The Cline Shrine...

If I ever find out that Patsy Cline somehow, somewhere was able to find out about or even hear our concert at the Virginia Historical Society last Friday night celebrating her life and her music, I'd like to ask her if she had a good time, hoping that she would be grateful to the talented people who put in a lot of time and effort bringing her songs to a new life. It was a gratifying experience for me to work with this amazing bunch of musicians who poured themselves into the project wholeheartedly and did themselves proud. First to Brad Spivey, Mike Lucas, Randy Cook, Mark Watts, Clark Ball and keyboard queen Lucy Kilpatrick, thanks for learning the songs so well. To Sara Arthur, Donna Meade Dean, Kelli Moss and Terri Simpson, our more-than-fabulous female vocalists, thanks for making some great old tunes new again. To the quintessential country gentleman George Hamilton IV, thanks for coming from Nashville to be part of this and for your warm and gentle words and songs during the show. To the number-one Texas Wildcat Jimmy Dean, bless you for all that you've done for so many over the years, including our audience held firmly in the palm of your hand through every verse and chorus of "Big Bad John." Incidentally and appropriately, Jimmy's big number-one hit peaked on the Billboard charts the very same month as Patsy's "Crazy," in October of 1961. Thanks to the mildest-mannered sound man I've had the pleasure of working with...Jan Williams of FCP Sound & Light in Lancaster. He's unflappable, has great gear and knows what to do with it and he makes it all look easy. And for those who weren't able to make the show, and especially for those of us who were, thanks to the legend, Bill McElroy of Slipped Disc for what I'm confident will be a perfectly-polished digital recording of the whole thing.

From Winchester, thanks to Prof. Warren Hofstra of Shenandoah University for coming up with the symposium in the first place, to John Lewis and Mark Foreman for the loan of the WINC mike flag, and to Linda Ross for trusting us with the elegant cream-colored leather jacket worn by Jessica Lang in the Patsy biopic Sweet Dreams. The Hatch Show Print poster by Nashville's Jim Sherraden was hand done, signed and numbered especially for this event.

Lastly and obviously, I'm indebted to the Virginia Historical Society and Pam Seay for giving me the chance to do something like this. Cynthia Moore, Paul Levengood, Jennifer Mason, Carol Anne Baker, Doris Delk and Keith Cox should all be given credit for helping extend the Society's horizons toward the less-explored fields of the performing arts, which comprise a colorful reflection of our Virginia culture. What's next?

I do want to offer up a "save the date" notice for Friday, June 13th when the eclectic and compelling string band The Waybacks head back to town for the fourth Music For Massey fundraiser for the Massey Cancer Center at VCU. This year they'll be sharing the bill with Americana singer/songwriter Jim Lauderdale, who scored the bluegrass Grammy earlier this year. It'll be back on the tracks at the Science Museum of Virginia, and I'll let you know when tickets go on sale.

So now that I can part Patsy's company for a while, it's tax time which always seems to coincide with the delicate purple blooms of Virginia's redbud trees. Visually they're about my favorite part of spring and they prompt me to count my blessings, which can become less obvious while feeding the TurboTax questionniare. And there's the annual pilgrimmage to MerleFest in a few weeks....sweet.

TT