Chapter 31

Once I had Ali bathed and dressed, I sat her in front of the TV watching cartoons. I went and showered, then dressed warmly because it was chilly this morning outside. I put my diary for next year, a notebook, and several pens on the kitchen table. I then joined Ali until her piano teacher turned up. She took her into her playroom for some morning exercises.

Eventually, the rest of the band arrived, and we were joined by Allan. Once we were around the table, he congratulated us on our year and told us that Abigail was in the top one hundred on debut.

A friend had rung him to say that she was in line for a Grammy next year and the thought was that she had a very good chance. Of course, that took a while before we had finished the round of hugs and kisses. He then told us that he has had many calls about us touring next year.

Several promoters wanted us back in Europe, but he had chosen one who offered just four shows in England and then shows in Paris, Berlin, and Berne in Switzerland. “It will be just about two months, so won’t be as strenuous as this year. It will be all Sisters shows and I think we may have to extend the set with some of the Abigail songs, if you don’t mind. That will fill the seats if she does get a Grammy.”

“Now, I’ve also accepted offers from just ten promoters here. Dates and places are yet to be finalized but they will all be shows in larger venues. I have also been fielding requests from orchestras who want one or more of you to be on the stage with them.”

“I’ve finalized some that we can fit in. Pet, you have a solo violin concert. Edie, you have two piano concerts; several want you and Joyce on guitar, but I haven’t accepted any, yet. “

“The last will be at the end of the UK part of the tour with you recreating the New York concert with all of you in front of one of the top London orchestras.”

“I’ll give you all the firm dates so that you can sort yourselves out. It looks as if it will be a solid year for everyone but will still allow time for other projects.”

“Nothing,” Allan said. “Will begin until April so you have some spare time. The first will be a classic concert with Edie playing with an orchestra in San Francisco in the middle of April and then the Sisters will be on stage the week after. You leave for the UK in the last week of June. You’ll play Edinburgh, Manchester, and Southampton before London. “

“You’ll be part of the Proms programme with an orchestra before Pet plays a violin solo in Vienna the first week of August, the same weekend Edie will be on piano with an orchestra in Berne, Switzerland. The second week of August will have you all on stage in Berne and then back to Berlin and then Paris before coming home again.”

He looked at his notes. “I know we will be in Toronto on the third week in November, because Edie and Joyce are up for a guitar concert there. We have a confirmed venue, a week before or after, there for the Sisters. I’ve also confirmed that the first week of November you’ll be here, in your hometown.”

“The last week of the month you follow Toronto with a show in Montreal. The only other certainty I have is that Kelly wants Edie and Emily in Boston in September, and she wants to talk to you about something she has in mind, so I’ll leave that for you to discuss.”

Everyone wanted to know the places he wasn’t sure of yet, so he told us that those yet to be confirmed were Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Orlando, and Baltimore before we go to Europe, followed by Chicago and Milwaukee when we get back. We were talking about the year to come when Jordan and Sharron came in to get a drink.

I asked how it went and Sharron told me that it was messy but something she had trained for, at last. Jordan said he was off to get a shower before going to the clinic and I introduced Sharron to the rest of the band. She was amazed at meeting them and when Abigail was introduced, she smiled. “We listened to your album last night and it was wonderful. I feel that I want to hug you, but I stink of cow now and need a shower.”

Abigail laughed. “That don’t worry me, sister, I grew up on a farm,” and pulled her into a hug. Sharron looked as if she was going to burst into tears as she left us for her shower.

After that we all went out to the rehearsal room and played odd things for an hour. The girls now knew that Martyn was heading south again, and everyone was happy for him. Only Pet and Anton were staying around for Christmas so they said they would come over.

All the others were going somewhere warm for a few weeks, so we arranged to meet up again in the third week of January. When the girls left Allan stayed behind for a quiet talk and started by asking. “When are you going to get a bigger kitchen?” I giggled and told him we were only discussing that yesterday, along with an accommodation block by the sheds.

He nodded. “You can certainly afford it now, you know. I didn’t realize just how big you girls would become and the classic concerts are icing on the cake. I didn’t want to get Abigail’s hopes up too much, but my contacts have told me that she is a certainty for Best New Performer. Those who have heard it are saying that her album may make the Album of the Year. If that’s the case, you may all find yourselves on the red carpet. Your sponsors will love that if it happens.”

“The other thing that you may have picked up on is that you will be dividing the year between here and Europe and it’s because of the last shows you did over there as the Sisters. The album sales are going well, and the jazz stuff peaked while you were still there.”

I agreed. “That’s all right. We got bored with being smooth all the time, but it was fun while it lasted. I’m thinking about an album which would be to support a project with the Swans for confused kids. Will that upset anything you have in mind?”

He shook his head. “No, it would be a nice facet to your CV as you get older; that sort of thing always helps. Have you anything in mind for the content?”

