When my main source of editing work inconveniently dried up late last year due to the publisher selling the business, I went ever so slightly into panic mode and wondered what the heck I was going to do to make ends meet. Much as I would love to just be doing the music, in this day and age there aren't many full-time musicians around, most of us having to be creative about it and eke out a living via a number of different channels. But then I realised that there are just two things I know how to do - make music and edit/proofread (well, I did once have an HGV licence too, but somehow I don't see myself now trundling along the M1 in an artic...) - and whatever I do to earn a crust is going to have to be related to one or other of those skills.
I thought about it some more and realised that I wasn't making the most of the fact that where I'm now living - the south coast - is where many people choose to retire to, and hence contains a huge number of care homes for the elderly. I had already been performing in care homes in Oxfordshire and Eastbourne with my two duos, Bluebird and Yellow Rose, so I knew the ropes - it would just be a case now of doing it alone. So I set to and set myself up as a solo care home act, Tea 'n' Texas (see what I did there?), singing an hour's worth of what the British strangely refer to as 'country and western' songs (I say strangely because Americans wouldn't know what the heck we mean by that term - they just call it country music, but I thought if I called it that the old folk would think they were in for an afternoon of Scottish country dancing). Then I decided to include my two dachshunds, Silva and Chilli, in the act too. With my mother in a care home, I've seen how music and animals have a very direct effect on people, even those with advanced dementia, so if my country and western songs bombed, at least I'd have my cute pets to fall back on...
Within a matter of days I'd had flyers printed up and designed a website. Then I bought the girls cute bandanas and drove round what felt like scores of care homes in Hove and then Brighton, selling my new act. Amazingly - well, I was amazed anyway - I got bookings on the spot, as well as a lot of genuine interest from many of the activity coordinators I spoke to - and lots of 'aahs' and 'oohs' when I mentioned my adorable hounds being part of Tea 'n' Texas. Exhausted, I then resorted to simply mailing a bunch of flyers to care homes in Worthing, just along the coast. And within days I had bookings from those too!
So the rest is history really - we've performed at a number of homes already, have more scheduled for the coming months, and have been re-booked by several of the homes we've already played at. The dogs - Chilli in particular - have stolen the show every time, to my delight - I could virtually get away with singing a couple of songs and let them do the rest of the work! So far there's only been one wee-related accident, but I did usefully then give the activity coordinator a lesson in how to clean up dog urine from a carpet, stomping down hard with my cowboy boots on the paper towels he was rather ineffectually attempting to mop it up with. Silva stays close to my side while Chilli explores every nook and cranny of wherever we find ourselves, hoovering up the crumbs from the floor and letting herself be picked up and stroked by all and sundry. And I sing everything from 'Country Roads' to 'Home on the Range', with a sprinkling of Mandy Woods originals where I see fit. What I have come to realise is that although wartime songs have their place in care home entertainment, elderly people have as eclectic a taste in music as everyone else, and they don't need to already know a song to appreciate it. I've also come to realise that, much as 'Yellow Rose of Texas' would seem to be the perfect song with which to round off the hour, it's actually one of the most racist and unfortunately worded songs I've ever come across. I started singing it the other day - the day before Valentine's Day, when one of the ladies in a care home we were playing in was clutching a bunch of yellow roses - but found myself skipping lines or trying to modify them on the hoof, and then abruptly ending it and silently vowing to sing it again nay never no more...
The other good part of this? I now regularly get to wear my dazzling Scully cowgirl jacket, the one I felt a bit too abashed to wear before because is it so dazzling. Yeehah!! Ride 'em cowgirl, and git along li'l doggies...
I thought about it some more and realised that I wasn't making the most of the fact that where I'm now living - the south coast - is where many people choose to retire to, and hence contains a huge number of care homes for the elderly. I had already been performing in care homes in Oxfordshire and Eastbourne with my two duos, Bluebird and Yellow Rose, so I knew the ropes - it would just be a case now of doing it alone. So I set to and set myself up as a solo care home act, Tea 'n' Texas (see what I did there?), singing an hour's worth of what the British strangely refer to as 'country and western' songs (I say strangely because Americans wouldn't know what the heck we mean by that term - they just call it country music, but I thought if I called it that the old folk would think they were in for an afternoon of Scottish country dancing). Then I decided to include my two dachshunds, Silva and Chilli, in the act too. With my mother in a care home, I've seen how music and animals have a very direct effect on people, even those with advanced dementia, so if my country and western songs bombed, at least I'd have my cute pets to fall back on...
Within a matter of days I'd had flyers printed up and designed a website. Then I bought the girls cute bandanas and drove round what felt like scores of care homes in Hove and then Brighton, selling my new act. Amazingly - well, I was amazed anyway - I got bookings on the spot, as well as a lot of genuine interest from many of the activity coordinators I spoke to - and lots of 'aahs' and 'oohs' when I mentioned my adorable hounds being part of Tea 'n' Texas. Exhausted, I then resorted to simply mailing a bunch of flyers to care homes in Worthing, just along the coast. And within days I had bookings from those too!
So the rest is history really - we've performed at a number of homes already, have more scheduled for the coming months, and have been re-booked by several of the homes we've already played at. The dogs - Chilli in particular - have stolen the show every time, to my delight - I could virtually get away with singing a couple of songs and let them do the rest of the work! So far there's only been one wee-related accident, but I did usefully then give the activity coordinator a lesson in how to clean up dog urine from a carpet, stomping down hard with my cowboy boots on the paper towels he was rather ineffectually attempting to mop it up with. Silva stays close to my side while Chilli explores every nook and cranny of wherever we find ourselves, hoovering up the crumbs from the floor and letting herself be picked up and stroked by all and sundry. And I sing everything from 'Country Roads' to 'Home on the Range', with a sprinkling of Mandy Woods originals where I see fit. What I have come to realise is that although wartime songs have their place in care home entertainment, elderly people have as eclectic a taste in music as everyone else, and they don't need to already know a song to appreciate it. I've also come to realise that, much as 'Yellow Rose of Texas' would seem to be the perfect song with which to round off the hour, it's actually one of the most racist and unfortunately worded songs I've ever come across. I started singing it the other day - the day before Valentine's Day, when one of the ladies in a care home we were playing in was clutching a bunch of yellow roses - but found myself skipping lines or trying to modify them on the hoof, and then abruptly ending it and silently vowing to sing it again nay never no more...
The other good part of this? I now regularly get to wear my dazzling Scully cowgirl jacket, the one I felt a bit too abashed to wear before because is it so dazzling. Yeehah!! Ride 'em cowgirl, and git along li'l doggies...
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