AADL Talks To: The Chenille Sisters

Fri, 01/12/2024 - 3:31pm

When: December 15, 2022

In this episode, AADL Talks To The Chenille Sisters, Ann Arbor's favorite harmonizing trio. They are (left to right, below) Cheryl Dawdy, Grace Morand, and Connie Huber. The Chenille Sisters began singing together at Ann Arbor's Old Town Tavern in 1985. Within a year, they made their first of several appearances on Garrison Keillor’s popular “A Prairie Home Companion” radio program. The trio wrote and toured constantly through the early 2000s, appeared in numerous regional and national venues, and recorded 12 records.

Visit our Chenille Sisters topic portal for more information, documents, and photos covering their history.

Transcript

• [00:00:10] EMILY MURPHY: [MUSIC] Hi, I'm Emily.
• [00:00:11] AMY CANTU: This is Amy, and today AADL talks to the Chenille Sisters, Ann Arbor's beloved singing trio, famous for their humor and harmonies, and many years of entertaining adults and children alike. They are Cheryl Dawdy, Connie Huber, and Grace Morand. Before we get started, to give the audience a chance to have a voice that they can identify with, we thought we would just start with asking you to each go through and just say one thing about yourself, and maybe a musical influence from your past.
• [00:00:45] EMILY MURPHY: And say your name as well.
• [00:00:47] CHERYL DAWDY: You're looking at me.
• [00:00:49] AMY CANTU: I'm looking at you [LAUGHTER]
• [00:00:51] CHERYL DAWDY: I'm Cheryl Dawdy. Musical influence was Joni Mitchell. That's how I started singing. I loved her music, I imitated her voice. I learned all her songs, and that's how I started.
• [00:01:08] GRACE MORAND: I'm Grace Morand. I did a lot of musical theater in high school and college and choir singing. I really think I was singing pretty much out of the womb [LAUGHTER] I'm the girl in the middle, [LAUGHTER] who wears hats. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:01:26] CONNIE HUBER: I'm Connie Huber. My dad was very musical, and I enjoyed playing with him. In fact, he bought my mom a snare drum for Valentine's Day. We had a family band, and it was a lot of fun. So I grew up in a musical family, and I think Joni Mitchell has been an inspiration for everyone in the world, of course. But I just loved that kind of music and that kind of thing.
• [00:01:56] GRACE MORAND: I think we had the advantage of growing up in a time when harmony singing was in pop music, like the Beatles and Crosby, Stills Nash, and Young. We were hearing that in pop in our growing up years too. Then we got very interested in earlier harmony like the Boswell Sisters and the Andrew Sisters. Harmony really is the whole thing that we do. We've all been real fascinated with that.
• [00:02:25] CONNIE HUBER: Someone was saying, recently, I read it and I thought, man, that's true. It's that, music, popular music now, a lot of it, doesn't even have a bridge anymore, if you guys know what a bridge is. It's like there's no chorus to sing along with.
• [00:02:40] GRACE MORAND: It's just a beat.
• [00:02:42] CONNIE HUBER: It's a beat. Nothing against rap. I mean, I think that's pretty cool. But it's just that we grew up where a song goes like this.
• [00:02:51] CHERYL DAWDY: It would often tell a story too or some confession or feeling, emotion.
• [00:02:58] CONNIE HUBER: You can tell we're '70s girls.
• [00:03:00] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah [LAUGHTER]
• [00:03:02] GRACE MORAND: Not in our '70s [LAUGHTER] Yet.
• [00:03:07] CHERYL DAWDY: Oh, we're close [LAUGHTER]
• [00:03:10] EMILY MURPHY: Well, I would love to hear about the old town days. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was that where you originally connected as a trio?
• [00:03:18] GRACE MORAND: That is, yeah.
• [00:03:20] CONNIE HUBER: Grace, why don't you tell it, because you were instrumental in that.
• [00:03:22] GRACE MORAND: Well, I was tending bar there, so I had the inside. Then Connie and I were in a little band together, and we would play next door at Mr. Flood's.
• [00:03:33] CHERYL DAWDY: I was their biggest fan. I was.
• [00:03:35] GRACE MORAND: Cheryl was there every week, and we knew Cheryl was a singer, and we asked her if she would come and learn a song with us. It was "Respect." I got to be Aretha and Connie and Cheryl were the "re re re" girls [LAUGHTER] We just had so much fun, and then we started learning more and more, and pretty soon we would ask the band, we'd say, go have a beer, and just pull Cheryl up, and we turned it into the Chenille Sisters show. We asked the owner of the old town if we could sing there. They weren't even having music there at that time. There hadn't been.
• [00:04:06] CONNIE HUBER: Well, they had the Sunday night jam.
• [00:04:08] GRACE MORAND: Yes, they did.
• [00:04:08] CONNIE HUBER: But Charlie Weaver started that.
• [00:04:10] GRACE MORAND: That's true.
• [00:04:11] CONNIE HUBER: In the afternoon, and people would come in and jam.
• [00:04:13] GRACE MORAND: But they have shows there weekly now.
• [00:04:14] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah.
• [00:04:15] GRACE MORAND: They didn't use to. They had the jam weekly. That's how it started. We had so much fun from the get-go.
• [00:04:24] CONNIE HUBER: It started as a brunch on Sundays.
• [00:04:28] CHERYL DAWDY: In the springtime.
• [00:04:29] CONNIE HUBER: In the spring.
• [00:04:30] CHERYL DAWDY: Wasn't a great time for...
• [00:04:31] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah.
• [00:04:31] CONNIE HUBER: It was April, I think, and then by the time it was kind of mid May, no one was there anymore because the weather got great and everyone was out in their garden, and, we just would look up and go, well, I want to be out there too, [LAUGHTER] the weather's great. We'd wait for it all year in Michigan. But then we thought, we don't want to quit because we like doing this. So we asked Elmo, one of the managers at the time, if we could come back in the fall and do a happy hour. That's where it really started going. So Thursday night happy hour, and it was really good for us because we always thought we had to do something new every week. Because a lot of the same people were coming back. It really pushed us to learn a lot of new material. That was really good for us. I think that when you're coming up, I think that's a really good way to motivate yourself, is by thinking people are going to get bored if they just hear the same things over and over and over.
• [00:05:39] AMY CANTU: Was it mostly covers initially, and then you started writing, or how did that evolve?
• [00:05:44] CHERYL DAWDY: I think we each had our own particular style of music, I think, that we were most comfortable with. We started bringing those songs in, and then eventually started bringing other songs that we would work on together in a more of a combined style.
