Good thing going
By Casey Gillis on Mar. 13, 2008
Rhonda Vincent’s collaboration with Keith Urban on her latest CD, “Good Thing Going,” almost didn’t happen.
“We were finished with the album, and we were going to put his vocals on and be done,” the bluegrass chanteuse said in a phone interview from her home in Missouri this week.
But because of a scheduling mix up, Urban was on tour and couldn’t make it into the studio.
“I thought it wasn’t going to happen,” said Vincent, who will be performing at Appomattox County High School at 2 p.m. Sunday for the last show of the 2008 Appomattox Bluegrass Concert Series.
Then her label, Rounder Records, came up with a solution that had Urban coming in to record his vocals a month later, at the last minute. At the time, he was in the studio working on his greatest hits album, Vincent said.
“Keith literally came out of the studio. He walked from his session and performed on my record,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that.
“As you can imagine, everybody wanted to be in the studio (that day). I was just thrilled he managed to do it.”
So were her two teenage daughters, who are big fans of Urban, and her extended family. Vincent said others weren’t so sure about how her brand of bluegrass would match up with Urban’s more commercial country.
“It’s not necessarily the person. It’s the voice that fits the song,” Vincent said. “(We ask), ‘What is going to enhance what we have?’”
To provide that enhancement, Vincent is all about thinking outside of the box.
As they were working on another tune, “Just One of a Kind,” for the record, Vincent said they needed a little percussion, like brushes on a pizza box. So she called up fellow musician James Stroud and asked him if he’d play a pizza box.
“He thought I was joking when I called,” Vincent said. “It just gave the right sound.”
She began recording the album in January 2007 in her own Nashville studio, Adventure Studios. (As of early March, it had been No. 1 on the Billboard bluegrass charts for seven consecutive weeks.)
“Then we got this grand idea to do a $100,000 renovation on the studio while we were recording,” she said.
The renovations took longer than expected, and Vincent often found herself fielding questions about when her next record would be released. To keep fans and friends updated, she created a new area of her Web site called “Join the Journey,” where she wrote updates on her progress and up-linked a live Web cam that documented their recording sessions.
“I thought, ‘Alright, I’m going to take them on this journey with me so they see where we’re at,’” she said. “It (was) like having a hidden camera.”
“Good Thing Going” was co-produced with her brother and frequent collaborator, Darrin Vincent.
“We’ve been doing that since we were kids,” she said. “We produce the music from our hearts.”
Vincent grew up in a musical family and made her onstage debut at the age of 5, singing and playing the snare drum with her family’s band, The Sally Mountain Show.
The band consisted of “my grandpa, my mom, dad, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends,” she said.
“My dad would pick me up from school every day, and my grandfather would be waiting, and we would sing until dinnertime.”
Vincent said they’d listen to the Grand Ole Opry often. Early musical influences included the Osborne Brothers, Loretta Lynn, Connie Smith and Earl Scruggs.
She began playing the mandolin at 8 years old, the fiddle at 10, and now she plays most stringed instruments.
“My dad played everything. He would get us started on something, and you’re playing every day,” she said.
Vincent continued touring and recording with her family until the 1980s.
She later released several solo bluegrass albums before landing a record deal with Giant Records’ Nashville imprint, for which she put out two commercial country discs.
Vincent said her time with Giant was a great experience and a turning point in her career.
“I thought, ‘Am I bluegrass, or am I country? What am I going to do with my life?’ It was like getting out of college,” she said.
After leaving Giant, she put together her first band, and “the response was overwhelming,” she said. “Everything fell into place from there.”
Vincent signed with Rounder Records and released “Back Home Again” in 2000. During that same year, she was named Female Vocalist of the Year at the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards, the first of seven consecutive wins in the category.
She also won IBMA’s Entertainer of the Year award in 2001, the same year she released her second Rounder album, “The Storm Still Rages.”
Over the years, she’s also recorded with some big names in the country music world, including Alan Jackson, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, George Jones and Dolly Parton, one of her personal heroes.
“Probably Dolly has had the biggest influence on me, even when I was a little girl,” Vincent said.
One of Vincent’s first releases as a child was a cover of “Muleskinner Blues,” a traditional Appalachian mountain song released by Jimmie Rodgers. Parton recorded a version of it in 1970.
“I heard Dolly Parton sing the song, and I wanted to sing it, too,” said Vincent, who later recorded guest appearances on several of Parton’s albums.
It was in 1994, while working with Parton on “Heartsongs” that Vincent got a true glimpse into the country star’s personality.
“What really impressed me was she would walk into rehearsal each day at 10 o’clock. She would walk in, and she would spend quiet time, private time, (with everyone in the room),” Vincent said.
“She’s a lady who can be any way she wants to be, and she is so kind and generous with her time. She is just really who she is.”
COMMENTS