Letter to Stan Ridgeway

Dear Stan,

Hello!  I'm glad to see you got this letter.  My name is Sharon Porter, and I'm a devoted follower of yours.  I only wish I could keep up-to-date with your projects.  Not much news comes around Central Illinois.  Anyway, I just wanted to write and tell you that you have a fantastic voice.  I'm also very impressed by the lyrics and your style on the keyboards.

Me?  I'm a poet, but would love to pursue music.  I just put together my first two songs with a friend of mine.  In each one, I'm basically reciting my poems to the music.  The first one sounds like a showtune.  It's called, "What Frightens Me Most? Insanity".  Although the poem is quite serious, the song sounds pretty light.  It's a little haunting.  The second one is meant to be kind of pseudo-punk (perhaps a little bit of a take-off on valley).  It's called, "I'm Vacant".  Anyway, we're getting together an acoustic guitarist, a violinist, harpist, flutist, trumpet player, and perhaps me doing some strange effects with walkie-talkies.  Although we may be playing at a place locally, I can't honestly take any of this seriously, but it should be a lot of fun.  My dream is to someday be able to afford keyboards.  Any suggestions as to how to succeed in music?  Is there any easy way?  No, I don't suppose there is.

Well, I hope to continue following you in the future.  If I don't ever get a chance to meet you, I hope to at least see you perform someday.  Or who knows?  Maybe someday you'll see me perform.  If you ever hear of a band called Pagan Lip-Readers, don't pass up the chance to go see them.  I'll probably be with them doing something or other.  Until then (!!!), I hope you have a lot of success and go very far.  I'm behind you all the way.

Love,

Sharon Porter

- Feb. 1, 1984, A.D.