Connie Champagne
Vocals, Tambourine, Recorder
Connie is known as a singer, actor, sometime-songwriter, and all-round entertainer. Her debut album, La Strada (HeyDay Records) received outstanding critical praise from both fans and media nationwide. An "unwitting pioneer of the Cocktail Nation," Miss Champagne was the winner of the SF Weekly Wammie Award for Outstanding Cabaret/Lounge Performer. Champagne toured extensively with swing band The New Morty Show, and recorded a CD Morty-fied on SlimStyle.
Connie has performed with a variety of artists and groups including: Romeo Void (and vocalist Deborah Iyall's solo project, supporting Cindy Lauper), the Magnum Brutes, Royal Crown Revue, and many others. She was nominated for Outstanding Female Vocalist by BAM Magazine, and for the Cable Car Awards' Entertainer of the Year. The San Francisco Examiners' Readers Poll, compiled by staff writer Julian Guthrie, rated Connie #30 among "...the Top One Hundred Best Things About San Francisco," (ten notches above the Golden Gate Bridge!) Research Magazine creator V Vale devotes a chapter to Connie's unique career in his book Swing! The New Retro Renaissance(V Search Publications.)
As an actor, Connie has appeared in Los Angeles and New York performing her acclaimed one-woman show This Is War! She received rave notices for performances as the cult heroine Neely O'Hara in Dolls, Phillip R. Ford's long-running stage adaptation of The Valley of the Dolls. Well-known for her roles as both the legendary Judy Garland and Katharine Hepburn in the Off-Broadway production of Artfull Circle Theater's Christmas With The Crawfords, Connie has been praised on both coasts. New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger described Champagne's performance as "the one you remember…"
Connie is a graduate of the prestigious Davy Jones School of Tambourine and Skate, which boasts luminary alumni, including Axl Rose and Laugh-In's Judy Carne!
Leigh Crow
Lead Vocals
Leigh is a Bay Area entertainer who broke new ground in transgender visibility in the last decade with her creation Elvis Herselvis. Known as both a male and female character actress in San Francisco's cabaret and nightclub scene, Miss Crow has earned a reputation as a gifted celebrity impersonator and accomplished vocalist. She is considered a pioneer of drag king entertainment and has been interviewed and photographed in numerous books on the subject of gender roles and impersonation.
Leigh moved to San Francisco in the late 80's and created the character Elvis Herselvis in a dyke rock 'n' roll nightclub. She began singing live with the support of her band the Straight White Males, toured the U.S. extensively and co-hosted San Francisco Pride in 1992. In 1993 she toured Australia during Mardi Gras and was a featured performer at Melbourne Gay Pride. Leigh was twice nominated for the Cable Car Awards' Entertainer of the Year in 1992 and 1993. She made national headlines in 1994 when Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises pulled funding from a conference at the University of Mississippi due to her appearance. After literally hundreds of featured roles in underground theater, independent films, rock musicals, street fairs and Gay Pride events, Crow has semi-retired her most famous character and explains that "Elvis Herselvis isn't dead; she's just left the building."
Most recently Crow played Las Vegas and New York as "The Lady Leigh" with acclaimed S.F. pianist Scrumbly Koldewyn. Leigh also fronts the all-dyke band Flatcracker and was a featured performer with the Tuck 'n' Roll Players in Cyberotica! and Club Inferno. She is happy to be performing the music of some of her first male role models in The Monkees and Herman's Hermits, as well as paying tribute to favorite folk divas Linda Rondstadt and Mama Cass.
Peter Fogel
Guitar, Vocals
Peter moved to San Francisco in the late 70's and has been playing in rock 'n' roll bands ever since. He played guitar, composed and sang in AlienNation during the early 80's heyday of punk rock and in super-glam pop-phenomenon Enrique in the 90's. He is the founder, composer and producer of The Tuck 'n' Roll Players, a San Francisco-based performance troupe dedicated to integrating original music, gender illusion and live theater into spectacular productions.
He has produced three audacious rock musicals to date: Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls with Enrique in 1998, and with The Tuck 'n' Roll Players, Cyberotica! in 1999 and Club Inferno in 2000. Peter won "Best Original Music" and "Best Original Book and Lyrics" awards from the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle for Club Inferno in 2001.
Peter thinks the world could use a lot more love, light and laughter. His greatest joy is singing three-part harmony with Connie and Leigh.
Kevin Kirkbride
Percussion, Vocals
Kevin is the oldest of the Nellies. Born in 1925 in a remote valley off Russia's Sea of Okhotsk to migrant seal workers, he enjoyed an idyllic childhood of mushing dogs and pelt trading before plunging into a fissure in the glacier behind his family's yurt. Given up for lost, his frozen, lifeless body was discovered more than 75 years later floating up California's Russian River by none other than the Whoa Nellies, while on one of their numerous musical mystery excursions. They fished him out, dried him off, fixed him some cream of tomato soup, and he was all better. They soon found his talents extended well beyond just holding the camera for group photos and invited him to join the project.
Kevin is grateful to be given this new chance at life and is pleased with the vintage American music he is called upon to play, as it reminds him of the ancient balalikan melodies of his homeland. Kevin has no previous musical experience.
Tim Perdue
Bass, Vocals
Tim moved to San Francisco from Ohio courtesy of the U.S. Navy in the mid-eighties. He has played in a variety of local bands, most notably as the bassist for the popular rock band Enrique. Tim was the bass player in a series of well-received rock musicals including Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls and Suburbia 2000 with Enrique and Club Inferno and Cyberotica! with the Tuck 'n' Roll Players. He is also a vocalist and arranger with Shawna Virago and the Deadly Nightshade Family.