Stacy Grubb has released a new music video for Spirit of the Mountain on her current CD, From The Barroom To The Steeple. It’s a very personal song for Stacy, written by her father Alan Johnson, about the West Virginia Mountains where they live.
The lyric was powerful enough to reach most of the way around the world to Tony Burt, a New Zealand filmmaker and bluegrass musician who brought the concept for the video to the Mountaineer State for a shoot during a visit to the US last year. He loved Alan’s formulation of the spirit of the mountain living in the music of the people.
Tony says that the notion of the mountain itself as the narrator for the song is one that related with his experience of New Zealand culture.
“I had the idea for this video because it resonated as an international theme. Here in New Zealand there is a saying, ‘Turangawaewae,’ which means ‘a palace to stand.’ When speaking at a Maori Marae (meeting place) you introduce yourself by stating your family and ancestry, your river, and your mountain. So it was nice to introduce a small symbol of this resonance into the video.
I felt that the story in the video depicts the spirit of the music and the mountain being passed down generations. It worked nicely to have Alan included, singing with Stacy.”
We asked Tony to share a bit more about himself and his bluegrass journey, ending up with his first bluegrass music video shot in the States.
“I met Stacy and (her husband) Jason at IBMA back in 2011 when friend, Garrett Evans, and I travelled over from NZ. They were packing up after one of the after hours showcases around 3:00 a.m., so we gave them a hand. It’s what we are used to back home, pitching in and packing down. Stacy and Jason are a wonderful, sincere couple and since that time we became firm Facebook friends.
I am a musician, film maker and most recently dobro player – and there are not many here in New Zealand. This year I got the opportunity to came over to ResoSummit for the first time, I think the first from New Zealand to attend. That in itself was incredible, with all of my reso heros and inspirators in the same room.
I took the opportunity to make the most of the trip and also stopped by ETSU to catch up with Colleen Trenwith, a Kiwi fiddle player from New Zealand who tutors at ETSU. Dan Boner and the whole team were fantastic, allowing me to join in on band classes and on the last day I presented a talk to the students on ‘finding your own voice’ as part of the seminar series. This presentation was based on my travels with film and music and how this has made a difference, as well as some tough and inspirational stories in the presentation. This is based on a film I produced, which is unique as I narrate the film and perform the music live on stage.
I also had arranged to come over to WV for a week or so and catch up with Jason and Stacy. We had already decided to make a music video from a track off the new album, so I had a pretty good idea for it before hand. Also spending time in Beaver and with their extended families in Welch and McDowell county gave me a real insight into the people, music and culture. Some of the best moments included presenting, along with Jason a talk on ‘inspiration’ to the Mountain View High School assembly. Once again, with film and music I spoke on finding your own voice and being proud of where you come from.”
I’m sure that Stacy is proud to know Tony as well, and proud of her newest music video.
From The Barroom To The Steeple is available wherever recorded bluegrass is sold, and on her web site.
Bluegrass fans may recognize the name Stacy Grubb from her work with the Clay Hess Band, including a popular tour several years ago, or perhaps from her husband’s bluegrass management and booking service, Jason Grubb Artist Management. Though Grubb’s first album, released in 2009, utilized some instruments from the bluegrass spectrum, it was geared more toward the alt-country/Americana crowd. Her follow-up, the recently released From the Barroom to the Steeple, is solidly acoustic with a contemporary bluegrass flavor. Produced by Hess, the album sets Grubb’s soft, Alison Krauss-esque vocals to instrumentation from a who’s who of stellar bluegrass pickers.
Grubb has the same breathy-yet-strong quality to her voice as Krauss, and on several songs, she seems to be particularly channeling the acclaimed singer. One of those is Can’t Let You Go, which was written by John Pennell (perhaps best known in bluegrass circles for penning several of Krauss’s early hits, such as Every Time You Say Goodbye). The song is sung from the perspective of a woman who can’t get over someone, even though he has hurt her. It has a very gentle arrangement, with nice dobro work from Randy Kohrs and fine harmonies between Grubb and Hess. (Falling Like a) Leaf in a Summer Storm by Mark Simos (who also has written for Alison:Crazy Faith/Find My Way Back To Your Heart) has a similar feel, though it tells of the opposite end of the relationship spectrum – the singer is just beginning to let go and fall for someone new.
