Friday June 15th 2007
Hello, it’s been a very busy week and a half for us and a lot has being going on.
CMA Music Fest (Fan Fair) went extremely well and it was so nice to meet our fans and sign for them. Other than a small rainstorm, the weather was beautiful and comfortable. We started our CMA Music Fest week with a really cool interview with Steve Gill of WLAC 1510. Later on during the Festival week, we signed autographs at the “Greased Lightning” booth, the “Mary Kay” booth and the “Ya’ll Magazine” booth. We also got to do an interview with ABC Houston about the goings on and the festivities associated with the festival.
It’s was particularly slamming week for me because I’d picked up a lot of work downtown! The clubs were hopping with tourist buzz all week long and I had some good “gigging” going on all weekend.
We finished off our weekend with a performance down at the riverfront. We felt blessed that the sun was right overhead and that we were being covered by the canopy. We remember last year when the sun was right in our eyes and we fried! A special “Thanks” goes out to Kathi Atwood for lining up all of our interviews and keeping the Crush “buzz” happening.
Well, I’d told you that a lot had been going on with us lately. Unfortunately, before our show on Saturday, Becky had received a call that her sister, Roycelyn was extremely sick and that there was a possibility that they could lose her.
Roycelyn has been battling MS for many years now, and somehow she’d developed some sort of infection in her bloodstream. Immediately after our show, Becky flew to Texas to be with her. We all braced for the worst as she reported the condition of her sister. Which also placed us in a predicament. We had more shows coming up starting Wednesday, 13th at the Opryland Hotel, and then bus out on a two week midwest run right afterwards. As we heard of the not so good news coming in it looked more and more like Becky was not going to be making it back in time for the gigs. So, we immediately scrambled to find players to cover her parts. We spent a lot of time on the phone, getting passed on from one player to another trying to fill in the spot. It was extremely hard, especially with such the late notice. (1 day before!!) A lot of people we knew were either already gigging, or couldn’t break away from other engagements. Thank goodness we came across Lydia Salnikova to cover the keys on our Wednesday eve gig at Opryland. She was in the band “Bering Straits.” She is extremely talented, and she did a really good job. We also had a rockin’ guitarist named Lauren Ellis grace the stage with us. We managed to slip in a quick rehearsal prior to the show. The gig went well and both girls did a wonderful job. They both had a lot of music to cram! Lydia was unable to come out on the road with us, however Lauren was---so she joined us! We left right after the show and bussed up to Marinette, Wisconsin where we did the Porterfield Country Music Festival with Mark Chestnutt and Joe Diffie. The show went well and it was fun to hang with Mark and Joe.
Now we are in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Today is a day off for us and we spent the day at the “Mall Of America’s.” We did a lot of walking! We heard from Becky today and she will be flying back in tonight to meet us. Lauren will be flying out tomorrow morning. It’ll be nice to see our sister Becky again. we missed her! Many “Thanks” again to our two girls, Lydia and Lauren for helping us out!
We’ll be leaving for Sauk Centre, MN. tomorrow morning. We’ll be in touch!