{"id":8200,"date":"2013-01-24T13:03:06","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T18:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/creative.clemson.edu\/clemsonworld\/?p=8200"},"modified":"2013-01-24T13:03:06","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T18:03:06","slug":"clemson-roots-nashville-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/clemson-roots-nashville-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Clemson Roots – Nashville Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clemson Roots - Nashville Dreams<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Wander down Nashville\u2019s Broadway early any evening,\u00a0and you’ll hear strains of country music coming out of almost\u00a0every door. Guitars are being tuned, microphones being\u00a0checked, band members are chatting as the instruments\u00a0get pulled out and plugged in.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In groups of twos and threes, tourists wander down the sidewalk, listening, stopping to hear the strains of music start to build. The bars and restaurants are interrupted by record stores and gift shops where you can find a cowboy boot-shaped vase, an Elvis Beanie Baby or a Johnny Cash onesie. There\u2019s enough country music memorabilia to satisfy the most hard-core fan.
\nStop by Boot Country, and buy one pair of cowboy boots and get two more for free. Get your picture taken with the large guitar mounted on the sidewalk that reads \u201cHonky-Tonk Heroes\u201d and sports pictures of country music legends from Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson to Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Wander by the windows of Hatch Show Print where old letterpress-printed posters plaster the walls. You know the kind, the ones that look the way country music concert posters ought to look. They still print those here.
\nThe bar stools and tables fill up as the music begins for real. Most of the musicians who inhabit the neon-lit venues in this haven of honky-tonks are not household names. These aren\u2019t the Merle Haggards and Tim McGraws of the music world. Neither are they the Reba McEntires or the Taylor Swifts. They\u2019re often working two or three jobs in addition to these gigs.
\nBut if they\u2019re playing here on Broadway, they\u2019ve got their foot in the door of Music City. And that\u2019s why these Clemson alumni come to Nashville.<\/p>\n

Making a living<\/h3>\n

\"Michael<\/a>

Michael Hughes<\/p><\/div>
\nMany nights, you can find Michael Hughes \u201996 on one of these stages. He plays a mean keyboard and a masterful guitar. In fact, he\u2019s played 50 concerts this past summer plus a USO tour with former American Idol finalist Kellie Pickler, with whom he\u2019s traveled for the last five years.
\nHe\u2019s been in the music business 20 years now, but he got his first job playing the piano from a friend who lived down the hall in Johnstone his freshman year. With a mother as a Clemson nursing professor, Hughes didn\u2019t just go to Clemson; he grew up here. And even though he was a psychology major, it was an organic chemistry professor whose offhand comment had a great impact on him.
\n\u201cKarl Dieter casually mentioned after class one day that the secret to life was answering these three questions: What do you love doing? What are you good at? What do you have to do to make the answers to No. 1 and No. 2 your career? I never forgot that, and it kept me going through many frustrations and setbacks,\u201d says Hughes.
\nHe\u2019s had his share of frustrations and setbacks. He came to Nashville after college, stayed for six months then went back to Clemson where, as he says, he \u201clearned what I needed to know.\u201d After nine years in Nashville, he can say he\u2019s making his living in the music business.
\nNot to say that\u2019s a simple task. [pullquote align=’left’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]\u201cI think most musicians today that do music full-time wear a number of different hats in order to make a living,\u201d he says, \u201cand I\u2019m no different.\u201d He reels off the list of his various \u201chats\u201d: singer\/songwriter\/touring and session musician\/studio owner, producer and engineer.[\/pullquote]
\nIf you\u2019re a fan of \u201cThe Voice,\u201d you\u2019ve probably heard the title track from his January 2011 release, \u201cStart Again,\u201d which has been featured in 12 episodes. You may have caught him on \u201cAmerican Idol,\u201d the \u201cTonight Show,\u201d the CMA Awards, \u201cEllen,\u201d \u201cGood Morning America\u201d or the \u201cToday Show.\u201d
\nHe hasn\u2019t forgotten those lessons from Karl Dieter. He loves music, and he\u2019s good at it. And he\u2019s done what it takes to make that his career.<\/p>\n

