Celebrated Musicians in Town for ‘Songbuddies’ Workshop
The celebrated musical duo Terry Hendricks and Lloyd Maines stopped in La Grange last Thursday. They were in town for a “Song-Buddies” workshop with a talented group of special needs folks at Grey Legacy Services.
This was the sixth such workshop by Hendrix and Maines at Gray Legacy Services. The program started as an outreach project by the Bugle Boy Foundation, the community-supported music non profit.
“Heather Albright at the Bugle Boy approached me with it,” said Ken Gray, president of Gray Legacy Services. “They were doing songwriting workshops for veterans and she had an idea to do it with our population. So we met Terri and Lloyd, and we’ve been doing three a year ever since.”
Gray Legacy Services cares for adults with intellectual disabilities in the local community. They offer a variety of services including residential care, daily activities, therapy and recreation. Over the past two years, the Song-Buddies Workshops with Hendrix and Maines have become one of the most popular activities for the clients.
The workshop culminated in a concert on Thursday at Gray Legacy’s dayhab facility on Old Plum Highway. Some of the participants performed covers of popular songs. Others sang original tunes they wrote during the workshop.
Hendrix, a San Marcosbased singer-songwriter, explained what goes on at the workshop.
“They make a journal and decorate the cover and then we just start asking questions,” Hendrix said. “You know, what’s your favorite color or what’s going on in your life? And in the case of this workshop, a couple of them had lost somebody they really loved. And so they wanted to write songs about the people that they loved or they lost. And so that’s what that’s what we did.”
Maines, a legend in the Texas country music scene, strummed the music. The Grammy award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist has played on some of the biggest stages in music. But these days, Maines says he enjoys playing music with his “SongBuddies” at places like Gray Legacy.
“It’s a blast,” he said. “Everybody who comes to one of these workshops has something to offer.”