• [00:06:03] CONNIE HUBER: At first it was like, here's Cheryl's repertoire, here's Grace's [LAUGHTER] repertoire, because we all were singers separately before we became us. That's how we started a little bit.
• [00:06:18] GRACE MORAND: It transitioned from two of us backing up the other one. But then we realized that that was really cool, that instead of having a lead singer or someone who's always featured, we switch off the lead, and we switch off the parts too. That gives everybody a chance to shine and do what they do well. I think that was a really wise choice. I don't even know if we realized we were doing it at the time. But I think it was a really good way to go.
• [00:06:45] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah, I think it really showcased the variety of music that we do too. We had different sounds and different styles.
• [00:06:53] AMY CANTU: Where did the humor come from? I know that there was a background for some of you in theater and performance.
• [00:06:59] CHERYL DAWDY: Those two.
• [00:07:00] CONNIE HUBER: Yes [LAUGHTER]
• [00:07:02] AMY CANTU: Pointing at Connie [LAUGHTER]
• [00:07:04] CONNIE HUBER: [OVERLAPPING] I was a solo performer and did some touring.
• [00:07:08] GRACE MORAND: Maybe you guys heard of her. She was the Chenille sister [LAUGHTER]
• [00:07:14] CONNIE HUBER: I did some funny material. I just thought, in my mind, and I think we carried this on into the Chenille Sisters, we want to make the experience something that mirrors life in a way, where you're sad, you're happy, you're gloomy, you're thoughtful. We try to do all of that in our show. I think I was doing that before the Chenilles because that's what I thought. I think my coming in, and Grace's also, we were thinking really theatrically, like this is a show.
• [00:07:57] AMY CANTU: Costumes right away?
• [00:07:58] GRACE MORAND: Oh, yeah.
• [00:07:59] EMILY MURPHY: You're a costumer, is that right?
• [00:08:00] GRACE MORAND: No.
• [00:08:01] AMY CANTU: Who is?
• [00:08:02] GRACE MORAND: Well, Cheryl's a wonderful seamstress.
• [00:08:04] CHERYL DAWDY: I can do that, yeah. Oh, no. I didn't make [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:08:07] GRACE MORAND: We did vintage crazy combos.
• [00:08:10] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah.
• [00:08:12] GRACE MORAND: Every week we would come up with a new something and you know.
• [00:08:14] CONNIE HUBER: Grace wore her bra on the outside of her clothes before Madonna.
• [00:08:18] CHERYL DAWDY: Yes, she did.
• [00:08:22] GRACE MORAND: Well, you know, and it was because it was so beautiful. Someone gave it to me and I thought, why is this thing under like no one can see it? So kind of for a joke, I put it on over my top. But anyway, yeah, I think Madonna ripped me off.
• [00:08:38] AMY CANTU: You deserve that credit.
• [00:08:40] GRACE MORAND: Well, we also had so much fun learning and rehearsing in the early days. I think there was actually some alcohol involved usually too. We would laugh and giggle and that went up into the show. You know, even our name, I mean, we sat and, you know, just made random lists of names that were just ridiculous, like the singing Wallendas and, two Lutherans and a Catholic.
• [00:09:08] CHERYL DAWDY: Two blondes and a brunette.
• [00:09:09] GRACE MORAND: It was, it was just silly but fun. I think we kind of brought that also into our show. Definitely just the friendship and camaraderie and yeah.
• [00:09:21] EMILY MURPHY: I'd love to hear more about that. Figuring out your arrangements and taking something with one voice as a lead, and how you all three worked together to create your sound.
• [00:09:32] CHERYL DAWDY: Well, I think Connie, this is your venue.
• [00:09:37] CHERYL DAWDY: Connie had the musical background, she had the.
• [00:09:39] CONNIE HUBER: I have a degree in music and I was very much into choir music too, although my major was percussion. But I love arranging and I think that that has carried through with us. I'll say, try to put something on top of me Grace or Cheryl. Then she will, and then I may say, well, that one note doesn't work or whatever. Then Grace why don't you try to add in something. I want them to have their freedom 'cause sometimes they come up with a note that I go, that's so cool. I wouldn't have maybe thought of that one.
• [00:10:14] GRACE MORAND: I think we, Cheryl and I are thinking out of the box because we're totally ear trained, we don't read. Every once in a while Connie has to corral us in and go, that doesn't work. But a lot of times she would say, wow that's really great.
• [00:10:29] AMY CANTU: You throw out a fourth instead of a third.
• [00:10:32] GRACE MORAND: Yeah, we wouldn't know suspension would be there.
• [00:10:35] CONNIE HUBER: And then I'm like, yeah. I always had to, you know, think to myself, let them play around with it. Then they will come up with some good stuff. Then somehow we can all put it and fit it together and see what we have.
• [00:10:53] AMY CANTU: You didn't write it down? Could you read music?
• [00:10:56] GRACE MORAND: No.
• [00:10:57] AMY CANTU: You didn't write it down and say, okay, I want you to play.
• [00:11:00] CHERYL DAWDY: We would record ourselves. We would take ourselves record ourselves. Try to remember it, and then listen back and rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. We did a lot.
• [00:11:11] CONNIE HUBER: Well, that's part of my training is rehearsal is a really huge thing and we rehearsed a lot. Yeah, so we just had our little tape recorder, and we just would tape ourselves, let's do this section today.
• [00:11:28] CHERYL DAWDY: But the cool thing about it, thinking back is that once we learned to part, it was there. It was really in there and we didn't have to rely on like reading music or whatever. Some of that stuff just is ingrained in our memory.
• [00:11:45] AMY CANTU: I was going to ask you about that because I think it's a fascinating question too. Just it's not like I can ask the Andrew Sisters how they did it, but I was wondering if that was the case, that it just becomes baked in and years later, you don't even have to wonder what notes of the song.
• [00:12:03] CONNIE HUBER: I like to say we rehearse until we can do laundry in our head. In other words, you can be thinking about something else as you're rehearsing it. You know, like I'm going, okay, I could throw a load in after we're done. I'm thinking that but I'm singing, you know what I mean? That just to think.
• [00:12:20] CONNIE HUBER: We know, we know we finally really know the song because we don't even really have to think. In fact, with me, sometimes in a concert, if I think I'll mess something up. It's a weird line, it's a funny thing.
