First Night Chatham 2008

Rod Stewart Tribute Singer Rick Larrimore

by Jennifer Sexton 

            Chatham’s First Night celebrants are in for a unique and electrifying performance as Rick Larrimore brings his Rod Stewart tribute to the New Year’s Eve festivities for the first time. Larrimore will sing at the high school auditorium three times, at 6, 8, and 10 p.m.

            Entertainment Chairman Ginny Hamblet discovered Larrimore when she saw him perform while on vacation in Florida. 

Rick Larrimore pays tribute to Rod Stewart, from his early rock and roll hits of the 1970s to his “Great American Songbook” standards from the 1940s.

           “He just acts like him, moves like him, dresses like him, and he looks like him, and he sure as shoot sounds like him, with Rod’s raspy voice,” says Hamblet. “He’s such a good performer that I’m sure we will have to turn people away. We’re all looking forward to him.”

            Maryland-born Larrimore, a professional drummer as well as a singer, is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He didn’t start out as a Rod Stewart tribute artist.

            “I’ve actually been a singing drummer all my life, which is a difficult thing to do, and it’s been very frustrating,” says Larrimore. “It’s hard to be emotive and be a front man while playing drums, but for years that’s what I did, and it’s kind of unique in its own sense, being a singing drummer. But it is frustrating.”

            For years, people told Larrimore that he looks and sounds like Rod Stewart. And although he admired Stewart and enjoyed his music, he didn’t take to the idea of becoming a tribute artist right away.

            “I always thought impersonators were really, you know, kind of peculiar,” Larrimore admits. “Like people who imitate Elvis, and they take it a little too far and really think they’re Elvis and stuff. It’s a little weird. Then a few years ago I said, let me just see what’s out there. I grazed around the Internet and saw that the guys who were doing Rod Stewart were, you know, very good and impressive, but I thought, let me see what I can do with this. I started taking it seriously, and it’s been very lucrative and I’ve been very successful at it. I’ve been performing as Rod Stewart for about five and a half years now.”

            Larrimore performs with a six-piece band called Blondes Have More Fun. The band consists of Mark Seibel on saxophone; Shawn Cannon, a female backup vocalist;

Jeff Griffith on guitar and vocals; Danny Poudrette on bass and vocals; Steve Shaheen on drums and vocals; and a keyboard player who goes simply by the name of Face.

            Larrimore will cover songs from Rod Stewart’s entire career, including many from the “Great American Songbook,” Stewart’s four-album series of 1930s and 1940s standards, as well as his rock and pop hits from the 1970s and 1980s.

            “I try and cover his whole career,” Larrimore says. “I’ll definitely be doing the ‘30s and ‘40s stuff. It’s true when they say that they don’t write them like that anymore. From that era, I enjoy doing ‘Makin’ Whoopee,’ which is kind of a ‘40s version of ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ is always a great one, and ‘Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.’ And then of course I’d be run out of town if I didn’t do ‘Maggie May,’ ‘Hot Legs,’ and ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ ‘Forever Young’ is a great way to open the show. I have to say that ‘Handbags and Gladrags,’ which he did with the Faces back in the ‘70s, is my favorite to do. It was really kind of raw and much more rock and roll. That’s actually my favorite Rod song.”

            Larrimore has yet to meet Rod Stewart, but when he does he would like to thank him and express admiration.

            “I think the biggest thing would be I’d like to thank him for having such a wonderful long career,” he says. “I admire him for growing older gracefully. He’s not out there making a fool of himself. I thought the ‘Great American Songbook’ was very tasteful, and introduced a whole new audience to the songs from the ‘30s and ‘40s. It was a very classy thing to do. He doesn’t go out there trying to look like he’s 25 years old. He’s doing a good job. I’d like to tell him, way to go.”

The Belle-Tones Bring The 1940s Sound To Life

by Jennifer Sexton

            The Belle-Tones, three Andrews Sisters look-alikes and sound-alikes, will recreate the sounds of the 1940s at the Methodist Church at 5 and 7 p.m. on First Night. This will be their first time performing at First Night.

            The group emulates the look and sound of the Andrews sisters, a close-harmony singing group who entertained the Allied forces extensively during World War II and became the best-selling female vocal group in the history of popular music.

             “These three young ladies from the Plymouth area appear in uniforms of the 1940s during the war, Women’s Army Corps (WAC) uniforms,” says Ginny Hamblet, Entertainment Chairman for the First Night Chatham Committee. “It really is like experiencing the Andrews sisters.”

             Soprano Diana Scally, second soprano Sue Jannetty and alto Nancy Patterson perform in many venues from Boston to Cape Cod. They have performed together for about 10 years.

            “We started out as a group with three guys and three girls, and we always did 1940s and 1950s swing. Back then we were called the Snug-Tones,” explains the group’s founder and leader Jannetty. Later, as sometimes happens, the group went through some changes and some members parted ways. The girls stuck together and kept going as the Belle-Tones.

