Gulfport Mississippi, Austin & Dallas Texas

After spending lots of winters going to Dallas where I lived with my best friend, Chris Williams, and then onto Austin, my car veered off the highway between Nashville and Lousisana one year, and I found myself driving past the awesome late towns of Pass Christian and Biloxi, MS.  Work was scarce unless you wanted to deal cards, but when I met "Crazy Mary", life started to bubble. Mary was a professional caterer and while we were catering a party at an old mansion on the beach, a photographer handed me a biz card and asked me if he could take photos. I asked to see a portfolio and we had a short conversation about me trading modeling for some CD photos, so on it went.
Billy Dugger owned "Shades of Gray" photography studio in Biloxi and also donated time to the local theater there. The following week we spent a couple of hours scouring old buildings downtown Gulfport. The second story of the J C Penny building was the perfect landscape for black and white. 6000+ sq. ft. of wood floors, rounded brick arches leading to more empty storage rooms. A wooden freight elevator that bore the marks of a ghostly hand prints from moving guys.  Billy brought his Hasselblad and we started shooting as I played music.
Billy called a week later and said the photos turned out great, OH and by the way: friends at Center Stage in Biloxi were in a pinch for a performer due to a cancellation and could I play a concert four days later. I am still  extremely shy about performing, but he convinced me it would be ok. He rushed some of the photos down to the local paper...and on it went. This would be my first performance in 5 years and later, the photos would become the cover and back of Deo Volente.
After years of writing songs, singing various festivals, theaters and coffeehouses,  the response of that Biloxi concert was overwhelming and I came home to record Deo Volente in Traverse City.

Amy Jo Fischer