I told him of the thought that it would be something along the lines of Stability / Ability but expanded and he agreed that it would be good as an addition to the Swan package that they’re now listing on the website.

The next day Maureen and I went shopping for Christmas presents. They were now planning to be away before the actual day, so she had hers wrapped and tagged for me to put under the tree for the children.

I asked her about gifts for them and she told me that they already have had the best gift anyone could give them, the return of Martyn’s place in the pantheon of producers.

At the end of that week Sharron and Carol had proved themselves to be completely capable with what they did, so I arranged for Sharron, Maureen, and me to go to Los Angeles, and I organized a meeting with Dianne. We flew down the following Monday and hugged Maureen when she left us to sort her own things out. I stayed with Sharron and helped her pack up her things. We organized a transport company to come out with boxes which we filled and sent back to the farm.

While packing her things I had a quick look at the poetry opus and was amazed that, as I read it, I could feel a tune that may fit. We had our meeting with Dianne, and Sharron was brought into my idea of a solo album at the same time. Dianne agreed that the concept was good, and I gave her a check to start the foundation. When Sharron and I flew back to Detroit we discussed tunes and lyrics.

I spoke about my first draft of the “Lower the Tone” song, and she nodded sagely. “Your problem with that is the words you have don’t have a lot of rhyming matches. If you started with “Not our Class” there are a lot more words that match, even if they aren’t spelt with an “ass” at the end. With your choice, other than phone or bone or cone there isn’t a lot to go on. You could go the other way though and write it as prose with just the tune to give it a rhyming feel. Just think of the “Big Yellow Taxi” song, there are word rhymes there, but also a part in the chorus where nothing rhymes.”

So, on the way home, I hummed the tune I had, and we rewrote the words to “Lower the Tone” to include those three words in the chorus and going down other paths in the verses. I wrote it down as we laughed and created something out of very little.

As it grew, it threw up characters that needed to be explored, servants, hangers-on, gentry, and crooks. We let our imagination run riot. Sharron would give me a line or two and I found a tune, jotting down the basic notes, and then we expanded on it. By the time we landed we had the bones of an album which I would call “Postcode Personalities”.

That had to wait until the following year, though, as we had Christmas and New Year to get through again. It was a quieter affair than previous ones; my folks stayed in Florida and sent cards and presents by mail.

Martyn had packed all their things and headed south to re-join Maureen and it was just Pet and Anton that came around for Christmas lunch. Of course, with Alicia and Brad joining us as well, and now four children in the house, there were plenty of gifts and a full dining table. Josie, Sharron, Carol, and I had organized the food and Jordan and Tony had worked on the drinks and decorations, so it made things very easy on everyone.

As we sat around after lunch, watching over the little ones as they played with their gifts, Josie and I spoke to Brad about the changes we were planning. The first would be another extension on the stable, this time to the apartment. Josie had agreed that she and Tony could move into it now, but it needed two extra rooms for the twins and a bigger bathroom. I said that if we were doing that, a dedicated farm office with outside access may be an advantage, and Brad jotted down some plans which we told him to run with.

The other thing was another extension to the house to improve the size and modernize the kitchen and dining area which he said was easy, given how well built the house was. The third was the accommodation block and I gave him a list of things I wanted it to do and left him to design and work out the best place for it.

Between Christmas and New Year, I spent a bit of time with Sharron, going through her opus and pulling out twelve sections that encompassed the world view of a teenager learning to be a girl. I almost had the tunes flow as I read them through.

After the New Year everyone went back to their jobs. The old vet had left us an extra gift before he retired. He was an accredited examiner and had put in the paperwork for Sharron Rafferty to be listed as a qualified vet in the state.

Carol also got the paperwork for a qualified veterinarian assistant which they both framed to put on the wall. Jordan and Sharron were now both fully accredited and business started to pick up.

Tony had a master to work on for a couple of weeks, and that suited me just fine. I spent that time in the rehearsal room working on a whole bunch of songs which seemed to pour out of me.

From the middle of January to the end of February I was in the studio and recording one song after another. I did the twelve songs of “Sharron– A Girl on a Journey”, first with me multi-tracking with the three instruments. We then got the others in to add more backing on the days they came by to work on our new set.

The other set of songs were pared back with just me on piano or guitar, and sometimes both. It became “Postcode Personalities” as a purely Edweena Sanders album. Both albums listed the songwriters as “Egg and Chips” and Sharron signed on with Allan as a songwriter in her own right. We then started looking through the rest of her writing, especially the early poems when she was totally conflicted.

Abigail went to the Grammys and won her personal award, but the album was pipped on the line.

Pet was now deep into the words as well and, together, we came up with enough songs for a new Sisters album which we hoped to have time to record after the summer of playing.