On the road again<\/h3>\n

\"A<\/a>

Lee Brice\u00a0 (Photo by Chris Newman)<\/em><\/p><\/div>
\nThere are more Clemson alumni in Nashville trying to get their foot in the door of the music business than you might expect. They all have the drive and determination to follow their dreams. And a willingness to work \u2014 long and hard.
\nFor Lee Brice, the years of hard work are beginning to pay off. A four-time Academy of Country Music nominee, he has had a highly successful album, a single (\u201cA Woman Like You\u201d) that reached No. 1 in April 2012, and a top-5 single (\u201cHard to Love\u201d) that was officially certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for digital sales of over 500,000 downloads. The New York Times has described him as \u201cmelodically eloquent.\u201d
\nHe\u2019ll assure you, however, that success didn\u2019t come easy. Brice was studying engineering and playing football at Clemson (long snapper) until an injury ended his football career. Recuperation provided time to think and reevaluate; Brice decided it was music, not engineering, that drove him. He remembered that music industry veteran Doug Johnson had promised to help him if he came to Nashville. That summer of 2001, he packed up his bags and his music. Johnson came through on his offer.
\n\u201cI was able to learn a lot from him,\u201d says Brice, \u201cand over the next couple of years, write a bunch of songs and get started, and eventually get into Curb Records with him.\u201d Brice\u2019s songwriting and performances started to gain traction. He went on tour with Willie Nelson, Jamey Johnson and Luke Bryan.
\n[pullquote align=’right’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]\u201cIt\u2019s been a long road,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve written a thousand songs, I\u2019ve been on the road for seven years, and we\u2019ve put out four or five singles. It feels like all the work is paying off.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\nBrice says that a lot of songs have come out of his Clemson experience, including \u201cOrange Empire,\u201d written last fall for the football team. As a student, one of his favorite things to do was to go up on top of the dam with his guitar and write songs.
\n\u201cThose days at Clemson were the best of my life,\u201d he says, \u201cand it\u2019s a big part of who I am. It\u2019s played a part in a lot of songs I\u2019ve written.\u201d Including, he says, \u201cthe girl I dated for four years from Anderson while I was there. \u2018More than Memory\u2019 came out of that, and Garth Brooks recorded that song.\u201d
\nBrice\u2019s album, \u201cHard to Love,\u201d seems to signal a different look. Gone is the trademark backward baseball cap and several days\u2019 growth, replaced with a flat cap and a neatly trimmed beard.
\n\u201cI was just trying for a little different look for that one specific album,\u201d he says. \u201cThe realm of music ranged from country to everything else.\u201d However, Brice says, \u201cEvery night on the stage, I still put on my ball cap.\u201d
\nIn November, Brice returned to Clemson and played a concert at Littlejohn Coliseum. Still sporting his backward ball cap.<\/p>\n