• [00:12:37] GRACE MORAND: When we started doing jazz with James Dapogny Chicago Jazz Band, he was so gracious about, I was very intimidated, you know, by this professor and Cheryl and I fuss that stuff that we don't read. He was so kind. He plunked out our parts for us and so we just learned them that way.
• [00:12:57] CHERYL DAWDY: And recorded that. Then we would take the recording home and woodshed and learn the part, and then come together and try to make them fit with Connie's guidance.
• [00:13:07] CONNIE HUBER: I said, Jim, you think that we're trumpets or something, you know, it's like you're writing for brass. He said, you can do it. But it was very challenging sometimes. Some of his arrangements. But boy, are they cool?
• [00:13:25] GRACE MORAND: They are. When we, when we nailed them, they oh, it was such a pleasure.
• [00:13:30] CHERYL DAWDY: It was really good ear training. Personally for myself, I know that it really helped me understand the construction of melody and songs and just really tuning into a half step. What's that?
• [00:13:48] AMY CANTU: I'm a big fan of that era music so I know just what you're talking about. To get that particular blend and to have it with a backup band like that.
• [00:13:59] CONNIE HUBER: We were very we were really fortunate to be able to work with them.
• [00:14:04] GRACE MORAND: We had the same manager and agent that Jim had. She put us together. She brought Jim to hear us. In the Old Town.
• [00:14:12] CONNIE HUBER: She found out we were doing some old Boswell songs, so she dragged Jim down to the old town to hear us. Then afterward he introduced himself to us and he said, we're doing a concert somewhere, would you like to sing a song with us? We were like, Oh my God. We worked it up and, I think it was a Dinah, our first song.
• [00:14:35] GRACE MORAND: I think Dina was our first song, but we had already done it. We just took the Boswell vocal arrangement and Connie figured out a guitar arrangement, so Jim wrote around that. Some of the songs that we did with him, we already knew, but a lot of them were brand new and he arranged quite a few of them.
• [00:14:56] CONNIE HUBER: We were lucky to have him in our community. I hope people got to see him. I really miss him.
• [00:15:03] GRACE MORAND: He was also one of the funniest people in a very dry, like, subtle way. He wasn't loud at all, but he was very funny. He would tell us stories and we would just be crying laughing. His band was very jovial. It was fun. I think that probably we wouldn't have lasted this long if we weren't having so much fun. We had a lot of fun. Yes. Yes we did.
• [00:15:27] AMY CANTU: You know before we talk about more fun, and as long as we're in the weeds a little bit, I just want to take the moment. I'm talking to Connie here 'cause she plays the guitar. Did you ever find yourself making such a complicated arrangement or just, I cannot sing and play the guitar at the same time? Did you ever or was it always you just would make it simple enough so that you could play? I'm just curious, sometimes worked out.
• [00:15:52] CONNIE HUBER: Yes. I would make a challenging guitar. But it's more that I would forget it. It's like if we hadn't played it for a long time, I would go, I'm supposed to be doing some run here and what is that? Why did I do that? Because I would not write it down. I just would say, chord A, you know, we're in A. I would say to them, oh, I'll remember this. Then so I sometimes had to go back and recreate what I did.
• [00:16:24] CHERYL DAWDY: Or if it was on a recording, you'd have to listen to the recording to remember the part.
• [00:16:29] EMILY MURPHY: While we're still talking about some of the nitty-gritty of music, I want to learn more about what you're composing and your processes for writing your originals.
• [00:16:40] GRACE MORAND: Well, I would say I'm the least prolific of the three of us. I have the fewest songs that we've done and I don't know what my process is. I've had both just angsting over every syllable and every word, in every note and just never being pleased with it. I had one song that just came through me like I woke up in the night and I thought of it and I turned the light on and I wrote it. It was, I am a can of tuna [LAUGHTER]. But Cheryl and Connie probably have a more formal process.
• [00:17:12] CONNIE HUBER: Well, I think those are the songs that end up being the best ones. The ones that come pretty fast and it is just like someone's taking over your body [LAUGHTER] and just putting this out there, because if you start just agonizing over every little something. I've usually just gone, put a big x [LAUGHTER] on that one. After too much tinkering and I'm still tinkering and finally I go, well then this is just isn't going to go, it's just not going to work.
• [00:17:43] CHERYL DAWDY: It's like you're trying too hard to make it happen and you lose the spontaneity of the song.
• [00:17:49] CONNIE HUBER: I used to write down lyrics from the bathroom at the Blind Pig and stuff like that. [LAUGHTER] People would write things on the wall and I would go, that's cool and I'd be in there like writing 'em down and, "Are you done? [LAUGHTER] Why are you still in there?" [LAUGHTER].
• [00:18:10] AMY CANTU: Do you ever, you know, you're sharing a song that's partly done one of you with the other two, and you're like, Ohm well this would be funny, or change that line to this! Is there any of that? Or is it pretty much just one?
• [00:18:23] CHERYL DAWDY: Well, we've done a collaborating on some of the really humorous songs, but I think that the ones that were very personal to us, I think for the most part, they were pretty well intact and [OVERLAPPING] Connie, would suggest maybe a better chord to put in a different part. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:18:42] CHERYL DAWDY: Or a bridge [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:18:44] CONNIE HUBER: Or something that's just a little interlude there. We pretty much wrote separately although Grace and I, with our kids' music we wrote together and that was a lot of fun to do. I think we just put ourselves like, remember when you were a kid and then go from there. What did you like it when you were a kid? I think a lot of those songs came fast too.
• [00:19:12] GRACE MORAND: Yes, they did and I think that made our kid's stuff. We weren't coming at it from a parental point of view, so I think that the kids really enjoyed that. We also didn't dumb down the music. We still did really intricate harmony work in those kid's songs, kids love that. Like we were talking earlier about babies, just really. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:19:32] CHERYL DAWDY: Then the parents wouldn't mind hearing [OVERLAPPING] well over and over and over again. [OVERLAPPING] We got a lot of compliments from parents for creating music that was understandable and tolerable [LAUGHTER].
• [00:19:51] GRACE MORAND: Sometimes even had a little joke for the parents they would fly over [OVERLAPPING] the kids, we used to call the Rocky and Bullwinkle approach. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:20:00] AMY CANTU: You're distinctly edgy in some of your adult music as well and that attracted the attention of Garrison Keillor, correct?
• [00:20:08] GRACE MORAND: Yes.
• [00:20:08] AMY CANTU: Can you talk a little bit and quickly at the beginning of your career then.
• [00:20:16] CONNIE HUBER: Um I'll start at the beginning, and then I'll let Grace take over. [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:20:19] CHERYL DAWDY: Grace has got a great story.
