PARKES COUNTRY MUSIC By CHRISTINE COX Chris Gorton is a busy man and its not often we can tie him down to do a feature spot for us. Our members are well acquainted with Chris, who comes from Dubbo, and his style of country. We are happy to invite members of the public to come along and enjoy his performance, as well as that of our dedicated group of walk- ups. In fact we’d love to see a wider range of talent take up the challenge to come along on the day and put your name down to perform. We provide the live band or our sound manager can also hook you up to the various other implements used by performers these days. I’m sure there’s lots of hidden talent out there waiting to shine. For first timers at our Musters looking to perform we ask you to put your name down with the music co-ordinators who will include you on the program. As walk-ups you entertain the audience till around 3pm when we take a short break. This allows the band to have a quick rest. During the break we finalise any competitions etc we have running and do our Members draw. Then after the break our featured artist performs for an allotted time followed by our walk-ups again who finish off the afternoons program. Sometimes we even fit in a bit of a fun finale. Mostly our walk-ups end up performing two songs, twice during the afternoon’s proceedings depending on how many performers we have. It’s very exciting when we have new talent pop in. It was an absolute pleasure to have Anthea Basha from Orange with us at our July Muster. She was supported by walk-ups Garry Hemming, Craig Manderson, Joy Rice, Lindy Charlton and Vicki Walsh. Our band included Craig Manderson, Stephen R Cheney, Ray Watts, Pam Byrne and Lindy Charlton. Thank you to all band members and performers. Kevin Dumesny was the winner of our Members draw. Congratulations Kevin. You do have to be a paid-up member to be included in the draw and present at the Muster. I do remind you that our newsletter is available at the Musters to keep you informed and up to date with what’s going on around the area. Again, we ask you to have a think about whether you would like to be involved in our local country music scene. Our Musters provide a great afternoon of entertainment, and we encourage anyone to come along and share your talent, get involved with the committee to help grow and maintain country music in our town where we provide the opportunity to have a go and experience performing to live music, or other. We would welcome your input. Let’s see who will take up the challenge at our next Muster to be held this Sunday, 17 August commencing at 1pm in the Starlight Lounge at the Parkes Services Club.
