Winnipeg Free Press Wednesday, April 13, 2005

OAK BLUFF SINGER EARNS BIG FOLLOWING WITH CLINE TRIBUTE
By Morley Walker

The great country singer Patsy Cline once said, “If you can’t do something with feeling, it’s not worth doing at all.”

That’s the motto Oak Bluff resident Michelle Anseeuw tries to follow with her four-year old tribute show, InCLINEation: Sweet Dreams of Patsy Cline.

“She sang with so much feeling,” says Anseeuw who will be back at the Club Regent Casino for performances 10 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Monday.

“Her music was always around the house when I was growing up.”

The West Virginia-born singer released only three albums before she died in a plane crash in 1963 at age 30.

Yet her memory and her music, including such songs as Walkin’ After Midnight, I Fall to Pieces, Crazy and Sweet Dreams, live on. Cline has been the subject of several books and a 1985 Hollywood biopic, Sweet Dreams starring Jessica Lange.

Anseeuw, unlike most tribute performers, is no impersonator. She takes the stage as herself to tell Cline’s story, through narration and song, backed by a six-member band of rural Manitoba gentlemen.

“I like to give the idea of where the songs came from,” says Anseeuw, a 38-year-old wife and mother of three boys.

The formula appears to be working. What started as largely a weekend hobby to perform in community clubs in southwestern Manitoba has developed a minor cult following in the province and beyond.

She and the men (among them her husband, Willie, an electrician, who handles the lighting) have done 90 dates so far. They drive to gigs in Carberry and Virden in a Chevy Suburban pulling a trailer loaded with equipment.

The band consists of David McKay on keyboards, Bill Stewart on drums, Robert Marginet on guitar and banjo, Billy Joseph on bass and fiddle and Steven and James Portley on backup vocals.

“They gave us a great night of entertainment,” says Graham Hall, the executive and artistic director of the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre. “Michelle knows how to take the show to the audience.”

They’ve appeared at Winnipeg’s casinos several times. Their shows here sell out.

They perform 26 songs, plus encores, divided into two 50-minute sets. In the first half, Anseeuw comes out in cowgirl gear. In the second half, she wears an evening gown. (Rod Stewart, who uses a male version of this routine in his current tour, has to get his ideas from somewhere.)

“Michelle is a special gal,” says drummer Stewart, 64 a retired highways inspector who claims he’s never had so much fun in his life. “She’s got a great personality, she looks good and she’s a talented singer.”

With her eldest son only 14, Anseeuw has no immediate plans to pick up stakes for Nashville. She did, however, make sure she took in the Junos in Winnipeg to catch k.d. lang, another well-known Cline acolyte.

“She was unbelievable, the highlight of the show,” Anseeuw says. “She’s another of my idols.”

The group is eyeing dates in Ontario for the fall. They’re at Casino Regina May 27.

“We clap our hands when we get a casino show,” Anseeuw says. “The facilities are excellent and they treat us like gold.”

The Carberry News Express Monday, March 15, 2004

ALL MANITOBA CAST OUTSTANDING
Patsy Cline Show Very Impressive
By Gloria Mott

“There’s going to be some singing of Patsy Cline in the shower tonight,” commented one satisfied person outside Carberry Community Hall on Saturday night. He was one of many, who left the hall with Patsy Cline songs re-playing through their mind.

Carberry’s Community Hall was almost full for the showing of InCLINEation’s “Sweet Dreams of Patsy Cline.” The tribute drew people from far beyond the local community.

The event was brought to the area through the Carberry plains Arts Council. Council Co-ordinator, Sherry Howard first introduced local singer, Carly Sallows, who sang beautifully, a number of songs from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s era. She sang with a clear soprano voice, hitting notes some of us just dream about hitting. The only thing that was missing was a little repartee with the audience between numbers.

She warmed the audience up for the ‘Main Event’, “Sweet Dreams of Patsy Cline.”

I must confess that having listened to a radio interview with Michelle Anseeuw (the lead singer a couple of days previous to the show) and learning that it was an all-Manitoba production, I was not expecting to be impressed. I was wrong – I was literally blown away!

With a radio voice relating excerpts of Patsy Cline’s life now and then, her music was brought back to life, through the amazing vocals of Michelle Anseeuw. She was backed up by a pair of back-up singers, James and Steven Portley, and four other exceptional musicians. The musicians proved that they were no slouches, when they raised the roof with their “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

Because many of Patsy Cline’s hits were slow, heart-rending numbers, levity was added between numbers through the antics of the Portley brothers. “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way) saw all the band wearing sombreros and the Portleys making quick work with a bottle of tequila.

When the song “Crazy” was being introduced, all of a sudden, it’s writer, ‘Willie Nelson’ appeared on stage, with not too bad of a rendition started himself. Michelle soon put him back into position and sang Patsy’s famous version.

Michelle played the first half of the show, in a red ‘cow-girl’ type outfit, complete with fringes and bandana. This represented patsy’s early career. For the second half of the show we saw a more sophisticated Michelle/Patsy, in shimmering black evening gown.