• [00:20:20] CONNIE HUBER: Grace has a really good story. I have a friend in music, and I went to him and said, can you give me the address of A Prairie Home Companion, because we want to send a cassette tape and he goes, Connie, don't get your hopes up. [LAUGHTER] That's so unlikely that, that would happen. We sent it and then now you take over Grace.
• [00:20:46] GRACE MORAND: It was like a paper ripped out of a notebook and written a note and it said it would be a dream come true, if we could be on your show, Mr. Keillor, and take a listen. This cassette tape that was done in the living room. Well, I gave him my contact information including my work number and I was working in a hair salon downtown at the time and there were two stories in the salon, so there was an intercom and so I'm working on some woman's hair, I'm rolling up a perm and I hear Grace there's a Gary Keillor on line 2 for you. Gary Keillor on line 2 for Grace, and I'm like I thought this has got to be a joke. I answer and my dad was a very good impersonator, so he goes, Hello, this is Garrison Keillor. I go, Dad. [LAUGHTER] He goes, no, I'm not your father, I'm Garrison Keillor. I go, Dad, stop it. [LAUGHTER] I'm at work, I'm doing a perm, [LAUGHTER] Then he goes, I'm sorry to tell you, I'm not your father and then I realized I recognized his voice and went, this is Garrison Keillor and I said, well I am in the middle of a perm, can I call you back? [LAUGHTER] he said sure. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:21:56] AMY CANTU: Did you hurry up with the perm?
• [00:21:57] GRACE MORAND: I hurried up with the perm. The hair came out just fine. [LAUGHTER] But it was just wild. Then when they had us come, we'd never gone anywhere but the old town and they flew us to St. Paul and they put us in one of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in and they gave us each a room and we said, we don't want separate rooms, [LAUGHTER] we want to stay together. They were like, okay, and they gave us this fancy suite, but it's just because we wanted to stay up and giggle after the show.
• [00:22:31] CONNIE HUBER: Well, and I think we were a little bit scared. [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:22:37] GRACE MORAND: I was a lot scared. It was exhilarated but it was really fun and we dressed in prom dresses that were these really netty and strapless [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:22:46] CHERYL DAWDY: Cuz there was an audience. [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:22:48] GRACE MORAND: There was a big audience, like 1,500 people.
• [00:22:49] GRACE MORAND: I remember he said and here they come in full prom regalia. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:22:58] CHERYL DAWDY: I don't know, a million, several million people I think they told us the live audience out in the world was so many million people. [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:23:12] GRACE MORAND: My mouth got very dry then. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:23:14] CONNIE HUBER: My knees were knocking for sure.
• [00:23:15] AMY CANTU: But did you sing well?
• [00:23:17] CONNIE HUBER: Yes.
• [00:23:17] GRACE MORAND: Yes.
• [00:23:18] CONNIE HUBER: You couldn't tell when you heard it?
• [00:23:20] CHERYL DAWDY: [LAUGHTER] Professionals!
• [00:23:22] CONNIE HUBER: The song that we did that was a little bit controversial was. [OVERLAPPING] I want to be seduced. He said, Garrison told us later, because we were a guest a few times sometimes on his show, he said that they got letters from people that were like, this is just.
• [00:23:39] GRACE MORAND: [OVERLAPPING] Salacious.
• [00:23:41] CONNIE HUBER: It was salacious. [OVERLAPPING] Such a thing as Garrison, but Garrison said, but I love it. He really liked that. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:23:50] CHERYL DAWDY: But it really wasn't salacious, it was suggestive, I don't know if you know [OVERLAPPING] it was silly. But it felt really good that he championed and he said no. In fact, he invited us back instead of saying, I'm going to censor this. That was really cool, and we did Christine Lavin's song, Regretting What I Said. She tracked us down and left this message like, oh my God you guys did the song so well, I can't believe it. My mother thinks you do it better than I do it. She's left a message for us and then we became friends with her. But it was funny because she goes, my mother says, you girls are so good at articulation and that no one can understand a word I say. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:24:30] CHERYL DAWDY: You talk like that really fast. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:24:32] CONNIE HUBER: She's a New Yorker. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:24:35] GRACE MORAND: That was really fun. That was right. In fact, I remember my dad announced that we were going on the show at my wedding. Do you remember that?
• [00:24:43] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah.
• [00:24:44] GRACE MORAND: Yeah. My dad stood up and I was embarrassed. But he stood up and said, the girls are going to be on A Prairie Home Companion next month and it was really exciting.
• [00:24:54] AMY CANTU: So did it just skyrocket right after that?
• [00:24:56] CONNIE HUBER: Well, it started to build. I mean, we were pretty shocked.
• [00:25:01] GRACE MORAND: Yeah.
• [00:25:02] CHERYL DAWDY: I think it gave us a little bit of credibility.
• [00:25:04] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah just. Then I think, he invited us back several times, so I think it started to build and luckily we already had a manager, and so they were booking shows. They did a really great job. I think the timing of when we were in our heyday was really good. I don't know how anyone can do this now, I just really don't. Everyone has a CD everyone.
• [00:25:33] GRACE MORAND: Social media gives everyone access to a huge audience. But there wasn't anything like that.
• [00:25:37] CONNIE HUBER: No, there wasn't. No. That part's good.
• [00:25:40] CHERYL DAWDY: Well, and we got the Red House records, we got picked up by the Red House Records. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:25:46] GRACE MORAND: And he heard us That's right.
• [00:25:47] GRACE MORAND: He was actually in the audience and approached us. But before we went on A Prairie Home Companion, we were getting bigger and bigger at the Old Town until they had to hire a bouncer. They also people would come in like at lunchtime and put reserved napkins on the table, because it got really big for the old town, and so then they were saying well we just don't know if our staff can't even get through to serve drinks.
• [00:26:12] CONNIE HUBER: They probably a fire department [LAUGHTER]. Clear aisles you know.
• [00:26:17] GRACE MORAND: That happened pretty early on too, that we started using bigger venues.
• [00:26:24] CHERYL DAWDY: We were really lucky.
• [00:26:25] GRACE MORAND: We were very lucky. Because that's many incredibly talented people don't get to do what we did. We did it full time for 16 years.
• [00:26:36] AMY CANTU: That was amazing.
• [00:26:37] GRACE MORAND: The tour
• [00:26:37] AMY CANTU: You opened for a lot of other big acts too. [OVERLAPPING] Can you name some of those?
