Cheryl Wheeler with Kenny White An Extreme Workout for the Smile and Heart Muscles

Cheryl Wheeler is a laid back woman. She came out on stage full of bonhomie and wearing an outfit that looked just like my pajamas. Cheryl is a born storyteller and has a mind like Mark Twain. She can make ordinary events seem funny by the way she relates them, but behind the wit is a deep and sensitive heart. After making us laugh she then filled the room with her beautiful voice singing, “Quarter Moon”, a song about her elderly neighbors, their long marriage and their old dog buried in the backyard;

And they speak about their lives as almost gone
Waiting for the sunset from an old and distant dawn

In her characteristic style she quipped after the song, you know, if you have nowhere to move, you can try to move in with an elderly couple and say, gee mom, don’t you remember me?

She told the story of driving down the coast from Eugene, Oregon to Petaluma, California, in the beautiful California season of April. She said, that’s the month after the houses stop sliding down the hills but before they catch on fire. As she was driving she remembered it was her cat, Penrod’s, fifteenth birthday, and she conceived the song, “My Cat’s Birthday”;

On my cat's birthday the mice did sway...
The little birds tap danced all around the ants
Movin' in a cunga line

Then she told a funny story about a shelf in her pantry where her cremated pets are kept in jars -on the same shelf as the pot. What if there was a mistake, and she and her partner suddenly had the urge to pee on the couch? We were told that Penrod’s ashes were later used in a percussion instrument called a shaker. It was hard to tell with Cheryl where myth and reality part, but it didn’t matter. She was so much fun to be with.

Then she was sincere and talked about being in a little hotel room in Minneapolis and suddenly feeling really sad. She had no reason to feel sad and thought that the feeling might have been left behind by a previous guest. The lyrics to “Little Lonely Thing” are incredibly sensitive;

For the wide, white, winter sky
There'll be no brave face to keep
till it's cried itself to sleep
So I won’t try

After that, she yanked us back from the pit of empathy by talking about cell phones and classical music being used as ring tones. Here’s a bit of, “It’s the Phone”, with melodies by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and others;

In their odes to Joy and Jesus, do you think they once foresaw
their pieces in our wireless devices
All across the planet? Blah blah, blah blah, blah…

Then the bi-polar musical adventure continued as we were yanked to the other pole with the comforting, “Holding On”, written for a friend going through a rough patch.

You will surely rise
Above these tides
To higher ground

Kenny White played piano throughout Cheryl’s set and sang backup vocals. They seemed like psychic siblings, enjoying the banter and spontaneity of playing off each others’ comments and whatnot.

She talked a little about God. She said, “When I think of God, I feel like Edith Bunker”, and then muttered something befuddled ala Edith. Then she said, “Mercy, whatever happened to the God of love?” when mentioning the behavior of some religious people. She also talked about friendship, and how much comfort and love she feels from dogs. In fact, she ended with a gorgeous tune, “Howl at the Moon” which she wrote in honor of her border collie, James, who she said, was a being without indecision.

And if I could carry your black and white
Sleep so sound wake so nice
I'd keep real close to my own advice
And howl at the moon

The audience joined in with all manner of harmony and feeling and we ended the night with the inner incandescence that comes from the tender fun of a folk music evening.

You can read more about Cheryl at http://cherylwheeler.com.