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Craig Campbell’s Favorite Christmas Memory

Craig Campbell

“The first Christmas after my wife and I started dating, we had only been dating for a few months, she decided to go back to Colorado (where she is from) and I went home to Georgia. Soon after, we decided that was the last time we were gonna spend Christmas apart!! We spent the entire two weeks on the phone :)” — Craig Campbell

About Craig Campbell

The voice is straight-forward and powerful. The songs are down-to-earth portraits of real people from the American heartland. The sound is traditional, unapologetic country.

Craig Campbell is a proud reminder of one of country’s strongest creative periods, building on the early-‘90s legacy established by some of the genre’s most successful figures: Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black and Travis Tritt.

The Georgia-bred Campbell was introduced with a five-song EP that landed in the Top 20 on iTunes. His self-titled debut album expands on the central themes of his life—family, friends, purpose and self-determination—with a bundle of self-written songs, all delivered with the force and conviction of someone who’s lived every sentiment in every word.

“I have to believe every one of my songs,” Campbell says matter-of-factly.

It’s a simple premise learned through years of touring at the club level, writing songs in Nashville and playing the bars on Lower Broadway in Music City. Campbell honed his craft in bands backing Luke Bryan and Tracy Byrd, on stages where he covered Alabama and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and at an annual hometown talent contest where he won twice and eventually became the leader of the house band for other contestants.

Campbell’s abilities stood out, as Nashville decision-makers discovered. In fact, he became the subject of a moderate competition. He received an offer from one of Nashville’s major labels, but he was more intrigued by interest from songwriter-producer Keith Stegall—known for his work with Alan Jackson and Zac Brown Band. Introduced to Stegall through radio promotion executive Michael Powers, Campbell turned down the other offer to wait while Stegall and several other industry veterans developed Bigger Picture Group, an innovative artist-development company.

Once Bigger Picture was in place, Campbell headed into the studio to work on his first project, founded on his big, commanding voice and centrist-country songwriting. “When I Get It” puts a defiant spin on a tough economy, “I Bought It” revolves around sweet revenge and “My Little Cowboy” incorporates a multi-generational storyline and a Haggard-esque instrumental hook into a Southern-rock framework. “Fish” puts a bawdy spin on romance, but—in sensitive-daddy fashion, does so in a manner that’s safe for the kids to hear.

“Family Man,” set up by a sonic comma in its first reference—“It’s family, man”—brought Campbell quickly onto the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Still, the singer and his associates plan to go way past one single or album.

“The one word Keith has used a lot with me is iconic,” Campbell notes. “He says, ‘We don’t want to do a one-song project, we’re gonna shoot for 20 years.’”

Campbell’s assault on a two-decade career was in development for years before he made the conscious decision to pursue it. He was born and raised in Lyons, Ga., a town of about 4,000 people half-way between Macon and Savannah, a geographical hot spot that’s produced such peers as Jason Aldean, Billy Currington and Lady Antebellum.

Campbell grew up one of five children in a blended family. His parents divorced when he was extremely young, leaving his oldest sister—11 years his elder—to tend to the siblings while his mom worked multiple jobs to keep food on the table. He saw his biological father every other weekend until his dad died, when Craig was 11 years old, leaving little impact on his son’s memory.

“The older I get,” Campbell says, “the more I realize didn’t know him.”

The man Campbell called dad married his mom when Craig was six. He provided structure, a sense of right and wrong, and a daily model of what an adult man could be.

“In all honesty,” Craig says, “my life began when my mama married my stepdad.”

The family studiously attended the Baptist church—twice on Sundays and again on Wednesday nights—which became an important training ground for Craig’s musical education. He played piano for the congregation from age 10 until he turned 18, and Campbell learned harmony from listening to his mom sing from the hymn book.

“I’d stand beside her and try to mimic what she was doing,” he recalls. “In a Baptist church, you have to learn how to sing harmony because the song was not always in your key, so you gotta find somewhere to go with it.”

The house was filled with the sound of gospel groups—the Cathedrals, the Inspirations, the Kingsmen, the McKameys—and the from-the-gut approach of those acts resonates in Campbell’s delivery today.