Grubb wrote seven of the album’s twelve tracks, including one (album closer Beautiful Girl) with her young son Elijah. Beautiful Girl is a sweet love song, particularly distinguished by Tim Crouch’s sweeping fiddle. Because You Love Me is another love song, this time with an acoustic country sound, in which Grubb sings of the power of seeing yourself the way the one who loves you does. All That Matters confronts a lover who doesn’t feel the same way about the singer as she does about him. Although the song has a gentle melody, it offers several stark truths about relationships as the singer comes to the realization that “sometimes something beautiful is only beautiful to me.”
Cold on the Ground is guided by Ron Block’s driving banjo. It’s a cleverly written number about the end of a relationship. Grubb wrote Straight Line about the mountains and coal mines of her native West Virginia. The song isn’t an ode to the state’s beauty, but a dark tale of the death and desperation that can come from living in a mining community. Spirit of the Mountains has a more positive view of Appalachia, speaking of the mountains’ – and their native music’s – ability to soothe. The song was written by Grubb’s father, Alan Johnston (whose songwriting credits include Del McCoury’s Sweet Appalachia), and also contributes the album’s title, which comes from a line in its chorus.
The album’s standout song is perhaps Six White Horses, written by Bobby Bond. This isn’t the Bill Monroe or Gillian Welch song, but the story of a soldier’s mother previously recorded by Waylon Jennings. It’s a poignant, well-written number that finds the singer – a blind woman – waiting at the window to find out if the sound she hears is her son knocking at the door or a funeral procession bringing him home. Grubb preserves the song’s original sound, but her acoustic treatment (compared to the late 1960s production of Jennings’s version) brings a new level of pain and longing to the song.
This is a fine bluegrass debut for Grubb. The musicianship here is excellent, coming from the likes of Hess (guitar, banjo, harmony vocals), Block (banjo), Kohrs (dobro), Crouch (fiddle), Irl Hees (bass, harmony vocals), Aaron Ramsey (mandolin), Nick Keen (mandolin), and Scott Vestal (banjo). Grubb’s vocals will be enjoyed by fans of contemporary bluegrass and acoustic country, particularly fans of Alison Krauss’s more recent work. The only downside to the album – and this is just a matter of personal taste – is that many of the songs here have a similar sound and tempo (a gentle, rolling melody with a bit of a wistful feel). A few more upbeat songs would have provided greater variety to the album’s sound. Overall, however, the album is enjoyable.
For more information on Stacy Grubb, visit her website at www.stacygrubb.com. Her new album can be purchased from various online music retailers.
Most of us know how difficult it can be to establish a career in music, and it’s no easier for bluegrass acts than it is for anyone else. For a young female vocalist trying to raise a new family at the same time, there are extra hurdles to overcome. For Stacy Grubb, moving from country to bluegrass happened at a time when even greater obstacles were thrown into her life, and helps explain why we haven’t heard much from her of late, other than a new single at Christmas.
Following the 2009 release of her alt-country record Hurricane, Stacy Grubb spent the past 5 years touring along the East Coast. In this time, she has had the great fortune of sharing the stage with such performers as Don Rigsby, Sierra Hull, Ron Block, and more. But the meeting that has most shaped her career was with Clay Hess during IBMA World of Bluegrass in 2010.
At the time, Clay was part of Sierra Hull and Highway 111, and Stacy was working to establish a dedicated band. By the following year, Clay was debuting his solo project and stepping out as a bandleader himself. He contacted Stacy’s husband, Jason (who had a small roster of bluegrass artists he represented for booking) to see if he would be interested in representing The Clay Hess Band. As it turned out, Stacy had a solid list of dates, but no band to play them; Clay had assembled a stellar lineup of pickers, but was still working to secure the dates. Recognizing the perfect match, he suggested Stacy and CHB hit the road together – so they did. They played stages from Auburn, AL, to the panhandle of WV, to Bean Blossom, to New York City, with plenty of stops along the way.
In early 2012, Clay was wondering why Stacy hadn’t yet gone back into the studio for a follow up record. While the reason was partially due to the fact that the Grubbs had expanded their family with the birth of their second child in 2011, the hard reality was that, as an independent artist, resources to put into a studio project were hard to come by. The more they talked, however, the more plans came together. By April of that year, Stacy, with Clay as producer and guitarist, and Irl Hees, and Aaron Ramsey were tracking at Slack Key Studios in Nashville.
