Chapter 37

As we moved through the year, we played our concerts, did a couple of spots at the vet shows and looked closely at the music list we had been given. It was the first year that I had not been involved directly in a single album.

Sharron and I churned out songs for other singers, and we recorded an album for Janet in the studio. This was a choral album of hymns and other religious pieces. It wasn’t a best-seller but did well enough to make Janet, Colin, and Flora happy. The musical and vocal accompaniment was Veronica, Tabitha, and some of the better players in the school. They were listed as Stable Scholars.

Ali had her eleventh birthday at the Dude Ranch again. This time it was packed out with her friends and all of those who she now had been involved with. It was a big show and the jam-session on stage was something else again. We now had a big range of players, mainly youngsters, who let loose with a great feeling of joy. I sat, with Jordan, at our table and we held hands, glowing with pride.

By the end of the year, Joyce and I had chosen the music we wanted to play, got comfortable with much of it, and had sent our list over to Europe. In the meantime, we were mining the finger-picking catalogue and started getting up to speed with some of that music. Allan had been in touch with a few of the local manufacturers and he told us that Gretsch would build us custom guitars for our show.

For Christmas, that year, we left Carol and Sharron in charge and went down to Los Angeles to visit the Prentices. We spent Christmas Day with them, and it was wonderful to catch up. Ali and her siblings looked like they had never been apart. We shopped, we ate, and we laughed a lot. Maureen and Martyn seemed well enough, but Josie took me aside and whispered that Maureen had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was waiting for her operation, in the following year.

We then flew to Florida and spent New Year with our two sets of parents, treating them to a slap-up dinner on New Year’s Eve at the hotel we stayed at. My folks looked years younger, and quite tanned, seeing that they spent a lot of time in the sun. Alicia and Brad were catching up. Retirement was doing them all some good.

Of course, none of us were getting any younger and it prompted Jordan and I to see a lawyer to write comprehensive wills. The estate would be quite big if nothing went wrong, with my share of the stores, the income from music and souvenir sales. The farm was now worth twice what we had paid for it, with the additional buildings. When we looked seriously at it, we realized that we were rich. It wasn’t going to change us, though.

The main event for the next year would be the guitar concerts. These had grown, like Topsy, as the time got closer. The French shows would now have a few of the guys who had jammed with us in Valencia. It was still an all-French line up, that’s if you allowed the one Belgian a little leeway. There was now a dedicated producer who mapped out the show to make it look, and sound, good on the night as well as seamless for TV.

The Spanish shows had gone the same way, with other Spanish guitarists added to the mix and the same producer polishing the extravaganza.

Once the Boston TV station got wind of this, the US version started to look like the Grand Ol’ Opry shows of old. I supposed that it may work but was a little unsure. Joyce was enthusiastic, having parents that had loved this style of show.

When we got to Paris, it was plain sailing all the way. We had a week of rehearsal before the first show and got to really know the other musicians. Like the original European tour, we did Paris first and then started in the north to zigzag south with two nights in fourteen towns, ending up in Marseille.

As it was an acoustic show, we only needed the PA amplified with some microphones to boost the sound in bigger halls. We did classical, folk, and jazz. One of our players, Bireli, was famous for playing in Django style so we did a set of three numbers with the three of us sounding like a Romani sing-along.

We learned about the music of Marcel Dadi and Rolande Dyens. Marcel, we discovered, had been a close friend of Chet Atkins and was an accomplished fingerpicker who had toured often. He died in an air crash going home after a visit to the US.

That month I only played my new Bouquette guitar and decided that it was as good as my Saintz.

The Spanish part of the tour was just a continuation of the fun. We swapped to our Saintz instruments and discovered how much our audiences appreciated hearing Segovia, Romero, and Tarrega. Of course, we played Leyenda at every show.

There were so many guitarists who wanted to be on stage with us, it was a revolving door of other players, none playing more than four shows. We did classics, folk, and flamenco, with even dancers with castanets. That was certainly different. Throughout the two months, Joyce and I anchored the show. Almost every show went overtime, invariably as a jam session with everyone on stage.

At least four shows from each country were recorded and filmed. The main ones were Paris and Madrid.

What was wonderful was having our two guitar makers on stage with us in both countries, playing along and having a ball. I rather think that this was the main reason for the shows. Their enjoyment of being on stage was beautiful to see.

When we got home, we had been feted by many of the great and good of both countries and had established ourselves as European entertainers, adding to our Sisters persona. All we needed to do was to get the Boston show out of the way.

That proved to be a lot harder than we first thought.

The TV station had sent one of their guys over to see our Paris show and had reported back just how much crazy fun we all were having. This threw their plans of a simple series of acts into the bin. Once we were home again, we had a short break, and then Allan, Joyce, and I flew to Boston, for a long discussion.

