Hello again, this is Rex Franklin,
bringing you all up to date with the happenings of Noelene and myself.
We visited NELSON in late July, in
particular, our son Terry, and his partner Cheryl, butI I did take the
opportunity to take in the MOTUEKA COUNTRY MUSIC CLUB, on their Club Day
at the Riwaka Hall, Noelene stayed in Nelson at our base, as she was not
feeling "on top of the world".
I was pleased to meet with some of our
followers, some of whom remembered us when we used to sing on a regular basis
at the RIWAKA PUB, (I later wrote a song about that, and recorded it) and THE
SWAN HOTEL, back in the 70s.
Nice people I met, included KAREN PRICE,
BILL AND KAY PRIMMER , PAT AND EDDIE BONGERS, RAY
WOODLEY, and his daughter LETICIA. Ray is a relative newcomer to
entertaining, but he does a pretty good job. LETICIA
proved to be a very good exponent of the acoustic guitar. We
had a short demonstration of her talent outside the hall. Inside,
on stage, she sang a couple of songs, and she has talent vocally, too.
Caught up with BRIAN AND JEAN POPE, and
TREVOR WILSON, also made some new friends in ALAN AND MARGARET HIGGS, and
GRAEME AND LYNETTE RUSH.
Later in the week, Noelene and I were
the guests of Alan and Margaret, at their home out at THE GLEN, where we
enjoyed a scrumptious meal, and had a good old Country Music singalong/concert
in the lounge.
We were joined by JIM AND LINDA CARRICK,
DICK KNIGHT, LYNETTE AND GRAEME RUSH, PHIL AND BARBARA STEANS, (Phil has a
very nice voice) ROSS FENEMORE, and his good lady, and we had a ball.
They gave us a very good Nelson welcome,
and we hope to return for a big Country Music occasion in the next few months.
One of our more important dates in
August, was at the HAWKES BAY COUNTRY MUSIC CLUB in Hastings, followed by us
being guest artists at the HASTINGS RSA, and that was a really good day all
round.
Among the artists supporting us, were
IVAN BURKIN, BOB JURY, BOB BASSETT (Bob sang with us on our Country Singalong
LP in the mid 60s) LIZ GREEN, MIKE CONROY, MARY EVANS, JUDY
COOK, JENNY GORDON, JIMMY ELLWOOD, ANN SHARMAN,
RAYMOND JOHNSTON, RAE CARTON, LYN AND BRIAN BURKIN, LAWRIE BUTLER, and
DOUG RYDER.
Nice to see and hear Doug again, after a
long time, Doug took my place in the RUAHINE RAMBLERS, back in
about 1954, when I left the group, to pair up with Noelene. ( It is Doug
singing on that group's 78s released on HMV)
The backing band was very good, and they
consisted of ALAN GREENWOOD, pedal steel, IAN THOMSON, rhythm guitar, STU REA,
bass guitar, RAYMOND JOHNSTON, drums, and RETI REWI on lead guitar, and boy
can he play!
Special thanks go to MARGARET and LAWRIE for
asking us down there, we did appreciate our time in Hawkes Bay.
Some CDs you need to check out, from
some of our Nelson friends, include GRAEME PICKS AND SINGS, by GRAEME
RUSH, OUR TIME, by JIM AND LINDA CARRICK, GHOSTS OF THE LYELL, by
DICK KNIGHT, and A MOTHER SO TRUE, by PHILIP STEANS.
an email to Graeme, at < gandlrush@xtra.co.nz
> will answer any queries about these discs.
Time to move on. Until the
next time , yours in Country Music,