The first single from that project was shared along the halls of The Nashville Convention Center at IBMA World of Bluegrass 2012 with plans for a full record release to follow soon after. However, just a couple weeks after returning home from Nashville, Stacy and Jason’s young daughter, Lyric, only barely a year old, was hospitalized after suffering from rapidly declining health that caused drastic weight and muscle loss among other serious issues. Their once healthy and thriving child was mysteriously now in a critical situation, displaying symptoms the likes of which the doctors at the hospital had never seen.
Ultimately, it was a lethally elevated calcium level that was responsible for her condition, though the cause behind it could never be determined. This resulted in a ten day hospital stay, including 8 days in the NICU, as doctors prepared Stacy and Jason for the fact that being unable to identify a diagnosis meant there was no guarantee that Lyric would ever recover. Through what they attribute to prayer and God’s healing, Lyric’s life-threatening condition was able to be controlled using experimental drugs.
Needless to say, focus shifted from completing the record to getting their daughter well, which included physical therapy and many visits to many doctors in Philadelphia, both to repair damage which her body had suffered, as well as to hopefully determine an official diagnosis. Funds and time that had been set aside for the record were quickly burned through in travel expenses, medical bills, and lost work. While it was in many ways a very dark time in the Grubb household, it was also a beacon that shone on the beauty of the support of family, friends, and the bluegrass community. It took a while for the Grubbs to get solid footing after such an ordeal, but little by little, they were able to return to building the record Stacy and Clay had started what, by then, seemed like a lifetime ago.
Stacy said that making music was far from her mind during her baby’s ordeal.
“When Lyric was sick our focus needed to be on her and our son, too, as it was scary and confusing for all of us, much less him as a kid. I ended up going several months without even listening to any of the stuff we’d recorded. There was still a lot of work that needed to be done, but a lot had already been finished. But after her illness, it was like our lives in general ground to a halt with the exception of putting one foot in front of the other to take care of her. It took us a long while to accept that we’d probably not be getting a diagnosis for her and would just have to start getting back into life and take her health one day at a time.
So, now we’ve got this project and one big chunk of it was created prior to this life-altering experience and the other chunk was created afterwards. Whether that conveys to anyone else in the finished project or not, I don’t know. But when I listen to it, I hear two lives being led. That’s the thing about these awful seasons of life, though. They can be turned into something good eventually.”
Stacy says the experience has definitely inspired some new tunes for some other projects on down the road. As for this one, titled From the Barroom to the Steeple, she wrote 6, co-wrote one with her son Elijah who was 4 at the time of the collaboration, and pulled new music from John Pennell, Mark Simos, her dad Alan Johnston (who penned such goodies as Del McCoury’s Sweet Appalachia, and David Davis’ Two Dimes and A Nickel), and her friends Barry and Danny Clevenger, as well as a tune she learned on a Waylon Jennings album written by Bobby Bond.
The album’s title is pulled from a line in her dad’s contribution called Spirit of the Mountains.
“I’d been rolling album titles around in my head for a couple weeks at least, when I was singing my dad’s song in the shower one day. I sang this line, ‘My voice has been heard from the barroom to the steeple,’ and thought that about summed up my music. So, I went with that.”
She said it seems fitting since the title of her first record was also from a song of her dad’s she’d recorded for that project.
“I realized one day that Clay and I both had records named after forces of nature, his being Rain, mine being Hurricane. I think we were onstage at The Outer Banks Bluegrass Festival when I pointed that out and told him that my album was the best as it was the strongest force. Without hesitation, he said, ‘No, I think yours is just the biggest disaster.’ I walked right into that.”
Reviews of their show together often refer to that playful banter between Stacy and Clay.
“It’s a blessing, for sure, when the people you work with are some of your favorite folks on Earth.”
That was also the case for the lineup of musicians on Barroom, which, in addition to the ones mentioned earlier, include Ron Block, Tim Crouch, Randy Kohrs, Scott Vestal, and Nick Keen.
When asked how this new record differs from the last, she says that some elements are similar, but as far as the sound goes, they’re night and day.