The outcome of the talks saw the show now boosted to a three-hour hoedown. There would be some country music and dancing, on top of the fingerpicking guitars. I found out that Joyce could play the banjo and, with me on fiddle, we were roped in to be part of a western-swing band. For the solo guitar pieces, the set would have the dancers gathered around, listening. It sounded very much out of the forties and fifties, and I started to wonder just who the crazy ones were here.

I needn’t have been worried, though. We recorded the show over a period of five days. We did the hoedown part as a “single” take in two days, as a live party, with just breaks for changes in camera positions or convenience visits. Joyce and I were in jeans and cowgirl shirts, and I must admit that it was a lot of fun.

The other days we recorded solo guitarists, duets, and quartets, all playing in the fingerpicking style with our dancer extras draped around us. The last day was the final section, where someone calls out “Party time” and everyone gets on stage, and we have a jamming “guitar-off” when everyone tries to outdo the other. Most of it was off-the-cuff and some of it sounded like “duelling banjos.” The idea was that the credits would roll over the scene of a lot of talented people having fun, the dancers all doing their thing or clapping along with the music.

I wasn’t sure if it would work, but a month later I saw the first edit and loved it. It transported us back to those simpler days. There was a short part where Joyce was on guitar, with me on fiddle, and we channelled Django and Grappelli. This, I discovered, was one of the base foundations of western-swing and didn’t sound out of place. I learned a lot about American music history that week, the oddest time was when one of the old-timers sat me down to listen to a recording of Bill Haley with a band called the Saddlemen, recorded in 1951, long before the Rock’n’roll era. They would have fitted right in with what we were doing today.

Back at the farm, things carried on in the usual fashion. In the evenings I would be spending time with Ali or Sharron. With Ali it was a lot of exploring of piano music, styles, and techniques. She was now playing keyboard with the school band. They were good and were in demand for official events and dances. Most of the band was older than her but she didn’t look odd beside them, now almost as big as a middle-teen.

With Sharron, we were churning out songs for other singers. Most of them were from Allan’s stable of talent and we did well out of it. It also gave us “brownie-points” should we ever want to put an extravaganza together.

Toward the end of the year, Jordan added another two vets to the business. Both were in their last year of training, and Jordan was now considered to be able to help them finish off. He left Sharron in charge over a three-week period and had some extra training which gave him the right credentials as a proper supervisor. That led him to going back to his old vet school to help tutor the new hopefuls.

Alicia had her twelfth birthday bash in Harry’s hall, set up with round tables, cabaret-style. This was because of the huge number kids that she wanted to invite. I swear we had half the high school there that evening. Along with Tabitha and the families of the kids from our special school, we had a big crowd. Ali, and the school band, played some. I managed to get enough of the Sisters together to put on a show, and then she, and I, sat at two keyboards to play dancing music for the guests. Whenever I looked over at her, I could see her love of entertaining shining through. Lord knows what here entry into teen-dom will be like, next year.

Before Christmas, I received some copies of both French, and Spanish, DVDs. Boston also sent me a finished copy of their show, on two discs. The European shows went out in the week before Christmas, on consecutive nights. A note with the Boston set told me that they had secured the US rights to the European shows and would be broadcasting the three shows over the Easter weekend of next year, Friday through to Sunday. I was advised that there were a lot of stations taking up the syndication.

Christmas, that year, became a special memory. The Prentices, all six of them, came to stay for a week. Maureen looked twenty years older. The operation had been less than successful, and she was on chemotherapy. Josie told me, quietly, that the cancer was now in other parts of the body. Martyn just looked older with worry. The two children were much the same as usual, going off with Ali and Tabby to talk in private and play around with the instruments in the rehearsal room. They had both been taking lessons, Martyn on piano and Georgie on guitar. Josie confided that it was wonderful to be able to play along with them.

It was a wrench to wave them off after New Year, but Tony had a very popular band to record over the next month. Martyn was still holding strong in his studio, and, between them, they had produced about a quarter of the songs feted in the next Grammys.

I had to smile, because another quarter of the nominees had come out of the Stable Studio.

Our table at the awards night was full. There was me and Jordan, Sharron and Carol, Brandon and Jean, his partner. Then we had both Alicia and Tabitha, and the final seats were filled by Joyce and Matty, Emily and Ian, and Janet and Colin.

A few tables away were Martyn and a pale Maureen, Tony and Josie, the twins, and three couples who we had been introduced to, the owners of the two studios that the Prentices worked in. A little further over was a table with Abigail, Matthew, Pet, Anton, and a bunch of studio executives.

