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 After finding out about becoming a new mom, her and her new family decided to move back to Wisconsin to be closer to family. The move back to the north woods of Wisconsin and living on very meager means (very meager) was a very hard time in life. She started to raise the family and work as a nursing assistant. All the while her husband was on the road, she always wanted to be part of the music but never brave enough to mention it. She started writing songs in 1992 and keeping them to herself one day hoping to maybe sing one of them. After several years of living in the country she and her husband moved to the big city of Eau Claire Wisconsin where she started working as a part time secretary. Over the next few years she worked her way to legal advisor for the company of which she is still employed to date. The real music thing for her never really started until a decision by her and her husband to come off the road and take up a day job and be part of the family of which he was missing out on ! and not to mention to (save the marriage). After a spell of day work and family life her husband started playing locally with a family based band and had EllieMay going to all the gigs and teaching her how to run sound keeping her part of the music instead of on the outside of it. At this point she wanted to be more a part of the music and wanted to sing but never wanted to say anything? One day in 1996 her husband received a phone call from his group he had been touring with and had been asked if he could fill in for a couple of shows in upper Minnesota and a show in Canada, they also needed a female vocalist for the trip. Her husband said well my wife has been singing with our group over the last few months and if she goes I can go, well against better judgment and being in a spot the band leader had no choice but to take EllieMay and her husband both. Now the great part of this is that Elliemay new about 5 songs and never really preformed live or had any real stage experience. Well the road trip went roughly and everybody survived and everybody got paid, how? we are still wondering? This was EllieMays first real dose of the music business. Over the next few years EllieMay was becoming quite a front of house engineer, mixing the band and making quite a scene among the local sound engineers who didn't like the fact that she had a good ear and mixed better then most of the engineers in town. still not quite where she wanted to be in the music scene, she finally approached her husband and told him she wanted to sing just one song with the band and she would be happy and not bug him anymore, now her husband not being sure if he wanted his beautiful wife being the center of attraction on stage and being drooled over all the time ! Finally decided hey if I'm doing it we might as well do it together. The group started rehearsing in the garage with EllieMay and her first real strong so to speak audition was a song by the Four Non-Blondes called (What's up) she nailed it perfect! The rest is history! After pre-forming with the band over the next several years She was still running sound and getting up on each set and doing more and more tunes ( a far cry from the one song statement) ! She has since become the center of attraction, easy to look at and a great pre-former not to mention has become quite a hot little singer. Her band "Boogie Junction" and some times "Twain Trax" a Shania Twain Tribute band has been doing tons of festivals and casinos, street dances and to many clubs to mention ! About 150 to 200 dates a year. Her and the band have worked their status to becoming almost semi-national, opening for National acts in the past couple of years such as: Emerson Drive, Dierks Bentley, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and most recently this past summer Hal Ketchem, Little River Band and Neil McCoy. She just recently brought her original material to the band in the past year and started recording them and doing them live in every show, she figured I'm not going to make it singing everybody else's tunes ! The buzz of her new songs and after meeting and talking with people like Les Martinez road manager from Neil McCoy (903 records) Wayne Brayfeild affiliate (Show Dog Records) and most recently thanks to her great new friends from Austin Texas (Jim Gilbert and his lovely girl friend Tinker) who were gracious enough to introduce her to Patrick Clifford from (Capitol Records), has catapulted her music career to a whole new level!! EllieMay has just recently had communication with Stephanie Beck (Winner Of the 2007 CMT 330 Sessions contest ) and has sent one of her original songs to be entered in the 2008 CMT 330 sessions contest. And is keeping her fingers crossed for the best! EllieMay is also hoping and looking forward to doing a show case in Nashville this next spring (late Jan. early Feb. of 2008) and also a show case at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin Texas this March! The self titled album "Musicians Wife" is due to be released in March of 2008 and is full of songs about her life as a musicians wife. The songs relate to so many different people in such a good way ! People from all walks of life at all the live venues are swarming and asking who wrote that? or where do we get a copy of the album? Your songs are so good!! EllieMay feels that I'm at that door knocking and hoping that some one will open it so she can do what she is really good at ! And she knows there is so much talent out their and that the door is a very big hard door to open! Her friend Jim Gilbert from Texas told us that she has Personas? Ya we had to look it up in the dictionary? But I think he is right, because she is not just a good entertainer or a great singer/song writer she is a peoples person if you watch her with people, you would understand even if someone doesn't like her at first give her 2 minutes and her personas wins them over every time! I think you will be seeing videos and hearing her songs on the radio very soon! And then understand how a musicians wife relates to everybody! |