Things happening all around

I'm tired. I've been writing a show for the last three weeks for Valerie Lee Mayes, a singer who's making a comeback to her musical career in and around El Campo, Texas. This is not to diminish her skills, which are considerable. She spent years working as a duo with the man who became her husband Jef (sic) Mayes in and around a much larger Houston. Then one thing led to another, her husband became her ex-husband and she left Texas to pursue a career with Southwest Airlines based in Nashville. Now you'd think that Nashville would have welcomed this soulful singer, yet you'd be wrong. In the last 12 years she's only done a handful of gigs.

Laigh Langley put us together to see what we could do for each other. I ended up writing some new charts and adapting some existing ones for Valerie. We approached the Greek Bros. about possibly doing a gig, and the Greek was enthusiastic enough to put us on the calendar right away, sooner than Valerie or I imagined. I was thinking late summer, Valerie though Fall would work, but the Greek wants us on April 9.

So we now have, in the book and ready to go, Can't Buy Me Love, Come In from the Rain, Giving It Up for Your Love, I Can't Stop Lovin' You, I'd Like to Make It with You, 1-2-3 (Gloria Estefan), and quite a few others. Valerie is a great proponent of blue-eyed soul, if I could use a dated term. She's got a real Texas thing going, a kind of soulfulness that is unique to the Lone Star State. Think of the Ray Charles records of country music (still the most dangerous recordings ever made, IMHO, due to their genre busting), but approaching it from the other direction and you'll have Delbert McLinton, Laigh Langley and Valerie Lee.

So I can pick up some extra sleep next week. Today is Easter Sunday and we're going to rehearse later this afternoon when Valerie flies in. We'll be performing in less than two weeks, and the sheer volume of three to four hours of music is staggering.

But in the long run we'll be rewarded with gigs in El Campo (where the gumbo is hot) and elsewhere, and we're positioning ourselves for the multiple girl singer zone for more high-profile corporate gigs.

By the way, Janice is fine with this encroachment, and reminds me that her background is choir. This is a lovely attitude which finds her adding a background voice, a tambourine, and so on . . .

I might go out with Princess Cruises for a few months to build up cash. Jan's suffered enough--when they contacted me I heard them out and what I heard sounded great. Three months on, one off, jump off the merry-go-round whenever. Jimmy can run things while I'm gone. If I go. We'll see if I get the opportunity.