Choir Concert at Marlow Church

The flyer above tells it all. The vacation came to us today in three large buses required to transport the choir and their chaperons. Yes, when the young people comprising the choir have completed the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, chaperons are necessary, and we were so happy to have them all with their talent to entertain and inspire us.

We noted they were taping the performance as well as taking photos, and we do hope they have some of both that we can purchase to enjoy and inspire us whenever.

The Sonshine Choir was a treat deluxe!

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When I visited the Brentwood United Methodist Church website, I was surprised to learn this church is one of five others chosen to have a concert by Libera, a boys choir from England, on their Summer 2010 Tour in the United States.

This made me want to move the vacation to Brentwood on August 4. The places the choir will perform while in the United States are:
August 1st ~ Dallas, Texas
August 2nd ~ Fort Worth, Texas
August 5th ~ St. Louis, Missouri
August 4th ~ Brentwood, Tennessee
August 10th ~ Atlanta, Georgia

We first learned about Libera in November of last year when a friend shared a video by the choir, and I blogged about it on LIVING...MAEDEANS STYLE Blog at that time with a title of simply Libera.

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After posting this, I found a YouTube video of this choir which I have added.

Jimmy Buffett Concert for the Gulf

WHEN? Sunday · July 11

WHERE? Gulf Shores, Alabama · find us on the map

WHY? "Jimmy Buffett and Friends" concert

"It's Five O'clock Somewhere" has become one of my favorite phrases, so it is only natural that after all this time of having my favorite performers, I finally really discovered Jimmy Buffett. I think I read somewhere that five o'clock was when the live performance at Gulf Shores today really got underway. And, it was definitely the time to have the typical beach atmosphere kick in and the crowds at the beach for the live concert to move into high gear.

For many of the concert-goers, today was an all-day affair with the first shuttles arriving at the concert site around 11:00 AM. It is good that many people parked quite some distance from the site, roughly located between Lifeguard Station #3 and #5. Since I wasn't there, I'm really guessing, but the 90-minute concert I viewed on CMT showed enough of this beach we have frequented for me to make a somewhat educated guess.

Since the Mobile Press-Register reporters and photographers were at the concert, let me refer you to Lawrence F. Specker's article they had online:

Jimmy Buffett brings joy: Son of a son of a sailor returns to Gulf Coast to promote tourism 7/12/2010

The above article mentioned several details I did not know, such as remembering the concert's other performers, but I will assure you Jimmy Buffett was on stage the entire 90 minutes of the CMT performance.

Buffett let several others take turns in the spotlight: Mobile native Will Kimbrough, Mississippi songwriter Jesse Winchester and New Orleans composer/songwriter Allen Toussaint.

He also made a point of dedicating "Come Monday" to Mobilian Milton Brown, who "kind of discovered me, all those years ago."

After a short break, what we didn’t see on the 90-minute televised portion was a 40-minute second set that focused less on Buffett's own music. Selections included Kimbrough's "Piece of Work"; "Southern Cross", a song made famous by Crosby, Stills and Nash; and Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl", his last tune of the night.

Speaking of last tunes, I encourage you to sit back and enjoy Buffett's final televised performance of the evening. Superb!

When The Coast Is Clear

www.cmt.com/videos/misc/536045/When-The-Coast-Is-Clear.jhtml

• I really like this video because I think it has some very infectious elements to it that may infect you, like it did me, with the kind of music and performance he gives his many fans, referred to as Parrotheads.

  One Particular Harbour (Live from Anguilla)
  
  

• Since Alan Jackson was unable to perform at last night's concert because it was postponed from July 1st, I have included Alan Jackson: It's Five O'Clock Somewhere (with Jimmy Buffett)

A Perpetual Vacationer on HIS Soapbox

*And it's high time ...

One of us has been on HER soapbox in the past on our other blog, but now it's time for you to hear from the male vacationer represented by this blog.

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It's not often that I get on my soapbox, but today is one of those days. Here are a few thoughts I'm having today.

First, it’s the heat wave I keep hearing about on TV and reading about on the internet. Down here in my part of Dixie, (Lower Alabama) halfway between Fairhope and Foley, it’s just the opposite — no heat wave at all. In fact the high temperature on July the 4th was in the high 80’s. Yesterday the high was in the mid 80’s and the forecast for the next 6 or 7 days is for the high temperature to be no more than 92° — not too bad for this time of the year.

The next thing on my mind, and almost everyone down here, is the oil spill. The main industry down here in South Baldwin County is Tourism. With the oil spill the tourists have stopped coming. Lots of people here are losing income. What is it now, day 78 or 79? BP gets on TV and says they are going to clean up everything. My question, is How can BP clean something up that they can't stop?

I haven’t been down to the beaches in the last few days, maybe a week or more, but the last time we went to Gulf Shores the beaches were still the beautiful sugar white sand they were this time last year, but that was before the last Gulf storm that did bring oil into our area. In fact the Gulf was so rough and choppy all of the boats that had been out skimming oil had to come in to port. The sea was just too tough for their small crafts.

Now the news is that we have this big skimmer called the Whale out there and it can gather more oil than the spill is spewing out each day. Why did we wait over 70 days to start using this boat?

From what I’m hearing down here, several countries have offered to help us clean up this mess and stop the leaking, but we have not accepted their offer. WHY?

While I’m on my soapbox I have another thing that peeves me. BP has hired a lot of people to keep the beaches clean. Now get this, and it figures in with the cooler than normal temperatures we are having, the workers are being paid $25 an hour, but OSHA will not let them work longer that 20 minutes each hour. The other time they are sitting under cooling tents. These tents are equipped with electrical generators so they can run electric fans and air conditioners. I wonder what the construction workers in the Southwest and up the East Coast think about this?

— WDS