CONTRIBUTED

"The next installment of Summer on the Porch in Aberdeen has something for everyone," says Janet Kenworthy, organizer.

The concert, which is Sunday, July 20, also features a cake baking contest.

"If you enter the contest, admission is free, and you have a chance to win ribbons, tickets and bragging rights in four categories," says Kenworthy.

The Parsons open the musical evening at 6 p.m., followed by Cowboy Envy with its special blend of western swing, along with their originals and the traditional cowboy tunes we know, and love.

The Parsons music is equal parts ragtime, old-time, blues, bluegrass, swing, and folk music, spanning more than a century of American musical tradition. The band's two and three-part harmonies are complemented by their talents on guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, lap steel, ukulele, spoons, comb and wax paper, and harmonica.

On guitar and vocals as part of the trio, Cowboy Envy, Kathleen Hatfield has found a perfect match with Bern Poliakoff and DeDe Vogt. The three create a world as colorful as a Pecos Bill tall tale and as exciting as a radio serial.

The idea for Cowboy Envy was conceived by Vogt sometime in the early 1970s when playing in Chapel Hill. She ventured into a small club called Cat's Cradle and witnessed the entertaining musical performance of Riders In The Sky, and said to herself, "I want to grow up and be like that someday."

Years later, after a few phone calls, Cowboy Envy was formed.

Bern Poliakoff, also known as Frenchy, hails from the garden spot of Spartanburg, S.C. She got her early training, at the age of four, at Miss Marion's School of Dance.

"Unfortunately, the lessons didn't take," she says.

She began playing guitar and singing at local haunts in Spartanburg at the tender age of 14, inspired by the likes of such local heroes as Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood and David Ball. While majoring in voice at the College of Charleston, Poliakoff knew she had to make music her career -- especially because she hates to wake up early. She lives in Atlanta.

DeDe Vogt is a musician, singer and songwriter and owner of Sound & Fury Recording Studios in Atlanta. She has two solo releases, as well as the Cowboy Envy releases, all of which were recorded at Sound & Fury, with Vogt as producer and engineer. She is a guitarist as well as bassist, with bass being her primary interest. She received a gold record for her work on two cuts of The Indigo Girls debut Epic Records release.

Kathleen Hatfield is one singer-songwriter whose talent and work can call to mind an older tradition -- that of the troubadour who roamed from town to town spreading poetry and music. It may be a song about the north Georgia mountains that makes you wonder why you ever put the pavement of Atlanta under your feet. It may be her rendition of "Home on the Range" that makes you believe there is nothing more beautiful than prairie grass from horizon to horizon and a million stars overhead.

It may be a song of the West that makes a drugstore cowboy think he's capable of saddling up Old Paint and rounding up the herd.

Gates open at the Postmaster's House, 204 E. South St., at 5:30 p.m. Picnics are welcome.

Cold drinks are available on site or you may bring your own, along with a chair or blanket. Adult tickets are $9.; children under 12 are free.

Call 944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org for more information.