20 Years And Counting

Barbara Mashburn will be celebrating two events on Saturday -- the Barbara Mashburn Scholarship Foundation's 20th anniversary and her 70th birthday.

The anniversary concert will begin at 3 p.m. at the Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville. Mashburn is excited about the concert, which will feature 25 to 30 past and present scholarship recipients. She's also happy to be celebrating her birthday at the event.

"I'm upright and breathing," she says with a laugh.

The Barbara Mashburn Scholarship Foundation is a nonprofit organization offering assistance to vocal music students. The foundation has given about $1.3 million to more than 400 students in 20 years, and there are nine recipients right now, she says. Many of her alumni are coming to sing on Saturday, and they're bringing their kids to sing with them too, she notes.

Mashburn may be most excited, though, to see her 18-year-old grandson Austin Rickel. Rickel is "a black gospel singer, only he's white," she says, adding that he sang backup vocals for Macklemore, Queen Latifah and Madonna at this year's Grammy Awards. He lives in Seattle, but he has performed at Mashburn Foundation concerts since he was a child. Mashburn and Rickel will be singing "A Song for You."

"I've never sung with him in public," Mashburn says. "I'm just so excited to sing with him."

Mashburn will also sing "God Bless the Child" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses." The first half of the show will feature classical, opera and Broadway music, and the second half will include newer songs, she says.

"It's a celebration of musical excellence and love," Mashburn says of the free concert.

Mashburn says the scholarships offer recipients a total care package. Along with singing, they learn manners, time management and study skills, and what it is like to live in the real world of music.

"It's like a support group for singers," she says.

She adds that she teaches the students real world values and to be ethical and honorable people.

"I really do believe that if more people would teach that to youngsters today, the world would be a better place," Mashburn says.

Mashburn is a former jazz and blues singer who headlined in Las Vegas in the 1960s and toured the world. She and her late husband then decided to start a scholarship foundation for vocal music students.

"I never ever thought of myself as anything but a performer, but now I know that giving back was what I was put here for," she says.