Inevitably, as a booking agent, my daytime life is spent on the phone. Agents are phone jockeys; there is no way around it. This is not something I'm proud of but rather something I've accepted as a reality of what I do. Thankfully, there is quite a bit of solace in what actually comes of those phone conversations. It is hard to explain the feeling of landing an amazing gig for one of my bands. I truly enjoy meeting and talking with promoters and talent buyers all over the country. It is a great feeling to continue working with someone and know that you are developing a mutually beneficial business relationship. As I work with a buyer over time, in many cases, our conversations can stray a bit from specifically talking about business. Almost always, the person on the other end of the line has some pretty amazing stories to tell. After a while, the boundaries between business and friendship can eventually break down.

For this month's article, I thought it would be interesting to pass along a story that I was told by Stephen Kellogg. Kellogg's place in the "scene" is actually twofold: as a musician and as someone who worked at Iron Horse Entertainment Group in Northampton, MA for approximately 3 years. Starting at IHEG in 1997 as an intern, Kellogg rotated through numerous different jobs for the company. He sold advertisements, worked in the box office, ran the backstage at bigger shows, was the assistant publicist, coordinated the grassroots marketing team, hosted the open mike, and most recently acted as the assistant talent buyer to Jordi Herold. During his stay at IHEG, Kellogg has worked with moe., Strangefolk, Deep Banana Blackout, John Scofield, Bela Fleck, Percy Hill, Schleigho, All Mightly Senators, Club d'Elf, The Slip, Soulive, the New Deal, Miracle Orchestra, John Brown's Body, and many others.

It was through his assistant talent buyer role at IHEG that I first started talking with Stephen. Last summer, Kellogg helped me get Addison Groove Project (a band that I represent) into the Iron Horse Music Hall on a show opening for Soulive. The show was sold-out and ever since then Stephen has been very supportive in helping AGP to develop in Northampton. Herold, Kellogg's former boss, had this to say about Stephen's pro-band attitude: "he loves the music and he loves people and he keeps that in perspective." In the past year, I've booked a handful of shows with Kellogg for either AGP or Mori Stylez.

Over the course of doing business together, I've learned a lot about Stephen as a person because our conversations had the tendency to drift a little. I never even knew that he was a musician himself until about 5 months ago. When I learned that, I immediately asked him to send me his CD and I was extremely impressed with his songwriting and singing abilities. The CD " …South of Stephen" has a special guest that many of you are probably familiar with: Fuzz from Deep Banana Blackout. Kellogg actually left his job at IHEG quite recently (in late March) to concentrate on his career as a musician.

Kellogg tours primarily as a solo artist, but also plays a handful of dates with a full band billed as Stephen Kellogg Band. Occasionally, he will provide backing vocals and rhythm guitar to Pellegrino, a band fronted by New York City based singer-songwriter Lauren Pellegrino. It was on a gig with Pellegrino that Kellogg's unique story took place. Last month, on March 18, Pellegrino had a gig at Henrietta Hudson's, a small bar in New York City. The band played their first set and Kellogg described the evening as "very laid back…kind of a mellow night." There were probably about 40 people in the room and Kellogg was also dealing with the onset of a cold. "We were just sort of chunking through the set," Stephen told me. "It was pretty uneventful."

Continuing through the second set, nothing much out of the ordinary was happening. There seemed to be a bit more activity in the room, but Kellogg didn't notice anything until Pellegrino called out their third to last song of the set: "I'm The Only One," by Melissa Etheridge. Shortly after the song began, people started cheering loudly and closing in on the stage. As Kellogg told me, "I didn't really understand what was going on. We appreciated the extra enthusiasm; we just thought people really liked the song." As the song neared completion, Pellegrino felt two hands on her shoulders and realized that Melissa Etheridge herself had joined the band on stage.

For the next two and a half minutes, it was as if Kellogg was playing rhythm guitar at Madison Square Garden. Etheridge led the band back to the refrain and belted out a chorus and finished her own song to the raging applause of the audience. Like it was no big deal, Etheridge raised her glass to the crowd, nodded to the band, and quietly walked off stage. As Pellegrino and her bandmates finished their set, Etheridge went into an adjoining room with a pool table, as not to distract attention from the band.

After two more songs, the band was ready to call it a night when a friend of Etheridge's walked over to the stage and said: "Melissa wants to do some more." Almost instinctively, Kellogg responded: "she can use my guitar," thinking that Etheridge would like to do a few solo numbers. The friend responded: "No, Melissa would like to do some more with you guys." The next thing Kellogg knew, he was in a band huddle with Melissa Etheridge as the bandleader. Most likely out of sheer intimidation, the band left the song choice up to Etheridge. Seriously, though, are you going to tell Melissa Etheridge what song to play? Etheridge was very diplomatic and everyone agreed upon Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine." As a true professional, Etheridge directed a round of solos and even stood toward the back of the stage as Kellogg took his turn on harmonica. For the finale, the band played Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." Pellegrino had this to say about sharing the stage with a bona fide rock star: "Just to look to my left and see Melissa belting out a song with me and hearing our voices together was one of the most amazing moments of my life."

It is hard to take a guess as to what actually motivated Etheridge to join the band that evening. Kellogg told me of his childhood dream of having a superstar join him on stage in a small bar. "I saw this happy smile in her eyes as she got up there with us," Stephen told me. "It was like she knew she was helping to make that dream come true." Pellegrino had a chance to speak with Etheridge after the short encore and said that Melissa told her: "It's never happened to me before; walking into a bar and someone was doing my own song. You guys were doing a good job with it, so it made me want to come up and sing with you." In writing this article, I attempted to get a comment from Etheridge (through her publicist in LA) and I was politely rebuffed. "Melissa is very busy right now going between LA and New York," I was told. "She is finishing an album and also in the process of writing a book." Hey, at least I tried.

Hearing this story straight from Kellogg only two days after it happened, I could still feel a palpable excitement in his voice. On a personal level, I felt privileged that he wanted to share the story with me. After all, I was calling for business reasons, not to shoot the breeze. But, that's the one thing I love about what I do, sometimes there really is no difference.

Lee Seelig likes to talk. In other news, Lee is currently in the middle of a move to Colorado. More details next month.