5-time Grammy winner ready for Sunday performance

Mary Chapin Carpenter fills in for ailing singer

September 23, 2007

STAUNTON - A "friend of the festival" will step in Sunday after one of the performers on the Fortune-Williams Music Festival schedule had to cancel because of an illness.

Grammy-winning singer songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter will fill in for Billy Joe Shaver who was hospitalized last week while on tour in California, Robin Williams said.

In its fifth year, the festival headlines Jimmy Fortune and Robin and Linda Williams, nationally known performers with local ties. This is the third year the festival spreads its sounds across the Frontier Culture Museum.

Organizers heard Friday that Shaver had canceled his upcoming performances, Williams said. They immediately began working to find someone to fill in.__"She is a true friend of the festival," he said. "She's really helping us out."__This will be the second time that Carpenter, who lives near Charlottesville, has performed at the festival.__Carpenter released her most recent CD, "The Calling" in March. It features "Houston," a tune about people caught up in the evacuation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Carpenter performed the song in 2006 after surprising everyone by dropping into the Friday night portion of the Fortune-Williams Music Festival.__That night, Carpenter pulled up a chair with the headliners, Jim Lauderdale and Radney Foster during the Songwriters in the Round program.__On Sunday, Carpenter will bring along songwriter, guitarist and producer John Jennings.__Williams said he and Linda also will have the opportunity to sing with Carpenter, a prospect the duo relishes.__"She wanted to make sure people knew she wouldn't be here with her band," he said. "But I think it makes it even more special to have her in this setting."__The drawing for a guitar crafted by the Staunton company Huss and Dalton, will follow Carpenter's show.__Other performers at the festival will be Billy Yates and Cowboy Jack Clements on Friday; Adrienne Young and Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives on Saturday; and Michael Martin Murphey on Sunday._