Bill Graham formed the first Casey’s Fancy Irish band, which included Martha, Mike, and Barb. They were very good and in demand. They performed for more than twenty years. My only contact with them was as a roady and a fan. When Bill passed, I was asked to help keep the group going. As I said before, I can read music, but since high school my only experience was as a closet ukulele player.

They were scheduled to play at Severson Dells for a Christmas program. When I talked to Mike about it, he said their hearts weren’t in it. I told him it didn’t matter about their hearts; they had a contract. He said that they would do it if i would play with them.

So, I showed up with my ukulele. The first song they did was I think was a Madrigal. I had no clue what was going on. However, we had a lot of fun and the crowd loved it. The next day Mike showed up on my front porch with an upright Bass and ask if I could learn to play it as they liked my voice.

Ii ended up getting one of my boyhood dreams.

3 thoughts on “My first gig

  1. Wes

    Great stuff! ☺️

  2. Code of destiny

    I am really impressed together with your writing skills as smartly as with the layout in your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway stay up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice weblog like this one today!

  3. Code of your destiny

    I’m really impressed together with your writing talents and also with the structure on your weblog. Is that this a paid subject or did you customize it yourself? Either way stay up the nice quality writing, it’s uncommon to peer a great weblog like this one nowadays!

Leave A Comment

Recommended Posts

Midget surprise

Bill Mitchell

The year I was coaching midget hockey in the Rockford Hockey club I had a pretty good team. Midgets were fifteen and sixteen year olds. The nicest advantage of coaching midgets was many of them had drivers’ licenses and drove to practices. […]

Martha’s quests

Bill Mitchell

In 1999 a group of Beloiters plus Martha decided they should do something about honoring Roy Chapman Andrews. He was born in Beloit Wisconsin, graduated from Beloit college and started his career for a museum in New York. He had an interesting […]