Musicians share musical love with Cass County

“I made it to the British Virgin Islands, where a lot of the islands weren’t even inhabited,” he said.

Leymaster was married at the time, and he and his wife wanted something besides seafood when he sailed into San Salvador.

“We hadn’t been ashore for a couple of months and really wanted something besides seafood,” Leymaster said. “So we sail in to try to find some fresh meat. There, they speak a version of Spanish and we were able to let them know we wanted to buy meat.”

Finally, the two were sent to a lady who lived near a Catholic Church.

“She picks out a chicken and we pay her 10 pesos, which is about 30 cents,” Leymaster said. “When she catches the chicken, she makes me follow her over the the Catholic Church, where the priest had to bless the chicken before we could kill and eat him.”

“It was an all day affair,” Leymaster laughed. “By the time we get to the boat and get the barbecue fired up, it looked like a rubber chicken. I get this thing on the grill, get it cooked and it turns out I spent all day getting a chicken I couldn’t eat--it was too tough.”

The people he met on his travels were very welcoming, he said. His favorite place he visited was the Exhuma Islands in the lower Bahamas.

“That area is perfect for sailing,” Leymaster said. “There is a pure white bottom, 30 ft deep, 1 mile wide and 30 miles long and it rains there everyday for 30 minutes before it clears off. You can see the lobster on the bottom because the water is so clear--we’d have lobster every night.”

There, they met a Caribbean couple who hadn’t had visitors in the Island for over 2 years and received their mail only by boat.

The couple threw Leymaster and his wife a festival. Though the Island was quite populated, they had not had visitors in a long time.

In return, Leymaster and his wife made chocolate chip cookies the next day--which the children and many other Islanders had never had before.

“The kids loved it,” he said. “While we were making the cookies, everybody was suddenly coming to fish on that side.”

Leymaster was made runner up for entertainer of the year in the US Virgin Islands in 2000.

“One of my most favorite shows I ever did was a USO show for the USS Ponce in 1999,” Leymaster said. “For doing the show, the captain made me the honorary captain and had a big ceremony.

Leymaster has always loved music from a young age.

“The Sunday routine was we went to church, then went to my grandparents and played music for about two hours,” he said. “It didn’t matter if you were just going to sing--You were going to participate.”

He played in George Mendoza and Pam Davis’ band before forming his own band. Leymaster played with the lead pianist for the New York Philharmonic.

“I played with Jack Dixon and Eddie Feldman,” Leymaster said. “Jack Dixon died recently and was ranked as the fourth highest double-pedal steel player in the world.”

Leymaster enjoys a variety of musicians, including Brad Paisley’s lyric writing and guitar playing; Neil Young’s storytelling and style of guitar.

“Gordon Lightfoot was always a good influence,” Leymaster said. “I played with Bobby G Rice and the Sugar Shack--He ended up getting a gold album out of it.”

“I co-wrote some music with Freddie Snail up in Nashville,” he added. Snail is a well-known singer/ songwriter of Island style music.

Though obviously Leymaster grew up with Country Music, he said he most likes making dance music, transcending most genres. One thing Jimmy Buffet told him in the mid-90s Key West about songwriting really stuck with him.

“He told me ‘if you’re gonna write music you have 30 seconds to get someone’s attention, 2 minutes to tell a story and 30 seconds to close the song,’” Leymaster said. “Still, the only part they will remember is the punchline.”

Leymaster said short of symphonies, he has found this true of any song anywhere.

Of his own music Leymaster says:

“It’s not country, it’s not rock, it’s not really blues... It’s not jazz. It’s story telling to a rhythm.”

“You write about what you know, a lot of which will probably be based on true stories,” he added.

Leymaster is enjoying playing music locally, his sweet 14-year-old dog Heidi-Mae in tow.

You may have heard some of Sonny G. and Company at the pocket park during Holiday Open House Sunday, where he played with saxophone player Rude Dawg and steel drummer/ artist Shinar.

The trio will be performing live this Thursday evening at Indian Hills, where they will be serving steak dinners. Call Indian Hills for more information and to make reservations ahead of time.

“I’ve heard they make a great steak dinner,” Leymaster said.