Is everyone good out there? Kinda feels like we all need a check-in.
The last few weeks have felt like a heavyweight fight, and I have been running on fumes. Trying to stay balanced on an unpredictable planet is a workout, and my heart rate is already above where it physically should be. Add a colonoscopy at 36 to the calendar, and, well, make it make sense. If you are feeling similarly wrung out, consider this your gentle Molly love-slap reminder that you aren’t alone in the chaos. Welcome to the cosmic circus—I’ve brought the space monkeys!
When everything gets heavy, I turn to music. Lately, my therapy song has been “High Water Symphonies,” from J & The Causeways’ Live at the Maple Leaf Bar. Put that on while driving the beach road toward Perdido Key, with the sunroof open, the windows down, and a crisp 69-degree breeze coming through, and my brain finally gives me a little breathing room. If you are feeling fancy, give it a whirl.
That was the mood I carried into The Point Restaurant on October 17. I needed the music and a few good hugs. The musicians gathering there were raising money for something just as immediate: getting people through the door of a medical clinic when they couldn’t afford to go.
Under the oaks, looking after our own
The ninth annual Gulf Coast Musicians Medical Fund fundraiser brought that purpose into The Point’s sandy courtyard beneath the live oaks. The restaurant has the unpretentious fish-camp feel I love: casual, comfortable, and perfectly happy to let a day unfold around food, conversation, and live music. On Saturday, it held no room for strangers—only a loving community with top-of-the-line hugs.
Founded in 2018 by Webb Dalton, the GCMMF is a Christian-based nonprofit serving musicians and songwriters across Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Its work is deliberately practical. The fund helps with initial medical visits and prescriptions, along with assistance finding care, so a minor health problem doesn’t become a major one because someone lacked the money to get it checked. Spend enough evenings enjoying the people who play our local stages, and that mission becomes awfully personal.
Don “The Happy Enchilada” Culver emceed, while Radio A1A broadcast live with Harry Tea at the microphone. Arts-and-crafts vendors filled out the day, and raffles, a 50/50 drawing, and silent auctions gave people ways to contribute between sets. Admission was $10. You could come for the music, see familiar faces, and put something toward the care of the people you had come to hear.
Mark A. McBride, founder of the Perdido Key Music Festival, gave that support a substantial boost with a donation to the fund. His advocacy for the area’s arts extends beyond applauding a good performance. Local support happens at the merch table, in the front row, behind the stage, and through contributions that help a musician face the next unexpected expense. Saturday put all of those efforts in the same courtyard.
Jonathan Puzan kept things moving behind the scenes, handling sound and quick stage transitions throughout the day. With music happening indoors and outside, that work helped the performances flow without making the audience think much about the machinery behind them. The DT’s—Tom Osborne and Dave Tibbals—brought their duo sound to the restaurant, while Jason Justice helped get the courtyard stage underway.
Sharp wit, country roots, and secondhand clothes
With Augie Savage on keys and Mark Welborn on guitar and pedal steel, Jason settled into a blend of Americana, country, and Southern storytelling. His sharp wit made room for the everyday observations in his songs, and the easy exchanges with the crowd made the courtyard feel like a backyard living room. Under those old oaks, the distance between performer and audience seemed to shrink.
And trust me, I am not just hyping him up because he is the man who married me! His command of the stage, his musicianship, and his connection with the people in front of him were all right there to hear. I may have a personal connection, but I also have ears. Facts are facts.
Then came Brent Burns: national treasure, troubadour of the tide, singer of the sand and surf. Well, damn. Who am I fooling? I’ve somehow made him sound like a pirate. Captain Brent Burns it is.
Brent can get you laughing at a line about local life and then catch you with a thought you weren’t quite ready to sit with. My favorite this time was “Dead People’s Clothes,” which takes his affection for thrift stores into beautifully morbid territory. There you are, admiring a bargain, when the question of the previous owner enters the conversation. Brent leans into that realization with the deadpan practicality of someone who still knows a good shirt when he sees one.
The joke works because he doesn’t fuss over it. He lets the thrift-store discovery become a sing-along, giving the audience time to recognize the absurdity and join him in it. Apparently, I now know what happens to our top-shelf stuff when we check out. And now I’m deceased. You’re welcome.
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Bo Roberts shifted the afternoon toward a different kind of storytelling. Joined by Nick Branch and Webb Dalton, he delivered “Mr. Could Ya” with conversational vocals and an acoustic performance that left room for the story to unfold. The song follows a panhandler on Lower Broadway toward the recognition of a former high school classmate. Bo’s delivery allowed that encounter to carry its own weight.
