When the pandemic got underway, Pensacola musician Chad Harvey started performing on his East Pensacola Heights porch as a coping mechanism, an outlet he was otherwise robbed of once the COVID-19 outbreak caused him to cancel the spring music tour he’d planned through Nashville.
As Harvey strummed away on his guitar from his front porch in early April, the idea floated into his head to turn his personal hobby into a neighborhood concert.
Thus, the “Front Porch Sessions” were born. And they’ve been a free weekly source of local entertainment ever since.
“I held the first one on a Sunday morning, on April 5, I believe, and we ended up doing it for 12 weeks in a row,” Harvey said. “I would post on social media and try to grab folks from the neighborhood to come by. We called Mister Softee ice cream truck early on and they’ve been coming by, for ice cream for the kids. It’s steadily grown.”
There’s been weeks where Harvey’s looked out and seen close to 100 people vibing along to his brand of Americana-roots rock. Inspired by musicians like John Mellencamp and Tom Petty, Harvey said the small crowd of folks sitting in their camping chairs or on their blankets must be enjoying his family-friendly, hour-long performances each week. Or else they wouldn’t keep coming back again and again.
“It’s very family-oriented, there’s a lot of kids running around,” Harvey said. “I’ve got a 5-and 3-year-old boy and there’s a little play set in the backyard. It’s very social, a way for neighbors to get out and talk to each other in a fairly safe environment.”
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For the first time in the 12-week history of the “Front Porch Sessions,” the latest edition July 2 was held on Thursday night, a departure from the usual Sunday shows. Harvey said this will become the new night for his weekly performance going forward, one that now includes a band mate.
“A neighbor of mine that lives on the south side of Cervantes, I was sitting there in the middle of the song and she walked up with a fiddle in her hand,” Harvey said of fellow Pensacola resident and musician Frances Michaels. “We plugged her into the PA and she started playing with me every week.”
Harvey and Michaels bonded over their similarly unfortunate plights, from having a season’s worth of live shows lined up only to see them wiped out in a matter of days by the coronavirus. Michaels had routinely performed at bars and small venues in Mobile, Alabama.
Even though blues isn’t quite their genre of choice, the two have relished the chance to release every emotion they had bottled up over the past few months through their therapeutic art form.
Their weekly audience has been grateful.
“Honestly, I was doing it for me at first,” Harvey said. “What I came to find out, is many neighbors would come up and say, ‘Man this is really great that you’re doing this for the neighbors. It gets us all out and it’s something for us to do. We really enjoy it and really appreciate it.'”
If you’d like to see what one of Harvey’s outdoor concerts looks like but you don’t live in that area, the musician streams his Front Porch Sessions each week on both his Facebook and Instagram pages.
Jake Newby can be reached at jnewby@pnj.com or 850-435-8538.