Cheffo’s 65th Birthday Party – John Slee

Cheffo’s 65th Birthday Party – John Slee

“I have known Jenny for twenty two years as a singer who has sung in various venues I’ve run during that time. She and Steve, for the more recent past, have developed into a very proficient, professional couple capable of entertaining a very wide range of ages and customers. At a recent event for my wife’s birthday they introduced a new string to their bow with Steve on ‘mandolin,’ covering Romeo & Juliet and Losing my Religion. Two classics that should not be messed with lightly! They were terrific”

A million thanks to John & Carol Slee at The Five Elms at Weedon, Near Aylesbury, the most welcoming hosts.

A pleasure to gig for such lovely generous people, especially for John’s birthday party. The event ran from lunchtime through to early evening, and John as ever, offered a fantastic array of food to celebrate, along with his brilliant family & friends, at this beautiful old enchanting restaurant-pub which is based in the quaint village of Weedon. A true lover of music, John had also put together a playlist of his favourite tunes on an iPod for this occasion. We plugged this into our PA system for background music.

Our set list covers a good mixture of tunes that people have come to expect of us, including a few extra goodies. It’s not unusual that folk tend to have a particular song that means so very much to them, for their personal special reasons. On this occasion, it was Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey” which we performed live. Ian Murray joined us on this one, playing saxophone.

Everyone is up and dancing. A few opening bars of a Rolling Stones number suddenly finds a couple of chaps taking up the “Mick Jagger” stance delighting the crowd! Another favourite here, is Shania Twain’s – Man! I Feel like a Woman – the crowd love it and all get into the line dancing – and they’re very good at it too! It’s funny, we sometimes slightly change the set list if we know that people have seen us before; but it’s the very fact they know the favourite, familiar songs that makes it all work so well. So there they stay.

What a fabulous day, they certainly know how to party in Weedon.

 

“Darling Jenny, Steve and Ian, I can’t believe how well everything went. Thank you so much. Lots of very complimentary remarks and messages about all three of you. You must know how special Tupelo Honey was and it will be in my memory for ever. You can’t buy that, so thank you all.  Love to you, John”

Photoshoot with Kelly Jo Photography

Photoshoot with Kelly Jo Photography

We were looking for some new publicity photos for social media and advertising. I came across Kelly Jo Photography whilst browsing on my phone, and especially liked her website and that she was locally based. So we decided to talk her through the sort of ideas and shots we were thinking of instead of going with our usual typical portrait format. We are very experienced in performing live music – entertaining an audience of all sorts, but we were slightly out of our comfort zone on this project! However, Kelly Jo quickly put us at ease & the shots on our new website are proof, creating pictures which capture our personality & style; being a really important factor

Jenny & Steve

An early start (well for a musician that is!) we headed off to The Stag Inn at Mentmore, near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, where Graeme & Gary very kindly allowed us to borrow their unique venue, set in this beautiful village. It was a bright sunny morning – a bit chilly but very cosy inside and as ever, a warm welcome plus the coffee pot was on which always helps. A huge special thanks to them both, for putting up with us whilst lots of different shots were set up in each of the contrasting rooms. Decorating had taken place since we last popped over and the atmosphere is incredible – it’s such a lovely old building with lots of character but of course, they’ve put their flair all over it and it’s just great.  There are a few stags about of course! Can’t wait to get back over there and enjoy one of their lush meals.

So after a few costume changes and makeup retouches, we begin to chit chat and find out we have a few things in common, and conversation replaces our nerves as we relax into the session. Amongst tons of clothes bags, makeup boxes, jackets, jewellery, boots and shoes, Steve’s selection of guitars sprawl across the floor offering an assortment of colours and shapes, but we forgot to include the mandolin! Like anything new you start to enjoy, you can’t help but begin to want more of it and suddenly it was time to hand back this amazing venue to its rightful owners.

What a fabulous day!  We really enjoyed it! So much fun! A big thank you to the brilliant Kelly Jo – thank you so much for your professional and friendly service. When are we doing the next lot?!

Ready to show off the new website now which we are so pleased with, courtesy of Nocrus Ltd. Many thanks, guys.

Ready to go & get the diary booked up for 2018.