several days out- reflections on benefit event

I've been going over the various facets of the john prine tribute- and will offer some observations over several postings. Several people were obviously intrigued by the duets John did on IN SPITE OF OURSELVES- and I don't believe anybody was able to pull those off. The first year of the benefit, we had some guest/ phantom performers do ' in spite of ourselves' and several requests were made this year. along with:" Let's invite them over again." We'll work on getting somebody to work up a few of those songs off that duet album next year.
Several people were looking for someone to do: quit hollering at me; the sins of memphisto; and ain't hurting no body. Then someone had requests for sour grapes and ubangi stomp. And as previously noted, Let's talk dirty in hawaiian.
I think this is a helpful process, in looking ahead to next year. I've toyed with the idea previously but never pulled it off, of having an "audition" two months prior, so that people could actually WORK on some specific ones........ and as we get further along with this, that may be a good idea for next year. An audition also, basically, is a good opportunity / excuse to get people together even more often...................... right?