YOU might like to call musician Clif Steyne a cool cat – but it’s one of the most recent star performers at his geriatric gigs who was the real keynote.
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He busked for years and he moved to Tamworth because of its country music roots, but even Clif was gobsmacked when a cat claimed his guitar case for a real cat nap.
That’s one comfortable cat caught in a photo shot at McKay Nursing Home recently.
And so Clif, who was entertaining the residents at the time, had to hang five and wait until the feline was ready to move on.
“I noticed her inspecting my guitar case while I was playing,” Mr Steyne said. “She must have considered it to look very inviting, so she climbed in and promptly settled down for a cat nap.”
When he finished his show, the cat hadn’t moved, so Clif wandered around for a while until the feline decided she’d had enough of the musical bed.
Clif is 78 but plays gigs twice a month at McKay and also at Cottage Homes. And he appears with the Salvos band with his tenor horn and at church.
But his gigs with the oldies are a pleasure – he mixes it up with country and gospel.
“I sing a bit of everything really, and a variety of stuff for the oldies,” he said.
He’s been doing it for 10 years, since he and wife Kay decided that instead of a trip round Australia – and after he wrote off his van and four wheel drive and needed to buy a home – they’d like to call Tamworth home.
“We’d been coming to the festival for some time and I actually did some busking here and won an award in 1990, so we decided to move to Tamworth,” he said.