But he gravitated even more to country music, magnetized by the quality of performers during one of the genre’s golden radio eras. He’s drawn comparisons to Alan Jackson—understandable since they’re both Georgian singers with a similar range and accent. But it was Travis Tritt, embodied with a fierce vocal style similarly informed by gospel singers, who most influenced Campbell.

He put that influence to work at age 15 when his sister Lynn, nine years his senior, pushed him to enter the Jimmy Dean/True Value Country Showdown. She served as an unpaid manager and A&R person, enrolling him in the competition, helping him decide on his stagewear and picking out two then-current songs that would show off his skills well: Tritt’s “Foolish Pride” and John Michael Montgomery’s “Be My Baby Tonight.” Campbell finished first among the 22 contestants at Kerrigan’s bar, got his picture in the local paper—The Vidalia Advance—and was instantly hooked on performing.

“I wanted to be on stage for sure,” Campbell recalls. “The crowd response is what drove it. Nothin’ better than to hear somebody applaud.”

It gave him a vocational direction, though his sense of purpose was tested just months later when Lynn died from injuries in a car accident.

“It was rough,” he reflects. “We were pretty good buddies, you know, and she had a 6-year-old little girl, too, which was the worst part about it. I don’t think I cried up until we told her daughter her mommy wasn’t comin’ home.”

It took months for Craig to regain his footing emotionally—with the encouragement Lynn had planted in his psyche, he used music as a grounding mechanism. And he continued to enroll in the Showdown. He won one more year, and—after a two-year stint as a corrections officer in the Georgia State prison system—he put together Out Of The Blue, the house band at Kerrigan’s.

With assistance from the club owner, he made some connections with a couple of booking agents and the band started touring small venues five and six nights a week with the travel extending as far as Wyoming and Elko, Nevada. The band once drove itself the entire 1,800-mile trip from Florida to North Dakota, stopping only to change drivers or fill the tank. It was a grueling schedule, but it also gave Campbell first-hand knowledge of how to fill out a setlist and win over an audience.

“You can go anywhere and play Lynyrd Skynyrd, you can go anywhere and play Hank Williams Jr.,” he shrugs. “There’s certain songs—‘Friends In Low Places,’ ‘Dixieland Delight,’ ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ ‘Margaritaville,’ ‘Brown Eyed Girl’—it don’t matter where you are. You’ll get a response.”

In 2002, one of his friends called from Nashville. The friend was getting divorced and wanted to know if Campbell would move up and share an apartment.

“Shoot, yeah,” Craig responded. “If you can get me a job, I’m there.”

In short order, Campbell had an interview for a maintenance position at the Belle Valley Apartments in the Bellevue neighborhood. Within a week, he’d moved all his belongings to Tennessee, where he was within reaching distance of a music career.

Campbell wasted no time. He ingrained himself in the club scene and picked up a gig when he met another musician at Douglas Corner, the same venue where Trisha Yearwood had once secured her first recording deal. When Campbell told the musician that he played piano, he got an offer to fill in on a Saturday night at The Stage, one of the largest clubs on historic Lower Broadway. Not only did Campbell accept the job, he aced it.

“Halfway through the gig, he asked me do I want the gig fulltime?” Campbell remembers. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ So I started working five and six nights a week then. On top of my job. I was bankin’!”

He quickly became ingrained in the Nashville music community, meeting fellow Georgian Luke Bryan. Bryan, in turn, introduced Campbell to songwriter Jon Mabe (“The Climb”), who brought Craig in to sing on a demo session for his wife, songwriter Connie Harrington (“Girls Lie Too”). That led to a ton of work as Campbell became one of the in-demand singers on Nashville’s underground demo circuit.

Bryan, who hadn’t yet signed with Capitol Records, also advised Campbell to write his own songs. If he could sing and write, he’d be more valuable. And he’d have an identity of his own.

