen a little and then put it in a box, only to rediscover it someday.
“I got what I wanted through the project,” Poncé said. “The long Covid fears have hopefully gone away. What remains is the project I did with this wonderful, friendly, super-talented person.”
His collaborator had a different idea.
“Sandy wouldn’t let this go until we got to do a gig with this somewhere,” Poncé said.
Enter the DePauw School of Music, where Williams remains a guitar instructor.
“We’re really grateful to the DePauw School of Music for giving us the chance to play publicly for the first time,” Williams said, adding that he’d like to have future gigs with more of a band.
At this point, Tuesday is someday for this collection and its first live set. The plan is to do more than half the album during the 50-minute set.
“I told Sandy that one of the things that I might do for a couple of these songs is to tell the stories,” Poncé said.
“I’ll try not to tell 60 years worth of Greencastle stories when I’m there,” Williams said, “like not saying how I remember riding in the cart in this building when it was the A&P.”
The Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, "Friday Night Live," May 22, 2026
Greencastle native Sandy Williams and Lafayette's David Glen Poncé will be the featured artists for the Museum's "Friday Night Live" event on May 22, 2026 at 7:00 pm. The duo will present Hoagy Carmichael: Songs & Stories — a one-hour concert exploring the music and fascinating backstories behind some of Carmichael's most beloved compositions. From "Star Dust" to "Georgia On My Mind," Hoagy's songs have traveled far — and this event will take you along for the ride. Free admission. East Gallery, Art Museum of Greater Lafayette.