BillLindau

Movin' Through

Pictured, from left are Tim Wilson, Sarah Harned, Cynthia Williams Leake and Joe Fitzgerald.
Movin' Through: Having fun in three-part harmony
Moore County Independent, Oct. 19, 2006
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
Joe Fitzgerald, Sarah Harned, Cynthia Leach and Tim Wilson have at least one thing in common: They love their music.
They are the members of a local pop band called Movin' Through, and they love to work their three-part harmony on rock 'n' roll (soft and hard), country, blues, doo-wop, folk, Motown -- about any genre you can think of.
The band plays at clubs, private parties, weddings and anniversaries.
Movin' Through especially caught the ear of those attending the Pathway to Awareness events on Oct. 1 in Pinehurst, a mini-festival highlighting a visit by movie star Patty Duke. They performed all afternoon outside the Village Hall. Their friend and fellow musician, Tom "Lefty" Compa, spelled them occasionally with his solo act.
Harned, Leach and Wilson put their band together four years ago. They had sung together in their church choir, which was how they came to know each other, Wilson said. Fitzgerald, a U.S. Army veteran living in Cameron, joined Movin' Through last year. He plays bass for the band. Harned, Leach and Wilson do vocals in three-part harmony. Wilson has played acoustic guitar from the time the band formed, and Harned has started playing guitar as well. "We've got some percussion, too," Wilson said.
Movin' Through has recently enjoyed a bit of serendipity. In their Oct. 1 gig at the Village Hall, a representative from the Belk clothing store chain talked with them about performing at the opening of their new store at the Pinecrest Plaza. The band has been booked to play there Saturday, Nov. 4, from about 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wilson said.
Vocal harmonies are their main thing.
"We love vocal harmonies, three-part harmonies, which allows us to do all sorts of things, doo-wop, country and other things," Wilson said.
"We tend to do a lot of music that people haven't heard in a long time," Wilson said. "But we also want to do some original stuff. We're hoping to do some recording in the near future."
Fitzgerald moved to Cameron from Fayetteville 12 years ago. He did not play much music during his military service. "I thought they were kidding when me when they asked me to play bass with them one day," Fitzgerald said of his bandmates.
Harned, Leach and Fitzgerald are all Moore County natives.
Harned was born in Carthage, graduated from Union Pines High School and studied music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. "I've done theatre, too," she said.
Harned got into music in high school. She is currently employed as a teaching assistant at West End Elementary School.
One of the things she likes most is the reaction of the crowd. "You can make them cry, you can make them laugh," she said.
Wilson grew up in Sanford before moving back to his Moore County birthplace. He now lives close to Aberdeen.
Leach (nee Williams) has taught special education in the Moore County Schools. She currently serves as a substitute. Music has been a major part of her life, and still is. Leach has beein singing with the Moore County Choral Society for the past 25 years.
Leach studied dramatics and was a member of the chorus at Pinecrest High School and received a degree in special education at Pembroke State University (now the University of North Carolina at Pembroke).
Wilson described the way the band has grown together.
"After four years we start to feel each other," he said. "Vocal harmonies come easier after you've come to know each other for awhile."
"We do a lot of our music by ear," he added. "We haven't even looked at a piece of music.
"We've broadened our repertoires quite a bit. We've broadened things out, which has been really good for us."
There is nothing like playing music in front of a room full of people, Wilson said. "We like to take a noisy room, and then suddenly it becomes quiet," he said.
A band can have all the things they like: Vocal skills, instruments, performers with different individual styles.
There's one ingredient that Movin' Through can't do without, Wilson said: Fun.
"One of the biggest things is, we have a good time," Wilson says.
"If we have a good time, they (the listeners) have a good time."
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Contact correspondent Bill Lindau at blindau52@yahoo.com or (910) 461-7804.

posted by Bill Lindau @ 9:35 AM