“At first it was a job,” Campbell admits. “I wasn’t used to it, but then I started writing songs that I thought were kind of cool and I’d play ‘em live and people would applaud, and then it started getting to where people were requestin’ ‘em. It takes on a completely different meaning whenever you can stand up and say, ‘Here’s a song I wrote.’ As opposed to, ‘Here’s a song I like.’”

In the middle of it all, Campbell started seeing a singer, Mindy Ellis, he’d known even before he moved to Nashville. There’d always been chemistry between them, but she was already seeing someone else. Months after she broke off a relationship, he got a call from Mindy while waiting at the Country Music Hall of Fame to audition for Nashville Star. She wanted to hang out; he couldn’t leave.

“She said, ‘Well, I have a van that has a TV and a VCR. I’ll just come to you and we’ll watch a movie.’ So she came down and we plugged in Face/Off, with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and we watched it. We’ve been together ever since.”

He started playing piano in her band, and that led to another valuable gig: One of her friends got him a job for 15 months touring with Tracy Byrd’s band, giving Campbell his first opportunity to play mid-sized venues.

During his tenure with Byrd, Campbell married Mindy and started a family, which now includes two daughters, Preslee and Kinni.

He eventually scored a weekly performance slot at The Stage, where his band consisted of musicians who also played with Big & Rich, Chris Young, Mark Chesnutt and Joe Diffie. One of the bartenders, Kim Trosdahl, talked Campbell up to her significant other, Bigger Picture Group’s Michael Powers, who was won over by the singer’s obvious skills.

Powers brought Keith Stegall down to the club in August 2008, and from there, it was simply a waiting game before Bigger Picture had everything in place to get Campbell recorded and bring him to a wider audience.

The company introduced him with the 2010 single “Family Man,” a song that incorporates the centerpiece of his life, the source of his emotional strength and the reason he wakes up in the morning.

Now his debut album blends Campbell’s masculine, no-nonsense vocal style with solid, salt-of-the-earth songs about America’s working class and a classic sense of wordplay. It’s a timeless sound, one that links him directly to Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson, who likewise built their style on such predecessors as George Jones and Hank Williams Jr.

“It’s traditional, back-to-basics, true country music,” Campbell says. “It’s what I am. I can’t be anything else.”

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The Roys’ Favorite Christmas Memory

The Roys“Some of my favorite Christmas memories are the ones we spent in Coal Branch, New Brunswick, Canada with my Mom’s side of the family, The LeBlancs.  My Grandma LeBlanc played the fiddle and my uncles would play guitar and sing and my aunts would sing along too.  (my Mom’s brothers and sisters)  There was always a house full of people as the neighbors would always end up at my Grandparents house cause they knew music was being made.  Along with good food and good company it was perfect.  Through the years, as Lee and I began singing together and learned to play instruments we also joined in as we got older.  Everytime Christmas rolls around my mind always goes back to those wonderful years of memories.  It always takes me right back to those days.” — Elaine of The Roys

About The Roys

The Roys

Christmas family Get-together in Canada

Bluegrass music is a unique art form that is as much about feel and instinct as it is technique. Blending proficiency and passion into a musically intoxicating package, The Roys make their debut with LONESOME WHISTLE, a spirited set that showcases the siblings’ stellar vocals, taut musicianship and enviable songwriting skills. “My first real love is bluegrass music,” says Lee. “When I was nine-years-old, I played in my first band and it was a bluegrass band. Ricky Skaggs has always been my hero, and even back in the early days of the Skaggs and Rice records; that’s really where I cut my teeth. As a matter of fact, we were listening to some old stuff we had done and it was amazing to hear Keith Whitley in my voice back then when I was a kid because I was really into those guys.”

