Singing bailiff dreams

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November 15, 2008

Of stardom with her Optional Italian Buffet band

By GINA KINSLOW The Glasgow Daily Times Sat Nov 15, 2008, 02:46 PM CST

MUNFORDVILLE — Andrea Tanaro has a dream of becoming a recording star.

The 27-year-old Cub Run woman was recently invited to sing “My Old Kentucky Home” at the dedication of the new Hart County Judicial Center.

She belted out the tune a capella with ease.

Tanaro was thrilled to have the opportunity to sing at the dedication.

“It was cool,” she said. “I liked it.”

Tanaro is no stranger to the stage. She sings regularly with a band.

It may very well have been her ability to juggle a singing career with her day job as a bailiff for Hart County Sheriff Boston Hensley that helped her land the dedication ceremony gig.

Yes, that’s right. Tanaro is a bailiff.

“She does a great job,” Hensley said, adding that he thinks Tanaro is very intelligent and very talented. “Wherever you put her, she does good work.”

As a bailiff, Tanaro operates the metal detector at the new Hart County Judicial Center. She’s also been known to work in the sheriff’s office collecting resident’s property tax payments, and on occasion she transports inmates to and from the courthouse.

Tanaro has been a bailiff for two years.

When she learned Hensley would be needing an additional bailiff, she decided to apply for the job.

“It sounded like fun,” she said. “You get to carry a gun and handcuffs. I have hot pink handcuffs.”

Tanaro special ordered the handcuffs and laughs when she talks about them.

She has had to use her hot pink handcuffs a couple of times, but never has she had to use her gun.

While Tanaro takes her job as a bailiff seriously, it takes a backseat to her singing career.

Tanaro sings with her band, “Andrea Tanaro and the Optional Italian Buffet” somewhere every weekend.

People always ask her where she got the name for the band.

“That’s a long story that I’m going to make short,” she said.

Tanaro’s band was playing at a club in Bowling Green one weekend. When the owner of the club asked the name of the band, Tanaro’s husband, Tony, who plays guitar in the band, said the name of the band was just “Andrea Tanaro. It’s her band.”

The club was also having an Italian buffet that night.

The banner outside the club on the night Tanaro and her band performed read “Andrea Tanaro and Her Band.”

“Underneath it they had ‘Optional Italian Buffet,’” Tanaro said.

The name stuck.

The band plays a mixture of musical genres — rock, funk, blues, R&B; and country.

“We try to keep everybody happy,” she said. “We play a lot of rockin’ country. I’m a harmonica player, so my favorite thing to play is the blues.”

Tanaro has been playing the harmonica for eight years.

“When I was 19, I picked up the harmonica,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to play ever since I heard the Doobie Brothers play ‘Long Train Running.’ I was like 7 or 8.”

The band is currently recording an all-original album at Dave Barrick’s recording studio in Glasgow. Tanaro hopes to have it finished by the end of the year and certainly no later than the first of the new year.

“We’re going to try to push it and see what we can do with it,” Tanaro said.

She wants to play more gigs in Nashville in hopes of taking her singing career on the road.

Her mother, Barbara Childress, supports her singing career.

“She’s been singing at Guntown Mountain almost every year since she was 6 years old,” said Childress, who also works in the sheriff’s office.

Childress said she would love to see her daughter take her singing career as far as she can. “I’d like to see her on TV someday.”

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