FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Ya’ll,

Last month I had a great opportunity. My niece, Madeline Wilbanks, was given “studio time” by her parents for Christmas last year. They finally decided to cash in last month. Madeline is the daughter of Rick and Kathy Wilbanks … Rick is one of Joy’s 3 older brothers. They live up in Cleveland, GA.

I’d heard over the last couple of years that Madeline had taken up an interest in music, teaching herself to play banjo, guitar, mandolin, etc. She was already active in band, and like so many other teens – active in just about everything else. She’s 16 … so being self-taught, and .. oh yeah … 16 … I honestly had no idea what to expect. I understood that the songs she wanted to record were all originals, and that she just wanted to get them down to share with her friends and family.

When Madeline showed up I knew in just about 5 minutes that she was not only prepared, but also that I’d be in for quite a treat. We spent a few hours for the next couple of days while they were in town and got some basic demo tracks to 5 songs. I’ve asked permission to share some of these this week on the blog … I’m quite proud of this girl!

So … here’s my favorite of the five songs … “Have You Forgot”. Yeah, “fogot” isn’t grammatically correct – and she already knew that, but she didn’t care and thinks it just “sounds better” this way .. and I wholeheartedly agree.

My favorite line in this song is “why would you pay so high a price only to know I’d disappoint you” … wow.

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You can tell Madeline how awesome she is on Facebook … she doesn’t know I’m blogging this, so why not surprise her with some much-deserved congrats!

Whatcha think?