ONE MAN BAND NEAR ME FREE

We were playing one up here the other day, I was playing The Beach Boys and I look down the street and thereвЂ™s some lady a block away down in front of her house dancing (laughs). Get out, sit out, listen to the music we love. WeвЂ™ve been stuck indoors not doing stuff. The one thing that people have said most is this was like a breath of fresh air in a bad time. Because while IвЂ™m playing, DurindaвЂ™s out talking to them. We know some of the people in the crowd, and weвЂ™ve met so many new people, though, through this. WeвЂ™ve just been overwhelmed with the positive response weвЂ™ve got. I tell people, I say, usually I get a request for this about 11 oвЂ™clock at night after everybodyвЂ™s been at the bar a long time and they think they can sing, that kind of thing (laughs). I usually finish it up with вЂњSweet CarolineвЂќ because people always like to sing to that one. ItвЂ™s Beatles, itвЂ™s Elvis, itвЂ™s Buddy Holly, the Bee Gees and The Beach Boys, all of that. This is the same thing, except this music seems to have persevered longer than a lot of it. You know how youвЂ™ll always know the music of your high school, college years. This is music where people I would say between the ages of 60 and 80 right now, was their high school, college, music. I do some songs that people typically like to sing along with. Sometimes people have it in their backyard. Depending on the setup, we set up at the base of a cul-de-sac. And the people set up out in the yard, some across the street, some down a couple of houses. Sometimes we set up in somebodyвЂ™s actual driveway, or by their garage. Up as far as Maryville, Missouri, Liberty, Kansas City, Missouri. WeвЂ™ve been doing them in town - Prairie Village, Overland Park, Mission Hills, Olathe, Lawrence, Lenexa, about everywhere. WeвЂ™ve got a lot of people who are now doing this for a second time already. WeвЂ™re getting calls almost every day from people who want to do it. So we just started doing that, and it just kept growing and growing. So with our daughter Meridith here live-streaming it, we had lots of people that were making comments as it was going on and sending me messages and notes and things about would you want to come to my neighborhood? I live in Florida, would you want to come down here? So on and so forth. I play guitar, I sing, and I also use some back tracks. And people were able to safe distance.ДЄnd we had so many positive comments about it, people were talking to their neighbors and being able to be out of their houses and had such a good time, we did another one, and with the same results. We played for a couple of hours out there. I tell people, this is the most fun IвЂ™ve ever had doing music, what weвЂ™re doing right now.ДЄt the suggestion of a neighbor, we set out my equipment in our own driveway and invited all the neighbors, they invited some friends. They have three adult children - a son and twin daughters - three granddaughters and one granddog. He spends much of his time playing music and spending time with family. They specialized in long-term care insurance and now consider themselves semi-retired. Eventually, he branched off with his wife for their own insurance agency, Senior Benefits Consultants Inc., in 1990.

Ashley plans to play elsewhere in Kansas and Missouri as well as Iowa, Illinois, Colorado and Wyoming.Д«orn in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in Chanute, Ashley earned a psychology degree at the University of Kansas and led a career in insurance.

ONE MAN BAND NEAR ME FREE

TheyвЂ™ve had about 35 total and another 20 scheduled - all free of charge. That first concert at the end of March drew such a big crowd in his neighborhood and вЂњwent bacterialвЂќ (not quite viral, he joked) on Facebook, that now he and his wife of 50 years, Durinda Ashley, started taking requests for more concerts. So, at the suggestion of a neighbor, Ashley started playing songs in his driveway. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and life ground to a halt. Some of those gigs are in Nashville, where his daughters live. He particularly enjoys playing cover songs from the 1950s and вЂ60s and has performed in dozens (if not hundreds) of gigs in his lifetime: In cafes and bars, for Sunday school music, live entertainment for dances, parties, showcases, charities. Two of those local bands include The Fibrons as well as Zero and the Positives. When he taught himself to play guitar, he started playing in a variety of bands in his college days and later on. Mike Ashley has been playing music since 1960, at first piano, saxophone and clarinet.

One man band near me