BS: Where was your first time

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:12 PM

Two years ago at the Tap and Spile in Grimsby UK.
Is very supportive place for newbies.
I did bad version of its all over now baby blue and they were all very nice.
Was last time I did a cover as a solo performer.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Gurney
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 09:31 PM

Cyril Tawney's club at the Barbican Grecian Club in Plymouth, UK.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time (singing in public)?
From: Genie
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 07:24 PM

Well, the first time I sang in public, I was about 18 months old. LOL

Grew up singing in school and in the church choir and then got a guitar when I was 17 and was soon accompanying myself with it, singing at parties, the occasional "hootenanny," campfires, etc.   

But my first PAID gig as a singer/guitarist was a 15-minute set for The Clay County Coonhunters Association (Clay County, Missouri), when I was a senior in college. My gym teacher was a member and got me the gig - for $10.   

Pretty bad experience, in many ways. First, they fed us -- You guessed it. Baked raccoon was the main entree (and it tasted like burnt rubber). -- and then told me I could either sing right then or go on right after a 30-minute movie on fishing.   I chose not to try to follow the film, lest I push people's attention span too much, but that meant trying to sing right after eating greasy food, so I wasn't in my best voice.

To make matters worse, I totally misjudged my audience's musical tastes. Naïvely, I thought they'd enjoy stuff like Wildwood Flower, Old Blue, and other songs I'd learned from Joan Baez and other folk singers.   Nope. They were probably into current Grand Ol' Opry stuff, which, at the time, was not part of my repertoire.   

I survived it, but let's just say my audience was a bit underwhelmed.

§;-D

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 02:32 PM

Kemsing village youth club, Kent. First gig for my first group: we had about six numbers prepared, and were supporting a seriously impressive group from Dartford. Or so it seemed when they started with a polished and technically perfect version of 'Rhythm of the Rain' by the Cascades, which was high in the charts at the time.We curled up in agony backstage with fear and embarrassment, but then realised they were playing the same song again! Turned out it was all they knew - we came on with the one advantage that we weren't them, and went down well enough to be asked back the next week. Ended up with a twice-a-week residency in Wardour Street, and I'm still annoying people in public all these years late.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Surreysinger
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 06:37 AM

Depends what you mean by first time. I sang in choirs right the way through from primary school up until a few years ago - long gap in years between those two. So there were MANY performances in public over the years -ranging from small primary school choir performances, to more demanding stuff at grammar school, singing in a young person's choir in Guildford under Vernon Handley's baton, through to many years with the local choral society performing locally in Guildford, and then in later years at the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and in Hyde Park with about 999 others for the VE Day celebrations in front of the Queen. Many "first" memories in there - first concert with an orchestra, first experience of a recording studio, first radio broadcast, first experience of standing with 6 others on the Royal Festival Hall stage in front of a full house, and singing unaccompanied, and then with orchestra in a performance of Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony! (That was a blast, I can tell you!)

But first public performance on my own singing trad English songs would have been about 1989 - in front of other members of my choir who were all sharing a singing training and socialising weekend. An unnerving experience - I remember both legs wanting to disappear out of the room in different directions, and a distinct shakiness about the voice. In those days I played guitar, and I remember noticing in a disassociated manner that maybe I should have tuned it better, as the conductor and accompanist were sitting out there. It was my first experience of people telling me that they liked my singing (not that I believed them at the time - just thought they were being nice), and I remember that I was on such a high at actually having done it that I couldn't sleep until about 3 in the morning. No more singing on my own after that for about 18 months, when I ended up singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" at my friend's memorial service at the request of her husband, and under protest, but only because I knew she would have appreciated it had she still been around.

After that there was a long, long gap until I went to Sidmouth in 1990, went on a Bread and Roses harmony workshop and made friends with the person who was to be my singing partner for a couple of years, who then forced me into singing solo one night when we ran out of new harmony songs to do (I seem to remember that Bread and Roses were performing at the club that night, and anxiously asking Saro at the end whether she thought I ought to carry on singing. I think she said yes!!!)- probably about 1992? After that it's been a long upward and very very enjoyable experience curve (if there is such a thing)to the point where I made my first paid appearance here in Guildford in 2004. The nerves while performing have 99.9% disappeared, but resurface at unexpected moments - the interesting thing is that I find that I can notice my leg shaking, with interest, while the rest of me remains rock solid!!!

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Mooh
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:43 PM

Not entirely sure. Have sung in church choirs since the early '60s, sometimes as a mock English choirboy soloist (hell, I'm Canadian), so I guess it was in an Anglican church at about 6 or 7 years old. Also did lots of little theatre musicals in my youth.

On piano, some recital somwhere where I came very close to pissing my pants, and pissing off my teacher.

