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Born in Cave City, Kentucky, a small farming community of 1,400 residents, Beegie Adair (pronounced 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.
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.
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.
The Nashville music community recognized her talent by awarding the 1998 Nashville Music Award ("the Nammy") Jazz Album of the Year to her The Frank Sinatra Collection with her "main guys" Roger Spencer on bass and Chris Brown on drums.
In late 2003, Adair signed exclusively to Village Square Music, a division of Howard Music Group, Inc., founded by Greg Howard who was her executive producer at Green Hill Productions from 1997 to 2003. 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.
Beegie credits as her main influences Jimmy Jones, George Shearing, Teddy Wilson, Tommy Flanagan, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, and Russ Freeman (the pianist who played with Chet Baker in the Fifties).
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“A treasure for decades. Still cooler than the breeze.” Robert K. Oermann, Music Row
“Beegie's piano work is very much like Sinatra's vocal style-finely crafted, elegantly non-chalant, subtle yet interesting, and always swinging.” Jazz and Blues News
“The interpretations are very stylish while retaining the classic flavor that each piece SHOULD convey.” JazzUSA
“American standards alive and kicking.” Indie-Music.com
“Adair's style is simple, direct and effective. Smooth sailing all the way.” Cam Miller, The American Rag
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