“When I recorded Hurricane, I admit I was pretty floored to show up to the studio and hear the kind of life my songs had taken on. Honestly, I had anticipated that I was cutting a bluegrass record. It was staggering to get there on the first day of tracking and meet the drummer and Brent Mason who’d be handling electric guitar. It’s kind of funny, really. I love what the record became. I am proud of and stand by that record. Still, I wanted to cut a record more in keeping with bluegrass sensibilities as that was my original intent. This new record does that. I love listening to it. I love performing the music from it.
I feel like Clay got close to the heart of who I am as an artist and as a listener, too. It was nice to be able to trust his guidance since recording, for me, leaves me standing too close to get the fuller picture of my own performance – at least, for now. He has taught me a lot, though. I’ll go into the studio next time better prepared than I was this last time. I hope that will always be the case – always advancing and learning.”
Stacy is quick to sing Clay’s praises for what he has taught her, as well as high caliber of talent and skill in his roles as producer and artist.
Likewise, Clay says of her:
“Stacy Grubb is one of the best kept secrets in music. Her vocal quality is as good as it gets, songwriting is interesting while staying true to her roots. A very original artist in a very bland world.”
Released by Cincinnati-based Kang Records, From the Barroom to the Steeple was made available just before Christmas on December 23, 2014. It can be purchased from Stacy’s website or downloaded from the usual places.
Stacy Grubb is set to release a new album later this month, produced by Clay Hess, and has dropped a new single this week. But it’s not a track from the new record, but a special Christmas song she wrote and recorded with Hess.
Is It Christmas Where You Are is a lovely ballad, supported by Clay’s guitar, and sung by the pair of them as a duet. It’s reminiscent of songs like I’ll Be Home For Christmas that were popular during WWII where either a sweetheart at home or a soldier fighting on foreign shores hopes that the other can enjoy Christmas far away.
Here’s a taste of the track…
The single is available now for sale from your favorite download sites. Radio programmers can download a copy from Airplay Direct.
Keep an eye out for From The Barroom To The Steeple, Stacy’s upcoming album, in the next few weeks. Pre-orders are offered online now.
Stacy Grubb has long believed in the healing powers of music and prayer. And, as a songwriter and performer, she admires the way members of the bluegrass community pull together to help their own.
She’s been on the helping end, including singing at nursing homes and traveling through a snowstorm last February to perform at a benefit concert for mandolin master Herschel Sizemore and his wife Joyce in Roanoke, VA.
Now, she and her husband Jason find themselves on the other side of the equation, needing prayers as doctors try to figure out why their 15-month-old daughter Lyric is seriously ill. So she asked Bluegrass Today to help spread the word.
Lyric has been hospitalized twice since late August, suffering from what doctors believe is a rare genetic disorder that they haven’t been able to diagnose yet. Most recently, she spent more than a week in the intensive care unit at Charleston (WV) Area Medical Center’s Women and Children’s Hospital, and while she’s home now, there are many medical tests and much uncertainty ahead.
“I still can’t believe that we are in this crazy situation,” Stacy said one day last week from the hospital. “She’s got something and nobody can tell us what it is. It’s something rare, whatever it is.”
Cancer has been ruled out, but Lyric dropped five of her 21 pounds, lost muscle tone and can’t swallow solid food. The illness has doctors so baffled that a team of genetic researchers from Yale has agreed to review her case. “You never want your case to be the one that’s so unusual that they want to study it at Yale. But that can’t be a bad thing.”
Jason, a lawyer who runs a music management business, has been staying at home with their son, Elijah, while Stacy has been with Lyric in the hospital. Through the uncertainty and the tears, she’s been singing to Lyric, and leaning on God.
Lately, she’s been singing Lonely Little Robin, a Jim Ed Brown song that she used to sing to her grandmother, who died earlier this year, as well as songs from friend Ron Block’s solo albums. She said Ron’s songs help because “they’re filled with really great theology that I need to be reminded of right now.”
Stacy and Jason ask for prayers to guide doctors in diagnosing Lyric’s illness, to ease “the stress that the family is under, because it’s really hard not to buckle,” and for Lyric to be able to take nutrition and begin to thrive again. Finally, she noted, “We need prayers for peace and acceptance of this, and for not giving in to the fear of what we don’t know.”
