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Franklin County is Gearing up for Great Performances Four great performers are set to take the stage at the Franklin County Fair this July. With acts like the Marshall Tucker Band, Terri Clark, Trent Tomlinson and Danielle Peck rocking the house, the Franklin County Fair will be hard to miss. Their performances spanning Thursday, Friday and Saturday, it’s going to be a fantastic long weekend!
The Marshall Tucker Band will be the first to take the stage, Thursday night at 8pm. MTB has been around a long time. First getting together in 1972, most of the original members split up in late 1983, deciding that they’d had enough of life on the road. Since then, MTB has seen many changes, but one thing remains the same; they make great music together. Their release “Stomping Room Only” became available in December of 2006 and had quite a history behind it. Originally, it had been a live LP that was never released by Capricorn Records because of the original bands split; the current band revived it and made it available to the public, who soon gobbled it up. Their new album, “The Next Adventure” is now available through their website, www.marshalltuckerband.com. You can also take the opportunity to listen to samples of all ten of the albums songs before you purchase.
From their first LP in 1973, to their powerful stage presence today, the Marshall Tucker Band has played countless concert venues around the world. With the success of the Volunteer Jam Tour, and 1999 release of Gospel, these “good ol’ boys” from Spartanburg, South Carolina remain as a powerful force in the world of music. Doug Gray, lead singer, is quick to credit the band’s current dynamic members with carrying on the everlasting Marshall Tucker Band sound. In 1989, slide guitarist Stuart Swanlund joined the lineup of talented musicians. They also added the highly respected B.B. Borden, who is a former member of both Mother’s finest and The Outlaws, on drums in the early 90’s.
“The buying public never really cared whether we were country or rock and roll” says founding member Doug Gray. “They called us a Southern rock band, but we have always played everything from country to blues and all things in-between. We’re still playing all of the classic songs, but we are moving ahead into other styles as well. We’re also playing for a younger audience than we have in the past, perhaps to the kids of the fans we played in front of in the 70’s and 80’s.” With hit singles like “Heard It In a Love Song,” “Fire On The Mountain,” “Can’t You See,” and “Take The Highway,” The Marshall Tucker Band earned seven gold and three platinum albums while they were on the Capricorn Records label. During the 90’s, the MTB scored four hit singles on Billboard’s country chart and one on Billboard’s gospel chart. If the band has anything to say about it, their concert on Thursday night will be a performance that none of their fans will soon forget. The current MTB lineup consists of Doug Gray on Lead Vocals, Pat Elwood on Bass Guitar, Chris Hicks playing guitars, Stuart Swanlund playing the Slide Guitar, B.B. Borden on the drums and David Muse handling the keyboards, saxophone and flute and vocals. “As we’ve become older,” Gray grins, eyes twinkling, “our Southern heritage seems to come out even more. But no matter how old we get, we can still rock your socks off.” The party continues on Friday when Canadian born country star Terri Clark sets the stage on fire with both her voice and her eight-piece band featuring pedal steel and fiddle. Her newest song ‘Dirty Girl’ just released and she’s ready to let the world know that she’s back with yet another fantastic album, titled “In My Next Life.”Only Terri Clark, a woman in full, a Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music Top Female Vocalist nominee and Grand Ole Opry member, could release a song called ‘Dirty Girl’ - and make it about four-wheeling and tearing down engines. But then Terri Clark, who brings her own brand of smolder to turbo-traditional country music, has always been more about a broken-in pair of Justin Boots than the latest Jimmy Choo stilettos. “This music,” she admits, laughing, “has way more horsepower, which is exciting… and the lyrics are more direct, more colorful. It really puts an awful lot of life right out there. I think ‘In My Next Life’ speaks more to my life and how I want to live it, or ‘Dirty Girl’ which goes a little deeper into who I am, how I live this life,” she says, defining the subtle shift. “I think ‘I Just Wanna Be Mad’ is something we’ve all done, been there, but it’s a moment, not necessarily a way of living, or a philosophy about the bigger reality of life.”Though always hard-working, Clark too a hiatus to be there for her mother while she was struggling with cancer. This opportunity let her slow down enough to look at the whats and the whys of an incredible decade-long career. She saw what she loved, what she burned for - and also the things she did to fit in. Realizing her own uniqueness, and recognizing the artists - Reba, the Judds, Tammy Wynnette—she loved were truly, wholly singular, she made a promise to herself to focus on what set her apart.
