If you ever find yourself walking the sidewalk in front of Solar Roast Coffee downtown on Main Street, you may see a group of local musicians gathered around a table and hear their live folk-styled music.

They are the “Saturday Morning Spasm Band.” According to one of the band’s musicians, Elliott Ring, the name “spasm” comes from a term from the 1890s meaning “a band that was made out of instruments that weren’t from their intended original use, such as a washboard or spoons.”

While the group performs in front of Solar Roast Coffee occasionally, they also perform on Saturday mornings at a Pueblo residence known as the “Sugar Cube House” on Berkley Ave.

There are no official members of the band. According to Ring, the band is made up by anyone who shows up to play. Sometimes the group has 3-4 musicians, and other times the group sees almost 20 people.

“The rule is, if you can’t sing, just sing softly. We are very inclusive. A lot of the people in the group, I’ve pretty much reeled them in from the coffee shop. At least half of the group I would say, I’ve recruited from just sitting  at the coffee shop,” Ring said.

One of those people passing by Solar Roast was Myra Filler, who recalled walking down Main Street last year when she came across the musical group.

Filler remembered hearing the group singing the song “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” which was a song she played with her father when she was learning how to play the piano when she was 10 years old.

“I thought, anybody who sings that song is alright,” Filler said. “I was leaning up against the building listening to them and Elliott said, ‘do you make music?’ And I’ve been back ever since.”

Filler has been a Pueblo resident since she was 1 year old. She plays the washboard and spoons in the band.

Ring has resided in Pueblo since the 1980s, though he has lived in numerous places such as Albuquerque, Detroit, Green Bay and Las Vegas, New Mexico, with his wife and their two children.

One of the instruments Ring plays in the “Saturday Morning Spasm Band” is an autoharp, a string instrument that belongs to the zither family. Ring began playing the autoharp when he was attending the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay in the early 1970s.

Ring recalled going to a coffee shop one day and saw a music group called “Rodger, Wendy, and Sam” performing. One of the musicians was playing an autoharp.

“He was jumping all over the place and having such a good time, that I thought, ‘I gotta get me one of those,’” Ring said.

The group chooses its songs from the genres of old-time gospel, old-time country, old-time mountain music, ’60s folk, and more. Sometimes songs get added to the book based on input from the group, but the criteria are that the songs cannot be more than four chords so that everyone can be able to pick up the song quickly.

Ring extends his invitation to the local band and if people passing by the coffee shop sees the group playing, Ring encourages them to “come up, grab a book, and join in and sing with us.”