So, I find myself involved, in a volunteer capacity, in the music business again, nearly on the 10th anniversary of escaping it with most of my sanity the first time in 2001.  And I’m kind of glad about it.  There were a few years since then that I did kind of the same thing as this — help with a singer/songwriter music series — and I loved it then, too.  The first time, I stumbled upon a great opportunity to share amazing songwriters with folks in East Texas via a series I helped to start with local musician Grady Lee and local business owner Shawne Somerford.  We called it Words and Voices, and it garnered a pretty impressive following among locals and hard-core fans of the artists we brought to town.

Now, I am working with the local arts council to do a similar kind of series, only this time, due to our prime location, we are hosting the shows in various historical homes in the area.  Our first two shows were big hits, and we have a great one in July that I expect to sell out!  Austin Cunningham is coming to play a big midsummer night’s evening show, and we’re hoping to throw in lots of homemade ice cream and lemonade just to make our guests feel at home.  You can read all about the series and who’s performed and who is yet to perform at the Forney Arts Council‘s web site.  My husband and I worked tirelessly for three or four days trying to figure out how to make tickets available for online purchase via PayPal — you can pre-pay tickets now and use debit/credit cards.  Way cool for people like me who never carry cash and have no legitimate reason to write any checks anymore.  Thank goodness for online banking and automatic drafts.  My credit score greatly appreciates them both!