Admittedly, she gives an intense show because she “wants to go out to make people who’re already fans go, ‘It’s even better than the last time I saw her…,’ and people who’d come along and didn’t know walking away, going ‘Damn…’,” With an attitude like that, who’s really willing to miss this show?Finally, on Saturday, Danielle Peck and Trent Tomlinson will end the long weekend on a high note. Born in Jacksonville, NC, Danielle grew up in Coshocton, OH, where the family had strong musical roots. Danielle could sing before she could talk and by the time she was three she would sit on a counter banging on pots and pans as her extended family played country music. The first song she learned to sing was Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," a song that has been part of her live show to this day.
She wrote her first song before she was 10 and made cassette labels for her imaginary Danielle Peck records, complete with song titles and cover art. She sang in church both as a soloist and in the choir. At age 16, she joined a local band, the Neon Moon Band, and played bars in her native Coshocton, Ohio area. "I wasn't supposed to be in there (bars) because I was underage," she says, "so I had to dress older, act older, sneak in through the back door, do my show, and then slip out the back again before anyone could figure out I was underage! I never thought twice about it because singing was all I'd ever thought about doing from the time I was a little girl - I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to... and of course my dad was always close by just in case..."
After several years on the bar and festival circuit Danielle made the decision to chase the dream and make the jump to Nashville. She quickly took a Nashville job waiting tables and spent the rest of her time working on her songwriting. "I'd wake up at 8 in the morning, go and write songs until 2 in the afternoon, change clothes, work the restaurant until 2 or 3 in the morning, get up early the next morning and do it again," she says. "I became a Starbucks addict but I was having the time of my life! I was in Nashville, meeting people, starting to write with some great writers, I was loving every minute of it."
The single release "I Don't" finally introduced country audiences to Danielle, and the response has already been overwhelming. Already a hit and still climbing, the song also draws huge response at her live shows opening for, among others, Toby Keith. Fans are drawn to the emotional honesty of an artist who so readily reveals all facets of her personality. "Everything comes down to being real," she says. "Every song I do reflects something I've been through or something I've felt. My songs are my journals. Whatever I feel at the moment, whatever emotion I'm going through, is what I write about. When it's time to sing those songs, whether it's on stage or in the studio, those feelings are right there."
With her, fans will get to see Trent Tomlinson who’s one of those rare performers that’s music is as straight-ahead and unpretentious as he is. "My songs," he says simply, "are real-life situations with kick-ass guitar." "It's 'open a beer, sit in a lawn chair, let's have a party' country," he says of his music. Trent honed his music to perfection in countless demo studios over the years. "I've had five publishing deals," he says. "I've practically lived in the studio, creating and honing a sound of my own. And it turns out that five of the songs on the album record are actually my demos -- Lyric Street loved them so much as is that we just went in and re-sang and tweaked a little, instead of re-recording."He demoed and pitched "Hey Batter Batter," a clever take on barroom rancor, and quickly found Lyric Street Record's Senior Vice President of A&R, Doug Howard and President, Randy Goodman wanting to hear more. Trent showcased the new material for them in October 2004 and two months later he had a record deal.
Country Is My Rock brings Trent's emotional honesty and eye for detail to vignettes detailing both the good and bad of life and love. "She Might Just Have Her Radio On" and "I Was Gonna Leave Tomorrow Anyway" deal with the aftermath of relationships while "The Bottle" looks at the dark side of life and "Drunker Than Me," is an offbeat and hilarious look at being forced to be the responsible one on a night out. The CD's combination of truth, pathos and humor give it both accessibility and real depth, and its hard-charging musical approach makes it all compelling.
Trent is, after all this time, in the enviable position of having life and music come together successfully. He has written a song for the new Sara Evans album, and his debut album, Country Is My Rock, is ratifying the path he's taken. "For me, the hardest part was letting it all out," he says, "but that's become my way for dealing with my darker side. Writing songs and singing help me to understand it and move on. Hopefully, the reception Country Is My Rock is getting means that other people are getting something out of it too.”
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