Cathy & Marcy's Blog

Aloha Snowstorm!
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ALOHA In the Hawaiian language means affection, love, peace, compassion and mercy. Since the middle of the 19th century, it also has come to be used as an English greeting to say goodbye and hello.(wikipedia.org)

While the east coast was getting slammed with 30+ inches of snow, we went directly from the GRAMMY Awards to the land of sun, sand, whales & Aloha – Hawaii. We spent lots of time in the music community-taking in a Slack Key Guitar concert with George Kahumoku and Ledward Kaapana, writing songs and jamming on ukuleles, guitars and harmony singing for hours and hours with Ginger Johnson and Robyn Kneubuhl of the Hula Honeys, visiting Keola and Moana Beamer (gorgeous slack key guitar and hula dancing), meeting songwriter/producer Melinda Caroll (who has compiled lots of CDs of Girl Scout Songs) and even meeting up with our local friend, Paul Reissler of Kid Pan Alley. We’ve got lots of ideas for a recording and brought home plenty of new material to work on.

Cathy took her first Hula lesson and is hooked-now looking up where to take classes in Maryland. Marcy taught Ginger of the Hula Honeys some CELLO BANJO and left one behind so Ginger could practice.

Meantime, we saw humpback whales up close and personal! Right now, the locals call it “Whale Soup”, not cause we’re gonna eat them (Cathy is still very vegetarian), but because the ocean is FULL of whales. We took a Pacific Ocean Foundation whale watching boat and marveled at 45 solid minutes of a boat side visitor-a baby whale (only 2 tons), playing with us. Then some star gazing, volcano trails, snorkeling, and a visit to a fabulous aquarium.
Whale MovieCLICK TO SEE WHALE MOVIE
Cathy lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba for 5 years and Marcy in Michigan for more than 15, so we apparently had already survived enough monstrous snow storms. As big as this was, neither Winnipeg or Michigan would have closed down. But, we’re shoveling now-both through the mail and the snow.

It was a whirlwind weekend for the GRAMMY Awards. We started Saturday, Jan. 31 with a networking breakfast @ 8:30am with nearly 100 folks involved in children’s music. The more the merrier! Then Cathy, Marcy & Chris Bacon were part of a Children’s Music nominees concert at the GRAMMY Museum. Standing room only created a special feeling and we were honored to perform with our fellow nominees. Later, at the Lifetime Achievement Awards, we saw Thomas Edison’s GREAT grandchildren accept an award. WOW! WOW! Real descendants of this inventor genius who’s phonograph and 1000+ patents changed much of the course of history.

Banjo to Beatbox Team: Charlie Pilzer, Trevor, Cathy, Marcy, Christylez @ GRAMMY Museum

Sunday, the pre-telecast event gave out 100 awards. And the winner is…….Ziggy Marley in the children’s music category.
Saw friends Bela Fleck, Sharon Isbin and quirky Loudon Wainwright win (High, Wide & Handsome).
MEANTIME, my nephew asked me to get Taylor Swift’s autograph. Nine year old Laila, part of our entourage, also had that in mind. So, when a friend pointed Taylor out in the crowd, we headed her way to request the autographs. We were stopped by her body guard who told us we couldn’t go near Ms. Swift. I said, “This nine year old simply wants an autograph. Are you gonna break the heart of a little girl?” He said, “There’s lots of little girls in the world.” I reminded him this was the price of fame and Taylor was more than happy to sign 2 autographs for us, JUST before winning her first GRAMMY and becoming the big winner that evening.
If you saw the TV show, just know that we saw it LIVE-along with 14,000 of our closest friends at the Staples Center. We were touched that our friend Mike Seeger’s name and picture were amongst the group the academy said goodby to this year.
At the GRAMMY party, Chris Bacon and his date led the dance floor in some cool SE DC line dancing moves. A few hours later, we were headed to the airport for Maui to work on a new cross cultural CD with our friends Ginger and Robyn of the Hula Honeys.
Long as we’re making music and life is interesting and we think we can make people happy, or thoughtful, or both, we’ll keep on doin’ it. Aloha for now.
Cathy & Marcy