Penny Menze: Blog

It's interesting you know.  All my life I thought I was pursuing "a dream".  I wanted to be a singer.  I got to Nashville and realized a true country artist is a singer/songwriter.   I have been told this throughout my life, but had to figure it out for myself.  I worked hard at singing and figuring out how to be in bands, how to talk in a mike and work a crowd.  I was told I needed to be a show person, like Barbara Mandrell.  I tried cordless mikes, running around the club and singing and dancing with people while I was singing.  I would throw the mike in the air and catch it..... this wasn't me and I didn't really enjoy it.   I made a living playing music singing cover tunes for 20 years.  I've been playing music professionally (getting paid to do it) for 33 years now, and this year I feel like I have just begun.  I have a strong desire now to write.  To get what is in me...out, and I want to sing about it, because [...]

As I published my last Blog post.... the classic country cable station started playing "Pure Love".  This is a Ronnie Milsap day.

As I started typing this Blog... the classic country cable station started playing "I'd Be A Legend In My Time".  This Ronnie Milsap song came out in 1974.  I would have been in 4th grade at that time, and I was an avid listener of country radio.  I had a little pea green square hand held transister radio, that stayed on a country radio station.  Growing up in Tempe, AZ, I was country when country wasn't cool (as Barbara Mandrell would say).  In my neighborhood (in my teens) I was cut down by the other kids, for listening to country music.  I tried and tried, but I didn't like their music as much as I liked mine.  I never understood why these people didn't like country and why I couldn't relate to their music, that they liked so much.  When I was 14 I started learning as many songs off the radio as I could.  These songs were my friends.
I had the oppurtunity to meet and talk with Ronnie Milsap and his wife Joyce and their bandleader, [...]

Phewww....  it's a disaster when it snows here.  We have 3 snow plows and 2 are usually broke down :)   When there is a hint of snow coming, the grocery stores are packed. Everyone is getting their milk and bread.  I wasn't aware it was going to snow yesterday, like it did, so I wasn't too worried about milk.  Everywhere I went, people asked me if I got my milk and bread because the snow was coming.  I never did go get the milk and bread, but I do have four wheel drive, for the one time you need it.  Cars and trucks couldn't get up hills and off ramps.  It was a disaster.  Sure is beautiful out there today.  A blanket of fresh snow.  The sun is out and hardly no cars on the road...because they are on the side of the road.