Workin\u2019 hard for the money<\/h3>\n

\"Rich<\/a>

Rich Ramsey<\/p><\/div>
\nIn a building that looks like a castle with a history that includes Al Capone sits Clemson alumnus Rich Ramsey \u201903. Leaning back in his chair next to a control panel with more than six feet of sliders and knobs and switches, he reflects that he feels really fortunate to have landed the position as manager of this studio three years ago. There are more than 1,000 recording studios in Nashville; this one has been around for more than 30 years and has played host to a long list of legendary musicians.
\nAt Clemson, Ramsey switched out of engineering into secondary education and math. But music had always been an outlet. He had grown up taking piano, playing at church. At Clemson, he led music for Campus Crusade and sang with Tigeroar.
\nTigeroar gave him a taste of production, since the group recorded an album each year. Ramsey purchased his own Pro Tools rig and began recording some of his own music.
\nAnd then he graduated and went to work as a high school math teacher for two years. \u201cTeaching math wasn\u2019t the worst job I ever had,\u201d he says with a grin, \u201cbut it wasn\u2019t very musical.\u201d
\nIt was a life lesson he learned from education professor Bob Horton that gave Ramsey the courage to see if he could make it in the music business.
\n\u201cIt was very evident he loved what he did, and that\u2019s why he was there and why he put himself into it,\u201d says Ramsey. \u201cThat has definitely translated into here, because I love what I do, and it just makes all the difference in the world.\u201d
\nRamsey picked up and moved to Nashville. He went back to school at Belmont University to get the technical knowledge he needed, then interned at another studio while he was working part time for a recording equipment rental company and for Staples. Plus, he put in 15 to 20 hours a week working for an independent engineer and kept his foot in the door at Castle, volunteering to help out when he could.
\n[pullquote align=’left’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]\u201cYou have to keep your foot in every door you can,\u201d he says. That philosophy played out when the studio manager and two assistant house engineers left in the span of a year. Ramsey was at the right place at the right time. \u201cThat\u2019s how it works in this city,\u201d he says.[\/pullquote]
\n\u201cHopefully some day, I\u2019ll be able to just produce and engineer albums,\u201d he says. For now, he appreciates the steady salary and the chance for the engineering to be a part of his job.
\nRamsey gets back to Clemson on occasion; one trip was for a Tigeroar concert where he was introduced to Dewey Boyd, a student in mechanical engineering who also had a passion for music. Boyd\u2019s girlfriend (now wife) was music director of TakeNote, Clemson\u2019s female a cappella group that was performing as well.
\n\u201cHe told me what it was like working for free, working two jobs,\u201d says Boyd. \u201cI thought, \u2018I will never do that.\u2019 And here I am.\u201d
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\"Dewey<\/a>

Dewey Boyd<\/p><\/div>
\nYou can find Boyd in a bungalow in between a chiropractor and a palm reader. The house looks fairly typical from the outside; once you enter you realize that the space has been re-engineered to function as a studio. Insulated double doors, sound baffles hanging from the ceiling. One room set up with a drum set; another with a variety of keyboards. A control room dominated by a computer.
\nAt Clemson, Boyd says he \u201cdabbled in recording music, running live sound and writing music.\u201d He took recording classes with Professor Bruce Whisler, and toyed with changing from his mechanical engineering major. He even did his departmental honors thesis on analog to digital signal converters used for recording music.
\n[pullquote align=’right’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]But it took a year of graduate school in mechanical engineering for Boyd to realize that he didn\u2019t love it enough. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just that it was hard,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was too hard to do without loving it.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\nNot that he chose an easier path. Over the last three years, he has pieced together part-time jobs, interning and volunteering to soak up as much as his mind could hold. \u201cWorking for free,\u201d he says, \u201cI learned what I needed to know.\u201d
\nBoyd says he\u2019s still \u201cworking to scrape together enough income from it to say that I do this \u2018for a living.\u2019 I love what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it makes you happy<\/h3>\n

\"Lauren<\/a>

Lauren Simpson<\/p><\/div>
\nThe Grand Ole Opry. It\u2019s been called \u201cthe show that made country music famous.\u201d And it\u2019s one of Nashville\u2019s top tourist attractions. Tours cycle through the different parts of the facility about every 15 minutes, with everyone wanting a picture taken on stage in front of the iconic neon sign or standing on the circle of wood that was taken from the Opry\u2019s longtime home and embedded into the stage here.
\nBut the Grand Ole Opry is not just the three-times a week \u201cGrand Ole Opry\u201d show. The venue hosts concerts and award shows, corporate events, general sessions, dinners, meetings and more. And the person making sure those events come off right is Lauren Simpson \u201908, events manager.
\n[pullquote align=’left’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]\u201cAnything you can think of to do,\u201d she says, \u201cwe figure out a way to make it happen.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\nShe may be young to hold this position, but she has a lot of experience under her belt. Four years of that experience was at Clemson, working with Tiger Paw Productions and Littlejohn Coliseum. Before she graduated, the speech and communication major had worked in every department in Littlejohn, and also interned with Radio City Music Hall and MTV.
\n\u201cThe way that it [Tiger Paw Productions] is structured \u2014 to have students in management roles working with other students \u2014 was really the best opportunity I could have been given. I tell people I\u2019ve been working at a venue since I was 18,\u201d she says. \u201cMost internships don\u2019t give you that much hands-on stuff.\u201d
\nNashville may be the home of country music, but it\u2019s a city that has turned country music into a tourist industry bringing millions of people every year. Like the Grand Ole Opry, some of those tourist attractions are natural outgrowths; others are a bit more on the periphery of the music business.
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\"Christel<\/a>