Of course, all the Sisters had been gowned by our usual dressmaker, following our orders to be elegant, rather than outlandish. That was a directive not followed by the rap and hip-hop performers. I had the thought that I may have wandered into a freak show with the weird costumes and tattoos. At times I also wondered if any of them had been taught English at school, with the mangled speech and constant swear-words.

The ceremony was interesting. Martyn beat Tony for Producer of the Year, while Brandon picked up Best Engineered for an album he had done with a blues group. The blues group also won the Best Blues Album and were very nice in thanking the Stable Studio for making it possible.

Abigail took home another award, the Pop Vocal Album, and she thanked Pet and Anton for writing all the songs. She also thanked the Stable Sisters for giving her the opportunity to spread her wings. Egg and Chips were thanked, more than once, as a song-writing duo. We had written the songs for the Best New Artist, the Best Music Video, the Best Pop Duo, and even the Best Country Solo and Best Country Album. It was a bit surprising to see the product of a couple of years together. As we wrote, made demos, and sent off the songs we worked on, we lost track of the amount of output we had produced.

Although we didn’t take home any actual awards, it was worth being there to be accepted by our peers. We even had several artists talk to us about writing for them. Ali was indignant that they only have a couple of awards for classical music, so I told her that it made it easier for her to aim at a small target.

Back at the farm, we settled in for a quieter year. I had a few vets shows that I could do if I wanted. We didn’t have a single Sisters show organized. Between the Grammys and Easter, I did another sort of tour with Pet and Emily. We visited our Pixie Glade stores and discussed expansion. There were still a lot of empty stores, waiting to be filled with squealing girls. There was also a boy-void waiting to be attended to.

The first “Knight’s Castle” stores opened near the original four stores before summer. They were aimed at boys who wanted to be medieval knights, chivalrous and handsome. We had plastic armor, sponge swords and the like, along with period-looking furniture. Adding Regency and Tudor style outfits, modern suits made especially for small boys that was, again, cheap enough to be replaced, worked as well as the Pixie stores. We even did light, plastic chainmail.

After that, we only opened new stores in pairs, adding five more cities to our chain before the year was out. One of the odd side-effects was that we were asked to produce adult versions of some of our lines, for use by re-creation participants and film work. It made me chuckle when the winning video at the Grammys, the following year, was with a heavy-metal band who were entirely kitted out in our product.

Not all that year was plain sailing. Just before summer, Maureen passed away. We all went down to L.A. for the funeral. Martyn looked devastated and told me that he would be retiring soon, selling up and moving in with Tony and Josie. He thanked me for my invitation to the Stable Studio, an action that gave him his life back and made Maureen’s last years some of the best of their married life. Tony was sad but had Josie and the twins to keep him grounded. Josie cried but did admit that Maureen was in a better place, having been with her a lot through the last few months.

The second half of that year was something out of the box. When the three TV shows went to air over Easter, it created a storm of interest. It led to Joyce, and I, being invited to be part of western-swing bands and also play guitar along with country music stars, plus some of those who had been on the show with us.

The mini tour kicked off in Topeka, in July, for the Country Stampede. I wasn’t sure what we were letting ourselves in for, but it turned out to be a whole lot of fun. Joyce played guitar and banjo, I played piano, guitar and fiddle and it didn’t take long to get swinging with the best of them. We were accepted as the genuine item and a lot of the fans had seen the show on TV.

After that we did more shows. Watershed, at the Gorge amphitheatre, Washington, was a beautiful place to play later that month. WE Fest, in August, was right here in Detroit. The Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam, in early September, was down in Florida, at Panama Beach so our parents could come along to see us. Dad wore his cowboy outfit, but, thankfully, leaving the pistol at home. Also, in September, we were at the Carolina Country Music Festival, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Joyce and I could dress sassy, have fun, and spend more time on stage than I had expected, several bands roping us in as extras. Jordan and Matty got into character as a couple of drifters and had a ball. When we weren’t on stage, we did a lot of dancing.

The final event was the Golden Sky, in Sacramento, in October.

But, before that, it was another birthday to get through. This one, the thirteenth, was, once again, in Harry’s Hall. Again, it was set up with big tables, cabaret-style. Again, it was a full house of schoolkids and parents. This time, however, Ali wanted to have the school band playing on stage, providing the main entertainment. Now that Tabitha was going to the same school, she was now part of the band. There was also a small offshoot of the band, a five-piece, called Tabali.

I had no idea of what they had planned. The kids had organized it all, just leaving it with me to pay the bill. It turned out to be humbling, as well as entertaining. The whole band had a session, then Ali and Tabby played keyboards for dancing, joined by the other three of their group for a set of covers, many being Sister’s songs. Then the rest of the band went up to carry on while our two came down to catch up with the food. There was lots of chocolate cake as well as more serious food for the adults. It took a true performer to play so long at their party.

Marianne Gregory © 2023