The changing colors of bluegrass
Bluegrass star Rhonda Vincent says the last time she was in town, the Naperville Bluegrass Music Festival was still in its infancy.
When Vincent and her band, the Rage, return this weekend to promote her new album, "Good Thing Going," the festival will be celebrating its 14th anniversary.•
In the intervening years, Vincent was named Female Vocalist of the Year for seven consecutive years by the International Bluegrass Music Association. In 2001, she took home the IBMA's Entertainer of the Year Award. And she has captured several Grammy nominations.
She also wrote the title song for her 2006 album, "All-American Bluegrass Girl," a song that rose to the top spot on the Bluegrass Unlimited charts.
For her new album, recorded for Rounder Records in Vincent's Nashville studio and co-produced by her brother, Darrin, she penned five original songs. The album was released Jan. 8.
She began in the music business with her family's band, The Sally Mountain Show, when she was only 5. She learned to sing, play the drums and then the mandolin, and a variety of other stringed instruments.
While her outstanding vocals clearly helped propel her to stardom, songwriting is becoming an increasingly integral part of her music-making. There was a time when that wasn't so.
"To me, songwriters were the guys working 9-to-5 in Nashville," she said.
Vincent, who has been billed as a country act and as a bluegrass artist at various points in her career, said one essential difference between the two genres involves the featured instruments.
"Bluegrass is mostly music performed with acoustic instruments," she said. "It's basically the same songs; it's really the perception of the listener."
Bluegrass also is typically more family-oriented music, she said. And not every bluegrass song is about a little cabin on the hill.
Her new album reflects an emotional range that knocks the wind out of those stereotypes.
"When most people think of bluegrass, they think of 'Deliverance,' or 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' We're trying to change the image, making sure the lyrics are more sophisticated."