Before that, however, we had the new look set to finalize and the other girls were at the farm almost every day during the first few weeks of March, leaving me a couple of weeks to get up to speed with my first piano concert. The orchestra in San Francisco wanted me to do the Chopin Piano Concerto Number One, something I had played around with many years ago.

We had the orchestra tape which I could use so I had a week playing it on the concert grand in the studio with Tony manning the controls. It took several days before I was happy enough to allow him to record the result and we then sent a CD down to the orchestra to listen to. I did it several more times before I was totally happy with it.

Quite a lot of the time I had Ali and her teacher watching as I played. One day, when I’d finished, Ali whispered. “Mommy; that’s what I want to do, if you’ll let me,” and I told her that I would move heaven and earth to grant her that wish.

Alicia was getting better with every passing day. Not only with her piano playing. Her general knowledge was getting better as well. When she wasn’t playing, she was reading and had just about gone through every story book in the house, even the adult ones.

She could talk to you, and you would think that you were speaking to an early teen if you closed your eyes. It was very spooky at times. Not only that, but she also had another growth spurt and was now in clothes for a girl a year or so older than she was.

I was going into the city with her and buying her new things on a regular basis and one salesgirl asked her how she was enjoying school. Her teacher and I decided that it was time for her to move onto the tiny grand. The toy piano and the thin key one were transported to the rehearsal room and put into a corner.

On the first week of April, I was flying with Ali and Veronica, her piano teacher, heading for San Francisco. Veronica had now dedicated all her time to Alicia because, as she said, she knew that this child would grow up to be one of the best and that she could no longer split her time with other pupils. I put her on my payroll full-time so that she could devote herself to her chosen task. Ali was very happy to have her around all the time and confided to me one day that Auntie Vonnie was very nice.

The piano concert was good; the orchestra had a nice first half and I did the Chopin for the second half plus a couple of the nocturnes as encores. We flew home Monday and I needed to start work on my next concert piece.

The Swiss orchestra wanted me to do the Beethoven First in Berne. I had played around with “The Emperor” quite a bit when I was younger so was happy with it before we flew back to San Francisco with the rest of the band Thursday afternoon.

Our stage gear had gone earlier by container and there were already several our people who had gone down earlier in the week. We were now starting to collect a paid retinue, mainly dressers, make-up and stagehands who would make sure we didn’t have to heave our now larger amps around as the venues began to increase in size. The European tour would be, Allan told us, in bigger venues than the previous year. Most of the ones in the US would be bigger as well.

The new set went very well. We started off with quieter songs, duets with me and Abigail, others for her alone from the album, and then into our Sisters hits and some of the newer ones we were developing. I spent most of my time on the piano with Emily beside me on a much more elaborate keyboard with a huge range of sounds.

Pet was now full-time on an electric violin and had her own set of foot controls she could use to alter her sound. I particularly liked the pedals that multiplied the feed to make her sound like a whole string section, something that really helped with the Abigail numbers.

Janet was back on a full standard drum kit which was fitted with microphones and Joyce was revelling in having a big amp behind her. She had started using a range of guitars during the show to alter the sound as we moved from song to song.

On a few of the more rocking numbers I picked up a guitar and we swapped riffs. All in all, we now sounded like a proper pop group at times and the audience loved it.

For this first outing of the year, we shut down the clinic for the weekend and any calls were transferred. We had a big group join us on the Saturday morning. Josie and Tony had organized a weekend babysitter for the twins and Tabitha, so it was them, Jordan, Sharron and Carol, Veronica and Ali, Allan and Helen that joined us from the farm as well as Anton, Matty, Ian, Colin, and Matt to give us all the support we wanted.

We had already done a Friday show, but Saturday and Sunday were extra special with our “family” in the audience. We could see, on almost every night, patches of Swans out there. Sharron wore her own pastel dress with pride while Pet and I had our brooches on.

On Sunday morning we had a visit from Dianne and her committee. The album had been finalized with just a picture of a swan and cygnets on the front and one of me and Sharron on the back. It was in the shops and a crate of them had been sent to Dianne for distribution through the website.

They all gave all of us hugs and then, as a real surprise, they gave Sharron her own jewelled brooch to wear as a token of their appreciation of the heartfelt words in the songs. Sharron just collapsed into tears, and it took hugs from everyone to get her back to the point where she could speak. She then thanked us all for making her life mean something truly positive.

The Sunday night we finished the evening with “Ability” and dedicated it to all the Swans in the audience. Pet said, in the announcement, that if there were any younger ones in the audience who felt conflicted, there was a website which had links to help them.

We all went back home on the Monday morning, leaving everything for our support crew to relocate to Las Vegas where our one-week stint had now been extended to ten days. That was in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, we were back rehearsing with Pet and I working on our solo concerts for Europe. We also had to make sure we were happy with the full band show in London. This would be a recreation of the one in New York so would be a little out of date in terms of content, but we would also be playing our new set in another venue as well.

