It is my granddaughter, Danica's love of music that got me into the music business. Danica stopped by for a visit, one day and heard me singing along to a gospel song (The Gaither group was singing "I Saw The Light") on TV and at 4 years of age she picked the song apart, wanted to know the meaning behind every line and word they used, she knew at that young age there was deeper meaning to what was being said. Then every time Danica and her two sisters Erica and Layla came over they would ask me to sing more songs. I soon ran out of tapes. to play. So six years ago I bought a guitar and two books on how to play, "Guitars for Dummies" and "Country and Blues Guitar for the Musically hopeless". (I figured that was me) I taught myself to play so I would not run out of songs to sing. I started practicing an hour a day, just so I would have new songs for when Danica and her sisters would come over for visits.
The neat part of this that. for over 10 years I had to carry a 26 lb. tank of Oxygen with me, every where I went. This was due to an allergic reaction that left my lungs damaged. I was on the oxygen part time, but it always had to be with me.
As a result of practicing an hour a day with my music. My lungs became stronger to the point that, for the past six years, I no longer need the tanks. And have been 100% off the O2
I use to call my granddaughters my Baby Girls now the are all called my Special Angels
specialize in nursing homes working at over 60 homes within a 75 mile radius of my home town of Clinton, Ia.
I get some really great responses from the residents, that make it special. There are two that I remember the most.
First one was when I was part way into a show, I see one of the aids pointing at a guy walking down the hall. Soon every aid and nurse was also pointing in surprise at the gentleman. After the show I asked what was going on, and was told that they had tried for weeks to get this guy out of his bed and out of his room. But, he always refused saying he did not feel up to walking . When he heard my music he told his wife he wanted to hear it better , she told him the only way to do that was to get out of bed, so he did.
The other one that is a favorite of mine, was when a lady probably in her late 80s pushed another woman up to me in a wheel chair. The lady doing the pushing said :This is my sister she just turned 100 years old. She then said that I had her sister , tapping her toes, clapping her hands and smiling all at the same time And added that she had not seen her sister do any one of those things in years. The neat part was that while we where talking her sister was looking up at me with a big smile and clapping her hands, to let me know she had a good time.
Marty Robbins, and The Bill Gaither Vocal Band
I play a Stamich 12 string acoustic-electric guitar, For our PA system we use a ,Peavey 6 channel mixer, with 2 , Peavey 12â쳌 speakers, and 2 Peavey Impulse monitors. For mics, 2 Audio-technica wireless mic systems and also have Audio-technica wireless system for my guitar. I use a computer program called, Band-In-A-Box which makes it sound like we have a full band. All of the music on our songs here are produced with this program.
