“I wanted to be Elvis,” wrote musician BeJae Fleming in her Trailer Records extended profile.

Fleming intended to get a head start on her aspirations to become as great as Elvis, but a small altercation caused a delay in her effort.

The Southeasterner received a Sears Silvertone guitar for Christmas when she was 6 years old. Her mother sent her off to lessons at a local music store later that year, but the teacher took the money and skipped town, leaving a disappointed child behind.

Eleven years went by before she laid her fingers on the Silvertone’s strings again.

Even though she started playing guitar when she was 17, Fleming is not concerned with the late start in her musical endeavors as it certainly didn’t take away from her motivation.

“I played six or eight hours a day for the next year, not because of discipline or a tendency toward achievement, but because I just couldn’t stand not to be playing,” she wrote.

During those first few years she sang songs by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Eric Anderson, but her most recent inspirations come from Iowa favorites Dave Zollo and Bo Ramsey.

“[Zollo and I] are best friends and sometimes play together,” Fleming said. Zollo performed with Fleming at last year’s Ginkgo Festival in Ames.

Fleming’s relationship with the founder of Trailer Records in Iowa City began when she gave him a tape of her work a few years back. Trailer Records released Fleming’s first record, “Red Cross Woman” in 1996.

The title track was written with her ex-husband, Jim Ritchey in 1990. Fleming said she enjoys writing material with another person as long as it’s “the right person.”

Currently, Fleming is co-writing with a professor at Iowa State. She likes to work with someone else’s ideas while putting two minds together because the work goes faster and more ideas are unveiled.

“A song writes itself and goes its own way,” she said.

The first-rate results of her more recent efforts will be available on an upcoming album she has been working on in Chicago.

But one doesn’t have to wait to hear what Muse News described as “fresh, intelligent and fun” material.

Saturday, Fleming will join fellow Midwesterner Peter Mayer at The Octagon Center for the Arts.

Mayer was nominated for Best Folk Artist at the 1998 Minnesota Music Awards, and his recent release, “Bountiful,” was nominated for Best Folk Album.

“Mayer has twice been selected as a finalist at the Telluride Festival and the Lyons Folk Festival Songwriting Competition in Colorado,” a press release said.

Fleming and Mayer will perform at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $8 and are available at The Octagon Center.