On guitar, it was in another church in another place my father's job took us, at about 15 years old. That was the beginning of my gig life as a mercenary musician. I'm 48 and still doing this stuff...so much for growing up.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: GUEST,Songster Bob
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:03 PM

Well, not including music class in school (we had 'em! kids these days don't), I guess it was the troop ship coming back from Germany in 1966. They had a talent show, and if you volunteered for it, you got out of other duties. Since those were things like cleanup and such, it was no contest. I played "Don't Think Twice" and one other song, as I recall.

Then, since a troopship isn't "public," in that no one could leave, the first "real" public performance was at a coffeehouse called the Needle's Eye, run by volunteers from the National Presbyterian Church, in DC. After a couple of spots on the show, I teamed with a guy named Al Glassner, and later formed the "Hungry Two" with another guy, named Grant Carrington, who was an aspiring sci-fi author.

Since then, it's been fame and fortune. Not for me, of course, but fame and fortune were there, I'm sure. I saw them in the green room of the Cellar Door, one cold December night, in 1968.


Bob

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 08:31 PM

Easy to remember: A Gaslight Cafe Monday night Hootenanny in 1961, hosted by Dave Van Ronk. Not sure what songs I did. It felt like facing a firing squad.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: GUEST,dcardinalsin
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 08:18 PM

The first time I sang in public was the usual school play in chorus but nothing compared to my first singaround where i was lured under false pretences to be surrounded by all the local folk luminaries all in full throttle voice and me myself not knowing how to play a single folk song so my rendition of police   pop ditty went down a storm ,luckily it did not put me off though i,m sure it was cringeworthy for everyone else.....

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 07:28 AM

Summer of '66... Backyard party my parents were holdin'... Played my shiney new Martin D-18 that my parent co-signed on a loan for and was scared to death... Can't remember everything that I played but I know I played "Mr. Tamborine Man"....

Bobert

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Rasener
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 05:16 AM

Up against the wall. Didn't half make the knees tremble.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 03:50 AM

You played trumpet jimmy? Does this mean you an excellent embrasure and can breathe through your ears??

LTS

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: jimmyt
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 06:38 PM

I got picked up by a friend's father that played banjo and trombone in a "dixieland" sort of group and played the Junction City Minstral in Junction City, Ohio in the pit band for a real old time minstral still in blackface in 1963. (Later, the movie Brubaker was filmed there) I was 14 at the time and played trumpet by ear. I played with these guys for quite a while many times in some pretty rough bars in southeastern Ohio. Mostly old standards, and dixieland jazz. What a memory I have of this time! Many evenings they would launch into a song and give me a solo on the second or third verse. A lot of time I had NEVER heard the song before. Makes you learn to listen to chord progressions.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 02:39 PM

First time playing an instrument:- London Schools English Country Music and Dance Festival 1950. Played Rousseau's Dream on the violin at the Albert Hall.

I remember throwing up several times in the morning between rehearsals, then marching onstage like a man going to the gallows. Then it all went absolutely perfectly, and to this day I have never lost the taste for applause that day generated.

First time singing:- 1954. 1st soprano for my grammar school in an inter school competition, singing Gounod's Ave Maria. Won that round, then my voice broke and 2nd second soprano stepped in and went on to win the final, the rat (only kidding, he was very good).

Three years of playing, but not singing, in a youth club skiffle group, then a career got in the way for several years.

First time folking: 1965. Nag's Head Pub in Battersea, London.

Never stopped since.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 02:13 PM

My first paid gig was playing rhythm guitar for a twelve-year-old guitar/banjo prodigy named Allen Shad at a small festival near Jacksonville, Florida in 1978 or '79. I had jammed with the kid at a few bluegrass festivals and I guess he liked my rhythm work. I was paid $50 USD for playing one forty-five minute set. Pretty good money for back then.

The kid eventually won several major flat-picking contests including the recognized national championship at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. I, on the other hand, remained a total nobody. So it goes.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: leftydee
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 01:28 PM

As a boy of 7 or 8 I would sit on the counter of my Grandmother's store and play cowboy songs for her customers on my ukulele. I learned early that a guy could earn a licorice whip for a song. Now I play for money, which is worth far less than the licorice in my youth.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: GUEST,Paul Stamler
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 01:27 PM

Like a lot of kids, I took piano lessons; when I was about 9, our teacher sponsored a recital featuring all her students, and I played. Probably a Beethoven piece, but it might have been Bartok; he was very big among piano teachers in the 1950s. First *folk* performance, more or less: I was about 23, which is kinda late considering I'd been playing since I was nine, but I was shy about it. Anyway, I backed up a woman named Karen (who is now a psychiatrist -- hmmmm) on "Careless Love"; I was fingerpicking a Telecaster. (Which I still do.) She knew one more verse than I knew, so she kept on going after I'd stopped and I had to start again. We were at a labor rally of some kind, so I also sang Joe Hill's "Casey Jones". They didn't laugh us off the stage, for which I am eternally grateful.

