"Ever since I was a young girl, I have had a love for music and animals. In the mid 90’s I had the idea of combining my two passions into a music CD. At the time, I was owner of a nightclub on Hilton Head Island called Cheryl's LeCabaret Piano Bar. (I entertained there as well as ran the place.) I started the musical pet project, but as life unfolded, the project kept getting set aside.
All of that changed in June of 2007. For the first time in many years, my schedule was freed up to where I could spend most of the summer working on the music for the ‘pet project’. A new company was formed...Mood Music Media Company! There's company partners Mark and Lise Husbands, (a wonderful “musical” couple on Hilton Head Island whom I’ve known for years...Mark is a multi-talented drummer with 'The Headliners' Band for many years - a very talented and well known group of musicians who can play anything and have traveled everywhere! but make their homebase in the Lowcountry of South Carolina). There's also Jeff Borthick,(my man! whose full time job is selling real estate for ERA). I was able to record my songs with Mark at their studio (Husbands Productions Studio). Mark mixed and produced the final product. I worked with Lise on getting the graphics perfected, and she worked endlessly doing research, printing, computering as well as numerous other things! Jeff wrote the titles (from his ‘animal mindset’) and helped with the websites. Collectively, we have done so much more…too much to list. The CD is finished now, and I couldn’t be happier! I feel great about the finished product...here's some information about it."
It’s like your musical prescription for relaxing with your pooch, or to help relieve your dog from stress due to trauma from injury or surgery, bad weather, separation anxiety, traveling, weaning pups, etc.
Veterinarians and pet owners have known about the beneficial effects of music therapy for years. Music therapy helps pets just as it helps humans. – sound’s good, feels good!
This CD, “Gone For a Walk” is a collection of emotionally settling music – a comforting blend of grand piano, strings and a touch of flute. Light as a terrier and mellow as a hound!
The other wonderful thing about this CD, is that with your purchase, a donation is made to ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Animal Cruelty) and the Alzheimer’s Research Foundation – Fisher Center. You help pets and people! How cool is that?!
“Sneakin’ Catfood” is a title of a song that was written, because our dog Missy, sometimes sneaks up the stairs and steals Lucky’s cat food from her dish! The music in the song starts out on the lower musical scale, and slowly goes up, musically mimicking Missy’s actions. The songs reflect the moods of the titles…always relaxing.
NOTE* The music on this CD is NOT the same music on the Mood Music For Cats CD EXCEPT for "Under The Bed," a flute piece.
I hope you and your beloved pooch enjoy this CD as much as I enjoyed making it! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me at
sales@moodmusicforpets.com or write to me at:
Cheryl Christine Check out my website at
P.O. Box 318 www.cherylchristine.com
Port Royal, SC 29935
About Cheryl...
It all started for one evening, when Cheryl and her family were visiting some friends on a farm in Stillwater, Minnesota…the hosts had a piano and Cheryl loved to play it…(she was barely four years old.) During one of these visits, she happened to play a familiar tune. That’s when the realization came that maybe she had some talent!
At Christmas, her dad brought home a toy piano for Cheryl, and a guitar for her older brother Gary. At five years of age, Cheryl graduated to her first ‘real’ piano…a Story & Clark spinet piano pur-chased at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds—she still has both pianos’ today! The piano lessons started at age six. Cheryl took classical piano with tutors at St. Joseph’s Academy in St. Paul, MN, and ‘in-home’ lessons until the age of eleven. (The sad and sudden death of her last tutor ended formal training.)
Cheryl also learned to play the flute at eight years of age, and during her high school years at, she won 1st Place state and regional competitions with classical compositions. She played the baritone saxophone in stage band at Monroe High School, St. Paul, Minnesota.