When we talked, Stacy had just gone through what she called “the hardest week of my life.” At a time when she expected to be pushing her new single, Wish I Didn’t Know Love, and preparing for the release of her Kang Records project, From the Barroom to the Steeple, she is instead focused intently on an audience of one sweet redhaired girl.
Stacy will be making regular visits to Nashville. But instead of conducting music business, she’ll be shepherding Lyric for more medical tests at Vanderbilt University’s medical center.
It’s not the script she would have written, but she knows the final say isn’t hers. “We don’t know what this is for, but God knows,” she said. “It’s so easy to forget.”
And, whether to an audience of one or hundreds, she’ll keep singing because “even people who don’t play music are healed by music.”
The continuing shift to digital music opens new possibilities for artists, but it also presents some marketing challenges.
Fans who hear a song at a show and want to buy a digital version on the spot usually have two options – buying a download code, usually presented like a business card, or purchasing from a service such as iTunes, which keeps 30 percent of the purchase price.
iDitty, the brainchild of Dan and Kimblerly Huff, launched on Friday. It’s designed to allow artists to keep more of their money and for fans to have a lasting memento of the experience.
The iDitty download card is made of plastic, like a credit card but bigger, about the size of a festival pass. One side carries a picture of the artist or band, providing a keepsake that can be autographed and displayed. The other side contains information about the songs and the download code.
For the launch at IBMA, Dan offered Wish I Didn’t Know Love, a single from an in-progress project from West Virginia singer Stacy Grubb and music from a few other artists represented by Jason Grubb Management. But the merchandise doesn’t have to be limited to music. An artist can also upload videos, photos, liner notes and lyrics.
“It’s a customizable iTunes,” Huff said.
Performers order the cards in advance, then sell them at shows and festivals for a price they determine.
If Dan’s idea catches on, he might be able to make a dent in iTunes’ hold on the digital music business. Or maybe Apple will come knocking on the door with an offer to buy the business.
More information is available at online, and apps for iPhones and Android phones will be available in October.
I had the pleasure to witness the debut public appearance of the Clay Hess Band, at the Pumpkin Park Music Hall in Milton, West Virginia on Friday night. Most bluegrass musicians and fans across the country were introduced to Clay as lead guitarist with Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder, and his work more recently with Sierra Hull, but after the release of his solo project, Rain, he decided the time was right to step out from the sideman role and take center stage.
In addition to getting the watch the show, I had the added enjoyment of playing an active part in the event, as I provided the sound system for the show. The auditorium is less than two years old, and was constructed as part of the Cabell County Fairgrounds, which serves as home for both the county fair and the ever popular Pumpkin Festival (hence the name Pumpkin Park). Having constructed the auditorium, which can seat 900, the operators have started scheduling concerts outside the normal fair and festival events. Daily & Vincent will be appearing in May and other shows are in the works. It’s always good to see new venues for bluegrass performers.
The show opened with a performance by Stacy Grubb. A prolific songwriter, Stacy presented a mixture of original compositions, several from her recent CD Hurricane, along with her interpretations of classics like Catfish John and Darling Corey (Dig a Hole In The Meadow, if you prefer). For any that haven’t heard her, you owe it to yourself to give her a listen. Her vocal style is reminiscent of Alison Krauss in her range and her ability to display both softness and power. The Clay Hess Band did a great job of backing Stacy, no easy task considering her original material.
With some of his family in attendance, Clay took the stage with his new bandmates. Mixing some of his own compositions (I didn’t realize he had written so many songs), songs from his recent release, and beloved standards, they displayed instrumental strength and the necessary vocal variety (three members of the group took turns at lead vocals) to present an entertaining show.
Playing enough to be interesting without ever abandoning the melody, Josh Hymer played a solid banjo. Making his father proud, Clay was joined on stage by his son, Brennan, on rhythm guitar and harmony vocals. Recommended to Clay by Adam Steffey as “killer”, Clay joked that mandolin player Ryan Moyers hadn’t killed anyone yet (how do we get some of our slang?). Moyers may not have committed murder yet, but he did a fine job on both mandolin and vocals.
