FLORENCE-Florence/Lauderdale Tourism and the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area will host a series of music panels and tours March 2, 2019. The music panels will be held at the Florence Lauderdale Tourism Visitor Center in McFarland Park. The panels are free to the public.
The Young Musicians of Muscle Shoals feature Cadence Baker, Trey Nichols and Bay Simpson. Each one of these talented young people come from musical families and will detail their Muscle Shoals influence, journey to get to this point and future in music. Cadence Baker is a sophomore at Florence High School. She has been signing her entire life, writing since she was 12 and plays the guitar and piano. Like Cadence, Trey Nichols has been part of the Florence Academy of Fine Arts program at Florence High School. He was also a member of local band Electric Zen. Bay Simpson is an entertainment business student at UNA. He’s been performing for several years and is currently working on a project with Nashville producer Keith Stegall.
Pete Carr
A Q&A with LeBlanc & Carr will begin at 2:00 p.m. It features legendary Muscle Shoals musicians Lenny LeBlanc and Pete Carr who both played or sang on many of the greatest recordings coming out of the Shoals in addition to writing countless timeless songs. In 1977, they formed LeBlanc & Carr and hat a big hit with their song “Falling” the following year. Afterwards, Carr continued his successful career as a session musician and can be heard on recordings by Simon & Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart and many more, while LeBlanc launched a successful career as a Christian singer and songwriter.
Lenny LeBlanc
According to Florence/Lauderdale Tourism Director of Operations Alison Stanfield stated, “We are extremly excited to present this series of music panels. These young musicians truly are the next generation of Muscle Shoals music and will carry on this legacy of music in the future. This is also the first time LeBlanc and Carr have been participated in a public event together in years. Andreas Werner of Crazy Chester Music will conduct the Q&A sessions and we encourage our local music lovers to attend and be prepared for some amazing stories and entertainment.”
For more information, please call the Florence-Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau at (256) 740-4141.
Media RElease/Randa Simpson Hovater
Manager, Media Relations
Florence/Lauderdale Tourism