Christel Foley<\/p><\/div>
\nAbout 20 minutes south of Nashville, you\u2019ll find a successful vineyard owned by Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn. Running the commercial side of the business is Clemson alum Christel Foley \u201995, who began working there six months before it opened.
\n\u201cI was brought in to get everything organized and ready for us to become the premier vineyard and winery in the Southeast,\u201d she says. \u201cI handle all of the marketing and public relations, daily retail operations and procedures for the winery, direct the sales and management team and pretty much anything else that comes up.\u201d She has approximately 40 employees who report to her, including the general manager, controller, wine club manager and tasting room manager. And on any given Saturday, more than 2,000 locals and tourists will be there, picnics and blankets in hand, to enjoy the free wine tasting and the music, usually a local jazz trio.
\nFoley majored in parks, recreation and tourism management, which she says provided a good foundation for the two industries in which she has worked: sports marketing and the wine business.
\nAs a Clemson student, Foley waitressed at Charlie T\u2019s, a local hangout across from the baseball field. One night, she waited on a group of men who turned out to be professional baseball scouts, two from the Minnesota Twins, one from the Atlanta Braves.
\n\u201cI struck up a conversation with them,\u201d she says, \u201cand they said, \u2018You need to work for a sports team; they need people like you with a lot of enthusiasm.\u2019\u201d That stuck in her mind; her first job out of college was with the Charleston Stingrays (minor league hockey). She went from there to the Cincinnati Bengals, the Tennessee Titans and back to hockey with the Nashville Predators.
\nTwo young children made her reassess all the nights and evenings of sports marketing. The contacts she had in Nashville led her to Kix Brooks and his fledgling vineyard. [pullquote align=’right’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]The wine business, she says, has many similarities to sports marketing. \u201cI\u2019m selling a product here that\u2019s similar to selling a ticket. I have a celebrity \u2014 like having players. The difference here is that there\u2019s no winning and losing; it\u2019s all winning,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd no lockouts. Everybody goes away happy.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\nFoley may be more on the edge of the music business than some of the other alumni in town, but she shares a drive and determination and ability to see the possibilities. When asked what about a Clemson experience makes alumni successful in Nashville, she responds, \u201ca great education that doesn\u2019t limit your ideas of what opportunities are out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

No business like show business<\/h3>\n

Teaching management may seem even further away from the music business, but not when it\u2019s at Belmont University, named by Time and Rolling Stone magazines as having one of the best music business programs in the country.
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\"Beth<\/a>

Beth Woodard<\/p><\/div>
\nAnd in the hallway of the building where she teaches, Beth Woodard \u201987 shows off the display of gold and platinum records. Belmont grads have been a part of each of those records, whether writing, performing or producing.
\nTeaching music business students adds a different dimension to the classroom, says Woodard, who has been at Belmont since 1999. \u201cMy music business students are very creative. They see things through different lenses.\u201d
\n[pullquote align=’left’ font=’oswald’ color=’#685C53′]Woodard, a management major at Clemson, might not have even finished her undergraduate degree if it hadn\u2019t been for Professor Mike McDonald. His teaching, she says, both gave her a thirst for knowledge and restored her confidence in herself. \u201cIt was because of him that I stayed in school and I finished my degree,\u201d she says.[\/pullquote]
\nAnd when she finished that degree, she never imagined she would end up back on a college campus, encouraging aspiring musicians and patterning her teaching style, in many ways, after McDonald.<\/p>\n

Tigers raised in the Southland<\/h3>\n

Aspiring musicians keep coming to Nashville, its siren song pulling those who dream of connecting with sold-out audiences and producing gold records. Musicians like Doug McCormick \u201904, whose voice belies his age. You\u2019d swear you were listening to a seasoned singer when you hear the strains of \u201cTiger Raised in the Southland.\u201d
\nIn his Tiger Paw cap, he revs up the crowd at the Esso Club on one of his returns to town. Clemson University, he says, \u201cis more than a football game. It\u2019s a way of life. It\u2019s who I am.\u201d
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