Introduced as the first person Clay called when he decided to put a group together, Irl Hees demonstrated why Clay called, with his bass playing, lead and tenor vocals, and stage personality. His solo (I mean solo as in he was the only person on stage) rendition of Working On A Building featured the slap-bass technique which was more common in early bluegrass history, and is always a crowd pleaser.
Of course, the show featured plenty of Clay’s amazing guitar playing. I remember jamming with him 20+ years ago when he was a teenager and being proclaimed “the next Tony Rice,” and although virtually no one that plays bluegrass guitar solos hasn’t been influenced by Tony Rice, Clay doesn’t resort to Rice’s standard licks to construct a solo, but has his own ideas to express. The bigger surprise to those that haven’t seen him often is his vocal ability, which will no doubt continue to grow as he takes on the role of primary lead vocalist.
While they certainly are all experienced musicians, it seemed that as the show went on, the group reached a comfort level which showed not only in their instrumentals and vocals, but in their stage patter. They displayed a sense of humor, most of which seemed spontaneous, and the audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy the evening.
The show was presented by Jason Grubb, Stacy’s husband, who is an attorney in Beckley, West Virginia. Jason has built a practice which includes artist management and representation. His roster of artists includes Stacy Grubb (duh), The Clay Hess Band, The Darrell Webb Band, and a number of other fine groups.
All in all, it was a memorable start for the Clay Hess Band, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot from them in the future. Thanks to Jason and Stacy for allowing me to be a part of the event.
Thanks also to my personal photographer, Valerie Gabehart, for capturing the moment.
She calls herself “a label’s worst nightmare” – a bit too country for bluegrass and a bit too grassy for country. So Stacy Grubb is using Kickstarter to try to raise funds for her new CD.
The West Virginia songbird has until Feb. 25 to raise $15,000. She promises the untitled project “won’t be as much a fence-straddler” as her first release, 2009’s Hurricane. “It’ll be more bluegrass,” Stacy said, adding that she wants a record that more closely resembles her stage show.
As part of that move, the new one will feature her fellow bandmates. Don Rigsby will produce.
Songs from Hurricane enjoyed some success in Europe, but didn’t catch on in a big way here. Still, she said, the experience of being produced by Ronnie Cochran and working with an all-star cast – including Rob Ickes, Ron Block, Aubrey Haynie, Daley and Vincent – “makes it much less intimidating to go back in” to the studio.
Like Hurricane, Stacy is writing much of the material for the new project. But she’ll again include one song penned by her father, Alan “Cathead” Johnston, whose songs have been recorded by Del McCoury and other top bluegrass acts.
Details of Stacy’s Kickstarter campaign can be found here, or you can check out her web site at stacygrubb.com.
Read about our first encounter with Stacy in 2010 here.
This post is a contribution from David Morris, one of our 2010 IBMA correspondents. See his profile here.
In the flood of music at the World of Bluegrass conference in Nashville – some of the biggest names on stage and polished jams seemingly around every corner – it’s still possible to stumble on magical moments. The venue for one of those moments Tuesday was a private showcase hosted by Jason Grubb, an artist representative from West Virginia.
The magician, in this case, was Ron Block, a top-notch picker and under-appreciated vocalist who devoted much of his part of the showcase to gospel tunes he wrote, including the sublime He’s Holding Onto Me and Be Assured, which was first recorded by Dan Tyminski. But he also led mandolinist Sierra Hull and other pickers in a fresh rendition of the much-done – and often overdone – Clinch Mountain Backstep.
But the night’s best magic might have come from a message he sent to singer Stacy Grubb, asking if she knew his song Living Prayer, which was recorded by Block’s bandleader, Alison Krauss. Grubb said she was nervous when the implications of his question sunk in – he wanted her to sing it. That nervousness gave the song a tender vulnerability that was enhanced by the minimalist arrangement of only Block’s guitar and Hull’s mandolin.
Stacy Grubb, the newest member of the Wheeling Jamboree in West Virginia, is gathering material for a follow up to her Hurricane CD, which has led to a growing following in Europe and gained some attention in the states. She has a ready supply of material; she writes her own material and is the daughter of Alan Johnston, who has written chart-climbing tunes for Del McCoury, Dave Davis and others.
This post is a contribution from Jim Gabehart, one of our 2010 IBMA correspondents. He will report all week about his experiences at IBMA as he tries to promote his new group, Jim & Valerie Gabehart. You can see his profile here.
