
Anndrena with The Rose on her Head (Rose signed by Billy Joe Shaver!)
Anndrena Belcher and The Wildboys at
Down Home
February 16th, 8pm show
$12 at door
Anndrena celebrates a life lived "in the crux
of contradiction." Her songs and tales chronicle her family's 1950s
migration out from the eastern Kentucky colafields into inner city,
Uptown, Chicago, and her experiences living and travelling back and
forth between the two worlds on what gets named as "the Hillbilly
Highway." She is a veteran of the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and
has travelled as far away as New Zealand, telling stories and singing
songs. Anndrena has been likened to "..Minnie Pearl with track shoes",
"..a rocket powered raconteur", "a Hillbilly Cleopatra," (referring to
the Doo dads?). The late Oral Historian and Author, Studs Terkel,
called Anndrena Belcher "...a secret national treasure," "Images and
Songs...bittersweet. Like a picnic in a thunderstorm," according to one
audience member. Funny, because one of the first songs Anndrena wrote
is entitled "Picnic in the Rain."
Anndrena is proud and excited to take the stage with Phil Leonard,
Roger Rasnake, Brandon Story, and the combination is called, Anndrena
Belcher and The Wildboys!
For more information on Anndrena, go to www.arts.virginia.gov and
www.crec76.org and to MySpace: anndrena'smusicandstories. Or call
the Down Home at 423-929-9822.