I'm Just Telling You What They Said...

Mercy me! (Not the band, just my past 83 weeks or so). I have been SO busy. The dust in the girlies' room is 3 inches deep, I have a pile of unpaid bills, I'm so far behind in writing reviews that LASR may hang me by my toes, and there's a dirty hamster cage in my dining room floor. There are 2 dismantled humidifiers on the same floor accompanied by 2 musty panniers that need to be cleaned.

What's a pannier? Ahhhhh, you really need to go read about Groovy and her panniers.

Really. Go there now and read about it.

I'll wait.

Lalalllaalallalallalaaaalaalalalala. Send Money LA lalalalalaLalalalalalallllaaaaaaaaa.

You're back now? Good. Hope you donated whilst you was over there because "Lung cancer causes more deaths than the next three most common cancers combined (colon, breast and prostate)!" (cited from the ALA website)

What have I been busy doing besides training and soaking in epsom salts? Singing. Yep. Groovy and Mulletman got to lead worship at a ministry conference on Saturday. It was very fun and very cool AND kinda weird when four 50-something men in the back started flapping while we sang "I'll Fly Away".




Yeah.

Anyway, that same evening Mulletman and I attended the 4th annual Knock on Wood Guitar Fest. It was totally and completely awesome, even if it did keep this groovy gal up waaaaaaaaaay past her bedtime.

During the intermission, we ran into a fellow who had attended the conference earlier in the day. He told we'd done a wonderful job with the music and that he especially enjoyed our performance songs (songs Mm and I did without everyone else singing along) because I have "a voice that conveys."

He didn't say WHAT my voice conveys.

And that started Mulletman and I to thinking, which is dangerous to do when you are rather punchy waaaaaaaaaay past your bedtime. You see, everyone of those incredible musicians at the Fest had their bio printed in the program - Bios that were thick with adjectives and quotes and descriptions. Bios like this one about Denny Breau:

Denny Breau’s rhythmically flawless and dazzlingly clear style allows him to do amazing and stunning things with a six-string guitar. He first draws in an audience with a finely arranged melody and then slides effortlessly into scorching fingerwork that sets ears aflame. The lighting fast guitar lines that seem almost humanly impossible to accomplish are balanced with those that have a quiet intimacy and wrap tenderly around his carefully crafted songs. He mixes genres with ease — folk, Delta blues, country and jazz — “creating a totally accessible musical mélange that captivates as it entertains,”

Um...WOW! For the record, I will report here that Mr. Breau certainly was wonderfully entertaining in concert, but I will refrain from repeating all those adjectives because, well, this post isn't about Denny Breau, it's about ME.

Which brings me to my point - What would Groovy's singing bio look like if we included all the descriptive quotes her fans and critics have made over the past 15 years? Perhaps something like this (and please note that these are ACTUAL quotes. Groovy does have a vivid imagination, but she did not make these up):

Groovyoldlady has been dazzling audiences with her powerful, velvety alto for more years than she can recall. Her resonance and careful choice of songs causes her unenthralled children to whine, "Do you have to sing again?" whenever she drags them off to a rehearsal. However, it is worth the endless teasing and harassment at home when she makes "weird" sounds while warming up because her fans adore her.

One man even confronted her after a concert to say, "Whenever you sing I just feel angel wings brush up and down my back." Others have said that, "You have a voice that conveys." "Whenever Groovy sings I wanna yell, 'YOU GO, GIRL!" "I get goosebumps when Groovy sings!" "You can really belt it out, can't you?" and "You're my favorite singer!" Once after she ran her supple voice up to a high A to end a special birthday song, her fellow musicians - with tears in their eyes - remarked, "WOW!"

Groovy gets alot of recognition out on the street as well, where she and her drummer husband get their meals interrupted by devoted fans, "Look! It's Mulletman and Groovy! I KNOW them!" or in Applebees, "Groovy, You gonna sing for us???" (Groovy declined graciously.) Once, an older woman and her middle-aged daughter made a beeline for Groovy across the grocery store hollering, "It's her! It's - it's THAT GIRL THAT SINGS!" She and Mulletman have also been gawked and pointed at in Home Despot and the Mart.

Other hardcore fans have made special requests of her: "Where can I buy your albums?" (She has none and no plans to make any.) "Why don't you sing MY favorite song when you're up there?" (Because she doesn't DO country!) and many people have stated, "I want Groovy to sing at my funeral." (Most of these people are Groovy's own age and Groovy is looking forward to outliving them all.)

Of course, Groovy is not without her critics. One older man who spent the church service seated about 24" from the speakers said, "You and that other girl do a nice job, but you're just too damned loud!" And a fellow actor taught her to tone it down a bit by confronting her with, "A little dramatic, aren't you?"

But critics notwithstanding, Groovy remains popular and in demand as a vocalist to the point that she rarely takes a week off from singing. Why? Because whenever she does at least a dozen people approach her and mourn, "Oh...you're not singing this morning?" Then Groovy gets the opportunity to remind them that worship is not about the people on the stages (no matter how many fans they have), it's about the God of all the Ages!