Peace,
Paul

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:21 PM

I can remember my first paid gig it was at Kingston on thames folk,at the fighting cocks club in october 1976. and Jim an Annie MAGEEAN[now FENTIMAN.]were in the audience. The Fee was 20 pounds. Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:08 PM

hmmmm...I suppose the first time I ever sang in front of a group was in a song circle held by a newly formed Folk society in about 1961 in Wichita, Kans.....but mostly back then, I just played recorder and sang along. Then I got an autoharp and eventually was leading a few songs.

The first time I was ever on a stage with a mic was by invitation of a band who know me from the folk society. It was in a pub and it was sudden and unexpected and I think I was lousy...*grin*...

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 11:38 AM

Circa 1960 I had borrowed my brother's arch-top Hofner and learned all 3 chords. My friend Jim Cox started taking lessons on the tenor banjo and knew G, C & D as well. My brother Gary was a better singer than we were and the 3 of us called ourselves the Rovers Three and sang Gypsy Rover, Jesse James and The Sunday School Song in a Boy Scout Gang Show in a church basement. We were Kingston Trio clones (even had matching striped shirts)and we were the stars of the show.
Before we broke up the group, I had a Goya Goliath guitar, Jim had a Harmony five string and a Stella twelve string and Gary had a no-name guitar. We played a few hootenannys in church basements and school gyms. Gary still plays and sings, but I don't know about Jim. We lost touch.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Mo the caller
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 10:28 AM

I'm told that I stole the limelight as toddler, from my cousin who was a few months older. Her mother had taught her to join in with the last word in each line of some nursery rhyme, but Maureen buts in and says the lot.

School and sunday school, of course.

Story-telling when I supervised a playgroup seemed like a performance.

Then more recently dance calling (for money!)

And just this year I've started the odd tune at music sessions (in the hope that others will join in before I fall off)

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Scoville
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 08:42 AM

A barbecue joint in town. I was so nervous I kept forgetting songs. I'd say, "Next, I'm going to play 'Spotted Pony'", which I had been playing for four or five years, and then I'd realize I suddenly had no idea how to start it or what the tune sounded like, so I'd have to say, "Actually, scratch that, I'm gonna play something else." And on and on.

It's funny in retrospect.

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Barry Finn
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 07:36 AM

Seems that my experience is a bit different for the rest here. I was 18 & doing a year in prison. I was recruited by a panio player to sing & the 2 of us did "I Wish It Would Rain" by the Temptations. As we took our bows part of the cast poured water over my head. It went over rather well. I soon stopped singing & frequenting this type of venue.
The 1st folk performance was almost 10 yrs later. It was Boston's 2nd "First Night", flubbed the first song by forgetting the words but made up for by the 2 time around. I'm glad I was with a supportive bunch.

Barry

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 05:32 AM

When I was five years old, my Aunt stood me on a dining chair and I recited "The Moo Cow Moo!" (I haven't shut up since). Bob

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 05:28 AM

My first public performance was aged 5, as the Angel Gabriel (typecasting) in the school nativity play (in days when schools still had nativities...). There, they discovered that even at that tender age, I could project my speaking voice to would reach the deaf old granny in the back row so from then on I was always, ALWAYS the bloody narrator.

My first singing performance was about 4 years later when I stopped singing in a whisper and used the projection to sing with. I discovered I liked making noise and joined the church choir, had my first solo (Once in royal David's city) aged 9.

Been kind of hard to shut me up ever since.

LTS

Subject: RE: Where was your first time
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 05:13 AM

I was in choir in my catholic elementary school beginning in fifth grade, but I didn't really think of myself as "performing" until I led singing at campfires, working my way through college as a camp counselor for five years. Somehow along the way, I earned the name "Crazy Joe."
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Oversoul
Date: 25 Jul 01 - 12:43 AM

My first gig was at a university dormitory "coffeehouse" in the very early seventies. I did my silly rendition of "Laughing Rag" and some John Fahey things, in standard tuning. I was scolded by some hippie dude for re-tuning on stage! Later I was invited to a party at a small house by the railroad tracks. I drank more wine and smoked more dope than anybody and was sort of asked to leave about the break of day. Those people really dug Pentangle and Fairpor Convention, now that I remember!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: GUEST,Ophelia
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 11:55 PM

Although I seem to have been singing all my life it was only through a chance meeting at a folk festival that someone put me in touch with a trade union choir (choirs being very good if you are nervous like me!). Since then I have been singing very regularly and it has encouraged me to sing in sessions with some very lovely and encouraging people.

Prior to that it was at school in a little Aussie town called Bombala (pop. 1500) in year five when I played the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio and got to sing "Little Wooden Head". It seemed such a long way to the back of the hall but I made it!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Hawker
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 07:47 PM

Alanabit,
You've had 4 days, it must be your technique!
*G* ;0)
Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: alanabit
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 04:10 PM

Shucks! Fifty-two replies and stilll no sex...

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: ScottyG
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:45 PM

As a new member of the 1972 Everett High School Chorale (the 20 best voices in the school choir), I had to perform solo at the annual spring concert. I sang, "Teddy Bear" with my best Elvis impersonation. I had lead, rhythm, and base guitar, percussion, piano, and vocal backup. We got a standing ovation. That was my first real performance.

