Wesley's Place - Live Music Listening Room

06/19/2026

Tickets are still available for Sunday's pie social and concert and I hope you can join us.

Peggy and I have loved these guys for a long time. Here's the story of the first time we heard them.

We were living in San Antonio, Texas, and Peggy was expecting our second child (Emily). We were looking for something fun to do on a Saturday night, and that was a time when you opened up the newspaper to find activities, because if you looked at your phone, you were looking at the wall.

I discovered that a group called Trout Fishing in America was at the Cibolo Creek Country Club, and it sounded like it would be fun for us and our little one, but Peggy wasn't sure. She didn't really feel like getting dressed up to go to a country club. So I called the number in the paper. A cheerful voice said, come as you are, so we did!

We got in the car, with a map (sort of a paper version of GPS) and drove out into the Hill Country. After a while, we got off the main road onto a pretty dark county road, and we started looking for the entrance. There was a ranch on the left, and on the right a little further there was a dive bar and another ranch. After a while I was sure we had gone too far, so I turned around.

I decided to ask for directions, even though that's not my style, so I pulled up to the dive bar and went in. It was a classic Texas roadhouse, with dollar bills stapled to the ceiling, an old sofa with the stuffing coming out of it, and peanut shells on the floor. I said to the woman behind the bar, I'm looking for the Cibolo Creek Country Club.

"Well you found it!" she said with a grin.

And what a great evening! Great barbecue and wonderful music, and we were smiling the whole time. We left humming their tunes, and kept up it for days.

You'll be humming too!

Bring a friend, and the pie is included, but bring a pie if you're inclined, and since it's our annual fundraiser, we will sell any whole pies left at the end.

Tickets and information:

https://www.wesleysplacemusic.com/events/trout-fishing-in-america-fathers-day-pie-social

06/19/2026

https://www.thehinsdalean.com/story/2026/06/18/pulse/plenty-of-options-to-celebrate-any-dad/11014.html

Whether the special guy in your life enjoys cars, music or casting a line, there's an event close to home that is sure to make him happy this Father's Day. Calling all car enthusiasts The mall might not be every dad's idea of a good way to spend Father's Day, but a trip to Oakbrook Center could be w...

06/14/2026

And there will be pie too! Come on Father’s Day for these two fabulous musicians and our pie social.

Wesley's in LaGrange Father's Day music and pie social with legendary duo June 21 | Link in comments ⬇️

06/14/2026

The sheer joy that everyone gets from just attempting to sing along on this song with Keith and Ezra brings a smile to my face every time I watch them do it. They’ll be at Wesley’s Place next Sunday at 3 for our pie social.

The most effervescent and enthusiastic part of the program, and the...

06/12/2026

Tonight at Wesley's Place - Crowes Pasture

Please join us tonight at Wesley's Place for Crowes Pasture.

Over the past few weeks, I've been getting to know Monique Byrne and Andy Rogovin through interviews and conversations, and the more I learn about them, the more excited I am about this evening.

Most musical partnerships begin with music. Crowes Pasture began with a marriage.

Monique and Andy met in the business world, got married, raised children, and only then discovered that they made beautiful music together. In fact, they told me they first started singing together as a way to get their babies to sleep.

You can hear that shared history in their music.

Their harmonies are wonderful, but what really stands out is the connection between them. The songs feel personal, thoughtful, and genuine. This is music that invites you to lean in and listen.

Tonight's concert will also feature our friend Mark Dvorak as host. Mark has a gift for making everyone feel welcome, and I know he is looking forward to introducing Crowes Pasture to the Wesley's Place audience.

If you've been meaning to come to a concert at Wesley's Place and haven't yet made it, this would be a wonderful evening to start. If you've been here before, you already know how special it can be when great artists and an attentive audience come together in a small room.

The doors open at 6:30. Music begins at 7:00.

Tickets are available at the web link below.


We’re at 100 W Cossitt Ave in La Grange, with free parking nearby. We offer coffee, soft drinks, and cookies (no alcohol).

