KASU presents Di Anne Price and Her Boyfriends April 23 for Conductors' Club event

April 20, 2010 -- KASU has found the best kept secret of Memphis and is bringing her to Paragould. KASU’s Conductors Club event this spring will feature Di Anne Price and Her Boyfriends on Friday, April 23, from 7-10 p.m. at Atkins Celebration Hall, 101 South Pruett Street, in Paragould. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. The KASU Conductors’ Club spring event invites listeners to see Di Anne Price and Her Boyfriends in performance, and to support KASU. Conductors’ Club members (those whose annual gift to KASU is $240 or more) will receive two complimentary tickets, and KASU will be making a limited number of tickets available for the dinner/dance event at $25 each. Tickets must be purchased by Thursday, April 22. To purchase or to reserve tickets, contact Todd Rutledge (trutledge@astate.edu), KASU's director of development, at (870) 972-2807.

Di Anne Price has been called the best-kept secret in Memphis, yet she has spent nearly 30 years on the city’s live-music circuit, playing everywhere from hotels and restaurants to outdoor festivals and nightclubs. Now Price and her Boyfriends will be in Paragould. Di Anne Price is a native Memphian and a product of the city’s musical melting pot, where she obtained the dazzling command of the bawdy hokum blues and vaudeville hand-me-downs.

John Taylor from Blues On Stage has described Di Anne Price as a survivor, “an unquenchable optimist who simply refuses to let the blues darken her soul. That's not to say there's any lack of depth or conviction when she does tackle a blues song; she clearly loves the form and digs into it with relish. But there's an inherent dignity in her approach, a resolute strength that leaves no doubt the blues will never, ever win the battle for Di Anne’s heart.” Di Anne Price doesn't tour, at least so far; she's spent her entire life in Memphis, and all of her adult years playing music in bars, restaurants, stores . . . any place, in short, that will have her. Price sings and plays like she stepped out of the 1940s. At any of myriad live gigs as well as on her three self-released albums, Price’s versatility is boundless yet never showy; whether purring through Nina Simone's lascivious "Sugar In My Bowl" or contemplating the pain in the Ray Charles classic "You Don't Know Me," Price makes the songs her own.

Di Anne Price recalls growing up in a household where music was as vital as air. Her parents and grandmother all had a vested interest in music, but it was Price’s mother that provided her with most of her early musical education. “She'd help me, any time of the day or night. I can remember waking up and wanting to play. And Mom would get up with me – she’d never say no, not now - and she’d work with me, even in the middle of the night.” Some things came easy, others hard. “I think of myself as a storyteller," she explains. "There are so many songs that are haunting, that have adult themes, and I try to find a way to tell the story behind it all.” It’s a theme that comes up again and again in conversation. Yet while she'll tackle almost anything - torch songs, standards, ballads - that provides her with a narrative framework to explore, she has her own very personal parameters. “I won't do songs that have no hope. I love to sing the blues, but I won’t limit myself to it. I’ll sing anything, anything except the stuff that’s all over the radio. Why would people listen to me sing it when they can hear the original version any time?”

Di Anne Price, accompanied by “Her Boyfriends,” including drummer Tom Lonardo, saxophonist Jim Spake, and bassist Tim Goodwin will be belting out her style of music for KASU’s Conductors Club event on Friday, April 23, at Atkins Celebration Hall in Paragould, Arkansas. “I live for my music. It’s what I do, it’s what I am. And I’d rather do this than anything I know. I’m fortunate. I love my life.” Spend some time with Di Anne Price. Your heart will be a little warmer, your soul a little wiser, and your world a little richer for it.

For more information, to reserve your Conductors’ Club tickets, or to purchase tickets, contact Todd Rutledge (trutledge@astate.edu), KASU's director of development, at (870) 972-2807.

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