WOW

I took part in a very special event tonight - a benefit concert for Women of Wonder (WOW), women living with stage 4 cancers. My music partner Gwen and I were one of three acts.

First up was Chicamarimba, an all-woman marimba band - and they are sizzling hot! They've been playing together for 12 years. If you've ever heard marimba music, you know you can't sit still while listening, and you can't be in a bad mood for long either! Most marimba music comes from Zimbabwe and it's such feel-good music and full of high energy.

Gwen and I did a short set - it wasn't our best performance, we're really out of practice! But it was still fun and felt good to sing with her. Our voices are so in sync, it's like a hand in glove. We're in tune psychically too - finish each other's sentences, or one knows what the other is thinking or we can start singing together in the same place without even talking about it. It's pretty magical, and a friendship like that comes along once in a lifetime, if you're lucky.

The headliners were these two, Nan and Kathleen accompanied by Crystal on fiddle, mandolin (and whatever else was within reach! - she's an amazing musician). Nan and Kathleen have sung together for more than 30 years and are also part of a women's band called Motherlode. They're terrific singers, songwriters and instrumentalists with tender hearts and great humor. This song was about two lovers who are so awful that they could only belong to each other - and are doing the world a favor by keeping each other out of the dating pool! Funny stuff, made even funnier by their rendition of co-dependent guitar playing.

The producer of the concert spoke before the show and told us that since their group started 5 years ago, they've lost 67 women to cancer. A sobering number. But it was a wonderful evening full of laughter and tears and honoring the women who fight so valiantly against this nasty disease. And acknowledging the community that supports them.