👉 See the full 2026 season and get tickets here:
https://www.wesleysplacemusic.com/shows

Thanks for supporting live music and community at Wesley’s Place—we can’t wait to see you in the chapel!

Warmly,
Ed Ellis

P.S. If you enjoy hearing the stories behind the songs, keep an eye on the blog—we’ll be sharing artist spotlights and season notes along the way, and I will also share a few personal stories about concerts I've organized and musicians I've known.

100 West Cossitt Avenue, La Grange, IL, USA

Event listing for live music on Friday nights in La Grange at Wesley's Place.

06/08/2026

Father's Day is coming, and we've decided to celebrate it a little differently this year.

On Sunday, June 21, Trout Fishing in America comes to Wesley's Place for a family concert and pie social.

Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet have spent more than four decades creating music that makes children laugh, adults smile, and entire families sing together.

What I love about Trout Fishing is that they never talk down to kids. They simply make great music and trust children to enjoy it.

We've already started selling tickets, and this is the only Chicago-area appearance they have scheduled this year.

Bring the kids. Bring the grandkids. Bring Dad.

And save room for pie.

Tickets:
www.wesleysplacemusic.com

05/25/2026

Trout Fishing in America and Life on the Road.

One of the things I wanted to understand in talking with Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet of Trout Fishing in America was what happens to two musicians after decades on the road together.

Not the polished version. The real version.

The answer, unsurprisingly, was funny, thoughtful, and occasionally chaotic.

Keith and Ezra first crossed paths in Houston in the mid-1970s. Keith was playing bass with the Houston Symphony Orchestra while Ezra was performing in a band called St. Elmo’s Fire. Ezra's bass player quit during an orchestra lockout, Keith agreed to sit in temporarily, and what followed became one of the longest-running partnerships in Americana music.

At first glance, they almost look like a comedy act, sort of a flannel-shirt Penn and Teller.

Keith is a little on the height-challenged side, energetic, and quick with a line. Ezra is nearly seven feet tall and physically impossible to overlook. Keith pointed out that there was really no pretending audiences would not notice the contrast, so they simply embraced it.

But underneath the humor is an astonishing amount of musicianship.

Keith’s bass playing often functions almost like a lead instrument, weaving melodic lines through the songs because, as he put it, “There are only two guys in our band. Somebody has to take the solo.” Ezra moves naturally between guitars and banjo, approaching each one as a distinct voice with its own emotional texture.

And then there is the road itself.

The glamorous image of touring musicians did not survive very long in our conversation. Ezra described the early years when a four-piece band shared single motel rooms because there simply was not enough money for anything else. Keith responded to my question about life on the road with a little humor: "I don’t know what people think of touring musicians. It’s pretty glamorous, that’s for sure. They’ve presented us with the key to so many cities, it’s hard to know where to put them all."

Still, you can tell they genuinely love the traveling life.

Keith spoke movingly about all the remarkable people he has encountered through music, people he never otherwise would have met. Ezra described driving long distances as strangely restorative, a way of clearing the mind before stepping into another room full of listeners.

And the stories.

There are clearly thousands of them.

One of my favorites involves Train to Christmas Town, the Christmas project they recorded for Peggy’s Christmas train book years ago. They were touring heavily at the time and facing a recording deadline, so Ezra essentially built a mobile recording studio inside motel rooms along the tour route. Eventually hotel security arrived because of noise complaints.

Keith claims security expected to find young rock musicians ("Headbangers") and instead discovered the two of them recording acoustic Christmas songs. Ezra suggested the noise complaint may have resulted from Keith’s singing. On the other hand, there was a banjo....

That exchange alone tells you almost everything you need to know about their chemistry.

Then there was the van theft.

Years ago, their touring van disappeared overnight in Houston along with instruments, amplifiers, and equipment accumulated over years of performing. The police eventually recovered the van, mostly empty. Keith remembered realizing in that moment that the way he responded would shape the person he became afterward.