My best performance was while on tour with the young persons' performing arts company, "Suitcase Theater." We went to England, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands in the summer of '73, doing at least one show in each town we visited. In Burton Upon Trent, England, one show was at an all-girl's school. I sang a couple songs while one of the kids accompanied me on acoustic guitar. Then the curtains closed while the troupe got ready for our showpiece, "Ballad for Americans. It was sort of a pop-rock style operetta giving an historical account of America, from her colonial days to the present. I sang the lead, accompanied by the rest of the cast and some intrumentation. When the curtains opened, I was center stage, and the audience actually started screaming. I was a skinny, long-haired American teenager, singing for an auditorium full of screaming chicks - British chicks, that is. Quite a thrill. I even got stuck signing my autograph for an hour after the show. Kinda silly, now that I think about it, but a fond memory just the same. Maybe I should have stuck with my music as a serious pursuit.

ScottyG

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 08:29 AM

I played at a classical "youth concert" in Wellesley, Massachusetts (USA) in 1970. At twelve years old I was the youngest performer, the only classical guitarist (the other performers played piano or orchestral instruments), and the only performer to play an original work. Over the next few years I played many local church services and hired myself out to play background music for private parties; light classical, bossa nova, arrangements of pop tunes, etc. Still amazes me how young I was.

One of the most memorable gigs from these early-teens performances was when I spent a couple of weeks playing in the window of the local music store at Christmas time. The store had extended evening hours for the Christmas season, and I played classical guitar arrangements of Christmas tunes, which were broadcast through PA speakers out on the street. I was thirteen or fourteen years old, wearing a jacket and tie, and people assumed I was a mannequin until they got up close and saw my fingers moving. Had a lot of fun watching their reactions (and then ignoring their attempts to distract me).

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 06:49 AM

Folk wise it was on the whistle in a folk club in Norway 1979 called Jeppes with my big sister playing the zither. This was my epic European interail student tour. Singing must have been at the Oast House Folk Club in Rainham Kent circa 1980 and I guess I've been performing ever since!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: JohnB
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 06:31 AM

Church pantomime at age 11, in the chorus (with right arm in a cast due to a broken wrist) we played 3/4 different parts and sang I think in two. I still remember the market place song. It was Sindbad the Sailor and my sister was Principal Boy. After that about 16/17 sang in a couple of small folk clubs with a friend, everyone told me to lose my friend. Also in a social studies class at college, must have had real balls back then. After that a really big performing hiatus until about 36 years old I joined a local choir. That eventually lead to me forming an a cappella octet when I was about 42 we sang all over the place for about 8 years, medieval festivals, ren fairs, all sorts. We folded this year. I now have a trio doing mainly TRAD British stuff. Pity about that hiatus. To get over the nerve bit CarolC, try always starting your set with a piece you know down cold, inside out and backwards. After that first dose of clap from the audience you will be away to the races. They will have to drag you off kicking and screaming. JohnB

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: JudeL
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 05:20 AM

If we are counting for family, church and school, I can't remember a time when I didn't sing for others. I don't know if they do it any more but, at the time I grew up in Wales, once a year most schools had a school eisteddfod, where everyone was expected to participate. The participation might not be exactly musical, it might be choral speaking ( a sort of group recitation ) or providing sound effects but everyone had to do something. Going on stage didn't seem like such a big deal since everyone did it. I was also in school choirs and choral groups, almost from the day I first went to school. Since we kept going to perform for local old people's homes etc it meant every now and then we had a legit reason to miss lessons! But the first time I sang in a folk club would have been in the New Inn on Tottenham Court Road some 20 years ago. I think I sang All Around My Hat (a song which I still sing).

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Benjamin
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:07 AM

I played y first recital when I was 7. I played Twinkle Twinkle on the violin (accompanied by my teacher on piano).
Thanks to my mom for saving the program.

Benjamin

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: FriendlyFinny
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 11:14 PM

Wow, that's really great!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 10:43 PM

My first time singing in public was when I was in high school. We had a madrigal group, and the members decided one day after school to take our music to unusual places, so we sang in a cavernous bus terminal for the commuters. The people waiting in line enjoyed it, but we were chased out by the transit terminal's anti-madrigal tactical squad. I think we went and sang in a laundromat after that, though my memory of that is fuzzy. That was in 1971, my senior year. My first time leading a song solo was in 1990, soon after I started attending the monthly chantey sings at the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco. Celeste Bernardo was the ranger running the sings then. I'll never forget how newbies were encouraged to sing, and now that the tables are turned - I'm now a ranger there and am hosting the sings - I'm glad to see others come out of their musical shell and begin to sing.

-chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Gypsy
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 10:13 PM

Don, you weren't all that late. My first was in my mid thirties!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 08:44 PM

Hi, y'all! Apart from entertaining people on a bus with the bus microphone when I was 8 (they wanted me to tour guide, but I was just happy to sing!)and doing the odd song at school, the first real time I performed publicly was in '97 in a pub in Alice Springs (central Australia). The pub was called 'Bojangles' and I had a regular Wednesday night gig there when they would pay me in Guiness. Just me and my guitar, a huge Alice Springs Hospital crowd (I worked in the hospital) and some tourists. It was great fun. I would never have had the guts to do that in Sydney!

Finny.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 08:14 PM

Maybe this thread will still be refreshing!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Hawker
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 06:52 PM

What lovely stories!

My six year old folk baby, Amber, just had her debut performance tonight, at the end of term concert, she played her first ever violin solo......Twinkle twinkle little star.......And she was a little star and my how she sparkled! (but then, I am biased) - and wasn't there a big lump in my throat!

I hope she'll look back on it fondly in years to come - I know I will!
cheers,
Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Firecat
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 03:42 PM

I can't actually remember!! I've been performing in public for about 12/13 years which would make me about 4 or 5 when I first performed.

Mind you, I have been on the folk scene all my life!!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 01:35 PM

I guess I started a bit late compared to some people here. I first started singing at songfests and parties when I was about 22 (this was in 1953). Walt Robertson occasionally took me along when he had a performance to do, and a couple of times (at house concerts) he had me sing a few songs. But I had the security of his being there to smooth things over if I blew it. Dick Landberg, another friend of mine and I used to do occasional programs at hospitals and retirement homes, for audiences of maybe thirty or forty. At the time, neither Dick nor I had very large repertoires, but between the two of us, we could cobble together a reasonable program.

My first time to really go solo was at a hospital in Denver, where I was undergoing physical therapy. They decided to have a "talent show" in the dining room and could I do, maybe, three or four songs? Sure, I said. I thought there would be an audience of thirty or forty at most, but when I walked in, I discovered that they had pushed all the tables against the walls and set the chairs up in rows. Patients, doctors, staff, and some visitors were all there -- about 250 altogether! My hands were trembling so bad I could hardly play the accompaniment to my first song, but I managed to blunder through and got a good round of applause. After I did the next two songs, they wanted an encore! I wasn't going to be lynched after all!

I discovered that singing and getting applause for it is highly addictive.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 11:33 AM

As a singer, probably when I was 8 or 9 and Judy Miller (my next door neighbor) and I were the "featured" solo-togetherists in the Greenfield Park Lutheran Church Junior Choir in West Allis (west 'burb of Milwaukee), Wisconsin. Judy and I could always be counted on to show off. Sang at church services and funerals.

First time I ever read/performed (had instrumental backup) my poetry was a coffee house in Milwaukee when I came back to visit in the early '70s.

My (now) ex-husband and I never really performed (Peter Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Judy Collins & Phil Ochs repertoire) in the '70s because we didn't like to learn the same material. (This was indicative of the way the marriage went, too.)

I started performing with Curmudgeon fairly early in the '80s at The White Horse Pub in North Conway and at the Press Room, of course, in Portsmouth, NH -- I just ran across my calendar notation of when I first got paid for singing with the group. (I think it was either for Friends of Odiorne or the Gundalow Project.)

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Gervase
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 08:22 AM

Loads of times at school - but the m ost memorable was when I was 11 and had to sing for the first time at Covent Garden.
No - it wasn't anything grand - merely that our school used to be in the pool that provided kids for juvenile choruses in their operas, and I got picked a few times for a chorus part.
My abiding memory of the place was the canteen, where these hefty cockney women (whose husbands were generally working in the fruit and veg market) would serve up vast portions of egg and chips and fuss over us like mother hens.
The first opera for us was Taverner by Peter Maxwell Davies - and to an 11-year-old it sounded 'orrible. We had to learn a chorus in Latin to be sung while we capered across the stage, half naked, covered in red, white and black bodypaint and wielding rubber tridents.
As we came on, the male lead would be taking apart a life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary and removing her entrails - lengths of cloth-covered foam rubber like a giant string of sausages.
Offputting? Only the first time, and thereafter we just treated the roles as fairly routine; preferring the larking around backstage and the canteen to the performances themselves. I only saw the whole opera thorugh once, and that was because I chose to and could arrange to be picked up at the end by my parents - otherwise we arrived after school, got costumed and painted, stuffed our faces and then did five minutes on stage before trooping off, scrubbing up and going home.
The biggest problem was a few of the members of the male (adult) chorus, who would find pressing reasons to visit the showers when we tried to scrub off the body-paint (the red stuff stained for days and made us look as if we'd been beaten). Then the battleaxes from the canteen would spring into action, emerging from where they'd been keeping a motherly eye on us and ordering the chorus boys out of the showers - "g'warn, piss off you old pooves! Honestly - leave the bleedin' kids alone!".
We were ferried everywhere by a minibus driver with one leg and the most awesome command of filth and invective even I had seen (and my father was legendary). Driving to and from the opera house we'd be kept entertained by his opinions of every other driver on the road and his inept crashing through the gears like a rhino with Tourette's. Someone was carsick every journey, so we'd always have the windows open, heads sticking out and abusing passers-by while Tony the driver told the angelic choir of 11-year-olds to "F***ing sit down, yer little c***s, or I'll cut yer b******s off wiv a rusty breadknife!"
Highlight of the Taverner run was that Radio3 broadcast it, so I ended up with a cheque for £15. Otherwise it was all done for love and the fun of it - and because Miss Povey had said we should regard it as a great honour (though I suppose the school trousered a fee for providing us lil' darlings).
Other operas we did included Turandot and Carmen, but none was as fun as the awful Taverner.