In between those two, there was a back-country version of Minnie pearl (which dismissed my idea that Anseeuw wasn’t comfortable with the mike, unless she was singing.) The crowd roared with laughter as, with a southern country drawl, she tried to pick up a gentleman in the audience, telling him that his wife “don’t look like much!” and that she would be a much better choice. And when she brought him to the front of the hall where they did a little twirling and do-si-do’ing, the audience lapped it up.

The Patsy Cline/Jim Reeves duet (Anseeuw and Portley) captured both the rich voice of Patsy, with the mellowness of Jim. The gospel song “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” prepared the audience for what would be the finale.

It is hard to imagine that a woman who made such an impression, not only on country music, but throughout the whole music industry died at the incredibly young age of 30 years. After replaying those news broadcasts of 40 years ago, that announced her death in a plane crash, the final number was a tender “Sweet Dreams of You.”

A well-deserved standing ovation added a couple more songs by InCLINEation: “Blue” (a song written for Cline that was recorded by Leann Rimes some 30 years after her death) and “Cowboy’s Sweetheart.”

Virden Empire-Advance April 24, 2004

SINGER HAS BIG SHOES TO FILL WITH TRIBUTE SHOW
By Sam Thompson

When you meet singer Michelle Anseeuw offstage, you’re meeting a completely different person than her larger than life musical character.

Anseeuw, the front woman of InCLINEation, the all Manitoba Patsy Cline tribute band, is a commanding stage presence, filling the late country star’s legendary shoes and handling classic songs with the greatest of ease.

Offstage, however, she seems smaller, quieter…more like a friendly new neighbour than a flamboyant lead singer.

“Do you mind if I do my nails while I talk to you?” asks Anseeuw from her dressing room in the bowels of Virden’s Aud Theatre.

With only 15 minutes before show time, the singer still dressed casually in jeans and sweater (a far cry from her glamorous stage costumes) chats about her career as a tribute artist with no regard for the time.

After all, the show can’t start without its star.

“It’s been almost three years since we started this.” says Anseeuw about her seven piece band.

“Everybody’s still passionate about it.”

Anseeuw herself is obviously still passionate about the music of Patsy Cline, the woman she pays tribute to every night on stage.

…but why did she choose Cline? Most tribute acts take on bands with large bodies of work, so there are hundreds of songs to choose from. In Cline’s tragically short career, she only released three albums.

I’ve been interested in Patsy Cline’s music for a long time,” says Anseeuw

“She has a unique style to her voice. I’d just finished reading a book about her life before we decided to put this band together, so I’d taken a real interest in her life story as well as her music.”

In fact, the band wasn’t even intended to be a tribute act. Anseeuw says she just wanted to start some kind of musical project with her friend David McKay (InCLINEation’s keyboard player), and her obvious Cline influence just shone through.

“He had seen a tribute act in Vegas, so he said ‘why don’t we do a Cline show?’

“I sat down and read the book again, and we picked the songs and put together a five-piece band.”

After the first few shows, Anseeuw says something was obviously missing from the group’s sound. She loved the vocal harmonies on Cline’s records, which were provided by the Jordanaires, and she wanted some back-up of her own.

Enter the Portley Brothers.

Multi-instrumentalist/singer James Portley and his harmonizing brother Steven not only fleshed out the group’s sound, but added over-the-top stage presence to the InCLINEation set dubbed “Sweet Dreams of Patsy Cline.”

The group’s Virden show was a fundraiser for St. Mary’s Anglican Church, which is in drastic need of a new hall, their old one having been built around the turn of the century.

Based on the huge crowd attending InCLINEation’s spectacular performance, it looks like the church is now well on its way to meeting its financial goal.

“Spectacular” is really the only way to describe the show.

Piano man McKay’s original Vegas influence is clearly a big part of the group’s live act, as glitzy costumes and crowd-pleasing antics were the order of the day…not to mention the incredibly tight band.

The group, consisting of Anseeuw, the Portleys, McKay, drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Billy Joseph and guitarist Bob Marginet was incredibly professional: hitting the right notes on time every time, and sometimes even overshadowing their star singer.

The players showcased their talents during a high-energy ‘hillbilly’ segment of the show, as Anseeuw took a breather and guitarist Marginet switched to banjo for a brilliant bluegrass workout which, in my opinion, was the highlight of the show.

Anseeuw, however, was the reason everyone was there.

From the opening number, Cline’s version of Hank Williams’ classic “Your Cheatin’ Heart” to the sublime “Crazy” near the end, Anseeuw had a captive audience, most of whom cheered with recognition before Anseeuw could even start many of the legendary songs.

Whether handling straight-ahead country or gospel-tinged songs or even faster, bluesy material, Anseeuw was a delight to listen to and to watch.

According to the singer, the crowd was great, but the venue was even better.

“I love this theatre,” she gushed, “and I love this town.”

“The theatre’s just incredible, and the sound is great in here.”

It sure was, but not only because of the Aud’s acoustics. Anseeuw and her group brought the theatre to life, pleasing not only the Patsy Cline die-hards, but newcomers like myself as well.