What survived was perspective.

“These are just tools,” he told himself.

It is remarkable how often that kind of wisdom appears quietly underneath the humor in Trout Fishing in America.

Perhaps that is why the music connects across generations.

The songs are funny, yes. But they are also grounded in real experience, real relationships, and a very adult understanding of joy, loss, resilience, and absurdity.

Near the end of our exchange, Ezra said something I have continued thinking about.

He described performing as tending a fire that exists between the band and the audience. When everything is working properly, everyone present contributes to keeping the fire alive.

That feels like a beautiful description not just of performance, but of community itself.

And it feels very much like the kind of experience Wesley’s Place hopes to create.

I'm really excited that Keith and Ezra will be with us on Father's Day, for our annual Pie Social, and I hope you'll go ahead and buy tickets so we know how many pies we need: https://www.wesleysplacemusic.com/events/trout-fishing-in-america-fathers-day-pie-social

Also, Peggy has set up a signup page to bring pies, if you'd like to participate, click here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0D4BA8AC29A46-64187322-wesleys #/

See you at 3pm on June 21!

05/18/2026

There are very few musical groups that can honestly say they have audiences spanning three generations.

Trout Fishing in America is one.

Over the years, Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet have created something that almost nobody else has managed to sustain. Parents who first heard them years ago are now bringing their own children to concerts. In some cases, grandparents are coming too.

That does not happen accidentally.

And it definitely does not happen because the music is merely “for kids.”

What struck me most in talking with Keith and Ezra is how intentionally they reject that idea.

Keith says that when they first began performing for children, they did not even know children’s music existed as a separate category. A teacher simply invited them to perform because she wanted students to understand that music came from actual human beings, not just the radio. So they played Beatles songs, blues, folk music, and rock and roll.

“The kids loved it,” Keith said. “We played real music for real kids.”

That philosophy never left them.

Ezra noted that they approach their so-called children’s music with the same level of craft and seriousness they bring to music intended for adults. The songs work on multiple levels intentionally. Children hear one thing. Adults hear another. Families experience it together.

As I read their responses, it occurred to me that cartoons I loved as a childsuch as Rocky and Bullwinkle, things children take to immediately, often have a second layer operating underneath the surface, that makes adults smile too.

That kind of layered storytelling is much harder than it looks.

It explains why Trout Fishing in America has lasted.

The duo itself grew out of almost absurdly unlikely circumstances. Keith was playing with the Houston Symphony Orchestra when he first encountered Ezra’s band, St. Elmo’s Fire. Ezra's bass player quit during a union lockout, Keith sat in temporarily, and somehow the partnership blossomed.

What also fascinates me is how visually improbable the duo appears. Keith is not tall, but Ezra is nearly a seven-footer. Keith knew that there was no point trying to hide the height difference because audiences notice it immediately anyway, so they simply learned to work with it.

That contrast somehow mirrors the music itself. Humor gets balanced against sincerity. Sophisticated musicianship is balanced against complete accessibility.

And underneath all of it, there is genuine affection for audiences.

Keith and Ezra have spent a substantial of their lives on the road together, evolving from the years when their early four-piece band crammed into single motel rooms because money was tight. They have opened concerts for both Bob Dylan and Barney the Dinosaur, which may be one of the strangest and most revealing career summaries imaginable.

They have also endured the kinds of experiences traveling musicians know too well.

Years ago, their van was stolen in Houston. The crooks took basses, guitars, banjos, amplifiers, all of their touring equipment. Keith described standing there realizing that how he reacted to the loss would shape who he became afterward. Eventually the van was recovered, mostly empty. But what stayed with him was a phrase that later became something of a mantra: “These are tools. Precious tools, but still tools.” And they got a song out of it: "Don't touch my stuff!"

That perspective says a great deal about their spirit, about who they are.

There is humor everywhere in Trout Fishing in America, but there is also perspective, resilience, and emotional intelligence. Keith believes that too much seriousness becomes exhausting and too much comedy becomes lightweight. The strength comes from balancing the two.