With their reverence for legends such as Bill Monroe as well as contemporary torch bearers like Ricky Skaggs, The Roys have crafted a debut set that combines the best of bluegrass music’s traditions with the promise of its future. In recording the album, Lee and his sister Elaine, enlisted Skaggs’ famed band, Kentucky Thunder, and added Steve Brewster on Drums/Percussion and the amazing Randy Kohrs, and even recorded in Skaggs Place Studios. “Being with Ricky’s band was inspiring because those guys are awesome,” Elaine enthuses. “It really makes you want to do better because all of them are amazing musicians as well as amazing people. They love the music and they really put their hearts and souls into it. That’s why we really loved working with those guys.” “They are literally the masters of their craft,” adds Lee. “Randy Kohrs is playing dobro and Justin Moses is playing the banjo. Those guys live and breathe their instrument. It’s like an extension of their body.” Lee and Elaine are equally effusive in their praise when talking about bassist Mark Fain, guitarist Cody Kilby and fiddler Andy Leftwich, who co-produced the project with The Roys. Were they at all nervous stepping in to Skaggs’ studio to record their bluegrass debut? “Absolutely,” Elaine confesses. “The first day we walked in there and I started seeing all the pictures of Bill Monroe and Ricky Skaggs and seeing Ricky’s Grammys and all his awards everywhere, I was thinking ‘Oh my gosh! He is really the King of Bluegrass right now and we’re in his studio!’ It was very, very intimidating, but once we got in there and met with the guys and they were excited to be there, we put all that to bed. We thought ‘We’re here to sing and make music. It’s in God’s hands. It’s not even in our hands, so we’re just going to let it happen.’ Once we let it go, the magic happened.”

Recording LONESOME WHISTLE was the culmination of a dream that began for The Roys during childhood. Elaine and Lee were born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and the family later relocated to a small town called Coal Branch in New Brunswick, Canada. Music was always present in their household. “Traditional country music and bluegrass is what we grew up on. That’s all we listened to,” says Elaine. “My grandma played the fiddle. She would play Acadian tunes and my aunts and uncles would sing as well as played multiple instruments. It was very traditional roots music. We fell in love with that and our harmonies seemed to fit that style of music. That’s really what we truly love.” “At five or six-years-old, I became addicted to music and I just couldn’t get enough of the fiddle,” says Lee. “For me, the fiddle growing up was really THE instrument because it was what my grandma played.”

The Roys

Picture of Grandma Suzanne

Elaine learned guitar and Lee picked up drums, bass and mandolin. By the time he was nine, he was performing publicly with a local bluegrass band, singing high tenor and playing mandolin. Elaine began singing at age five, and her first paid gig was at age 10. “I performed at a fair located a couple towns over from where we lived,” she recalls. “One of the people that we knew there knew that I sang and wanted me to sing with them. We worked out five or six songs and I got up there and did my little thing. I remember that as if it was yesterday.” The siblings continued to hone their skills and became sought after entertainers on the New England circuit before moving to Nashville and launching their own label, Pedestal Records. Since then The Roys have opened for George Jones, The Oak Ridge Boys and Chris Young, among others and have enjoyed such high profile national TV gigs as performing on Jerry Lewis’ annual Labor Day Telethon to benefit Muscular Dystrophy. The duo has performed their amazing version of the National Anthem for the Red Sox at Fenway Park, for President Bush at Andrews Air Force Base and at the Kansas Speedway for the NASCAR Truck Series. Even as their career has taken off, Lee and Elaine have found time to dedicate to helping those less fortunate. They took part in Montgomery Gentry’s annual Harley Ride in conjunction with the Academy of Country Music Awards and Little Big Town’s annual Ride for a Cure, benefiting the T.J. Martell Foundation. This past August, The Roys traveled to Bogota, Columbia with Compassion International where they spent four days in the impoverished country. Now, Elaine and Lee are each sponsoring a child, as well as serving as CI spokesmen. Faith, music and family are the cornerstones of The Roys’ life and they all intersect on LONESOME WHISTLE. The album showcases Elaine’s beautiful, emotion-laden voice and Lee’s effervescent tenor. The project also shines a spotlight on the duo’s songwriting abilities. They wrote the title track in two short hours while on the road in Maine one night. “The story is about a couple whose lives revolve around a train. The train carries him off to war, she sits and waits for the train to bring him back home – and in the end, the train does bring him home on his last ride,” explains Lee.

