From left: Michele Harris, Marjie Orton and Annie Ernst.

After Ken and I arrived in California following the demise of Double Shot, my sister, Marjie Orton, was busy writing and performing her own original songs with a band called Honey Creek, a three piece all girl acoustic group.

Eventually, their band broke up, and Marjie decided to put together a studio session of pick-up musicians to record a bunch of her original songs; 9 in all. She dubbed the “band” Island Fever and called the collection “Coast Is Clear”.

My sister, Marjie, is also a musician who released a CD of her original music. Ken and I played on all of the studio tracks as well as live for the CD release party. Joyce played drums at the party and Annie from Honey Creek joined us on stage.

On the CD she plays guitar, mandolin and keyboards. Ken played lead and I played bass. Marjie did all the vocals. Also on the album were Rachel Siegel on woodwinds and her friend, Claudia Paige, on drums. The first tracks we laid down were Marjie’s guitar and my bass accompanied by a drum machine we affectionately called Ringo. Other instrument tracks were put down later. There are three samples of songs on her website.

Once the album was completed we had a CD release party to play the songs live. Here are the photos from that session.

Mick Orton

Categories: History