At 16, Cheryl started playing in local rock bands in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota. Her father belonged to the Honeywell Country Club in Golden Valley, MN. where she and her drummer friend Lee Brandenburg played several gigs. (OK, it doesn’t hurt to have contacts!) Cheryl also taught Wurlitzer organ/piano lessons and became involved in sales for some years before landing her first steady singing job at CC Richards Supper Club in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, when she was 23.
After signing with Comstock Records in 1986, Cheryl recorded several of her own compositions in Nashville, (“I Don’t Love You Enough” - To Miss You When You’re Gone”, for example) charting the Top Ten Peugeot Playbill in England and the Top 35 Independent Country Charts in the United States.
Cheryl moved to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in June of 1987. Before settling in South Carolina, she traveled extensively throughout Europe, singing and entertaining at nightclubs and hotels. She has entertained audiences in the Southeast for more than 20 years... from the parties of her dear friend “Awesome” Lawson Hamilton at the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, to The Summerhouse in Sarasota Florida, to The Mansion in Savannah Georgia, Palmetto Bluff, etc.
She was co-owner of The Casablanca Piano Bar on Hilton Head Island from 1988 to 1991, before opening her own establishment called Cheryl's Le Cabaret Piano Bar in June of 1991. It was a wonderful place where locals and visitors alike would come to enjoy Cheryl and her guest singers and musicians, dance, imbibe, and have great conversation. Many people, including Cheryl, still talk about many of the wonderful memories they had there. Couples met there and have since married…Cheryl even married a couple there herself, whom she still keeps in contact with! There were many regular guest singers that people loved to talk about!!! Health issues forced Cheryl to sell the business instead of signing another five year lease. Cheryl is a cancer survivor.
After selling Le Cabaret in October 2001, Cheryl took time off to travel and to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design in the field of Film and Video Production. She worked in production at WHHI-TV Channel 3 on Hilton Head for over three years, taping and editing shows, conducting interviews, and on-location shoots. She now has her own Ideography business and has created hundreds of “story albums” on DVD…from family reunions, birthday parties, video messages, cooking shows, documentaries, vacation stories, family albums, to pet stories, baby stories…Cheryl has created many music videos!
The latest endeavor for Cheryl is the new company she and her partners (Mark & Lise Husbands, Jeffrey Borthick) have formed called Mood Music Media Company. Cheryl’s passion for animals is high on her list. Her latest CD release’s, Gone For a Walk “Mood Music For Dog’s” (And Dog Lovers), and Ball of Twine “Mood Music For Cat’s (And Cat Lovers), combine Cheryl’s two passions, (music and animals), with soft beautiful relaxing music through grand piano, strings, harp and flute…all with music she composed.
Cheryl’s mother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and her father is the ‘36’ hour caretaker. To those whose lives have been touched by this disease, you know how devastating this process can be. Cheryl has decided to donate a percentage of the proceeds of her Gone For a Walk, & Ball of Twine CD’s to the Alzheimer’s Research Foundation – Fisher Center. They work hard to find the cause and cure for this disease.
Of course, a percentage of the proceeds also go to ASPCA – The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Hopefully, we all are well aware of the horrible abuse and abandonment of animals in this country. Cheryl supports this charity. She volunteered for the Jasper County Animal Shelter for three years and has seen first hand some of the terrible abuse and situations of these cats and dogs.
Five things you might not know about Cheryl…
1. She’s a country girl at heart…one of her favorite things to do is spend the day gardening and mow the lawn on the tractor mower!
2. She’s most comfortable in a baseball cap and a pair of jeans
3. She loves her old 1978 Buick Riviera
4. She won a trophy at car racing
5. She once thought about being an oceanographer-loves scuba diving with Jeff
C e l e b r a t e H I l t o n H e a d M a g a z I n e May 2007
The PRINCE
And the
ANGEL
By: Paul deVere
Though she doesn’t realize it, she still has her Minnesota accent when she talks. But it sure doesn’t show up in the smoky, sultry sound of her voice when she delivers a song from her seemingly endless repertoire of music that includes everything from the big band sound to Rascal Flatts. Old and new fans can attest to that when they cheer her on at CQ’s Restaurant on Hilton Head Island.
