The Starbucks store on Spring Valley Pike in Miamisburg, Ohio has a long booth with three small tables. Recently I was there at one end table. A young woman with blond hair was at the other end table. There was a fun group there that day, and I heard several say "I don't know Kelsey". That seemed to fluster her. So I asked her, "I don't know Kelsey.(pause) Who is Kelsey?" "I'm Kelsey" she replied. "Now I know Kelsey" I responded, which made her laugh. So we chatted.
I told her about my radio show, "Gene On The Scene" on BlogTalkRadio. Then I queried "What do you do?" Kelsey replied that she was a singer. I asked her last name; she told me it was Skaggs. I recalled a promotional flyer I had seen last fall posted at the Centerville Starbucks, and told her about it. Kelsey confirmed it was her, and was amazed I still had the flyer when I produced it out of my copious notes I always take, then carry with me everywhere.
Skaggs was twenty and started performing professionally during high school at age sixteen, she told me. J.J., the shift manager on duty at the time, saw us and remembered that she hung out at that Starbucks during high school.
I left, but saw Skaggs there again a week or so later. I told her I'd heard her song, "L.O.V.E." on YouTube, and liked it because it was a bouncy song.
We started talking about musical instruments. Skaggs plays guitar. I told her I liked her ukulele on "L.O.V.E.", and she told me that it was a mandolin she was playing on that song. The mandolin has a similar sound to the ukulele, at least the way she used it on that song. The main difference, Kelsey explained, was that the ukulele "sounds tinny" and she felt the mandolin had a fuller sound. I told her about Zee Avi, a singer from Malaysia I'd seen on YouTube who plays an excellent ukulele, and Kelsey promised to check her out.
Now Kelsey Skaggs is in Indonesia, near Malaysia where Zee Avi hails from. Maybe they will meet someday?
