By Gillian Graham

Staff Writer

Sometimes, Red Soucy says, you’ve got to know when to hang it up.

After performing together for seven decades, Soucy and Roland Bergeron will take the stage Saturday night for an evening of old-time country music. This is the finale, they said, the very last time they’ll play together in public.

“There will be sadness on my part,” Soucy said.

Soucy, 83, and Bergeron, 85, met when they were around 7 years old and attending Saco public schools. Soucy lived downtown, Bergeron on the north side of town. Back in those days, Bergeron was “one hell of a baseball player,” Soucy remembers.

“And Red, he used to raise hell a little bit,” Bergeron said with a laugh.

They both discovered music as children and credit playing instruments for bringing joy to their lives. Bergeron first learned to play the banjo from a neighbor, whose house stood where Funtown is today. The neighbor, who was two years older, had a new banjo that Bergeron said cost the family a lot of money.

 He was taking lessons and the first think I know, I wasn’t taking lessons but I was better than he was,” he said. “It just got to me, the banjo.”

Before he knew it, Bergeron was traveling to Scarborough and paying 75 cents per banjo lesson. Later, he’d hop on the trolley car that ran past his house and go to lessons in Biddeford. Soucy would stop by to listen.

Around that time, Soucy was discovering his love of guitar through the Salvation Army.

“When I was a kid there was no YMCA in Saco. I hung around the Salvation Army and they’re very musical people. A guy named Jack Phalen taught me how to play,” Soucy said. “I always say one man changed my whole life and it wasn’t the good Lord.”

While Bergeron was taking lessons and playing duets with the teacher, Soucy was playing hymns on the street corner on Sunday nights. Before long, they performed together at Burns School, where they both were students.

Their first public performance came during World War II when soldiers were stationed in Saco.

“They had a big barn up on Factory Island. We entertained the soldiers. We were trying to keep morale up,” Soucy said.

Joined by a handful of other musicians, Bergeron and Souncy gathered at friends’ homes for hootenannies or jamborees. After a while they gave that up because so many people crowded into houses to see them play.

Bergeron and Soucy began playing in nursing homes 25 years ago. For 20 years, they traveled to facilities across Southern Maine to entertain residents and staff alike.

“My wife got me into this,” Soucy said. “She used to volunteer at the Wardwell (in Saco). She said, ‘Why don’t you grab your guitar and go down and sing for the sweet old ladies.’ So I went down and was playing alone. I thought that’s stupid, and called up my banjo player.”

Both men said they found the performances rewarding. They each have scrapbooks and folders crammed full of certificates, awards and pins from the places they performed.

“We put on a good performance and we made them happy,” Bergeron said. “It makes you feel great because you know you did something good for people.”

“When a lot of them are on their last legs, you can make them smile,” Soucy added. “God’s been good to us.”

Six and a half years ago, Soucy and Bergeron performed what they thought was their last public show. Since then, friends have asked again and again for them to perform one last time. This finale, they said, will feature all their favorite songs – including the one that always brings Soucy to tears.

“Red’s wife never liked his favorite one to do, ‘I’m thinking tonight of her blue eyes.’ My God, you got to see it,” Bergeron said.

“(My wife Lorraine) leaves the auditorium because I actually cry,” Soucy added. “I tell people if you turn around now, you’ll catch her leaving.”

Though she doesn’t stay to watch that song, Lorraine Soucy and Bergeron’s wife, Lucienne, have been devoted audience members for more than 50 years. Lorraine and Red Soucy will celebrate their 65^th wedding anniversary this year, and Roland and Lucienne Bergeron have been married 54 years.

“I think it’s wonderful for friends to stay together that long,” Lorraine said of her husband and Bergeron’s music career.

“We never could plan anything because they were always gone,” Lucienne said of their schedule, which often brought them to three venues each week.

Though he will miss performing with Soucy in public, Bergeron said he can’t imagine his life without music and will continue to play at home every day.

“We’ve had good lives,” he said. “Music keeps you going, really. Yes, that’s what keeps you going.”

“Old Country Music Nite” featuring Roland Bergeron on banjo and Red Soucy on guitar will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday at Cornerstone Methodist Church, 20 Jenkins Road, Saco. Admission is $5. For more information, call 282-2755.

Staff Writer Gillian Graham can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 213.