THE ROOSTER CREEK GIRLS (home)

 

January 2006

Emily, Pippa, Karen, Margot, Laura -- the Rooster Creek Girls, January 2006

That's Karen Howard on piano, Margot McMillen on cello, and in 06 also Emily Parsons on banjo, and Laura Idle on banjo-ukelele or cello (photo by Liz Mitchell greetings-from-earth)

HISTORY

Margot and Pippa first met during the dark years of KOPN, when they worked together on the Valentine House Concert series, intended to bring guests and volunteers back up to the radio station. Margot arranged donations of refreshments from local restaurants including Main Squeeze, the Root Cellar, Tellers, Uprise Bakery, and Pippa arranged the music, including Thom Howard, Steve Jerrett, Tim Langen and the I (Irish) Band, Tom Verdot. It was a successful and easy partnership, so when the house concert series came to a natural end, the partnership continued, this time with Margot as beginner on cello and Pippa as beginner on fiddle, then Laura on banjo-uke, and Emily on banjo, and Laura moved to cello, and...

Then Margot invited Karen to play piano with us. Karen grew up playing music in her daddy's church, as part of a group with her two sisters. She plays by ear and can master pretty well any tune once she's heard it a few times. It was Karen who sugggested the Rooster Creek Girls as a name, in honor of Ron Lutz and the Rooster Creek Boys at 11.25 a.m. on Saturdays on KFAL Radio, Fulton, Missouri. As she says, the only thing different between us and the boys is that when the gig's over, we're still sober!! (no offense intended, Ron!)

We like to play at farmers markets, at Coopers Landing, and for private functions. As Karen likes to say: "We are available for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, births, christenings, and funerals. We put the FUN back in funerals!" We play oldtime traditional American tunes, O'Carolan tunes, some ragtime, some classic 1940s tunes, generally whatever takes our fancy. We've even tried the Blue Danube at times! Most of all, we like to have fun.

To bring this story up to date: That was a few years ago now. Margot's playing with a chamber quartet, Karen's remodeling her house, and Pippa's working with various groups and making CDs.