As a child growing up I was exposed to some of the best live rock &
roll in the world! The many bands my brother, Fred Bergeron
(http://www.marvinandthemartians.bravehost.com/index.htm) played in
practiced in the attic at our house in Taylor, Michigan. I told him
that they were even better than ‘The Monkees’ and that’s a huge
compliment from a 10 year old of the 1960’s. I can remember sitting on
a dresser next to the drums while his music shook the whole house.
Little did I know that four decades later I would find myself singing
and playing in a classic rock band!
I grew up in the Theatre performing
mostly in musical comedies. As a child my parents made me hand puppets
to help me learn my lines and I became a Ventriloquist, going
professional at the age of nine. Singing comes naturally to me (in
several voices). In my teens and early twenties I lived a dual life,
the first as a performer on local television and in nightclubs, and the
second as a rock and roll loving hippie. I even had two completely
opposite wardrobes for my two lives. Long gowns and glitter for the
first, and worn jeans and haltertops for the second. My love for music
ran the same. In my ventriloquist act ‘Rusty and Me’, I sang show tunes
and standards that I grew up with and loved. My hippie self listened to
and loved Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles
and many others. Whenever I was in Michigan and not traveling with my
ventriloquist act, I was often found around Ann Arbor frequenting the
free concerts and the night scene.
Although I have settled down, gotten married and hold a mundane
job, I still get the best of both worlds! My husband Mark and I perform regularly
with our ventriloquist/variety act called ‘Him and Me and Dummy Make Three’
and we both are members of the ‘Six Foot Poles’. I truly feel honored to be
a ‘Five Foot Pole’ in a ‘Six Foot Pole’ world.
