REBECCA SAYRE: SHOWS

With less than a week's notice, my ambitious brother organized a neighborhood house concert for me last Saturday night which was a huge success! I did a couple sets for a delightfully attentive, engaged audience and then, about half of them stayed to jam and sing with John & I both on old Sam Cooke and Ray Charles tunes and Tennessee Waltz or whatever they picked out of John's enormous song book. My favorite is a Swiss folk tune that John sings and, yes, yodels! (as in "yodelay HEE HOO!") And these folks could really sing! It was almost like being in Nashville. Luckily I had a bunch of CDs with me and I sold 'em all! The favorites this trip are Bareback Promenade, I Miss Mississippi, New Girl and especially Bittersweet Day which isn't on the EP but will be on my full project to be recorded, hopefully, this Autumn…

What a pleasure performing with these gals. Excellent performers and great people. We went for Mexican after the concert and these two are hilarious!

Now, that was fun. This was the first time the four of us have all played together, and Richard, Jerry, and Dann played my original material beautifully. Naturally, we opened with original tunes since we were following the SEASAC Christian Music Awards (Did y'all hear the positive message of my music?? Hope so). By the time the awards ceremony cleared out, there was time for just one set, so we did my "greatest hits", some tunes—so new—were performed with a band for the first time! Can’t wait to do that again! See you on March 25th (same brilliant band, same lovely venue).

A full house and a great show! Oh what a pleasure to have Beegie Adair & Charlie Chadwick...and a crowd full of familiar and new faces. Thanks to Bob & Lynda Sayre and POD coming out. And many thanks to David Kimball at KRML for having us! Check out our Feature articles at:
http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/2008/2008-Jan-17/rebecca-sayre-crafts-her-stirring-sound-from-jazz-country-and-the-american-songbook/1/@@index AND
http://www.montereyherald.com/search/ci_7995858?IADID=Search-www.montereyherald.com-www.montereyherald.com&nclick_check=1 AND
http://www.pineconearchive.com/080118PCA.pdf (page 27)

Love this venue and looking forward to playing there on a regular basis. Great sound, no smoking, nice folks and a nice vibe.

I called guitar great Richard Smith on a Sunday to get banjo player, Richard Bailey's number for a session on Monday. Richard called me back... that afternoon and said in his delightful English accent "did you know I host a radio show? I was wondering who I was going to have as a guest and then I got your message... Are you available?" "Well, sure!, that sounds like fun..!" An hour-long show all about my musical adventures. How cool! That's what I love about Nashville... such a beautiful and small world, a warm and wonderful community of musicians. Richard, who seemed a bit shy the first few times I met him, was quite comfortable and adept in the role of radio host. It was a complete pleasure to be his "special guest" at Radio Free Nashville. And get this, they play some refreshingly good music. Tune in if you can or just listen online from their site.

A week after my exciting Bluebird show on March 4th, I was riding around in my car giving myself a hard time about “well, now what….” I guess I was suffering from a case of the come-downs from all that gearing up and preparation for my first showcase of all original material. But taking to heart the concepts of the Movie “The Secret…” I immediately changed the chatter to “I am now attracting into my life all sorts of opportunities to reach millions of people with my music…” and having a little fun with it. Then, I went home to take a nap. During my nap/meditation, I got a call from Will Griffin at WPLN asking if I could do Live in Studio C on Tuesday, that his previously scheduled performer would be out of the country. I was thrilled but also experienced a little anxiety when my guitarist/friend and producer, Pat Bergeson was not going to be available. But, my main dude (and engineer) Charlie Chadwick was available to play bass, as was my favorite trombonist, Roy Agee, so I decided to build the band around them. I called pianist, Chris Walters, and drummer Rick Reed. Since there wasn’t time to put together a group rehearsal, I just went to everyone’s house individually, like Santa Clause, to deliver a CD of my tunes, and to play them through together with each musician. That was half the fun, actually! And everyone completely rose to the occasion and the 22 minute live radio performance went brilliantly. I so enjoyed Chris Walters’ playing, that I’m going to bring him in to play on some of the new tunes for my record.