I spent some time with the “Emperor” while Pet mastered the Beethoven Fourth in D Major, Opus 61 which she would play in Vienna.

Joyce and I did get a little time to run through the Rodrigo which we would be playing in Toronto in the middle of November.

The middle of May saw the Sisters in Las Vegas, playing in one of the bigger halls to lots of people, over a period of ten days, and ten concerts, one after another. By the time we had finished the stint we could do the set in our sleep, but it paid well.

We sold lots of our merchandise as well as a range of Swan merchandise we now had on hand. There was the CD, the feather brooch and even a range of pastel tops with the feather embroidered on them, all supplied by Dianne and her very dedicated group. Everything was bar coded so we passed on all those sales to the Cygnet Foundation. We also gave away lots of leaflets that explained the Swans and the reason behind the Cygnet Foundation.

We had a bit over a week back home before we were off again to Oklahoma City, Orlando, and then Baltimore, which took us toward the end of June. It was very easy for us as we just had ourselves to look after. All the kit, the stage outfits and our instruments for the shows were now part of a dedicated package handled by our road crew.

Our own guitars, violins and drums stayed at home. The local music store had come good on their promise and was happy to supply our stage stuff which had their decals on. After Baltimore it all went into a container bound for Edinburgh.

Over the year so far, Veronica had been working with Alicia on the tiny grand which really wasn’t that tiny. It was now all right for her bigger hands and longer fingers, but she did have to learn to stretch her fingers wider after playing the thin key piano.

I had the two of them come to most shows for one night, at least, so that Ali could appreciate just how much work went into being a performer. With Sharron at home now I also had the company of Jordan a lot more while I was away.

By the time we headed for the UK, the stable extension was very close to being ready and the foundation for the new accommodation block had been poured with the framework up. Brad told me that the kitchen would wait until we could use the one in the new block for a few weeks.

I had gone to Boston to see Kelly and talk about what she wanted for the concert in September. She had picked up on the double piano idea and wanted Emily and I to play the Mendelssohn in A Flat Major which is a hefty piece. While I was there, I rang Emily, and we discussed it.

Kelly asked me what we would do for an encore, and I let her into something that was in my mind as a present for Alicia, as the concert would be within days of her birthday. Kelly was shocked at what I suggested and then told me that Algernon would fund the whole concert so what I asked may well be possible. Back home I had a long talk with Ali and Veronica. Ali was, at first, worried but then said she would work hard to deserve the gift I was offering.

Then we were off to the UK. The first three shows would be just us and our support group, with Jordan and the other guys coming over for our London show, and the big night at the Proms. Then we went off for our solo concerts, and the Sisters in Berne, Berlin, and Paris.

The UK shows were a real blast. The audience had got on board the Sisters Express once the albums had charted in Europe, and the shows were well attended. The promoters had put on luxury coaches for us and the rest of our crowd. The kit went by truck as we went from Scotland down to Manchester, and then to the south coast to Southampton.

It was lovely travelling through the British countryside with the ability to call for a stop whenever we got somewhere interesting. Our driver turned out to be usually a tour driver so knew all the best spots and detours, so it was almost like a holiday broken up with days of playing.

Our Sisters concerts were at big football grounds often used for musical shows so everyone there had “been there and done that” many times. The setting up was slick; the atmosphere was great and the crowds huge. I really believe that they were some of the noisiest audiences we ever had.

They loved Abigail every night and we extended her part at the beginning of the show and went later than expected. The reviews picked up on that and said that we certainly gave value for the money. They said much the same after we had recreated our New York show as a “Night at the Proms”. Those British sure liked a good night out and we had a few of them ourselves at the after-show parties, meeting many U.K. based actors and singers.

After the London show our equipment was on its way to Berne while I followed it to play piano, and Pet flew to Vienna to do her violin solo. The others played tourist while we worked.

She was playing the Beethoven Opus 61 while I was playing the Beethoven “Emperor” and, from the reviews that I saw later, we both nailed them and further cemented our places as concert soloists.

The shows in Berne were good and we were then back in Berlin. It didn’t seem like a whole year since we were there last, and the fans flocked to the shows as if we had been away for a decade.

Allan flew over to see us in Berlin and Paris and was going to fly back with us. While were sitting in the hotel lounge in Berlin, he, and I, got a couple of shocks.

Pet asked him if he could hold off on any Sisters shows the following year because she now knew she was pregnant and would be marrying Anton after the Milwaukee show in October.

That time before this tour must have had something in the water because Janet then told us that she and Colin would be going down the aisle as well, and that she was also pregnant. That meant that May would now see two new mini sisters in the world.

Make that three because Abigail spoke up then and told us that she and Matthew had spoken about an early November wedding, and that she had missed two periods as well.

Marianne Gregory © 2023