• [00:26:41] CHERYL DAWDY: Smothers Brothers, Andy Williams, Phyllis Diller.
• [00:26:45] CHERYL DAWDY: Phyllis Diller [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:26:48] AMY CANTU: She must have loved you.
• [00:26:49] CONNIE HUBER: Don Mclean.
• [00:26:50] GRACE MORAND: Phyllis Diller was a hoot.
• [00:26:53] CONNIE HUBER: She really was a sweetheart. But she changed costumes and [LAUGHTER] she did it like if you step offstage, she would just strip like right there and put and so one of the band members said, I really have to put my hand over my eyes because it's like looking at a car accident, I had to stop myself from looking at. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:27:20] GRACE MORAND: Because like old theater people think nothing of stripping down to their skives and having a dresser and so she was just doing that in the wings. [OVERLAPPING] It was in her later years as well. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:27:39] EMILY MURPHY: Are there particular performances that hold out in your memory?
• [00:27:44] GRACE MORAND: The Boston Pops.
• [00:27:46] EMILY MURPHY: Tell me more.
• [00:27:47] CHERYL DAWDY: Well, we were doing a pop symphony show, once again, our agent/manager at that time is, Donna Ziots , recommended, or not recommended it, but suggested that we would like to do something like that and she was friends with.
• [00:28:09] CHERYL DAWDY: [OVERLAPPING] But who put arrangements together?
• [00:28:16] GRACE MORAND: Bo Ayers, he did the musical arrangements for the Capitol Steps, and Donna knew him, and so he did our orchestra arrangements. But that just the performance. We had been doing several pop symphony shows, but just being at Symphony Hall and meeting Keith Lockhart and it was astounding, [LAUGHTER] it was so memorable.
• [00:28:45] GRACE MORAND: Kind of surreal though, wasn't it?
• [00:28:46] CONNIE HUBER: It was. When you're in the dressing room, I'm like, oh, my God, Arthur Fielder was here.
• [00:28:51] GRACE MORAND: I remember you came out of the bathroom and said, I bet Horowitz peed in that same toilet. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:29:00] CONNIE HUBER: I probably did say that.
• [00:29:01] AMY CANTU: Yeah, you probably did.
• [00:29:02] GRACE MORAND: I think you did.
• [00:29:05] GRACE MORAND: But yeah, we did. We had a lot of really interesting lucky breaks. We were also really adopted by East Lansing and we did pretty big shows there. We played at the Wharton Center and sold it out. We played at the Michigan Fest, which was, I don't know how many thousands, but they were out there on an athletic field. It was packed, and it was so fun. That became our second home. We loved doing the art fair here and there, really different vibes, because theirs is really quaint and on campus and ours is a commercial large thing. [OVERLAPPING] I had so much fun at Art Fair.
• [00:29:50] CONNIE HUBER: Well, and some of the concerts that I loved, they weren't big. They were just, we did a lot of touring in Wisconsin and oh man, the people there are so fun, and after the show we went to this local bar where everybody goes and they were trying to force us to have Limburger sandwiches, [LAUGHTER] the local fair.
• [00:30:14] GRACE MORAND: Didn't they make a Chenille cocktail?
• [00:30:16] GRACE MORAND: They made a chenille in our honor.
• [00:30:18] CONNIE HUBER: We just had a blast, all the way through Wisconsin. Those were not huge concerts. There was this little coffee house near Madison somewhere, and people that ran that were so sweet and the audience was. Sometimes the big isn't often the big one. You have a lot to lose at that one so I think you're a little more on edge. Some of the smaller ones you feel more relaxed and you can just really enjoy the moment maybe more because you're not worried that you're going to screw up or something. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:30:55] GRACE MORAND: We did the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. We were like, beginner openers, like people were basically still walking in. We had a little 15 minutes at the very beginning set, and we were still wearing our prom dresses, but it was a Hill Auditorium and that was pretty overwhelming.
• [00:31:13] CHERYL DAWDY: Then of course, the Prairie Home Companion shows, [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:31:17] CONNIE HUBER: Those were really great. I spilled soup backstage on Sydney Pollock. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:31:22] AMY CANTU: I read that, hilarious. [LAUGHTER]. How did that turn out?
• [00:31:26] CONNIE HUBER: Well, he was very gracious, and I said, oh my God. He goes, no, I like chicken noodle, don't worry about that. [LAUGHTER]. I'll just pick it off. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:31:37] GRACE MORAND: Sometimes we stayed with people or at the very least went out with them after. We just got to meet people from all different kinds of lot, we have different lives all over the country, and we got to stay with them or hang out with them or share a meal with them. It was really a peek into a much bigger world than I ever knew was out there. We went to Alaska several times.
• [00:32:02] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah, twice.
• [00:32:04] CONNIE HUBER: And that, Oh man, we saw whales come alongside. One time we did, it was on a ferry boat and we did a brunch concert type thing. We had a good crowd there and all of a sudden they started running upstairs and it's because a whale was breaching. They said, oh, this never happens this close to the harbor.
• [00:32:28] GRACE MORAND: Because it was the inner channel.
• [00:32:29] AMY CANTU: Yeah. It was your voices. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:32:33] GRACE MORAND: We were summoned to the whales via harmonies. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:32:38] GRACE MORAND: Whales love them. You love them too. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:32:44] AMY CANTU: Would people laugh right out loud?
• [00:32:46] GRACE MORAND: Oh, yeah.
• [00:32:47] AMY CANTU: Did you?
• [00:32:48] CHERYL DAWDY: Oh yeah. You feed off of that. [OVERLAPPING] definitely
• [00:32:52] GRACE MORAND: We tried some things that bombed, and then we tried some things that we got tired of but people kept asking us to do and that was hard. Remember The Chenille Sister dolls?
• [00:33:03] CONNIE HUBER: Oh, yeah.
• [00:33:03] GRACE MORAND: I thought we actually took that from Connie. You had a Chenille Sister Connie doll? We had these three dolls and we would show them and we had fashion shows. Then remember when those stickers for car windows where it would say baby on board or somebody on board? We put suction cups on her hands and feet and said, and you can have her in the car. Then we put it on a piece of plywood and her butt was stuck out of the air [LAUGHTER]. I don't know, we did bits. We did little comedy bits in our show and we enjoyed doing that. It started like Connie would break a string or something. Then I'd go, Cheryl, don't you know the shake and bake commercial in German. Then she would do it and people would just think it was so funny and I was just killing time.
• [00:33:46] EMILY MURPHY: Then you had your Cher imitation.