The highlights on the album are numerous, among them “Coal Minin’ Man,” a tribute to the life of the miner, and the high energy “Give A Ride To The Devil,” which offers up the sage wisdom that if you “give a ride to the devil, someday he’s gonna want to drive.” “Trailblazer” is Elaine’s nod to one of her heroes. “I have always been a Dolly Parton fan,” she says. “This song reminds me of her and all the women in the world chasing their dreams. I got the idea while sitting in traffic one day behind a Trailblazer SUV. So later that day in a writing session, we wrote this woman’s anthem. It’s one of my favorites on the album.” The Roys are excited about making their debut in the bluegrass music community they have listened to and loved for so long. These days they are getting validation from musicians they respect and are excited about their future. Andy Leftwich told us, “You are bluegrass vocalists. You are made for this format, it is who you are. This record is going to be huge because you guys are just so new and refreshing to the bluegrass community. You are going to be a household name!” Leftwich knows great bluegrass music and with one listen to LONESOME WHISTLE, it’s a sure bet others will agree and it won’t be long before everyone is singing the same tune.

 

 

 

 

 

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Madonna Nash’s Favorite Christmas Memory

“I have so many great memories of Christmas!  Not only from my childhood, but also of the new memories made with my own two kids.  One that will always be dear to me is not only a memory, but now a tradition.  As I’m sure many of us do, in my home growing up, my brother, sister and I had a favorite Christmas Movie.  That movie was and still is “Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas”.  I can remember the anticipation and excitement that grew as we would gather around the television, with the fireplace to our right and the smell of cookies in the kitchen to our left.  It wasn’t just that we loved the characters in the movie (anything Jim Henson was a hit in our house), but I think it was the music that we looked forward to the most! 

Madonna with family at Christmas

Don’t get me wrong, the story is great, but the music moved us more than anything!  It still does!  I believe we loved it so much because there is a little bit of Emmet Otter in the three of us, and our Momma sang just like Alice Otter (Ma Otter).  One song in particular “Our World” always gets me a little choked up.  As soon as Ma Otter starts to sing “We’re closer now than ever before, there’s love in our world and we’re showing it more”, I know that that’s  exactly what the movie is doing, bringing my siblings and I closer together than ever before, right at that very moment.  So to this day when Christmas comes around, we still gather around the television, my brother sister and I, to watch  “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas”.” 

About Madonna Nash

Madonna Nash, winner of the 2010 Female Country Artist of the Year at the Carolina Music Awards, has been singing for as long as she can remember.

“As a child, I used to do shows in my backyard for all the other neighborhood kids,” said the Wilmington, NC native. “And I started writing songs when I was a teenager”.

Nash comes from a very musical family. Her father toured the country playing guitar, and her mother was an honors graduate in music from E.C.U. Nash’s great great uncle was Connie B. Gay, founding president of the Country Music Association.“My songs are definitely country, but when you listen to them, you’ll find hints of rock, pop, and blues, too. It’s just good, fun music,” she said.

She’s performed with numerous popular acts such as Gretchen Wilson, Phil Vassar, Josh Thompson, Sarah Buxton, Jason Michael Carroll, Cravin’ Melon, Gloriana, Lee Brice, Danny Gokey, Edwin McCain, and more.

Madonna Nash’s self-titled debut album was recorded in Nashville, TN using a Grammy-winning team of studio engineers and musicians who have worked with such superstars as Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Darius Rucker, Dierks Bentley, and Kellie Pickler. Working with producers Dave Demay and Charles Fulp (producer of multiple Top 20 BILLOARD singles), Madonna Nash recorded 13 songs for the CD, all of which she wrote/co-wrote.

The new album is available on iTunes and Amazon.com, and it is already receiving rave reviews (6 out of 7 stars in the Nashville Music Guide). Madonna Nash’s debut single “Dirty Little Secret” is a winner of the prestigious DISCOVERY award in MusicRow magazine, and the video for this single, which can be seen at www.youtube.com/madonnanash, is equally impressive.

“Things are finally starting to fall into place for me. I know this is the right time, and I am right where I need to be,” said a confident and glowing Madonna Nash.

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