And then my voice broke, and now I sing like a file crossed with a fog-horn. No more Covent Garden for me!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Gypsy
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 09:30 PM

Well, twas at church. The power had gone down AGAIN, it was holiday time, and the sanctuary was like the proverbial tomb. So, we went into the recreation hall (big windows, solar heat) and i felt smug that my hammer dulcimer didn't need electricity.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 08:19 PM

My very first was in a school play somewhere around the age of 5 to 7. Had to sing a ditty. I LIKE TO SEE THE TRAFFIC COP, I LIKE TO SEE HIM STAND, AND SHOW THE PEOPLE WHERE TO GO BY MOVING JUST HIS HAND. I remember thinking at the time, "What is a traffic"? I was raised in a very rural area with no more than a dozen cars in the whole village.

My first paid gig was for the Knighs of Pythias in 1951. Three dollars for two songs, got hooked right there!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Metchosin
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 04:48 PM

ahhhh!....Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum Bum! Mr Sandman....thanks for the memories...

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Metchosin
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 04:38 PM

Oh, Oh! I just remember another, although not really public.

Every Christmas, when I was small, my Uncle would have my cousin and I stand on a stool and sing to a large family gathering. I particularly remember we did a really great renditions of Mr. Sandman, I've Got a Loverly Bunch of Coconuts and Your Baby Has Fallen Down Plughole. I really enjoyed that stuff, we got to choose our pieces and always got a quarter for our efforts.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Metchosin
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 04:27 PM

My first time was in 1952 in Grade 1 at the Strawberry Vale Elementary School Christmas Concert, when I played xylophone in a rhythm band. We performed the Syncopated Waltz and I got to do the last 2 notes of each bar.

Apparently it made my parents extemely nervous, because unlike the other children, who seemed to demonstrate considerable concentration regarding each of their parts, I spent my time rubbernecking the whole time and appeared not to be paying attention to what was going on, but I never missed a beat when it came to my turn or plunked a wrong note.

In Grade 4, I got the solo singing part at another Christmas Concert of:

Soldier, soldier, won't you marry me?
Its oh the fife and drum

to the reply of:

How can I marry such a pretty girl as you,
When I have no coat to put on?

The chorus was:

Off to the tailor she did go
As hard as she could run,
Brought him back the finest that was there,
And soldier put it on (ad infinitum)

After I had decked him out in finery, his wife showed up and dragged him off stage. I hated it. The thought of being taken advantage of by a "boy" for my money and my heart coloured my thoughts for most of my elementary school years, and probably most of my secondary school years as well.

In Grade 6 I played Allegany Moon on the piano for the school. I don't recall that as a pleasant experience either.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Naemanson
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 03:12 PM

Well, my first time must have been in Junior High Band playing the trumpet. Never cared for that, too little so I took up the sousaphone in High School.

I first ever singing gig was at the same place I'll be singing this afternoon, the Portland Observatory. I get a little confused though, it might have been at a little Saint Patrick's Day concert at the Swedenborgian Church in Portland. It was definitely one of those places... unless it was...

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Suffet
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 03:03 PM

Camp Towanda, Honesdale, PA. Summer 1958. Back-up singer on "Hard Ain't It Hard" and "Jesse James" choruses in talent show. No big deal, but that's the earliest I can recall.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Jande
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 02:55 PM

Nice thread!

Sang a solo rendition of O little Town Of Bethlehem at a local church's Christmas Pageant at the age of 6 or 7. I closed the show and got a thunderous applause, which for some reason both pleased and embarrassed me.

The strange thing is that I had been waiting for this for months, but it was almost a disaster. My parents, who were not churchgoers, had bought me a new red velvet dress for the occasion. They'd had my hair curled and tied up with red velvet ribbons. I wore shiney black patent-leather shoes.

When we walked into the church at 7 pm I was crisp and rosy and ready to perform. By 9 pm I was exhausted, bedraggled and dissappointed. No-one had called my name to perform. I think I started crying a bit, and one of the monitors noticed and asked what was wrong. My parents explained in rather irritated and embarrassed voices that I was supposed to be performing that evening, but that the last performance was happening at that very moment.

The monitor was very kind. She took me by the hand, dried my tears, retied my ribbons, and led me to the front of the church, then announced, just as people were standing up to leave, that there was one more performance and something about saving the best for the last. Everyone sat down again and waited.