Fortunately, those same old and new fans of Cheryl Christine will be able to hear it all on her new CD, “I Hope You Dance”, to be released this month. Recorded on Hilton Head Island at Husbands Production Studio, Cheryl shows her love of light jazz and swing with hits like “Them There Eyes,” made famous by Billie Holiday and “It Had To Be You,” a Sinatra standard. There is a nod to with Christine’s interpretation of the Rascal Flatt’s hit
“God Bless The Broken Road,” and to contemporary ballads, like Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.”
On the new CD, Mark Husbands provides drums and percussion, Steve Rich plays clarinet and saxaphones (alto, tenor and soprano) and, besides the vocals and piano, Cheryl adds flute and synthesizer to the mix. “I’m real happy with the way it turned out,”
Christine said.
This one-time piano teacher from Minnesota began to develop, in musical terms, her “multi-lingual” talent at CC Richards supper club in White Bear Lake, just north of the Capitol. The piano player didn’t show up for his job two nights in a row. “It was the first place we went,” Christine recalled. She had decided she just had to perform and took a friend with her to go job hunting. “I just kind of sat down and said, ‘Oh, I can play.’ And the fellow said, ‘Well, you’re hired. You can start tomorrow night. What kind of stuff do you sing? I said, ‘Oh, I don’t sing. And he said, ‘You want to play, you’ve got to sing.’ I actually always sang when I played, but was very shy and didn’t sing in front of anybody. But I wanted the job bad enough,” she said.
“The next night I came with as many songs as I could gather,” she continued. “I was scared to death. Whenever I went within two miles of the place, I just froze. But friends helped me get through it.
Hilton Head Islanders got their first taste of Cheryl’s talent when she became co-owner and performer at Casablanca Piano Bar (now Jump & Phil’s) in 1988. From 1991 to 2001, she developed an even larger following as owner and performer at Cheryl’s LeCabaret Piano Bar, a popular hangout for locals and a “true” discovery for visitors. (now the Sage Room restaurant) “I had a great run there,” Christine said. But health problems (Cheryl is a cancer survivor) forced her to sell. “It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” she said.
To succeed with any audience, whether they are at the Village Vanguard in New York or the Greenbrier Hotel or CQ’s Restaurant, you have to continually please. During the 1980’s, Cheryl did that and more. She signed with Comstock Records and “charted” in England on the Peugeot Playbill and in the U.S. with her own compositions and recordings. She toured Europe in that decade three times, especially Sweden, where she developed friendships that survive today.
“Sweden was wonderful. I even got to perform in a club for a prince of Malaysia,” said Christine. “He was there with the Swedish ambassador to Malaysia and the president of Volvo and a couple of big bodyguards. I was told that I could talk to him but never to look him in the eye. I was in my twenties so I said, ‘o.k.’ and went on playing. All of a sudden the waitress calls me over and said the prince would like to speak with me,” she said.
“This is near the end of the evening so they cleared everybody else out,” she continued. “He asked me to play a few songs for him, like “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ and some of the old show tunes. Then he asked me to his table. I was a little intimidated. I’m not supposed to look him in the eyes but he wants to talk. He starts talked to me and I’m not looking at him at all. I thought that was so rude so I just said ‘the heck with it.’ I just turned around and looked at him and said something like, ‘How are you today?’ And he says, ‘You sing like an angel!”
Sitting behind him was the ambassador waving his arms, telling me not to look the prince in the eyes, Cheryl recalled. “I just thought he was the nicest person—like he was kind of lonely or something. By the end of the night we were like old buds. I gave him a big hug when they all left,” she said.
Music has been a major part in Cheryl’s life since she was five years old, maybe younger.
Through the years, through the happy and tough times, the love for her art has grown with her talent.
Read more...