Music is as much a part of my life as breathing is. Every song that gets played in my house is all connected to a specific memory (or, is in the process of making one) and because of that connection to music, I want to share the story of Fred Stobaugh.
At the age of 96, Fred was not looking for fame or fortune or anything resembling adoration. What he was looking for was a way to deal with the passing of his wife Lorraine after spending 75 years together.
When Fred spied an ad for a singer/songwriter contest from Green Shoe Studio (located in Peoria, Ill) he thought it might be a nice way to say how much he loved and missed his wife. And so Fred penned a simple little song called Oh Sweet Lorraine and sent it Snail Mail-style to Green Shoe Studio.
Now, what makes Green Shoe different than pretty much 90% of all the other music studios (besides being based in Peoria, Ill) is that even though the contest makes it clear that entries need to be uploaded to Youtube in order to be considered, Producer/Founder,Jake Colgan still read Fred's letter and not only fell in love with Fred's song and story, he set out to make Fred's song Oh Sweet Lorraine a reality...as a present for Fred.
(wipes away tear)
Yeah, that actually happened.
And the best part is that Oh Sweet Lorraine has not only managed to crack the Billboard charts, it is also in the top 10 of iTune downloads.
Now, just so you know, Fred didn't win the contest (the winner was Graham Cowger who did a lovely job and yes, he followed the rules and uploaded his video) but that doesn't matter, this is a story about a guy who loved his wife and wrote a song about it.
After the break is a short documentary all about the hows and the whys and the what happened, but really you should only remember just one thing, real love makes the best songs.
Check it out...and cry...I did. (Then download the song).
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