Natchaug Music Newsletter – Vol. 3 No. 2
Topics in This Issue:
New Project – Patsy Cline tribute band launched
Songwriting Highlight – New co-writing project renders award
Podunk Bluegrass Festival – Extends invitation to Still Pickin’
Busy Trio – Still Pickin’ performing in three states this season
New Project – In our previous newsletter I mention that we were starting up a new group. Two members of Still Pickin’ were involved with the launching of the Patsy Cline tribute band. Myself and Jim Sharpley. The one who did the most work was Jim who had a long list of songs presented to him to learn on his steel guitar. He dove right in and after we found and lost numerous musicians (people bailing on a dime due to the complexity of Cline’s music), the group finally settled down to the task of rehearsing with the steel guitar, a rhythm guitar, a bass, a lead guitar and a drummer.
Heartaches Songstress, Laura La Cour
The vocalist for this start-up group, Ms Laura La Cour was discovered in the stage show “Always….Patsy Cline” presented at the Burton Leavitt Theatre in Willimantic. La Cour’s excellent delivery of the Cline material gave Natchaug Music the notion to put a concert band together for the songstress. And that’s how The Heartaches got started.
Their repertoire represented a good deal of work for the participants once their rehearsals began in the spring. But they dug in and got their set list in shape just in time for their launching at the Hampton Community Center in late June. Our thanks to all of you who came out to help support their debut performance.
Since the leading lady, Heartaches Songstress, Laura La Cour and her family will be leaving CT in the year ahead, the future of The Heartaches is uncertain at this time. If another performance opportunity should turn up we will let you know.
Songwriting Highlights –Natchaug Music has been busy with a variety of co-writers who have signed on from around the country. The publishing company now has a staff of five writers. One such collaboration between myself and another writer resulted in an award from the Song of the Year contest. I now have seven awards from various songwriting competitions, but I have yet to win a first place award. That is somewhat discouraging, but I will keep on writing and who knows; maybe someday I will write a worthy song.
Podunk Bluegrass Festival – Still Pickin’ has been given a slot on the Workshop Stage once again and I hope many of you will be coming out to Podunk this year. Our date is Aug 7, a Friday evening. We will be on stage at 6:45 pm. We would sure be happy to have you there cheering us on. I think you still have time to get tickets before the next price increase at the end of July.
Busy Trio – Still Pickin’ performances this season have taken the trio into Rhode Island and Massachusetts. A very rainy day in Salisbury near the New Hampshire border turned out to be more fun than we would have guessed as we were all well drenched. The rain stopped during our time on stage.
One kind of venue that Still Pickin’ performs at often is area Nursing Homes. These facilities are always so appreciative of the music we bring to their residents. You can find us at many of these venues each season.
Some of the songs in our repertoire this season include Gotta Travel On, Dark Hollow, Old Log Cabin for Sale, Crying My Heart Out, Lamp Lighting Time, Hot Corn, Cold Corn, Roots of My Raising, Glendale Train, Hello Trouble, If I Lose, Ramblin’ Fever, You Don’t Know my Mind, Charmin’ Betsy, Little Darlin’ Pal of Mine, One Day at a Time, Ramblin’ Letters, I Saw the Light, In the Garden, and Calling You. We also have a Johnny Cash medley that we do when someone requests a JC song.
We may also do a fund raiser for the Railroad Museum in Willimantic during October. More later…..
We’ll see you where the bluegrass grows.
Myrna, Jim & Bob
