Lindalou and Michael Ryge

It’s April already and it’s pouring sideways here at our house today. Yesterday I enjoyed working in the garden in the sunshine, but the day before we had almost blizzard conditions, by Northern California standards, turning the forest around our house completely white. The beautiful snow stuck around for several hours before it started raining again and melted it all quickly.

So far this year, we’ve mostly been playing our music in retirement homes and care facilities. We used to volunteer to do that from time to time, but now they actually call and offer to hire us. Some of them have us come on a regular basis. It’s so rewarding to see how the music effects people who may not even be able to do much anymore but sit there in their wheelchairs. Some of them can’t speak or communicate but the music perks them right up and really seems to get through to them. It makes folks smile and sometimes they sort of dance in their chairs. Feels good!

We do have a couple of public gigs coming up this month where we hope to see some of your familiar faces!

April 17th  2:00 to 3:30pm  At Pioneer Park in Calistoga,
we’ll be playing with the 3 D’s (no glasses required) Dan Brunetti, David Chapman and Duncan Draper.
This is for a part of  Calistoga’s Community week long Earth Day Celebration.

April 24th 7:30 to 10pm  At Calistoga’s Napa County Fairgrounds,
Also with the 3 D’s. This will be our 2nd annual Mountain Volunteer Fire Department fund raiser dinner.
We’re honored they’ve asked us to be their regular Fire House Band! This fund raiser is a great Italian Dinner and auction. It’s had a bigger turn out every year, so they’ve moved it to a larger venue in the Tubbs building. We don’t generally play much Italian music…but we learned a few songs for the occasion last year, which we’re dusting off again. Last year we had a great response and had folks dancing after dinner. If you’d like more information, or if you’d like to buy tickets for this worthy cause, please call Jan at 707-942-5002.

We hope 2010 has been going well for you all so far. We’re doing our best here to keep making music while figuring out how to pay the bills! If you or anyone you know needs music for a wedding, party, memorial service, or any kind of event please pass on our info. We’re also putting the word out that we’re available for elder care, helping folks with all kinds of things they just can’t do on their own anymore. We don’t have professional training for this but have had plenty of hands on experience with our own loved ones and old friends. Please keep us in mind if there’s a need for this kind of help. Thanks!

Many of you have seen this, but I’m posting the link again to the video of my dear old Dad, who we really miss.  We video taped him singing just one week before he died last November. He would love to know people are enjoying this gift he left us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy8n8We5HY

If you didn’t get a chance to watch this before, it’s only about 3 minutes long and you can see my Dad’s sweet smile. Enjoy!

Have a wonderful Spring!
Love, Lindalou and Michael

Greetings all,
Is it getting too late to wish you all a Happy New Year?… 2009 was a bit rough for much of the world and we have hopes that 2010 will be better for all of us…It’s gotten off to a rough start for many though. Our hearts go out to the people of Haiti who seriously need a break from all the heartache.

We wanted to thank everyone who responded to our last music newsletter. We had an overwhelming response to the news of my Dad’s passing and an especially positive response to the video we took of him singing one week before he died. When my sister Jeanette posted it on youtube we had no idea how many people would be touched by it.  The countless cards and emails with heartfelt condolences have been very comforting. We’ve tried to respond to many of them individually, but haven’t managed to keep up with them all. If you haven’t heard back from us please know we appreciate your kind words! If you didn’t get a chance to click the link before and wonder what I’m talking about, here it is again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy8n8We5HY

We’ve been playing music as much as we can between the more mundane jobs:-) We’ve played at several wonderful parties, and we’re also playing for appreciative elderly folks in assisted living/ care facilities. We’re lining up some regular gigs like this and it’s rewarding to make ‘em smile, tap their toes and many of them love to sing along. We’re excited about the next one we’ll be playing in the auditorium at the Redwoods Retirement home in Mill Valley. This is a private concert for the residents and their families, but it’s a small auditorium where Pete Seeger played recently.  Joan Baez played a private concert there for the residents this month. So we’re honored to be asked to play there on the same stage as some of our musical heros! A hard act to follow… but we’ve been practicing up a lot of old familiar folk songs and we get a good response to the occasional original songs we play for them as well.

We don’t have any public gigs lined up right now, except a series of Farmer’s Markets beginning in May, but we wanted to send you all greetings anyway. If you or anyone you know might be looking for music for any event, we’re available for weddings, parties, house concerts, even memorial services…which we’ve been playing for loved ones as well as complete strangers more and more often it seems.

We hope all of you are well and enjoying the new year so far.
We love hearing from any of you who might actually read this! Thanks again for all your kind messages last month.
Wishing you all the best in 2010!
Peace and Love,
Lindalou and Michael