Latest / GlowInto / The Story of Anne Kalaher
Transcript
- Jennifer Joyner: The lights go down, the music starts, and for a moment you forget you're watching a tribute show. You hear the voice, you see the costumes, you feel the energy of another era coming back to life. But before Anne Callahaire ever stepped into a stage of share, there was a much bigger story unfolding behind the scenes, a story about independence, about reinvention, about building a life-changing direction. Trusting your instincts and continuing to become more of who you are. Welcome to the Glow and Two podcast, where real women share real stories and real wisdom for what's next. Today I'm sharing Anne Callahair's story, and this time I get to take you beyond our conversation and into the room where I watched her bring share to life. This is more than a story about a performance. It's a story about what happens when a woman keeps saying yes. To the next version of herself. These are the women of Glowin' Two. At forty-nine, she has built a life around creativity, performance, and reinvention. She is a hairstylist, a singer, a business owner, wife, mother, grandmother, and longtime performer. She fronts Champagne Fix, performs acoustically with her husband Danny, and has spent the last several years taking on one of the biggest creative challenges of her life, becoming Cher. This is Anne Callahaire, becoming Cher and finding her own voice. Not simply singing Cher songs, becoming her. Anne created a full tribute production built around the voice, costumes, wigs, mannerisms, and stage presence that have made Cher an icon for decades. If I'm going to do a Cher tribute, I have to be Cher, Anne says. The show grew into roughly a ten person production with musicians, backup singers, dancers, and a wardrobe assistant. Helping Anne move through multiple costume and wig changes, she studied Cher's makeup, movement, voice, vibrato, and attitude, eventually building a show that spans several eras of her career. Underneath the costumes and wigs is a woman who has spent much of her life learning to trust her own voice. major turning point came at seventeen. She had been dealing with bullying at school and felt she needed a different environment. So she saved approximately $3,000, found an apartment, changed schools, kept working, and continued her education. I just felt like I needed to start my life, she says. At seventeen, that decision was enormous. Anne was paying rent, buying groceries, and managing bills while still a teenager. She had already spent years babysitting for siblings, cousins, and neighborhood children, so responsibility did not feel entirely new. I just needed my peace, she says. So when I moved out, I had my peace. Changing schools gave Anne more than a fresh start. The new school had a stronger choir and arts environment, and she found herself around students who could really sing. It was there that she began learning harmonies and discovering more of what her own voice could do, in a decision she originally made simply to get away from a difficult situation, Anne had unknowingly moved herself closer to one of the biggest parts of her future. Creativity had already been part of her childhood long before that. Anne remembered spending time in art classes, entering competitions, writing school plays, and acting in them. I was always in art class, she says. I won all kinds of contests in art. Hair and music would eventually become her most visible outlets, but the instinct to make something had been there all along. After high school, Anne became engaged, moved to Windsor, Ontario, and Married young and became a mother at twenty. She would eventually have two children, a daughter and a son, and much of her early childhood unfolded while she was simultaneously figuring out marriage, motherhood, and what kind of career she could build for herself. Anne had originally considered becoming a teacher, but the job market was difficult, so she turned towards something more practical: hair. Her mother and grandmother were stylists, and Anne had grown up around the industry. Once she entered cosmetology school, she realized it connected naturally to something that had always been a part of her creativity. I came over here to the States and I was like, okay, this is art. Hare gave Anne another way to use what had always been there. It was color, shape, balance, and movement. It meant looking at a person and understanding what would work with their features, their lifestyle, and the way they wanted to feel when they looked in the mirror. After moving to the United States through the military, Anne continued building her career. In 2001, her first husband was transferred to Sky Force Base, bringing the family to the area. Anne later owned Studio 47 Salon in Belleville for about nine years and now works independently at the parlor salon in Swansea. Today, her children are grown, her daughter lives in the St. Louis area, and her son lives in Canada. Anne has entered yet another chapter of family life as a grandmother. Motherhood has changed shape over the years, and just as many other parts of her life have, it remains one of the threads running through the woman she became. Air became another constant, but music became the other. Anne loved to sing from the time she was young, but performing did not always come easily. I bombed every time she says of some of her early talent show experiences. I was off key, my nerves, everything. It was like a terrible American Idol audition. The nerves were strong enough that Anne sometimes questioned whether she could really sing. That began to change when an organist at her church connected her with a bride who wanted a Selene Dion song performed at her wedding. Anne was hired. During the wedding ceremony, panic took over. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even swallow my spit, she says. Overwhelmed, Anne ran outside, convinced she couldn't do it. The organist eventually helped calm her nerves. So she returned and sang the song, and when it was over, the bride approached her and said, You were worth every penny. Anne cried. That first paid performance became a turning point. She began taking more singing opportunities, entered karaoke contests, and started winning. Confidence did not arrive all at once, but it grew with repetition. She kept showing up. Anne believed she became a better singer as she got older. By her mid to late 30s, people who had heard her years earlier began noticing a change. My voice changed, she says. It's completely different. It's deeper, it's stronger, it's something else. She learned how to control it, shape it, and use vibrato more intentionally. She also developed an ability to adjust her sound depending on the artist she was performing. I'm finally enjoying my voice, she says. That growth is important because Anne's story is not one of peaking young. She got better because she kept using the gift. Music eventually became a major part of Anne's life through Champagne Fix, her long-running rock and pop cover band. The group's range is part of what makes it distinctive. Anne can move from heart to evanescence, pink to Whitney Houston, Tina Turner to ACDC, Keisha to Lady Gaga and beyond. She has spent years learning how to shift her voice to fit different artists rather than sing every song in exactly the same way. When I do heart, they say I sound like heart. When I do Evanescence, they say I sound like her. When I do Keisha, I sound like her, she says. That vocal versatility became important later because by the time people began telling Anne she sounded like Cher, she was already used to studying how other performers shape their voices and stage presence. Champagne Fix has played festivals, weddings, private events, and venues throughout Illinois and Missouri. It became something Anne could depend on. She knew how to do it. She knew how to work a crowd and how to carry a set. And the band also brought another person into her life, Danny. When Danny joined the band, Anne immediately noticed how naturally they harmonized. I was like, my God, finally, she says. She had spent years harmonizing for other singers, but she had rarely felt someone truly meeting her musically. Danny could. We found out that we have the same range and the same harmonies, Anne says. And we were just like, holy crap, you're awesome. They started as friends and eventually became a couple. Anne had been married before, and she is careful not to make that chapter the center of her story. What she recognizes now is that she spent too many years following someone else's direction and waiting for space for herself. When referring to her first marriage, she says I followed his career. It just wasn't time for mine. Eventually she realized she could not keep trying to fix what was not working. You can't fix somebody, she says. Her relationship with Danny gave her something different support, mutuality, and a partner who encouraged her ideas. He's still the love of my life, Anne says, I can't imagine a day without him. Anne and Danny's wedding came together under circumstances neither of them had expected. They were originally planning to marry on November 4th, but in early August of 2015, Danny was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Suddenly the timeline changed. Anne planned their wedding in just 11 days. The dresses were ordered from Amazon. The boys picked up and rented their suits. And on Sunday afternoon, August 16th, 2015, Anne and Danny were married at the wine garden in Belleville. Their daughters wanted to be part of the ceremony, and Anne's son walked her down the aisle. What could have been an overwhelmingly difficult season became in Anne's memory a beautiful and perfect day. Less than a month later, on September 11th, Danny underwent surgery to remove the affected kidney. The cancer had been contained. The surgery was successful. And he has remained cancer free ever since. That chapter adds even more meaning to Anne and Danny's partnership and to the moments they now share on stage together. Music remains part of the relationship too. In addition to Champagne Fix, Anne and Danny perform acoustically together, stripping songs down to just the two of them and the harmonies that first connected them. That smaller format gives them another way to keep music. Woven into everyday life, even outside the larger band in tribute productions. The Cher tribute began almost accidentally. For years, people kept telling Anne she sounded like Cher. Then Champagne Fix began performing Believe, and the comments became even more frequent. Anne joked, I might as well just do a Cher tribute. People took her seriously. So did she. Ann started with makeup, then wigs, costumes, mannerisms, and voice. She studied different eras of Cher's career. And built the show piece by piece. What began as an idea became a full production. And it challenged Anne in different ways in Champagne Fix. The show requires difficult songs, rapid costume changes, rehearsals, coordination, and a full caster performers. Anne admits she can procrastinate and then hyperfocus, but the intensity is part of what pushes her. She still gets nervous. She just knows what to do with the nerves now. Anne says the most powerful part of performing is the moment she looks into the crowd and realizes people are singing with her. When you open your eyes and you look at people, people are actually looking at you and they're singing the words with you. Then comes the applause, the clap and the roars at the end, she says, it kind of hits you like a wall. That feeling helps explain why Anne continues to perform even when the logistics are difficult. The woman who once ran out of a wedding ceremony because she was scared she could not sing now knows what it feels like to command a room. Motherhood has given Anne another way to measure the choices she made. Her children grew up watching a mother who worked, built a career, performed, started businesses, and eventually made difficult decisions about what she