• [00:33:48] GRACE MORAND: I did my share imitation, yes. [OVERLAPPING] We would just fill in.
• [00:33:52] CONNIE HUBER: You did that on Prairie Home
• [00:33:54] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah, you did. [LAUGHTER] It was a kind of a faux pas. I would say.
• [00:33:57] GRACE MORAND: I think I have a decent Cher. But the choice you made. The choice I made was really bad, so well, can I just do one? It was "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves..." [MUSIC] [LAUGHTER].
• [00:34:14] EMILY MURPHY: Really?
• [00:34:15] GRACE MORAND: Garrison said, that's my real one, that's my good one. Garrison said, well, do you three have other things, other talents that you'd like to tell? Connie goes, "Grace can imitate Cher." [LAUGHTER] This is the time where our kneeds are knocking and I go, Half breed! [LAUGHTER]. That was just you could hear a pin drop in the theater. Garrison said, and Connie's like, ""Why the hell did you pick that one?" I just didn't know. [LAUGHTER] There was just a moment where Garrison went, so anyway, I think we'll move on right here and our next segment is [LAUGHTER] .
• [00:34:49] AMY CANTU: [OVERLAPPING] You'll always remember that.
• [00:34:54] CHERYL DAWDY: You know what the cool thing was as we were talking here is I think my music was always very serious. It was very thoughtful, like pouring my heart out. These guys were just, they were so funny and they just brought the sense of humor and I just got swept along to it. Occasionally, I would come out with some pretty good zingers on stage for them.
• [00:35:19] GRACE MORAND: Yes, you did.
• [00:35:19] CHERYL DAWDY: I'd be the straight guy. But yeah, occasionally something would just pop out and you're like, oh.
• [00:35:24] GRACE MORAND: Then after the show we'd go keep that in, Cheryl. Say that every time. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:35:29] AMY CANTU: You had a lot that you prepared but you could do off the cuff?
• [00:35:33] CONNIE HUBER: [OVERLAPPING] Yes, absolutely.
• [00:35:36] GRACE MORAND: Very often it worked out, it was an off-the-cuff thing that just really worked. But there were some that were, Halfbreed was not one of my finest moments [LAUGHTER] We had occasionally said things and then after said I'm not going to do that again. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:35:52] CONNIE HUBER: But you can't count on having those spontaneous moments.
• [00:35:56] CHERYL DAWDY: Right.
• [00:35:57] CONNIE HUBER: We really tried to prepare what we were going to say in between songs.
• [00:36:02] CHERYL DAWDY: Yes.
• [00:36:03] CONNIE HUBER: We wanted it to be conversational and let people see who we are besides just our music. We learned pretty fast. I'll say something here, well, guess what, you get there and then suddenly you're just like blank. You can't think of anything to say.
• [00:36:25] GRACE MORAND: But we started early doing these very elaborate bits, and we had a show at the power center, and it was billed as the Chenille's first really big show and we did. Do you remember at the movie theaters how they had the [OVERLAPPING] Will Rogers Foundation and they would pass a popcorn thing and you'd put coins in. They'd turn up the lights and get to do this collection, we did a spoof on that, that was the Jill Rogers Foundation. Any woman had a penny under their seat taped to their seat, and we went around and taped pennies under every seat in the Power Center.
• [00:37:06] EMILY MURPHY: That must've taken forever.
• [00:37:08] CHERYL DAWDY: It's giving back and then...
• [00:37:09] GRACE MORAND: But we did this slide show and Shakey Jake was in it and all these [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:37:13] CHERYL DAWDY: Remember when we did Born to be Wild too?
• [00:37:14] GRACE MORAND: Yes, we said we want to be bad girls.
• [00:37:17] CHERYL DAWDY: Then smoke machines [OVERLAPPING] Grace and I played instruments.
• [00:37:22] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah I taught them how to play. Grace played bass with electric guitar.
• [00:37:27] GRACE MORAND: Connie is a really good drummer. We suck but it didn't really matter.
• [00:37:31] GRACE MORAND: Yeah because we were hamming it up and we had Gogo boys.
• [00:37:36] GRACE MORAND: Yeah, we did, we had Gogo boys.
• [00:37:37] CHERYL DAWDY: And we had the confessional at the beginning like, why we were bad girls.
• [00:37:43] GRACE MORAND: But then we never did it again.
• [00:37:45] GRACE MORAND: It was just that one thing but we did have a little a bit where we started giving the audience things like the pennies. That was the first thing, the first time we were on Prairie Home Companion when we came back, we didn't really take these things from the hotel, but we told people that we did. We got little bars of soap. We said we brought you all soap from [LAUGHTER] hotel by your Prairie Home Companion. We passed out soap, and then we also had the little strip of paper that says, "this toilet has been sanitized," and a piece of gum that Garrison stepped on. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:38:22] CHERYL DAWDY: Forgot about that one.
• [00:38:24] GRACE MORAND: We had Chenille-o-files. We passed out fingernail files that said, "I'm a Chenille fan.".
• [00:38:30] CHERYL DAWDY: Then wasn't there a "I'm a Chenille fan" with those papers like home.
• [00:38:36] GRACE MORAND: That was because we were recording in the Ark and the air conditioning was making too much noise. They said we can't have the air and it was summer. We had fans for people. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:38:47] GRACE MORAND: We were pretty silly.
• [00:38:50] CHERYL DAWDY: We were entertaining ourselves, really, I think.
• [00:38:52] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah.
• [00:38:55] GRACE MORAND: We actually wore coconut bras once but over T-shirts.
• [00:38:59] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah.
• [00:38:59] GRACE MORAND: Kind of took the bra outside thing to the next level.
• [00:39:03] AMY CANTU: Did you ever have a fight?
• [00:39:08] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah, we had some disagreements. [LAUGHTER] but that's par for the course.
• [00:39:15] CONNIE HUBER: But I think early on we realized that this was pretty special and I don't think any of us really wanted to screw it up so bad, and also, we invoked what we called veto, where if we start to have, we're going to do something, but if someone just feels like, I just cannot get behind this, I can't do this or whatever, we would go, then we won't do it.
• [00:39:45] GRACE MORAND: Whether it was a song choice or a particular place to play. But we all agreed you couldn't overplay the veto card. Like sometimes you could say, well, I don't love it, but I could do it, because three is hard, it often turns into two against one. The veto power thing was actually pretty smart of us because you never felt like you were being forced to do something. [OVERLAPPING] We didn't want anyone to do something they didn't like.
