Singer-Songwriter-Pianist Grayson Hugh and Singer Polly Messer to Perform in Wilton

Press release:

Internationally acclaimed Singer/Songwriter/Pianist Grayson Hugh and Singer Polly Messer will be doing a unique “house concert” upstairs at Forza Five Holistic Healing Center in Cannondale Village, 26 Cannon Road, Wilton, Connecticut onSaturday January 31, 2015. The performance begins at 7:30 pm. Refreshments will be served downstairs at 7 pm (herbal teas from the Forza Five Center and stuffed breads from Uncle Leo’s Deli in nearby Redding, Ct). Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at Forza Five Holistic Fitness and Healing Center, 26 Cannon Rd. Cannondale Village, Wilton CT 06897. Tickets can also be purchased online in advance by clicking this link: http://www.forzafive.com/home/?p=594. Call 203-247-4175 for details.


In this intimate concert, Hugh will talk about the healing power of music and how it helped him on his own journey of a near-fatal relapse with alcohol in 2000 and in his recovery, which began in 2004. With songs and stories, he will describe his adventures at top of the music world, his fall and his return to the world stage, of finding true love at age 57, and of drawing inspiration from nature. Besides newer songs, Hugh will also perform his hits from radio (Talk It Over, Bring It All Back, Soul Cat Girl) and films (Thelma and Louise, Fried Green Tomatoes).

Grayson Hugh and Polly Messer first met in 1980, when Polly was singing and touring with the well-known swing band Eight To The Bar. After leaving that band in 1982, she sang with Grayson’s band The Wildtones. They reconnected years later, in 2006, after raising her son as a single mom and obtaining a triple major degree in Art from Western Connecticut State University. She began singing backup vocals with Hugh for his comeback album An American Record and ended up co-producing the record with him. One harmony led to another and they were married in 2008.

Hugh’s music has been called “a soul/rock stew with a dash of blues and a pinch of country” (Stone Phillips, The Today Show).Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. had this to say of Hugh’s 2010 comeback release An American Record: “In a world where music is often a brittle artificiality, the music he makes is hard and strong, convicted and convincing. And true. Most of all, true. It’s there in the gritty lament of his voice, in the roughhouse eloquence of his piano, and the atmospheric poetry of his words. He has that thing Sam Cooke and Ray Charles had, that thing you still hear sometimes in Bruce Springsteen, that lonely, train whistle in the dark thing, that yearning, keening thing that gets right to the heart of what it means to be alive, what it means to be a human being. This is ‘An American Record’. Some of us are glad the wait is over at last.” (Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald, March 8, 2010)

This past December Grayson and Polly walked into Lisa Tenore’s Forza Five Holistic Healing Center, had a reading and immediately felt a kindred spirit. As they continued their visits, the idea of this collaboration was born. Proceeds from the concert will go to the Holistic Healing Center, and also to the funding of Grayson Hugh’s next album Back To The Soul, which is set to be recorded in Charleston, South Carolina this coming February.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to see these world-class musicians in the cozy, peaceful setting of Cannondale Village!
In the words of another writer: “Grayson Hugh has been there and is back again. His story – our story – has to be heard.” (Robert Doerschuk, CMAWorld.com, May 10, 2010)

Grayson Hugh’s Website: http://graysonhugh.net/
Forza Five Holistic Fitness and Healing Center Website: http://www.forzafive.com/home/

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