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Cindy
Kays
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A native
of Lancaster, PA Cindy has been performing for over 30 years as a singer
and multi-instrumentalist. Starting with the glee club in 8th
grade and continuing through high school, she has been singing in front of
audiences for most of her life. |
She
received her first guitar in 1964 after failing the music test
administered by the city school system to see who was going to play an
instrument for the rest of their school days. She wanted to play the
drums. In 1964 no one had heard of Karen Carpenter yet.
Not to be discouraged, her parents gave her a guitar for
Christmas. Of course, it wasn’t till many years later that she found
out her mother always wanted to learn how to play the accordion. Things
could have turned out very differently had she gotten an accordion that
Christmas.
By the eighth grade her best friend, Lois, taught her several
chords and a few songs on the guitar. Their English teacher, Mr.
Fitzgerald, required all of his students to do a project at the end of
the year, so Cindy and Lois worked together. They billed themselves as
“Simeon and Garfinkel” and played “Positively 4th
Street” by Bob Dylan and “Get Together” by the Youngbloods. The
rest as they say, is history.
After high school a friend gave Cindy her first paying gig at the
college coffee house he ran. She only knew about 15 songs and repeated
them all night long for all the sodas she could drink and $45.00. She
was hooked.
After moving to Virginia in 1980, she pursued music part-time while holding down a fulltime job during the day. After meeting Shelly at Ramblin’ Conrad’s Guitar shop in 1992, they were soon working out the first list of songs they would play at local pre-schools. Besides performing with C. Shells, Cindy also performs Celtic music with her husband John, in several Hampton Roads Irish pubs.
Cindy is the organized one. She takes care of the booking, writes
the newsletters, designs all of the order forms and signs, and handles
all of the paperwork involved in the group. She sings harmony and does
funny voices, (probably watched too many cartoons as a kid) and she
doesn’t write nearly as many songs as her partner, Shelly.
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Cindy's husband, John, with nephews Patrick and Eric |