• [00:40:14] CHERYL DAWDY: Because then you're resentful then and that tends to fester and stuff. But yeah, I think we all realized that this was something really special and we wanted it to keep going and it just wasn't worth blowing it up over something.
• [00:40:32] GRACE MORAND: I think having each of us be featured made there not be a lead singer in particular which really made a difference. Everybody sort of had equal weight how they were showcased. I think that made a difference too. I think the disagreements and arguments were very sister like, we really became sisters even though be like, did that, did to? [LAUGHTER] Grace, what do you think? Like really silly but never anything very big, and I think you always want to eat there. [LAUGHTER].
• [00:41:08] CONNIE HUBER: Well, and I think as we got older too as we do, some of those little things when you're young and you have all that kind of young energy and everything seems so important. As you age, you go, why would we fight about this? This is not that important. I think that helped too. We weren't youngsters when we started. I was like 30 I think. We weren't teenagers that had little tantrums and stuff like that, you know what I mean?
• [00:41:40] GRACE MORAND: If we did, we got over it pretty fast. If we got annoyed, it blew over pretty fast, just like it would with your real sister.
• [00:41:51] CONNIE HUBER: We were good at apologizing to each other because, I come from a family where that's not so easy, the apologies don't happen too much. We are going to talk it out and we are going to say, you're sorry for hurting your feelings or whatever.
• [00:42:09] CHERYL DAWDY: Because we had to get back together and rehearse the next day, [LAUGHTER] you just had to move through it and move forward.
• [00:42:19] EMILY MURPHY: I want to ask that this is taking a total other leap, but about your turn to children's music because I was one of those kids who went to your shows. [LAUGHTER] How did you stumble into it? Was it a decision?
• [00:42:33] CONNIE HUBER: There again, we lucked out because right after we started doing kids music, Disney swooped in and really took over everything, you didn't hear about anybody or anything after that. [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:42:48] CHERYL DAWDY: You remember Raffi? This is the Raffi time.
• [00:42:52] GRACE MORAND: But it wasn't Bob.
• [00:42:53] CONNIE HUBER: I was going to say that. Bob, our record guy said, "you guys would be good at children's music." We went really children's music. We never thought about.
• [00:43:03] GRACE MORAND: A lot of kids were coming to our shows, they were loving It. Even if there was like a little bit more adult, they flew over them. I think they just loved to hear us sing. He pointed that out and said, what if you just shift the music to be for them? It also gave us an opportunity to like we would have these venues. The arts were really well funded back in the '80s too. Like the [OVERLAPPING] there was national money there, so we could go to college campuses and would most places be the community, not the students, but then we'd do kids show in the afternoon and an adult show at night.
• [00:43:41] CONNIE HUBER: They bring in student kids with buses, stuff like that.
• [00:43:45] GRACE MORAND: We did a residency at BAM at Brooklyn Academy of Music, and doing kids shows and they busted kids all weekend. But to me, those kids are the best audience ever, if you say we're going to need a volunteer before you got to untied, they'd be, and they were so enthusiastic and so game to try different things. I just found that and after the show, we would always go out and talk to them.
• [00:44:15] CHERYL DAWDY: They would hug us and look at us. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:44:19] CONNIE HUBER: Tell the one about that boy, he said, I want to ask you a question.".
• [00:44:21] GRACE MORAND: May I ask you a personal question?" I said, I'm not sure I'll answer it, but you may ask it. He goes, "How often do you brush your teeth?" [LAUGHTER] I said, "Do I have stuff in my teeth?" He said, "No, your teeth actually look pretty good but I was just wondering how often you brush. I said, "I brush in the morning and then like tonight, I brushed it before this show and then I usually brush it before I go to bed, so I would say three." He goes, "Do you floss?" [LAUGHTER]
• [00:44:50] CONNIE HUBER: [LAUGHTER] See these are things that they wanted to know. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:44:54] GRACE MORAND: They wanted us to sign their programs, and this kid came up to me and I said, what's your name? He said, Jason. I wrote "Love to Jason, The Chenilles" and I handed it to him and he goes. Do you think I can read cursive? [LAUGHTER] I said, I'm sorry, and he goes, well, what does it say? Then I told him. I think we just had fun with that. But the kids, it came very naturally and easily as we were saying earlier that we just came up with thinking about stuff that we thought of when we were kids. It just really wasn't that hard to shift into that, was it?
• [00:45:31] CONNIE HUBER: No, that really wasn't.
• [00:45:33] CHERYL DAWDY: I actually found it a little challenging just because of writing all the serious stuff that I wrote but once I started getting into it, it was really cool.
• [00:45:41] GRACE MORAND: You wrote something beautiful children songs. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:45:43] CHERYL DAWDY: They were a little more serious.
• [00:45:45] CHERYL DAWDY: But you guys came up with a really [OVERLAPPING].
• [00:45:46] CONNIE HUBER: That's you and that's why we love you because we all have come from different places.
• [00:45:54] CONNIE HUBER: That's your take on. That's great.
• [00:45:58] GRACE MORAND: You wanted to talk about the little backyard bird.
• [00:46:00] CHERYL DAWDY: That's right.
• [00:46:01] GRACE MORAND: Absolutely was. I was holding up a pair of extra-large men's underpants. [LAUGHTER] That was one of our biggest visual gags with the kids, a dog in the song runs and gets the underpants on his head. It falls off a close line, this pair of underpants. Cheryl was dressed like a dog and I'd drape on Cheryl's head, just like tear the house down funny [LAUGHTER].
• [00:46:27] CHERYL DAWDY: Yeah, that was a laugh can turn it around. That was the...
• [00:46:34] GRACE MORAND: Really? We got beautiful letters from children. We got beautiful letters from grown-ups too. But they would just write us, just so honestly. There was one time we did a show at Meadow Brook. This girl came up and said my friend was gonna come and she couldn't because she has a brain tumor and she's in the hospital but will you sign this for her? We asked her friend's name in what hospital and we called her up and she goes, oh hi. I really wanted to come to Meadow Brook but couldn't 'cause I have a brain tumor and I'm in the hospital. We ended up being pen pals with her throughout her treatment, and she sent us pictures. In one of them she was with her family. She'd had chemo and she puts a magic marker arrow over her head and says, note, I am bald. [LAUGHTER] Then she wrote, I'm better, I'm done and, we got to hear the end of the story.
• [00:47:28] CONNIE HUBER: One time we did a show in, I think, Indiana or somewhere like that. We were all set up to go and the entire the power went out in the building. It was just pitch black. Audience was all there. Everyone was there and we came out and we said, well what do you want us to do? Should we reschedule and come back and they're like, no, we want you to sing. Somebody went out and got a battery, one of those lights from their truck or something.
