It’s been a really nice visit with Mimi Roman in Connecticut! She will be performing at the Rockin Race Jamboree in Spain in February, and the Dave and Deke Combo will be backing her.
On day one, June 16, Mimi and I sat down and started shooting video for an interview that I plan on editing later for my upcoming podcast. Mind-blowing tales of being a ground-breaking female music pioneer in the 1950s. Touring with rockabilly wild men like Ronnie Self; showing Elvis Presley and Johnny Horton around Manhattan; winning poker on the tour bus playing against twenty hillbilly musicians; performing at Madison Square Garden with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Dale Evans; recording with Grady Martin and the Nashville A-Team at Owen Bradley’s studio in the 1950s—the stories were nonstop, and I got them on video for you to enjoy, after it’s all edited and ready to release.
Day two was another fun one, recording more video interviews, going through old photos, and listening to her old records. Mimi really made a LOT of records under a bunch of different names on a dozen or more labels. I had no idea she made so many records until I came here; I’m not sure there’s a cohesive discography of everything she’s done, it was just so much!
It’s fun to hear Mimi walking around her house, singing all the time, as she does tasks and moves from room to room. Singing to her comes as naturally as breathing does to the rest of us. It’s really neat to hear her voice wafting through the hallways as she moves.
That night Mimi and I got out her song books and lyric books, and we sat around singing and playing music for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun. I kept telling her I wanted to hear HER sing, but she kept saying all she really wanted to do was sing harmony (which she’s really, really good at). I also kept trying to get her to play some guitar for me, but she wouldn’t, so I strummed her beautiful Martin D-28 and we sang a bunch of tunes. I caught some on the cell phone.
See many more photos and watch the videos at Deke’s original Facebook posts here, here, and here!
