Singer
Debra Donahue and songwriter JM Kearns sing a song Michael wrote for a wedding
many years ago.  “You can’t miss if
you’re aiming at me babe…”

When
the couple was living in Nashville, Donahue, although she had sung all her
life, did not sing at all. But when she moved to Cape May, New Jersey, she and
her friend Vicki Watson started a private little hootenanny group singing girlie
and old country songs. When Michael moved to Cape May two and a half years ago,
their friend Barry Tischler started an open mic night at the Pilot House Restaurant
and it took off like gangbusters.. Since then, four separate bands have been
formed out of the group and they are playing all around town, at wineries,
outdoor venues and clubs. Donahue says Cape May has become home to an “amazing
community” of musicians.

Watch video interview here

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Donahue
also plays a mean nose flute, treating us to a rendition of Del Shannon and Max
Crook’s 1961 #1 Billboard Hit “Runaway”. She’s been playing since she picked up
plastic nose flutes from Edmund Scientific, then based in Barrington, New
Jersey, when she was 5 Now at 54, she’s a self-proclaimed virtuoso.  She produces sounds by breathing out
her nose, letting the air pass through 
a channel, passing over a fipple. Just like whistling, by adjusting the
shape and size of  the inside of
her mouth and volume of air, she can vary the tone. With the simple one dollar
novelty item she plays with friends and can produce sounds that hauntingly
mimic Celtic instruments like the recorder. She takes us out with “Flow Gently
Sweet Afton”, set to the words Scottish poet Robert Burns. “If I can breathe, I
can play.”