That balance may be exactly why their concerts feel so human.

For Father’s Day at Wesley’s Place, we are pairing Trout Fishing in America with the annual Wesley's Place pie social because honestly, it feels like the right kind of gathering for this music. Community-centered. Family-centered. Relaxed. Intergenerational.

Keith’s response to that idea was immediate.

“Pie? Did you say pie? I’d come out just for the pie.”

Then he added something more important: “Any music you can share with both your parents and your kids is valuable.”

I think he is exactly right.

And increasingly, that kind of shared experience feels rare enough that we should pay attention when it appears.

Come join us in La Grange on June 21 at 3pm for pie and a lively afternoon of music from one my favorite bands. Tickets: https://www.wesleysplacemusic.com/events/trout-fishing-in-america-fathers-day-pie-social

05/16/2026

There are some performers whose music feels designed for large stages and bright lights.

Crowes Pasture feels built for a listening room.

The first thing most people notice is the harmony. Not polished in a slick commercial way, but close, human, and deeply connected. The voices of Monique Byrne and Andy Rogovin seem to move together naturally, as though the songs were written specifically for the two of them to sing side by side. And in a way, they were.

Monique and Andy were already married, already raising children, before they discovered what happened when they sang together. What emerged became Crowes Pasture, a duo rooted in contemporary folk music, old-time traditions, and the kind of emotional honesty that makes people lean forward and listen.

Their sound is centered around Andy’s guitar and Monique’s clawhammer banjo, what they themselves have called a “banjo-guitar romance.” The interplay between those instruments gives the music movement and texture without ever overwhelming the songs themselves. Everything serves the emotional center of the music.

And the songs matter.

Crowes Pasture writes about relationships, memory, place, and the passage of time. There is a Cape Cod quality to much of it, which makes sense because the duo takes its name from a salt marsh on Cape Cod, a landscape shaped by tides, shifting light, and cycles of renewal. You can hear that atmosphere in the music. It feels coastal in the best sense of the word. Spacious but intimate. Calm but emotionally alive.

Listening to them, I find myself thinking about folk duos like Ian and Sylvia, or more recent acts like The Civil Wars, not because Crowes Pasture sounds exactly like either of them, but because they understand something similar about musical intimacy. The power is not in volume. It is in attention, and in restraint. It's about the way two voices can create emotional tension and release simply by staying close to each other.

That closeness is what makes their music work so beautifully in a space like Wesley’s Place.

A listening room rewards nuance. It rewards artists who trust silence, trust harmonies, trust songs that unfold gradually instead of demanding attention immediately. Crowes Pasture seems completely comfortable in that kind of environment.

What also interests me is the path they took to get here.

Before Crowes Pasture existed, Monique and Andy practiced corporate law. That detail somehow makes the music even more compelling to me, because nothing about this feels manufactured or careerist. It feels discovered. Like something they found together after already building a life.

And perhaps that is why the music carries the emotional weight it does.

Their songs are filled with awareness of time passing, relationships deepening, children growing older, and the importance of paying attention while moments are still unfolding. Their album *Don’t Blink* circles those themes repeatedly, encouraging listeners to appreciate what is present before it slips away.

That emotional grounding gives the harmony real substance.

It is not harmony for decoration. It is harmony as storytelling.

At Wesley’s Place, I think this is going to become one of those evenings where the room changes shape as the music develops. People settle in. Conversations quiet down. Attention deepens. By the second or third song, everyone is sharing the same emotional space.

Those are some of my favorite nights here.

I think their music is going to feel very close in this room, and I mean that in the best possible way.

And the music video below, about all of us and origin stories, is timely.

Crowes Pasture is at Wesley’s Place on Friday, June 12. I hope you will join us.

Crowes Pasture is Andy Rogovin (guitar and vocals) and Monique Byrne (vocals)Featuring guest fiddler, Andy ReinerFolk/Americana duoVideography and Editing by...