The Evergreen Club presents the “Best Country Music Tribute Ever!”
This show will be emceed by Ken MacLeod, the organizer of the successful Memories of the War Years: a Musical Tribute to Veterans, last November.
This fundraiser benefits the Sonshine Club's Soup Kitchen. The kitchen operates weekdays at St George's and feeds up to 200 people daily.
The show will be a tribute to country music icon Merle Haggard and the first "queen of country music," Kitty Wells.
The show features Dave Perry doing the Merle Haggard portion of the show and Doris Weislein as Kitty Wells. Dave Perry thrilled the audience last year with his rendition of George Jones' He Stopped Loving Her Today (as well as a standout lead guitar player.)
Doris Weislein, a freeman of the City of Courtenay (former manager of the North Island Women of Native Ancestry Centre) delivers masterful renditions of the country queen's songs.
The remainder of the show is made up of some of the best numbers and talent of the five previous shows. Glen Hiebert, who was the star of the Don Messer Tribute, is guaranteed to keep your toes tapping with his renditions of Maple Sugar, the Crooked Stovepipe, Red Wing, and the Orange Blossom Special.
Hiebert's backup rhythm guitar player provides some excellent vocals of his own. Art McMartin and Ed Medford also play a hot fiddle.
Medford's Steel Guitar Rag and Under the Double Eagle are other classics performed to the max. Bob Mainwaring on the steel guitar is one of the Island's top player and also plays a hot banjo in numbers such as The Ballad of Jed Clampett.
Other top Valley musician’s include Ray Ledoux on the electric bass and Dave Gark on the mandolin and bones (Gark has played throughout the United States, including Branson, Missouri.)
Irene Tomchick's smooth voice on numbers such as Just a Closer Walk with Thee, are also highlights of the program.
The show will also feature the fancy footwork of Fran Bergen, our par excellence nonagenarian clogger, and tap-dancer Harry Dickson.
Miriam Piikkila, as Cousin Minnie Pearl, and George Bentham, as Boxcar Willie add their touch of comedy to the show. Lastly, the show will also feature 100 year-old fiddler Wat Stanton of the Valley Echoes.
We hope you come out and support this fundraiser and enjoy all the talent involved in putting on this show. It will take place at Courtenay Recreation’s Florence Filberg Centre Conference Hall May 3 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 and are available at the Florence Filberg Centre at 411 Anderton Avenue Courtenay (and at the door if still available.) For more information call 250-338-1000.
—The Evergreen Club