Nick’s mandolin gave the performance rhythmic movement without crowding the vocal. I always love hearing this song, and Saturday reminded me why: Bo can make the details sound so natural that the emotional turn arrives before you have prepared yourself for it. The guitar, mandolin, and weathered voice gave us plenty to listen to without getting in the story’s way.
Beside him sat Webb Dalton, founder of the fund and a man you need to look up—way up—to properly appreciate. His classic country voice has the easy-drinking smoothness of an aged glass of Pinot Noir. I probably would have sounded cooler saying top-shelf bourbon, but I am a wine-o. Moving on.
Webb arrived with a pair of recent honors from the 2026 Josie Music Awards: Traditional/Classic Country Male Song of the Year for “Back When We Were Young,” co-written with Bo Roberts and Johnny Holland, and Traditional/Classic Country Album of the Year for his self-titled project. Hearing him perform the song with Bo sitting beside him brought the focus back to the people who wrote it. The awards were welcome recognition; the pleasure that afternoon was hearing the song shared between collaborators in front of their community.
It is always a treat to hear Webb play. At this event, his place beside the other songwriters also made his work with the fund feel especially clear. He knows these stages, these songs, and the people making a living from them. The organization he founded serves the same community he was sitting there playing with.
A laugh, a gravelly voice, a reason to gather
Lisa Christian made the stage her personal playground. I can still hear her asking for “a round of applause for me,” and honestly, fair enough. Her banter kept the crowd laughing, but her voice could change the mood just as quickly: smoky and warm, with bluesy resonance and jazz shading that gave her phrasing room to surprise us.
Lisa treated the funny moments and the musical ones with equal confidence. She could pull us into a joke, then let a vocal phrase settle long enough to turn our attention. That willingness to shift made her set feel conversational and unpredictable. I wanted to keep listening because I wanted to hear what she would do next.
Cowboy Johnson brought his own version of that easy rapport, complete with cowboy-mafia swagger and a Rolling Rock close at hand. His voice carried honky-tonk grit and gospel warmth, while his acoustic guitar kept the rhythm grounded beneath songs rooted in everyday life. There is something satisfying about watching a performer who can leave space around a story and trust people to listen.
At one point, I managed to sneak up on him with my camera and gave him a quick fright. He answered with a smile and a snicker without missing a beat. It was a small, ridiculous moment, and I was smiling like a total fangirl. The music kept moving while the two of us had our little exchange, which felt perfectly in keeping with the afternoon.
Rhonda Hart’s set brought another familiar voice into the courtyard. The Grammy-nominated co-writer of “Did I Shave My Legs for This?”, recorded by Deana Carter, paired her humor with vocals that could land an emotional phrase directly. Her charisma made it easy to settle in; the range and force of her singing gave us reasons to stay there.
Smokey Otis backed her with stripped-down guitar work and his gravelly voice, keeping the accompaniment close to her rhythm. His rougher vocal texture made a satisfying companion to hers, and the uncluttered playing left her delivery clear. Watching them together, I kept coming back to how much of this day depended on people knowing how to support the person beside them.
The music continued across both stages, with Christina Crystal, J Hawkins and James Daniel, Stephen Lee Veal, the Webb Dalton Band, and Almost Skynard among the performers contributing to the day. The styles ranged from country and Americana to Southern rock, but the reason for showing up stayed consistent. Each set was another contribution toward keeping members of this musical community healthy enough to keep playing.
Afterglow
By the time I stood under those oaks with music carrying through the courtyard, something had loosened in my squirrely brain. The last few weeks hadn’t magically disappeared, and my calendar still contained an appointment I would happily have traded for another afternoon at The Point. But I was laughing, listening, and feeling less alone. Sometimes that is enough to let you catch your breath.
“High Water Symphonies” had helped get me there. What I found on arrival gave me a different way to think about needing help. We ask musicians to lift us out of bad days, and they so often do. When one of them needs an office visit or a prescription, we ought to be willing to show up with the same enthusiasm we bring to a favorite song.
That is what I want to carry away from this fundraiser: the willingness to turn affection into something useful. Buy the ticket. Support the artist. Contribute to the Gulf Coast Musicians Medical Fund if you can. The people who give us these afternoons deserve care long after the stages have gone quiet.
After all, what would we do without the music?
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