Clearly Vocal

It's the name of our somewhat newly formed a cappella vocal jazz group. Members include Danny Burgess, Stefanie Albright, John and myself. We all go to church together, so that helps with scheduling practices and such. Plus we can use the building for rehearsals, which is nice.

We had several "gigs" around Christmas time, mostly for parties and dinners. Danny is the front man for a band called "Group Therapy" that had played at Mario's, a local Italian restaurant, for about eight years. They recently stopped playing there to persue other opportunities. What Danny had done over Christmas was basically to add us to the program of his Christmas gigs. The band would play a set, then we would do kind of like a "halftime show," and then then the band would finish the evening. Most of those gigs were for exposure purposes. Danny is in front of many influential people who hire live music for various things and who give money to good causes!

Since then, we found a donor who gave us the money to purchase some very nice wireless mics and in-ear monitors! Danny already had the speakers and a lighting system from his band.

During this Valentine season, we will have performed five shows! Our big one was this past Friday evening for a party at the high-end country club in town. We brought in an 18 inch tall stage that was 12 feet across and 8 feet deep, set up a rear-projection screen behind us and ran visuals during each song. We set up the light trees and used four big speakers surrounding the room. As the guests were finishing up their desserts, our show began. We sang for about 45 minutes, and I think we really "wowed" them!

Another show was a band-us-band format again. We did well again, but then during the second band set, John and I joined the band as additional singers. So fun!

We sang for our church's widows/widowers banquet Monday. It's the only "freebie" we're doing this season, but certainly for a good cause, and of course, they loved us. :)

Then Thursday and Friday nights, we're scheduled to perform at Pico de Gallo, another local restaurant here in town. When we're not doing our show, Danny's band will be playing. We're singing for two seatings Thursday night, and then I think just one Friday night, unless we have two full seatings that night. Who knows?

We do have a website: http://www.clearlyvocal.com/. John created it, and I desiged the logo:



What we're really missing are sound clips. That's #1 on our to-do list after we make it through this week, so hopefully in the next month we'll have some samples of what we sing.

John and I are so fortunate to be able to do what we both love and do it together! We hope that the group's success continues to grow!