Frye Gaillard and Anne E DeChant will bring their multi-media show Watermelon Wine: The Poetry of Americana Music to Charles and Myrtle's Coffeehouse on Saturday, April 15, at 8 p.m. The coffeehouse is at 105 McBrien Road. There is a $10 suggested donation at the door.
Review for Frye Gaillard and Anne E. DeChant:
In his award-winning book, “Watermelon Wine,” Gaillard maintains that great songwriters, like DeChant, explore the depths of the human heart with all the subtlety and feeling of our finest novelists and poets.
DeChant's CD “The Sun Coming In,” has charted in the top 10 on multiple Roots Music Report charts including a #1 on the “Alternative Folk Song Chart” and a #6 on the Top 50 Ohio Album Chart. This past summer DeChant opened for Melissa Etheridge at Cain Park in Cleveland and wrote, recorded and performed the theme song for the 2016 Transplant Games of Cleveland.
Anne E. DeChant first caught the attention of music fans as the charismatic front woman of Cleveland's Odd Girl Out, showcasing her astute, socially aware songs. Following the band's breakup, she went on to a busy solo career, producing seven albums. The title track from her 2007 release, "Girls and Airplanes" was featured in the film, “The Hot Flashes”, starring Brooke Shields and Wanda Sykes and in the 2013 documentary, “The Vetters, All We Needed.” She last performed in Johnson City at The Acoustic Coffeehouse in August of 2015.
Frye Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama, and recipient of the 2016 Eugene Current-Garcia Distinguished Scholar Award, has written extensively on southern race relations, politics and culture. He is former Southern Editor at The Charlotte Observer, where he covered Charlotte’s landmark school desegregation controversy, the ill-fated ministry of televangelist Jim Bakker, the funeral of Elvis Presley, and the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Gaillard has written or edited more than 20 books, and his award-winning titles include the following: Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina; Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music; If I Were a Carpenter: Twenty Years of Habitat for Humanity; Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy; and As Long As the Waters Flow: Native Americans in the South and East.
Gaillard now lives on the Alabama Gulf Coast with his wife, Nancy, who teaches in the College of Education at the University of South Alabama.
More information may be found at http://www.anneedechant.com, http://anneedechant.com/watermelon-wine-and-the-poetry-of-americana-music and http://fryegaillard-about.blogspot.com/.