Dear Dancing Pigs fans and friends,

We'll start out this month's newsletter with something about our esteemed Banjo-Uke and harmonica player, Rev. Ed Horning.  First of all, some people may not know that Ed is an official "Reverend" in some kind of Internet church.  Yes, we're shocked too that he apparently has some religious tendencies.  But, Ed has performed several marriages since obtaining his Reverend status, so it must be so.  Besides this, Ed has been running his own one man piano repair, sales and tuning shop for many years.  If anyone is interested in his services, Ed can be contacted at:

Ed Horning Piano Tuning & Service
4434 Glenway Avenue; Cincinnati, OH 45205
513-244-6488

One very interesting bit of history about Ed, is the number of very famous people he has tuned piano for.  On a recent Pig Trip to St. Simon's Island, we learned of just a few of these famous people.  Since Ed has been tuning piano for more years than he can almost remember, his memory of all these people is still forthcoming, and if more of them pop up in his head, we'll include them in another issue of the newsletter.

Here's a list of what he remembers, and the list is definitely not complete.  Some of these tunings have a story to them, and those might also be included in a future newsletter.  Ed has tuned piano over the years for the artist and/or their group:

Linda Rondstadt
Don McClean
Mose Allison
Ray Charles
Earl "Fatha" Heinz
Chick Corea
Claude Bowling
B.B. King
James Brown
Kenny G
Alicia Keys
Luther Vandross
Waylon Jennings
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Hank Williams, Jr.
Conway Twitty
Merle Haggard
Bob Dylan
Graham Nash
Paul McCartney
Beach Boys
Huey Lewis
Pointer Sisters
Sara McLaughlin (has a story that can't be told)
Manhattan Transfer
Allman Brothers
Frank Sinatra
Kenny Rogers
John Denver
Rod Stewart
The Who
The Moody Blues
Yes
Dolly Parton
Ozzie Osborne
Rush
Willie Nelson
Leon Redbone
Neil Young
Prince
Styx
Crystal Gayle
Crosby, Stills and Nash
Patty Labelle
George Burns (Funny story)
Cab Calaway
Lena Horn

Yeah, even the other Pigs are impressed at that list.

Other events that have taken place since last newsletter, was our trip to St. Simons Island in Georgia, to play at the "Sanibel Symposium" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanibel_Symposium ), where our bass player, Professor of Chemistry Tom Beck, was a speaker.  It was a nice gig for all of us, where we were put up in a suite at the Prince & King Beach Golf Resort.  The beer and fish were plentiful, as was the warm sun for four days.  Our favorite places to eat there were The Huddle House, where Glenna, our waitress, told us in response to how she liked working there, "Same shit, different Huddle House", Gnat's Restaurant, Benny's Red Barn, and The Crab Trap (best meal of all of them).  We packed a lot of site seeing in two days, visiting the historic Lighthouse, old Ft. Frederica, the Tabby Ruins,  Bloody Marsh, and Jekyll Island among a few.  And the highlight of the trip was playing the gig for 300 high powered scientists, including one Nobel prize winner.  One funny story out of that trip, was that Tom was in Jacksonville, Fl, standing in line in the airport to come back to Cincinnati (the other Pigs were relegated to driving), when a person in back of him said "Weren't you at the Sanibel Symposium"?  Tom puffed himself up in his mind, saying to himself "Damn right, I was a big pooh-bah speaker".  But, the guy then immediately said "Weren't you the bass player?"  Tom told us he laughed for 20 minutes at that comment.  If there's any interest from the newsletter readers, we might include pictures from things like this in the future. 

Oh yes, we learned from Rev. Mr. Ed on the St. Simons trip, the meaning of "Butter Face", which we can't disclose in the newsletter.

We've also started collecting original limericks from our 3rd set at Arnold's, where some in the audience come up and perform their own compositions.  Future newsletters, or the website, may have these included, probably if we leave the suggestive rhymes for the imagination.


Thanks,

The Pigs