• [00:48:04] CHERYL DAWDY: A Lantern.
• [00:48:05] CONNIE HUBER: A lantern. That's how we sang. But the reason I'm bringing this up is because a woman wrote to us and said that because she couldn't take the elevator up to where the auditorium was, she discovered she had cancer somewhere in her leg.
• [00:48:21] CHERYL DAWDY: She had to take the stairs instead.
• [00:48:22] CONNIE HUBER: Had to take the stairs herself.
• [00:48:25] GRACE MORAND: She was like, I wouldn't have used that stairwell, if you hadn't agreed to do a song in the dark, and I wouldn't have discovered my cancer.
• [00:48:33] CONNIE HUBER: I know.
• [00:48:33] GRACE MORAND: I mean, people wrote stuff like that to us.
• [00:48:35] AMY CANTU: Wow.
• [00:48:37] CONNIE HUBER: That's the stuff that sticks in our minds.
• [00:48:40] GRACE MORAND: A man wrote to us from a hospice facility and said, the only ease I have in my day is listening to your music. I'm in a lot of pain and what we sent him a new the newest one, but I mean, what can you say how what an honor to be there for someone to be there. That's comforting to someone.
• [00:49:02] AMY CANTU: That's wonderful.
• [00:49:03] GRACE MORAND: There was a lot of heart and humanity. It wasn't just all about the show.
• [00:49:08] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah. It wasn't all about the funny bits and stuff like that. If you make people feel good, that is just the coolest thing. I think a lot of times we got to do that for people.
• [00:49:21] AMY CANTU: You've seen a lot of changes in the music scene here in Ann Arbor. I'm just curious and I don't know about you, but going into the Old Town, it's like the only place in town that hasn't changed at all [LAUGHTER]. I can't think of a single other place that doesn't. That looks exactly the way it is.
• [00:49:41] CHERYL DAWDY: That's really true.
• [00:49:43] GRACE MORAND: That is absolutely true.
• [00:49:44] AMY CANTU: Can you talk just a little bit about you appeared with other local musicians during your time, and can you talk a little bit about that? About the local musicians and the changing music scene and what you've witnessed in your years.
• [00:49:57] CONNIE HUBER: Well, that's really why I moved here to join a theater company in Manchester called the Black Sheep Theater. The theater unfortunately ended up folding but I had started going into Ann Arbor on those Sunday afternoons to sit with Charlie in the gang and Jam and Jean [OVERLAPPING] All that. I would go to the Blind Pig and see Dick Siegel and, all the people in town, Mike Smith.
• [00:50:31] CHERYL DAWDY: And Floods, Mr. Flood.
• [00:50:35] CONNIE HUBER: I just thought this is just a haven for musicians and songwriters. I had been setting, I had lived in Minneapolis for a little while and I was always setting up next to the salad bar, at a restaurant. There was one night where I just broke down crying on the way home. I said, I just I can't do this anymore, you know. Nobody listened to me all night. I said I would rather not do it than have this feeling of. Here in Ann Arbor, when I got here, it was like people celebrated, the people that were writing music and performing. I just was like, oh my God, this is my town.
• [00:51:18] CHERYL DAWDY: Then there were places like the Ark, which had open mic nights. That's how I started singing by going there.
• [00:51:25] GRACE MORAND: Back when it was on Hill.
• [00:51:26] CHERYL DAWDY: the first ark on Hill Street. When it was like sitting in someone's living room singing, which was really daunting for a really shy person, like having all those eyes.
• [00:51:40] GRACE MORAND: Like talk about changes in our community. The Arc is one of the most revered acoustic gloves and the oldest in the country. It doesn't feel stuffy or formal. I like it a lot, but it's really different from sitting on pillows on the floor and popcorn. The middle one was just a little bit step up, the one that was down by South Main market, I think the Ark has nourished and nurtured the local talent. They give people a chance to play there as well as national acts, and I think that is incredible. A lot of famous people grew from playing there too but a lot of local people. It's been fun. They've done a lot of little things like Chris Buhalis. Sometimes they'll do it like a fundraiser where everybody's going to sing one song from a certain artist. Do you remember that we've done, just and it's lovely to be in that community and, see Dick and Gemini and the RFD Boys and just hang out backstage with them and talk to them. It's really nice. There's a really nice camaraderie.
• [00:52:53] CONNIE HUBER: Yeah, for sure.
• [00:52:58] GRACE MORAND: I think we do have still an acoustic music presence here. Because I think Chris Buhalis runs a Sunday night thing at Old Town like an acoustic set weekly. It's, and then we did the Water Hill Music Festival. Well, you had to live in that neighborhood, and Connie does. We did that for the whole, every year that it was on. And seeing all those people in that one neighborhood. If you did it in each neighborhood, there would probably be as many, you know, it was so fabulous to be a part of that. That was really fun.
• [00:53:40] CONNIE HUBER: This is a great community for the arts. Well, it's just a great community period. I mean, we have a wonderful library system, great satellite from the main library. We're very fortunate.
• [00:53:54] CHERYL DAWDY: You stayed open during COVID.
• [00:53:57] AMY CANTU: We did.
• [00:53:58] CHERYL DAWDY: Yes, we did [LAUGHTER]. I really leaned on that, I'll tell you.
• [00:54:02] CONNIE HUBER: We were all staying home reading books. That's all we did
• [00:54:07] GRACE MORAND: Another thing that we decided early on was that we didn't want to go out and tour for long, extended periods of time. We wanted to feel like we were still, our home was here. Maybe in our biggest busiest touring, we might go to the West Coast for 10 days and the East Coast for 10 days. But other than that, we did long weekends. We were home every week and that felt right to us to have.
• [00:54:32] CHERYL DAWDY: [OVERLAPPING] It was doable and you could still have life.
• [00:54:35] GRACE MORAND: That we didn't turn into these jaded touring people. We came home a lot and that was really important to us.
• [00:54:45] AMY CANTU: This was really delightful.
• [00:54:47] GRACE MORAND: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having us.
• [00:54:49] CHERYL DAWDY: Delightful for us. Yes, it was.
• [00:54:51] EMILY MURPHY: Yes.
• [00:54:52] CONNIE HUBER: Thank you.
• [00:54:57] EMILY MURPHY: You can check out copies of the Chenille Sisters recordings from AADL or find them via your digital music platform of choice. AADL talks too, is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.