Since they had forgotten about me there was no music, so I sang without accompaniment. I was still feeling quite hurt and sorry for myself before I started singing, but it all melted away once I got started. I loved the song.

That experience is as vivid to me today as it was then, Thanks for the opportunity to relive it by sharing it!

~ Jande

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jul 01 - 12:52 PM

Well, this thread turns out to be a pleasant surprise! My fist "professional" performance was when I was escaping for a weekend from reconaissance geology mapping in deepest darkest Maine at the age of 20. I had my Stewart 5-string banjo, a sleeping bag, and a ice chest of fried chicken and had camped out at some small lake near Guilford (somewhere near Moosehead Lake). At some point I gathered up the courage to approach two lovely teenaged girls who were camping nearby, and regaled them with renditions of Sloop John B and Tom Duly, upon which they suggested we meet later that evening at a local roadhouse which I did but surprisingly they never appeared. Tragic. However, the bartender, noticing my banjo, suggested I play a few songs for those who were lined up at the bar. So I did a medly of Appalachian songs I'd learned from Obray Ramsey: Rain & Snow, Wild Bill Jones, and Poor Ellen Smith. There was even some applause and much to my amazement a glass of bourbon appeared and...well, I didn't know David Dodson's song "I Was Right, I was Wrong All Along" at the time so I swigged it down. I don't remember what happened next but I'm sure my playing deteriorated. Thanks for the memory!;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 04:19 PM

Thanks John P!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Brían
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 10:43 AM

I was avoiding this thread because the heading looked too much like many I was sorry for wandering into lately.

I'd be glad to tell of my first public performance.

We had an all-school talent show where everyone was asked to get up and perform something. I sang a medley of Irish children's songs I learned off a Clancy Brother's album:A MAN OF DOUBLE DEED, WALLFLOWERS, AHEM, AHEM, SHELLICKY BOOKEY, A BIG SHIP SAILING. I believe the teacher may have nixed some rebel song. The troubled were resurging and there were descendants of Ulster Orange stock in the school(rural New England)and was asked not to sing that **** around here(no further comment).

I remember sweating so bad I thought I was going to melt away completely on stage. I also remember the seemingly deafening applause I got after I finished and the requests I got to sing on the bus for weeks afterward. I didn't realise until the day of the performance that I was to be one of the few people to get up and sing(as opposed to lip-synching with a record).

I still get stage fright when I have to perform, but it goes away when I start singing.

Brían

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: John P
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 09:56 AM

When I was 15, in a rock band at a school dance. Yikes! That means I've been a performing musician for 31 years. I ought to be better at it by now.

CarolC, sorry to hear about the stage fright. I get that sometimes, mostly when I'm doing material I'm a little unsure of and there are musicians I respect in the audience. But 99% of the time it's not a problem. I've known people who got over chronic stage fright by just performing a lot, but there are also musicians who never get past it, no matter how often they get up on stage. Come out and visit sometime, we'll put together a very small gathering of very warm and accepting Mudcat folks for you to perform for in the living room . . .

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 04:42 AM

Somers Arms, Leigh Sinton nr Malvern, when the Somers FC was still there.<>1983 in a duet with Sylvie Beckenham
shanty "In Amsterdam there Lived a Maid"
it would have to be a Fri (club night) in October
being the first time it was the hardest.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Barbara
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 01:51 AM

Unless you count singing in the church choir, the first time I had a solo was in ninth grade and I had to sing four lines at the end of "Moon River" (or "Mooon Ribah", as our choir director directed us to say). I expect it was pretty excruciating, but, once I got the bit in my teeth, I ran with it.
Just think of all those lucky guys in college who, on their first date with me, got to listen to several hours of me singing along with my guitar... "He came from his palace grand/He came to my cottage door..."
Dunno why so few of 'em stuck around...
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Kaleea
Date: 21 Jul 01 - 12:50 AM

I was about 4 years old, and my mother had me stand on a chair to sing "Fairest Lord Jesus" as she accompanied me at the piano, for the Beams of Light Tabernacle in Sapulpa Oklahoma. I was accustomed to singing for the family (usually standing on a chair-perhaps she thought the breathing mechanism works better at highter altitudes?) and did not think this was anything unusual at the time. It was about the year *%#~!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Chip2447
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 11:35 PM

Still waiting to perform publicly. With a bit of luck I'll be ready for next ren fest season. Now, the big question is, will renfests be ready for me.
Welcome aboard Lizabee.

Chip2447

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 07:13 PM

*smile* I noticed that when I saw you on a stage or two, Rick. The stage does seem to be your home. And I think you make your audiences feel at home because of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 07:05 PM

Hi Carol. My first time was at a high school auditorium. Sang Ewan macColl's "Springhill Mine Disaster". I had kind of the reverse situation as you. I was not a happy camper as a high school student, but the minute I got on that stage, I suddenly felt comfortable and relaxed. Weird, but accurate. Guess it had something to do with discovering MY world, rather than trying to fit into the "real" one.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:52 PM

I'm a little envious of those of you who grew up being comfortable with performing. Other than at sessions or playing with friends, I've probably performed in public less than a dozen times. The thought of performing petrifies me, and I probably wouldn't have even done it that many times had I not been roped into it.

