My boyfriend and his band will be playing in front of a large crowd at this year’s exhibition. I am so proud of them as this is a really big accomplishment. The guys are all pretty nervous about it, but you can tell that they are really excited too. It is the first step towards making it to the big leagues.

The band has never had any problem getting gigs and has always kept themselves very busy, but this is a big one for them and they have never done anything of this stature before. It will be big in getting their name known and their music heard. There will be thousands of people there.

I am expecting great things to come of this and I have already told the guys that I will be their first roadie. I have been their biggest fan from the beginning and I still will be when they are making their videos for Much Music’s top ten count down.

My mother has been playing the piano in church for as long as I can remember. She has also been teaching lessons to the little kids and she even taught me lessons for the first few years of my piano playing life. She is a really good teacher, but sometimes it is really hard to teach your own child and she thought that I might listen more to an outside teacher.

She enrolled me in a Royal Conservatory piano course at the local music school. I have to admit, that at first, I absolutely hated it. My instructor worked me a lot harder than my mom ever had. But, soon, I was seeing my efforts paying off and I was actually becoming a pretty good musician. That is when I started enjoying it.

Over the next ten years or so, as I would learn & master the piano course, I got a real love for music that I never would have had if I hadn’t taken this course. I loved all kinds of music and there was never a spare moment when I was not listening to some sort of music. I think I am now ready to start teaching my own little group of kids.

Now I try to read the paper everyday.  You can find different news headlines each day, but they are all so serious.  From everything from finance, to international news, there is not a lot of excitement when it comes to news headlines in our paper.

Sure, you can get excited with a little music gossip now and then - it seems that everyone is so fascinated with all the scandals that celebrities get involved in.  Once in awhile, they do manage to sneak into the regular paper and you get a little laugh.

Now, what should really be in the newspaper should be some strange news.  Not necessarily strange creepy, but strange funny.  There would be nothing better than the paper having some weird news headlines to pique your interest.  In that case they could make the front page interesting to grab your attention with headlines that scream to you to read the paper.  Then they could leave the boring or more serious stuff till later in the paper.  It would give us more incentive to buy it…. just my two bits.

There have been many artists that have shaped the country music industry. Some examples that come to mind are Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and Shania Twain. One of the most influential artists from the 1960s was Merle Haggard.

What sets Merle Haggard out from the crowd? He was successful in combining many forms of American music such as folk, pop, blues and jazz and integrated them into country music. His unique style and sound would influence country artists for years to come.

Over the years, Merle has released over seventy albums and over six hundred songs. Some more notable ones are “Okie from Muskogee” and the “Fightin’ Side of Me.”

Merle Haggard was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1977 and in 1994, ws inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

To learn more about Merle Haggards’ achievements, visit MerleHaggard.biz.