The Tennessee Tribune • Thursday, June 23 - 29, 2016 L ifestyLe & e ntertainment Singer Goes from the Race Track to Music Track for Country Music ‘Gold’ By Janice Malone NASHVILLE, TN —
Trang 1The Tennessee Tribune • Thursday, June 23 - 29, 2016
L ifestyLe & e ntertainment
Singer Goes from the Race Track to
Music Track for Country Music ‘Gold’
By Janice Malone
NASHVILLE, TN — Country music
singer/songwriter Shawney Damisch is a
new talent on the scene that’s pursuing
that pot-o-gold at the end of the
coun-try music rainbow of stardom Her new
single, I WANT YOU THERE, has only
been out for a few weeks but music
in-siders are already applauding her singing
talents “In the tradition of George Strait,
full of emotion…it’s traditional country
with a modern sound ” writes one top
music critic That’s a more than
impres-sive music report card for a young singer
who’s been in Nashville less than 2 years
She’s already signed with the
manage-ment team at September Productions
Shawney readily admits that her move
from the small farming town of
Maren-go, Illinois to Music City USA was a
tough one She was a student on a track
and field scholarship with a specialty in
the 400 hurdles, at Missouri State
Uni-versity But after a nasty injury, Shawney
lost her scholarship and had to start
pay-ing her own tuition “I was not happy in
Missouri I was really miserable,” she
recalls about her college experience “I
was good at school though but I wasn’t
enjoying my classes So a really good
friend sat me down and he said, ‘What
do you really want to do with your life?
What are you passionate about?’ And
ev-ery time I kept thinking about it, I kept
thinking that I love to sing That’s all I
really want to do So, it was a little
dra-matic to drop my classes and move here
to Nashville but I was just like if I don’t
do it now, I’ll never do it And besides,
school will always be there.”
The original plans were for Shawney
to obtain her under graduate degree and
move on to law school, so when her
parents received the news about her
de-cision to leave school to pursue the
of-ten elusive world of the music industry,
mom and dad weren’t exactly thrilled
Shawney says it took them a long time to
get over her decision to leave school but
they’re now very supportive in her quest
for music success
Country music songs are often
writ-ten from the ups and downs, the crooks
and turns and the highs n’ lows from the
soul of everyday life And when it comes
to Shawney Damisch, her life didn’t ex-actly start with no ‘crystal stair.’ In fact, her real life story is one of inspiration and hope that’s quite a movie storyline
She was raised by a single
moth-er on the south side of Chicago, who was killed in a drive by shooting when Shawney was only 3 years old She also had a brother who was age 6 and a sis-ter who was 7 at the time When a white
Baptist minister and his wife read about the tragedy, they adopted all 3 siblings, welcoming them into their own family of
4 biological children
Growing up on the farm was well, just like life on many farms, and that included listening to a lot of country western mu-sic “I grew up on a hay and cattle farm
I would listen to country music while we were all baling hay Every summer was
basically dedicated to farm work for the whole family It was hard work but it was also so much fun too I remember my mom on the tractor with blaring coun-try music, with us kids stacking hay on the wagon Those memories are so em-bedded in my brain,” Shawney fondly remembers with a big laugh The tunes
of George Strait, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and others, sparked her first interest into the country music genre But that’s not the only style of music Shawney enjoyed She fell in love with pop music group Maroon 5’s CD “All About Jane,” after finding it on the side
of the road Like so many fifth graders did at the time, Shawney sang and mem-orized every song on the CD Her other music tastes extended over to hip/hop, R&B and traditional jazz “When I was
in school I took an introduction to jazz class I really love jazz, especially during the 1940’s era,” she shares
According to her manager, Shawney has the vocal talents to sing almost any genre of music that she wants however, it
is traditional country music that she en-joys the most
Rissi Palmer, Joy Styles, Miko Marks, and Mickey Guyton are just a few of only
a handful of African American female country music singers who have put a slight dent on breaking down that door
of success into country music stardom the way Charlie Pride and Darius Rucker have done for Black male country west-ern singers Shawney hopes the success
of her “I Want You There” single will not only place her on this special list, but also open up doors for her to be on the list of being a successful country music record-ing artist Period!
She’s currently in pre-production to record a music video for the new single, along with spending time honing her songwriting skills with other writers in the Tennessee Songwriters Association International (TSAI) Shawney adds, “I think Nashville caters more to songwrit-ers than it does to just performsongwrit-ers TSAI has been very helpful with setting up appointments to collaborate with other songwriters and artists.” Visit Shawney at: http://shawneydamischmusic.com
NMAAM Receives Major Donation
from Belmont and Launches New App
By Janice Malone
NASHVILLE, TN — Last week the
National Museum of African American
Music (NMAAM) announced its
first-ev-er Rivfirst-ev-ers of Rhythm® Digital Exhibition
(RofR) and significant financial support
from Belmont University
With June declared as Black Music
Month (or African American Music
Ap-preciation Month) by President Barack
Obama, earlier this month, NMAAM was
pleased to announce this key milestone
during an important, month-long
obser-vance A first-of-its-kind digital exhibition,
museum officials and award-winning
Gos-pel artist, CeCe Winans (who was recently
announced as one of NMAAM’s National
Chairs) revealed the digital exhibition and
a $250,000 donation from Belmont
Uni-versity “With over 50 genres identified as
created or influenced by African
Ameri-cans, RofR is an interactive tool that
de-picts the ebb and flow of music and genres
using a web-based platform to tell the
Mu-seum’s story even before our doors open,”
said H Beecher Hicks, III, NMAAM’s
president and CEO “The purpose of this
web-based digital exhibition is to educate
the world about the role African
Ameri-cans play, and have played, in building
American culture through her music You
will be able to learn about the originators,
the innovators and the legacy of music in
America,” adds Mr Hicks
Ms Winans joined in to help Belmont University’s president, Dr Bob Fisher and
H Beecher Hicks, III, unveil the digital ex-hibition and donation As a National Chair,
Ms Winans will focus her work with NMAAM, specifically around the Gospel genre and serve as an active ambassador
She will provide support and access to her professional network for the organization
She, along with Darius Rucker, Keb’ Mo’
and India.Arie were announced earlier this year and are actively engaged in the project All are prominently featured in the Rivers of Rhythm® Digital Exhibition (RofR) According to Mr Hicks, these
ce-lebrities are also NMAAM active ambas-sadors for the project and will be provid-ing support and access to their professional network for the organization through pub-lic appearances, events, interacting with donor and potential donors “All of our National Chairs have expressed a keen de-sire to be actively involved in all that we
do Each will also be prominently featured
in the Rivers of Rhythm® Digital Exhibi-tion (RofR),” adds Hicks
The National Museum of African American Music is scheduled to open here
in Nashville in 2018 But before the doors officially open, there are ways the general public can currently get involved with this
monumental new museum now:
• NMAAM welcomes all financial do-nations
• Download theRiversOfRhythm.org app on your cell phone or your computer
• Attend any of the upcoming Sips & Stanzas or Emerging Artists series
• Or schedule a “From Nothing to Something” program your church, camp
or school
To get information on how to become involved with any of the above mentioned programs visit www.NMAAM.org or call their office at 615.301.8724 and ask for the Programs Manager
NMAAM CEO H Beecher Hicks, III, CeCe Winans and Belmont University’s president, Dr Bob Fisher hold the check during the
recent donation presentation
Recording Artist CeCe Winans speaks during the 2016 NMAAM Black Music Month Rivers of Rhythm Digital Exhibition Debut at Belmont University on June 16 in Nashville Source: Jason Davis/Getty Images North America