Rhonda Vincent

POSITIVELY RAGING

Rhonda Vincent and Her High-Energy Bluegrass Band are on the Road Again

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

WHILE MOST TOURING ACTS are off the road until 2021, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage have been back on the road since September. The award-winning musician began her before most kids go to kindergarten, playing drums with her family’s band, the Sally Mountain Show. She picked up mandolin at eight, the fiddle by ten, performing with the family at festivals and churches on weekends. After stints on several major labels, Vincent now has her own label and tours the country with her bandmates and husband, who also books the act and helps run the label. The band’s contemporary bluegrass shows appeal to wide variety of fans including superstar fans like Elton John. Her hard work has paid off with 19 IBMA Awards, seven Grammy nominations and the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album of 2017. Her enduring positive attitude is contagious and should translate well to her upcoming residency in Branson for a month of Christmas shows. Before she takes over Andy Williams’ former theater in the tourist mecca, she has two shows scheduled for Georgia audiences this month - one in Dublin and one in the suburb of Buford. INsite spoke with Missouri-native Vincent by phone from her home near Lake of the Ozarks.

It’s been a difficult year for everyone and the last few months have been the longest down-time of your career, right? You know, I grew up in a musical family. I joined the show when I was three and we were always performing. A weekly television show, a weekly radio show and then we were doing performances everywhere including churches. So my whole life has been about live performance. Then we had all this downtime. My husband said, ‘Maybe you just should retire now.’ I said, ‘What? Are you crazy?’ He’s been loving having me here to cook his meals and clean but I’ve missed playing and touring.

Unlike most artists, you’re actually playing live shows – with audiences – this year. We actually started back, pretty much full-time, in September and it’s been great.

How did it feel to get back out there in front of living, breathing people? You must’ve been doing Springsteen-length shows for a while, out of sheer joy. (Laughs) Yes! It was such a feeling of rejuvenation because we’d all been stuck at home. There was a new feeling of excitement about it. Then we booked some studio time to record and I think you can hear it in the new music. My fiddle player said, ‘We haven’t even been playing and now you want to record?’ We did and it’s turned out great. I hope we can have it ready before the end of the year, but we’ll have to see how it goes. I’ve been working 12-hours days on it, just to get it all done. It’s been incredible and now it’s right back to business as usual for us. There was the fear factor at first, I think. Our first show was outside and we had people who’d travelled a long way just to see people playing live music again. Then after the show, we’ve been signing autographs and taking pictures and everything we used to do - with no ill effects so far. And if we do, well we have to keep on living. People can wear masks if they want and we’re fine with that.

Do you and the Rage wear masks? No and no one in the band has any fear of not wearing them. Aaron [McDaris] our banjo player, his parents had the virus. His father is a preacher and has some pre-existing illness, but they made it through fine. A little fever. One of the Georgia shows is already sold out and we’ve had sell outs all over. People are coming out and just enjoying themselves. It’s exciting to see.

You’re quickly making your quarantine song “I Ain’t Been Nowhere” obsolete. It’s going on the new record, though. And we have another one going on there that I think is perfect for the times. It’s called “(What Is To Be Will Be) What Aint To Be Just Might Happen.”

Since you have your own label, you can release the record on your own schedule. There are always so many compromises you have to make when you’re on a major label. Sound or budget or something. But with Upper Management, I can release the music the way I hear it in my head. It’s all about the music and I can make everything come right from my heart to the record. We won a Grammy with a live album that we just recorded one night. You never know where it’s going to go. Like working with Dolly Parton. I’m on her new “Christmas On The Square.” It’s also the title of her movie and I assume we’re on the soundtrack, too. But if I’d written that down as a goal, I would have thought it was impossible.

You’ve worked with some of the best in country music. I’m so blessed. It’s just the Lord’s will. I’m led to it and I trust Him. Gene Watson and [Cairo, Georgia-born] Daryle Singletary, Keith Urban, so many wonderful talents and I’m on the Elton John album Restoration with Dolly.

Is anyone left on your dream collaborations list? There’s one and I’m such a fan of his. James Taylor. I’m his number one fan and I think it would cross the genres and be great. I know he has a love for country music.

That seems doable. Have you floated the idea to his camp? I do have a contact. When we did Restoration, I mentioned the idea to Bernie Taupin. He said, ‘Well let’s call him!’ I said, ‘You have James Taylor’s telephone number?’ He said whenever I want to talk to him, he’d make the call. How about this? Maybe a trio with me, Elton and James Taylor! Me on mandolin, Elton on piano and James on guitar. What do you think?

That would be phenomenal. You might have to coin a new term for how that would sound. But it seems like most of the things you’ve done is organic, so this could happen with ease. Maybe I should be more targeted and organized, but I just don’t think that way. Like with songwriting, I have to be inspired. I can’t just ‘go write’ to write. During the pandemic, people would say, ‘Let’s go write,’ but I wasn’t inspired to do that just then. Or maybe I’m really good at starting projects and never finishing them. But sometimes I’ll just come up with a title and I’m inspired to write the whole song around it.

Just before everything shut down, you had a really good night at the Grand Ole Opry. Oh, I know what you mean. Yes, on February 28. It was my 215th appearance on the Opry and Jeannie Seely came out on stage and invited me to be the next member of the Opry. Now it’s been historical in that I’m the artist who has gone the longest between being invited to join and actually being inducted. I was supposed to be inducted on March 24th and they shut down right before that. So maybe sometime next year I’ll finally be inducted. It’s like I was saying, that was never something I’d planned, it just happened. But it was a lifelong dream. I’m just a girl from a small town called Greentop, Missouri. 350 people. We still don’t have an interstate within a hundred miles of there. And now I’m working with all these people, touring all over the country and I’m going into the Opry. I’m proof that dreams really do come true.

Was it a dream to have a residency in Branson? It really was. I grew up not too far from there and I have so many friends in Branson. It’s like a community of families. So we’ll be doing 37 shows by the end of the Christmas season and it’s my first residency there. To show you what kind of community it is, when the shows were announced the first message I got was from the Massingale Family who perform at Grand Country, inviting me to go to church with them. What a wonderful welcome! It’s like you were saying, it’s organic. I just look to God and I say, ‘What’s your will? What’s your plan for me?’ I just pray and wait for those opportunities.

As soon as we hang up, your phone will probably ring with some great new superstar project. I think it will, too!

It’ll probably be James Taylor. Give me a call James, I’m ready!

Rhonda Vincent and The Rage play at 8 p.m. Saturday, November 7 at the Sylvia Beard Theater in Buford’s Community Center. Visit bufordcommunitycenter.com for information and tickets.