Will The Circle…Pt. I

I Surrender All in the lobby behind Puckett’s

I spent three years singing background vocals for a country artist named Trace Adkins. Trace’s music was a staple of a good chunk of my life from my early childhood with “Every Light In The House Is On’, all the way through my early Nashville years.  In a lot of ways, I learned my skills singing harmonies with his songs on the radio as a young teen in my first car. 

Country music has never had nearly as many women as it has men, and singing harmonies to the music in the male dominated genre was how I was able to sing along in the same key, guy song after guy song. I certainly couldn’t have attempted the low Trace melodies, so I’d sing a 5th above, and then it was mine to sing along to in the car just as much as Faith Hill’s songs!

Trace’s voice is very soulful. I always related to that. You could hear more than just country in there. Other than making friends with people who wrote hits for Trace, I had no connection to him personally. One day, sweaty and smelling like I had bathed in BBQ sauce, working my job as a waitress at Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant in downtown Nashville, I received a call from an unknown number. I was awaiting a call from my doctor, so I snuck over to the stairwell to take the call between delivering ranch dressing to 5 tables. 

People cannot handle themselves with the ranch dressing. If you’ve waited tables, you get it.

It was not my doctor calling. It was Jon Coleman, Trace’s bandleader, calling to offer me a job, sight unseen, singing BGVs (background vocals) for Trace Adkins. Jon was a stranger to me, but y’know, if you stick around long enough, the Nashville music scene leaves you only a degree or two of separation from anyone, and the degree here was my beautiful and very talented friend, Lisa Torres. Lisa is an accomplished singer and songwriter who sang on Trace’s records, so naturally, she was offered the position. She wasn’t available to take the gig, so she put a couple of names in the pot, and to my very good fortune, mine was one of them. 

By that time I was about 7 years deep into my Nashville music attempt, still waiting tables, feeling pretty sad about how things had ended up-if I’m being totally honest. 7 whole years of the same problems, ‘you can sing, but there’s nowhere to put you’ kind of stuff. Or, before all of the politics got involved, flat out ‘we’re not signing females right now.’ HA! I heard that more than once from the same kind of fratty ass non-musician sumbitches who ran the music industry. I had so many crazy experiences in 7 years that could’ve propelled me into the next level that all fizzled out. It’s because I didn’t have THE songs…but getting THE songs when you’re not an incredible songwriter yourself is damn near impossible when nobody knows who you are.  You get a CD full of a famous songwriter’s god awful demos of their D list songs they’d never pitch to Carrie, but you’re really grateful just to get those.

When you work at a high volume restaurant in the tourist part of town, I swear, at the end of your shift it’s like you are being spat out of the door like chewing tobacco. You’ve been abused by bachelorettes who each want to pay separately, in cash, and ALL of them need change to tip you 12%, you’re sweaty, you wreak of the indoor BBQ smoker, it’s in your pores, it takes a series of rinses and repeats to get the smoke out of your hair, you’re just plain sticky and stinky, and of course Jon wanted to meet me after my shift, in this condition, because they needed a singer pretty soon. I was embarrassed but VERY EAGER. 

We met, he told me what the gig paid, I was like…YEP, and I left with a job. It’s so funny looking back on that day because I was the first in to that breakfast/lunch shift. I got in my car that morning at 5:30 am for my 6 am shift, and I remember driving down Charlotte with tears streaming down my face, feeling such dread over what I had to do to make money so that I could sing songs for people at night. I was scared this was just my life, telling people what the difference was between chicken fried chicken and chicken fried steak. GAH.

Life lessons. 

Hard work. 

Will probably make Gloria wait tables for a summer so she can learn those lessons and hard work. 

Wouldn’t change it.

Glad it’s not my life anymore.

One beautiful part of working at Puckett’s, however, was this special lobby you enter when you go out the door next to the bar. Many many stories of this hollowed out building which made for the kind of acoustics you can only find in the sanctuary of a big church. This place was my sanctuary after every single night shift where I’d go make use of those grand acoustics.

The real beauty of doing the crazy thing in life and not taking the traditional path is that you experience wild things that change your life-and not infrequently. I had many days like this, each one so magical. They’re the days that keep you going. But this particular day really changed things.

My first gig with the band was May 19, 2015, at the Grand Ol’ Opry. One of many nights spent singing background vocals right next to THE Circle. Bill Cody was the host that night and I felt like he was excited for me, and was so so kind every time after. He’s got one of those genuine smiles that makes you feel at ease, so it was always a nerve calmer to look over to the podium and catch a friendly smile from him.

And so for 3 years, I got to do that thing. It was gratifying. I got to see most of the country and some of the world. Alex proposed to me during a show at the Opry- which I heard the only condition Trace had was that Alex had to be very confident that I’d actually say yes. It turned out ok. My life unfolded in those 3 years. I sang with the band until Gloria had grown 15 whole weeks inside me. Her earliest fetal development involved all kinds of fun sounds and movements, as I felt nauseous day and night from all the county fair smells, feeling my pants grow tighter by the minute.

I’d like to share some lessons I learned from my time singing with, really, one of the greatest living singers in country music, but that will have to wait for Part II.