Feel Good Tour : on the road again

With Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, it’s steal as much as you can get away with, give back as little as possible, and then sue your own customers, calling them criminals and thieves.

Fortunately, however, their attitude isn’t shared by most people in the world and it’s really nice to be able to tell you about a small group that’s teaching the Big 4 a thing or 10

Bill Hudson’s Feel Good Music Network recycles and distributes musical instruments and healing with live concerts in the storm ravaged Gulf Coast area. And on Friday, he and fellow musicians Al Coffey and Craig Counts from Electric Woodshed will be heading to Chapmanville, West Virginia, to deliver guitars and fiddles to children at the Harts Intermediate School.

They’ll also be treating the kids to a free concert.

After some 25,000 miles and 12 trips to the Gulf Coast, the Feel Good Tour has collected and distributed more than 200 musical instruments to schools in the area.

With Dragonfly.com as sponsor, Bill started taking the tour to the Gulf Coast region soon after the devastating hurricanes of 2005.

“It started as a mission to use music as a healing force to ease stress and anxieties for Gulf Coast residents,” he says. Fellow musician Al Coffey joined, and they’re still “looking for that instrument in the closet that isn’t being used,” he says. “We do this by the net, live performance, word by mouth, and it’s gotten around.

“We’ve had donations from as far away as Alaska, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennslyvania, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.”

Bill goes on » » »

If someone has an instrument to donate, we go their homes to collect it, which makes it very personal.

Some tell stories about the people who use to play the instruments. Maybe a father has passed away, or a son or daughter who has left to collage and doesn’t play any more. This way, the instruments are used again by children who need all the help they can get.

And they are used.

“I’m the Chorus teacher at St Tammany Junior High in Slidell, Louisiana,” says Brian Bosarge told Bill last year, adding :

“You and your wonderful group of friends surprised us with two generous donation trips.”

With music, life is worth living and as the Feel Good Tour motto says, “music should be shared freely”.