At nine years old, Maxie King was already a superstar, at least from within the confines of her bedroom. Her performances were legendary. She was a giving artist and the legion of stuffed animals and dolls clustered precariously on her dresser at the base of her full-size mirror created the most appreciative audience an artist could want.

The venue was practically built to her personal specifications. She aimed a couple of flashlights carefully taped to two small coat trees and placed on either side of her dresser to converge on her standing spot, her center stage. She saved a sheet of blue cellophane that once wrapped a present from Grandma Nell and cut it to cover the lights when she needed to ‘bring everything down’ for her slow songs, usually dedicated to one of the many non-blinking, eternally blissful stuffed creatures that stood before her.

Her wardrobe was enviable. Comprised of thrift store glitter dresses and a mosh of Halloween costumes from bargain bins next to newly placed Christmas decorations, Maxie made enough costume changes during her performance to put Cher to shame.  It made her shows both a spectacle, and often, exceedingly long.

Her microphone was real; a gift from Uncle Cal who said it didn’t work anymore. To Maxie, after she tucked the end of the cord into the bottom drawer of her dresser it worked fine for her. Tammy Dillard used a fake plastic one…amateur.