You people are very lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:44 PM

Aside from a couple of choir solos -- I think it was singing "The Auctioneer" in a talent show around sixth grade. Been saying too much, too fast ever since.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:41 PM

In a motel room.....oh you mean performing musically....how about poetically? In college, we would read our works to the class....and a few times I read out poetry in literature class...and started to love the feeling of every eye upon me....

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Hawker
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:34 PM

Hear Hear - Welcome Lizabee, thanks for the input!
Great memories eh? I am still re-living all my childhood performances and trying to think which came first! Earlier when I posted this, I was going to say that my first folkie performance was 23rd July 1988, but that was of course the first time I played in the band in public. The first time I sang a folk song in public was around a year later, but maybe that's not true, for I am sure I have always sung traditional stuff with my family and friends at get togethers, but Wadebridge Folk Festival, Cornwall 1989 was my first in earnest as it were!
My Grandfather was half Irish and always played traditional music - on his fiddle, which I have inherited, being the only grandchild with an interest in music. He did I believe have the habbit of playing it like a ukelele, I sadly was too young to remember him clearly, though I do have some reel to rell recordings of him singing and playing
Potted history over!
Cheers, Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:28 PM

I first sang in front of an audience when I joined Jr. High chorus class lo these many moons past ;D

The first time professionally was a lot later. I was all of about 22 or 23, and I sang madrigals at a festival. We got paid nada, really, but it was my first job singing under contract.

Now, it's mostly folk music at festivals, coffee houses, parties, bars, and the like, and for a much better rate of pay.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:23 PM

Welcome to the Mudcat, Lizabee!

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: running.hare
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:20 PM

apart from Nativity plays etc... my girst proper singing performance whould proberbly, be in my A-level group production of 'La Malade imaginaire' (sp??) by Molier. I played Angelique, who had to sing to her lover (who was desguised as a music teacher) In order to tell him how she realy felt, with out her father finding out what was going on! I was also given a prolge to sing, which was terifieing!

any way this way nearly 2 yrs ago & doing that & continueing with the singing lessons has given me the confidence to sing in public a bit more. Now I just need to extend my repitoir a bit, ;¬) Hence I am here.

I've been lurking a bit, but this is my 1st post, so If I've made any huge fopars, or my awful spelling anouse you I apologise now.

*- Lizabee*

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:17 PM

Well, I was a first soprano in the All-Philadelphia Elementary School Boys' Choir in 1962, and we sang in Convention Hall. Whoa, it sure looks strange to see that in print: "I was a soprano"!

Then I guess it would have been the 1983 Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle, as one third of "Benson, Ingerson, and Cohen", one of those "ad hoc Folklife groups" which reappeared the following year as "Small Craft" and then vanished.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Grab
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:14 PM

Everyone has to do school plays, don't they? So that'd be around age 7.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: DancingMom
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:13 PM

My high school theatre production of "Brigadoon". Sharon

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:08 PM

The first I truly remember was when Muffie Fulton and I were in second grade and we sang "I Don't Wanna Play In Your Yard" for a school talent show. Our moms made us matching gignham dresses with white pinafores and put our hair in braids with matching ribbons.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: Kim C
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:49 PM

Then it's not BS, is it!

The first time I remember singing in public was in 1973, in the first-grade Christmas pageant, back when they used to allow that sort of thing in public school. I led "Silent Night," and I wore an angel costume made from a bedsheet and a coat hanger with tinsel wrapped around it. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: IvanB
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:26 PM

All through my youth I was told that I had sung 'Accentuate the Positive' with all the words and diction correct at family reunions around the age of 3 and 4. Hearing that in my teen years was a constant source of embarrassment to me, something akin to seeing a nude baby picture of myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:24 PM

You mean other than sessions?

Probably playing the recorder in the O'Hurley's General Store Band as the opening act for Bryan Bowers.

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: DougR
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:22 PM

A contest at the local Fair and Livestock Show. I was probably around eight or nine years old, and I sang "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." I won second prize. First prize was won by the daughter of the guitar player that accompanied all the contestents.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From:
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:19 PM

Pretty sure it was in a (Lutheran) church choir...after which I got kicked out because my voice changed...

Subject: RE: BS: Where was your first time
From: mousethief
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:19 PM

Probably something in Sunday School, which I was in in maybe 2nd or 3rd grade, but it's much, much too long ago to remember. After that it would be at the "Way Inn" coffehouse in the U district, Seattle, sometime in the 1980-1981 school year.

Alex

Subject: Where was your first time
From: Hawker
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 05:12 PM

No, this is not a thread about sex!
I was just curious where you first sang / played / performed (musically, please!) in public? I thought it would be interesting and now I am trying to remember where I first performed..... it MUST have been at school, but I shall have to think very hard what it was!
Lucy