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Frets and forklifts: Country singer Tricia Freeman’s dual work life

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She’s a forklift driver by day and a country singer at night.

Tricia Freeman, 60, is strumming a few notes on her guitar before she sings for seated listeners at Newport Beach’s 21 Oceanfront restaurant on a Tuesday night.

The blonde singer, dressed in a sundress and accessorized with a diamond necklace, glances out the lounge’s window to watch the sun set over the ocean.

“It’s hard to compete with this view,” she quips to the crowd.

“You have a beautiful voice,” someone calls out.

Time is still on the smoky-voiced singer and guitarist’s side.

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When Freeman isn’t performing four to five shows a week at 21 Oceanfront or at the Village Inn on Balboa Island or at the Marine Room Tavern in Laguna Beach, she trades in her evening dress for a T-shirt and jeans.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, Freeman works as a shipping manager at J.P.L. Compressor Service in Westminster, a company specializing in compressed air systems for water treatment, chemicals and general manufacturing. Her job is to pull stock for orders, ship service parts, handle the paperwork for shipping overseas and monitor the stock room.

“It can be demanding and tough,” says owner and senior mechanical engineer Joe Lester. “She does quite a lot that can be exhausting.”

It’s a position Freeman obtained after Lester and his wife heard her perform at the now-closed Studio Cafe on Balboa Island.

Once Lester learned that Freeman didn’t have a retirement plan, he found a position for her in the company’s shipping department.

The role, Freeman says, is a perfect fit.

“I’ve always been into construction, from putting in sprinkler systems to putting up drywall,” she says. “I love getting my hands dirty.”

And she has adapted to riding a forklift, which is among her duties at work.

For Freeman to be capable of loading parts into trucks, she first had to become forklift-certified. She had to train and be evaluated by forklift operators to assess her competency in operating the machinery.

“You can call Tricia a ‘sunflower girl,’” says Lester. “She’s the artist here at work, and we enjoy the fact that she’s part of the group. She brings a different flavor.”

Steering a lift truck, Freeman says, doesn’t stop her from singing at work.

“My singing defines me,” she says. “My job doesn’t define me. I love to perform, entertain and talk to my audience. It’s a great feeling.”

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Performing live on stage with her bandmates from the Tricia Freeman Band, Freeman says, is her favorite place to be.

The Costa Mesa resident, who has opened for Al Green and John Fogerty at the Doheny Blues Festival in Dana Point, prefers to rock out.

“I can’t believe I made it this long,” she says with a laugh.

That road to performing a blend of classic with contemporary jazz and blues began when she was exposed to music as a child. Freeman’s mother would play Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington while her father enjoyed Latin and classic sounds. As she grew older, she found herself developing a love of the country and bluegrass styles prevalent in her hometown of Lawrence, Kan.

Freeman, whose father was an obstetrician-gynecologist, moved to Texas to live with her mother after her parents divorced. Her stepfather, a pig farmer, showed her how to raise hogs.

“I went from being a doctor’s daughter in Kansas to a pig farmer’s daughter down in Texas,” she says.

Her experience in the Great Plains and South triggered her passion for listening to blues and country music.

At 19, she left her home for California to write songs.

She bought a guitar, taught herself how to play four chords and began performing at venues in Palm Springs.

“I thought I was so cool knowing those four chords until this guy approached me and asked to play my guitar,” she says. “He was this awesome guitarist.”

That guitarist became her husband. The couple played gigs in La Quinta, with Freeman perfecting her sound, but eventually the duo parted ways.

“When you sing the blues, you sing from the heart,” she says. “When I sing, I sing from my soul.”

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Minutes before Freeman takes the microphone at 21 Oceanfront to perform her rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” fans are already shuffling for seats. They’re supporters, Freeman says, who have become her friends.

There’s Newport Beach residents Granville and Sidney Kirkup and Balboa Island resident Sue Olson seated in the lounge.

“She’s a rock and roller, but tonight she’s much more mellow,” Granville says. “It just depends on the venue.”

“I love her range of voice,” Sidney adds.

Olson says she started listening to Freeman perform five years ago at the Village Inn.

“She has such a fun personality,” Olson says. “Her passion is her music, and you can feel that.”

The two became friends when they both learned how close they are to their daughters.

Freeman says when she’s not performing or working, she loves spending time with her daughter, Mercedez, her son-in-law, Wayne, and her two grandchildren, Nathan and Summer.

She shares her family stories with her fans.

“You have no idea how you can affect people,” she says. “I have people who come up to me saying they remembered me perform at this place or at another place, and it was during a special time in their life.

“This is what I love to do. They’re going to have to pull me off stage.”

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