Little did a three-year-old girl whose voice hit harmonic notes like few others and a seven-year-old boy performing in his first piano recital know that their lives would become intertwined. She sang “You Are My Sunshine” and he played “The Minute Waltz."
While Linda started her singing with different gospel groups in high school, Larry was teaching students to play the piano. Fate would have it that the two would meet while in college at Dallas Baptist University. But they weren’t struck by Cupid’s arrow --no love at first sight --as one would see in a Hollywood rom-com.
“I thought she was the music director. She had her hand in everything,” Larry says.
“And he kept using any excuse he could to cut choir practice. So, he could teach piano to his students or go play somewhere,” Linda says.
Forty-three years later and the couple is still making music together. Married and in love, they have recorded 17 albums and been nominated for 21 Grammys. Their band, performing as “Linda Petty and the Main Event,” plays music from the Great American Songbook musical canon – 20th Century American and Jazz standards that, like them, have withstood the test of time. With Linda Petty belting out the oldies and Larry Petty on the piano, they have been performing without fail since 1977. That is until a troublesome global pandemic put on hold one of the longer running musical acts in Dallas history.
It was early March 2020, when Linda Petty and The Main Event played a date at The Kitchen Café in Dallas. A celebration of Linda’s birthday on March 6. Linda with her shock of fire-engine red hair and Larry with his silver and white ponytail were warmly welcomed by their loyal, well-heeled fan base who listened intently as she sang some crowd-pleasing American standards like “Sentimental Journey,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” and “Where the Boys Are.”
“It’s as if they’re singing the song directly to you,” said longtime fan and friend Tommy Brock, “Of course, probably everyone there believes that Linda is singing directly to them.”
But the musical melodies and harmonies of musicians were silenced almost overnight as a global pandemic plummeted everyone into a near worldwide lockdown. Concert halls, nightclubs, bars, and restaurants were forced to shut down or serve food for takeout only. This same day in March was the day that live music went into a comatose state in Dallas.
“We had a year full of events scheduled,” Linda says. “Everything from Larry playing by himself in someone’s house to the two of us performing together to the two of us with the band.
“As working musicians, we had no other income to report on my 1099 in March,” she says.
It was then that they thought about how they were going to pay the bills.
“They start talking about it not getting better until after the first of the year,” Larry says. "And we thought surely the work will come back before then, but it didn’t.”
As with other members of the musical community, the Pettys did not qualify for unemployment. That was a sour musical note when it came to their livelihood.
So, the couple pivoted. Larry taught piano lessons via telephone and Zoom. Linda taught singing lessons via telephone.
The band tried to stay together, their drummer found work teaching students online, but their base player had health problems and was unable to work.
“We thought about doing concerts on Zoom but decided against it,” Linda says. “Yet, getting the band together on Zoom was a challenge and the internet was unreliable – its sound quality could be poor. It was also hard to put a price tag on a Zoom concert.
“In the midst of this, you practice, organized a few things, and start a few projects,” Linda says. “But it’s April and you can’t leave the house, and all the time you’re locked in and pent up.”
And then their losses started to mount.
Larry’s mother passed away in the middle of the year. That took a lot out of him because she lived in a nursing home. “We weren’t allowed in until the last five days to see her,” he says.
They knew several musicians who caught COVID while performing and later passed away. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, some of their personal friends succumbed to the virus.
“In one weekend,” Linda says, “we had lost a friend on Saturday, lost a friend on Sunday, and then lost a friend on Monday.”
Over the past year, the Pettys have quarantined four different times because either someone had come through their house who had been exposed or someone had come through the home of one of their regular students who had been exposed.
As if a symphony of guardian angels were watching over the Pettys, they have managed to stay healthy.
“We’ve both had the double shots of the vaccine, so, we’re done,” Linda says.
While the rest of the band dodged COVID, one band member who took a delivery job to make ends meet, was murdered. On December 23, around 9 p.m. Paul Allen was the victim of a homicide when he was jumped by three men after making a delivery. He played the keyboard.
“That was a very hard thing to get through,” Larry says. “We’d been friends since high school.”
Few local groups skated through the last year unscathed. Nearly every member of a musical group--bass player, drummer, keyboard player --found themselves unceremoniously cancelled when it came to performance opportunities.
“The word devastating is not too big a word to describe what the shutdown has done to the musical community," Linda says.
But now with COVID restrictions easing in Texas, the Pettys have gotten a lot of Facebook messages from their fans asking when and where they will be playing. But Larry remains uncertain about performing, reluctant to play until it's safe, and uncertain about how easily it will be to get booked.
Most of the venues where the Pettys would be playing are examining their plans about allowing musicians and bands to perform. And with so many restaurants, nightclubs, and bars having closed down. Larry wonders if the market for musicians will be more competitive. If the venues are geared toward the 30s -and - under crowd ,the competition could be fierce, he says.
“We’ve always played for upper-society people with money,” Larry says. “They’re a great crowd who follows you.”
It’s understandable that the Pettys do not want to take a chance with their health. Larry is 69, and Linda, well, Linda won’t tell. If they do play, it will be on a stage that is at least five feet away from the crowd.
The Pettys know, as do most musicians, that the pandemic cannot be the reason live music has died. Music has a way of washing over us, bringing us to moments of great joy with a crescendo of vibrations or it can be a melodic dirge during times of great sorrow and loss. It can help us heal, laugh, or cry.
And it is not without irony that one of the first restaurants to recently approach the Pettys about performing was The Kitchen Café.
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