Steel City Sound just completed performances for the 2013 Artists Music Guild and Heritage Awards Show in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Thursday, November 7, Steel City Sound made their first public debut with “Old Time Religion” and “What Love Is This?” in the artists showcase. Everyone loved it! We then split off into two groups to work with students from local schools. Tammy, Peggy and Jessica worked with the Sterling Elementary School 4th-5th grade choir students from Pineville, South Carolina while the rest of us worked with the Northwest School of the Arts Jazz Band from Charlotte, North Carolina. Both groups were sensational and pleasure to work with. We prepared them for special performances of “The Twist” for the Saturday night Heritage Awards Show. On Thursday evening, we were asked if we could chart out an arrangement for Chubby Checker so that we could perform his new single “Changes” at the Heritage Awards Show. Several musicians from Steel City Sound and the Artists Music Guild stayed up to about 1:30 AM assisting.
Friday, November 8, was a full day of rehearsals with various performing artists for the Heritage Awards Show on Saturday. We rehearsed with new and upcoming young artists like: Mikayla Lynn, Isaac Cole, Tommy Brandt II, Charee White, Hunter Cook, Abby Paskvan, and Ashley Yoder. Later in the day we rehearsed with Chubby Checker on his new single “Changes”. Wow! This chart turned out great. Chubby was such a pleasure to work with. His manager Gary Lefkowith was a great help working with the band. To close out the day, we had a late night rehearsal with Dee Dee Sharp on an arrangement of the Beatles song “The Long and Winding Road”. This was a secret performance for Saturday night’s award show in which Chubby was being presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Chubby didn’t know that Dee Dee was going to be there to present him with the award. Little did Dee Dee know that she would be receiving one as well.
Saturday, November 9, followed with more rehearsals in the morning with Dylan Arms (former American Idol), Christy Sutherland, David Meece, Jesse Cann, Richard Kiser and Chubby Checker. At 6:45 PM, the AMG Heritage Awards started. What a great night it was performing with all of these artists. We finished the night with an after party and packed up our gear for pick-up the next morning.
If you didn’t make it this year, I encourage you to put it on your calendar for next year. It gets better every year and the guild is growing. Can’t wait to see what happens next year!