Beegie Adair

Born in Cave City, Kentucky, a small farming community of 1,400 residents, Beegie Adair (say B-G) grew up avidly listening to music. At age four she started the "two-finger-hunt-and-peck" system on the piano, but began actual lessons when she was five and continued studying piano through college at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green where she received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Music Education.

During college, she played jazz professionally every weekend. She taught music to children in the Kentucky school system for three years, but spent her summers working in Nashville. The first summer she joined the Hank Garland Quartet, "and my education continued. Hank was a jazz guitarist that many other guitarists looked up to," Beegie comments.

Arriving in Nashville during the heyday of Country music allowed her the opportunity to accompany such legendary performers as Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton. Because Nashville was a hot bed of musical television tapings and live performances during that time, Adair also worked with such entertainers as Neil Diamond, Mama Cass Elliott, and Peggy Lee in her position as in-house pianist for The Johnny Cash Show for ABC-TV plus other television programs featuring Lucille Ball, Carol Burnette, and Dinah Shore.

She hosted a music-and-talk radio show called "Improvised Thoughts" on station WMOT with guests including Tony Bennett and Joe Williams. She served as the main pianist at five annual International Trombone Workshops where she performed with Slide Hampton, Kai Winding, Frank Rosolino, Carl Fontana, Phil Wilson, Albert Mangelsdorff, and others. Adair serves as adjunct professor in jazz studies at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music and currently teaches singers repertoire at the Nashville Jazz Workshop.

In 1991, Beegie Adair recorded her first trio album, Escape To New York, on the Consolidated Artists label with Bob Cranshaw on bass and Greg Hutchinson on drums (Mike Longo, producer). Six years later, Beegie signed with Green Hill Productions, an independent record label in Nashville. Nashville's music community finally recognized her for her talent by awarding the 1998 Nashville Music Award ("the Nammy") Jazz Album of the Year to her Green Hill debut, The Frank Sinatra Collection with her "main guys" Roger Spencer on bass and Chris Brown on drums.

Since then, Beegie and her trio have recorded five more projects for Green Hill: The Nat King Cole Collection, Sax & Swing (featuring Denis Solee on tenor sax), Jazz Piano Christmas, Love, Elvis, and a 6 CD archival box set saluting America's greatest composers (Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, and Irving Berlin) entitled Centennial Composers Collection, plus two projects for Green Hill's sister label Hillsboro Jazz: Dream Dancing: The Songs of Cole Porter, and I'll Take Romance with lush orchestrations by The Jeff Steinberg Orchestra.

In late 2003, Adair signed to Village Square Records, a division of Howard Music Group founded by Greg Howard who was her executive producer at Green Hill Productions since 1997. Beegie's debut Village Square recording, entitled Days of Wine and Roses: Songs of Johnny Mercer, re-teams her with producer Jack Jezzro and her trio partners, bassist Roger Spencer and drummer Chris Brown.

Besides her own albums, Adair has a lengthy list of top credits backing other acts. She has both recorded and performed in concert with Chet Atkins, Henry Mancini, Wayne Newton, Perry Como, and others. Beegie also has played on recordings by Sonny Curtis, Johnny Cash, Al Hirt, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, J.J. Cale, Englebert Humperdink, Jerry Reed, Melba Moore, Hank Snow, The Little River Band, John Stewart, The Jordanaires, Connie Francis, Ronnie Milsap, John Loudermilk, Danny Thomas, and many more. Beegie also played on various movie soundtracks such as Burt Reynolds' SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, Clint Eastwood's EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE, and Kevin Costner's PERFECT WORLD. She also has been a guest on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz show on NPR.

On stage and at jazz festivals, Adair has played with jazz artists such as Nat Adderly, Urbie Green, Bill Watrous, Red Rodney, Lou Tabackin, Jim Ferguson, Terry Clark, Conte Candoli, Michael Moore, Bernard Purdy and Nick Brignola; with comedians such as Red Skelton, Steve Allen and Rodney Dangerfield; plus extended stints with Ray Stevens, Lorrie Morgan, the Hank Garland Quintet, and the Andy Goodrich Quintet.

Adair's drummer, Chris Brown, graduated from the renowned music program at North Texas State University, toured with Maynard Ferguson for three years and recently toured with Sam Bush and Lorrie Morgan. Bassist Roger Spencer has played with the Les Brown Band, Ray Conniff, the Page Cavanaugh Trio and Pete Jolly, and is the co-director of the Nashville Jazz Workshop. "They're my main guys," Adair says of the rhythm section. "They are so tuned into the way I visu