wanted for her life and her relationships to look like. Years later, Anne's daughter wrote a school project naming her mother as her hero. One of the most meaningful parts of it centered on Anne's decision to change her life and later build a healthier partnership with Danny. Her daughter wrote about seeing through him what a husband and father could look like. For Anne, that stayed with her. She realized that her children had not only watched her struggle through difficult choices, they had also watched her choose differently. That matters even more now that her son and daughter are adults and Anne is a grandmother. The intensely hands on years of raising children are behind her, but motherhood has not ended. It has simply changed. In some ways, having grown children has given Anne more room to look at who she is outside of the daily responsibilities that wants to find so much of her life. She can be a mother and a grandmother and still ask what she wants next. Anne has decided to conclude the shared tribute this year. The production is large, schedules are difficult to coordinate, and she has decided to end them on a high note. But she has not finished creating. She and Danny have discussed original music, Anne has imagined other performance concepts, and continues to generate new ideas for businesses, home projects, gardening, and creative ventures. I'm artistic in everything I can think of, she says. And that is probably the clearest way to understand her. Anne does not stay in one lane for too long. What she would tell her younger self, when Anne thinks about the 17 year old girl who moved out on her own, she does not wish she could erase everything difficult that came after. I am not who I am today. Without going through everything I went through, she says, her advice to that younger version of herself is simple. It's going to be a rough ride, but you're going to be fine. Then comes the lesson that took longer to fully understand. Trust your gut, you're never wrong. Anne sees how many times she already knew what she needed before she was ready to act on it. Her growth has come from learning to trust those instincts sooner. There is something fitting about the woman Anne chose to portray. Sheer also built a career around reinvention. Her early life and career were deeply tied to a partnership, and eventually she had to discover who she was on her own. She kept performing, changing, and finding new versions of herself long after many people would have expected her to fade from the spotlight. And so did Anne. Sheer's voice became deeper and more recognizable with age. Anne's did too. Anne turns fifty in March. Her children are grown. She is a grandmother. She has spent decades building careers, raising a family, navigating relationships, and learning what parts of herself she wanted to carry forward. She does not talk about this stage as though she's winding down. Her life began with fierce independence, but adulthood taught her that independence sometimes has to be reclaimed. She wants to travel more. Create more, keep music in her life, and remain open to whatever idea comes next. Anne is nowhere near finished. The woman who once questioned whether she could sing now carries an entire production on stage. The teenager who left home because she wanted peace became a woman who learned how to trust her instincts. And for Anne, becoming Cher was never really about becoming another woman. It was about discovering How powerful her own voice had become, and realizing she has plenty left to say. I had the opportunity to see Anne perform her Cher tribute live. I understood even more clearly how seriously she takes the craft. The show exceeded my expectations. Anne didn't simply sing Cher's song, she recreated the experience. Her voice, mannerisms, stage presence, and even the way she spoke between songs transported the audience back to the eras which the music became famous. Her costumes changed with the songs, and And helped tell the story visually, making each part of the performance feel intentional. The production itself was incredibly well organized and polished. Dancers entertained the crowd with light-up hula hoops, coordinated costumes and movement that brought even more energy to the show. And was also joined by two very talented backup singers, one of whom is an up-and-coming local performer I had seen earlier in the summer during a Linda Ronsad tribute. Some of my favorite moments were Anne's duets with her husband Danny. After hearing more of their story during our interview, watching them perform together carried a little more meaning for me. There was something especially sentimental about seeing the partnership we had talked about come to life. What impressed me most was how complete the entire production felt. Anne has an undeniable stage presence. But there was also an incredible amount of preparation and attention to detail behind everything happening around her. From the costumes and dancers to the backup vocals and pacing of the show, every element worked together. By the end of the evening, I wasn't simply thinking about how much Anne sounded or looked like Cher. I was thinking about the amount of work it takes to create an experience that allows an audience to forget even for a few songs. That they are watching a tribute at all. I hope this episode gave you a chance to step into a little of Anne's share tribute experience for yourself and to see another side of the woman behind the story. Anne's journey is such a powerful reminder that reinvention doesn't have an expiration date and that sometimes the next version of us shows up in the most unexpected places. If you'd like to read Anne's full glowin' two story and see more of the performance, head on over to glowin' two.com. This Friday, August 28th, for the feature photos and video highlights from the show. Thank you for spending this time with me and for continuing to support the women whose stories I share. Until next time, keep glowing into who you were meant to be.