            The group has quite a musical history. Scally holds a degree in vocal performance art and is currently the choir director for the Marshfield Congregational Church. Jannetty has performed throughout her career in shows ranging from dinner theater cabarets to live theater in amusement parks. Patterson has been singing professional jazz and pop for more than a decade in clubs from Cincinnati to New York City. Her musical influences include Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday.

            Jannetty says that the group was drawn to 1940s music right from the start.

            “We love 1940s music because of the harmony,” she says. “I don’t think there’s any era that has the harmonies that 1940s music has. We started out doing acapella music. The ‘40s has great acapella music. We finally switched to using accompanying background music with our vocal performances. At most gigs we play with our own cds that we sing to, and we do a whole skit which incorporates choreography.”

            Jannetty describes the Belle-Tones show as the story of three girls who head off to New York City to perform at the Stage Door Canteen.

            “It takes you back to when the men were in the war and we were performing for them. For the boys, as they used to say. We perform the show in all 1940s attire, ending with the WAC uniforms.”

            First Night invited 90 World War II veterans to enjoy the sounds of the Belle-Tones at a luncheon at Veterans of Foreign Wars at noon on Dec. 29.

            “We tend to sing a lot for the older generation,” says Jannetty. “We’re very busy doing that, and it makes us feel good. We’ve done everything from a Little People of America convention to the National Dog Show. We’ve performed at the Bourne Scallop Festival on the Cape for a few years, the Boston Globe Christmas party, and we’ve appeared at the Plymouth Philharmonic fundraiser for the last four years along with a swing band.”

            The Belle-Tones perform classic 1940s songs like ‘Sentimental Journey,’ ‘It Had to Be You,’ and ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got that Swing,’ as well as the local favorite “Old Cape Cod.”

            Don’t miss the ultimate1940s experience. The Belle-Tones will perform twice, at 5 and 7 p.m., at the Methodist Church.

The MGM Trio Makes First Night Debut

by Jennifer Sexton

            The MGM Trio, a group new to First Night, will perform in the elementary school gym at 1 and 2 p.m.

            “MGM Trio is a new group for us, and they do very interesting stuff,” says First Night Chatham Committee Entertainment Chair Ginny Hamblet. “I would describe the sound as a kind of bluesy pop bluegrass with a banjo, guitar and vocals.”

            The trio is made up of bandleader George Wailgum, who plays guitar, harmonica and sings; Michael Leugers, who plays guitar, banjo, and sings; and Michael Hays, who plays bass. The band name, MGM Trio, refers to the first initials of the members’ first names. 

            Wailgum says that the group was playing at a picnic outing at Brooks Park in Harwich center when someone from the First Night committee approached and asked them to play at First Night.

            “We’ve been playing around on the Cape for a couple of years now, mostly at parties,” Wailgum says. “It’s a lot of fun. We play ‘50s ‘60s and ‘70s music, and we have a lot of funny tunes in there like ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight.’ We try to play to the general crowd. A lot of people on the Cape are retired, like we are, and they remember the ‘50s ‘60s and ‘70s music. We do things from the Eagles, and of course Jimmy Buffett. We can get people dancing. We do some slow things and some rock and roll, and we have a couple of 1940s tunes to fit into the 1940s theme, but mostly we’ll dip into the 1950s, like the Kingston Trio.

            “It’s kind of hard,” Wailgum jokes. “Back in the ‘40s there were a lot of big bands. We’re only three people.”

            The three have known each other for many years. Two of them have been playing together for decades.

            “I’ve been playing and harmonizing with Mike Leugers for more than 40 years,” Wailgum says. “We’re all from Westfield, and we all retired to the Cape. Mike Leugers and I were neighbors, and we started playing neighborhood parties. We always stuck together. We were both teachers, and we used to work at camps in Sandwich in the summers in the 1960s. We would bring our families down to the Cape. I moved down here 10 years ago, and now I live about five minutes from his house. I got him out of musical retirement two years ago this spring, and that’s how long the band has been together. We all live in Harwich now.”

            Although Wailgum, Leugers and Hays have known each other for decades, Wailgum had no idea until relatively recently that Hays shared his passion and talent for music.

            “Mike Leugers and I had played a couple of gigs, and I said to Mike, ‘You know, we really need a bass player.’ He said, ‘Ask Mike Hays.’ I said, ‘I’ve known Mike Hays for years, and I’ve never heard him sing. I don’t think he could carry a tune if you put it in his pocket.’ Mike and I are also in the Coast Guard Auxiliary in Chatham, and one day I asked him, ‘By the way, Mike, do you have any musical background?’ He said, ‘My mother made me take piano lessons. And I played trumpet in high school. And in college I played guitar.’ I said. ‘You’re kidding me!’ I’d known him for 15, 20 years socially, and never knew he had this background. He knew more music than we did! I gave him my bass, and he picked it right up. The rest is history.”

            Come to First Night and see the MGM Trio, with two performances at 1 and 2 p.m. in the Elementary School gym.

            “First Night is a great way to spend some time together,” says Wailgum. “It’s a great day over there and a great night, with things for the kids and the adults alike. It’s just a great time in a great town.”