Day One of the IBMA Experience
Well, this day (or yesterday, as I’m nearing the end of our first day at 3:00 a.m. EDT), started with a minor tragedy of sorts, the loss of a family member – a Martin D-35 guitar, early 70’s model, which I bought and gave to my future wife, Valerie, thirty years ago. A reflection of carelessness, but also the result of running behind and being somewhat frazzled from three weekend performances (including two CD release party concerts promoting the release of our new CD It’s My Turn), I closed but forgot to latch the door on the back of our utility trailer and lost the guitar on some bump or curve.
After back-tracking the route over the ten miles or so between our home in Hamlin, WV, and the point where we discovered the door open, we gave up the search confident that someone had picked up the guitar. Determined not to let this cast a dark shadow over the momentous occasion of our first trip to IBMA and what it represents, I let Valerie drive while I called every music store, pawn shop, and my friends with the West Virginia State Police (being a prosecutor does have perks), and last but not least our insurance agent. Thankfully, this is our “spare” guitar, as Valerie plays a custom limited edition 1992 CTB HD-28 Martin, and we “endeavored to persevere” (forgive the Outlaw Josey Wales reference).
While in college and briefly while our children were small, we were active musically, but as our children became involved in sports, beauty pageants and the like, we dropped out of sight and confined our music to a very small area near our home, and local churches. However, since our children have grown and left home, while we are still relatively young (in our 40’s) we have set our sights on pursuing music and much as possible on the biggest stage possible.
With this goal, we have invested substantial time, money, and energy in preparing for this event. Our new CD, supported by professional promotional materials and website design, give us something to demonstrate what we are capable of doing, and attracting attention at IBMA to raise awareness of our group and hopefully lead to performance opportunities. Of course, this is the hope and dream of many groups like ours, who chose to do the “responsible thing” and pursue an education and/or a secure day job. We did our “duty”, raised our children in a comfortable, secure, and stable home and now “It’s (our) Turn.”
We certainly enjoyed the dinner (typical rubber chicken banquet meal, which is not an indictment of the meal, just the reality of trying to serve 500 meals at once) and Sam Bush’s personal recollections of Bill Monroe, but the highlight of the evening was just reconnecting with old friends and letting them know we’re coming back out to play.
Mike Bub recalled coming to Charleston, WV to enter a banjo contest on summer break from his bluegrass studies at South Plains College with Alan Munde, where we met about 25 years ago (he says I beat him, so I’ll agree with that). I had the chance to speak briefly with, and give one of our CDs to, Kyle Cantrell with visions of XM Radio airplay dancing in my head.
We watched portions of the “official” showcases and several after hours showcases including fellow West Virginian (now a Tennessee resident) Darrell Webb, who performed in an after hours showcase room hosted by Jason and Stacy Grubb. Darrell was kind enough to play mandolin for us a couple weeks ago at a show in Charleston, and is an old friend.
We’re looking forward to our after hours showcase in the Grubb’s room on Wednesday night. There doesn’t appear to be much jamming going on, but based on reports I’d heard from past years’ attendees, this is no big surprise. This business conference seems more geared to networking and the showcases. Our hope is that among the nearly 600 industry professionals registered to attend (after paying $1180.00 for membership, conference registration, and exhibition booth rental, I had to pay $30.00 for an electronic file listing of the conference attendees) we can raise some level of consciousness about our existence to a point that when we contact DJs or promoters, if they haven’t seen or heard us perform, at least they have heard the name before and perhaps recognize that we’re serious about what we do.
Among three hundred or so emails we sent to conference attendees (we focused on broadcasters, media/journalists and promoters) introducing ourselves, we received only a few responses, but one was a request for an interview from Phil Nusbaum with the Bluegrass Review a syndicated program airing on 60 radio stations, which as I’m writing is scheduled to take place in a few hours. Ever the optimist, I hope to land a few big fish tomorrow.
I already feel like we’re accomplishing some of our goals – be seen, be noticed, be heard, be remembered. We’re planning on giving away as many as 300 CDs we brought with us, not counting several hundred more we’ll be sending out to radio stations after we get home. Whoever said you have to spend money to make money never spoke truer words.
