One Helluva Ride Part Two

THE JOSIE MUSIC AWARDS

The award show is deserving of it's own post and that is what we are going to do. This day was one of the most incredible 24 hours of my weekend, year, and life. From working the red carpet at the Grand Ole Opry House, watching friends stepping on the stage, to a late night meal with new friends at Waffle House, this night delivered in every way. Let's start in the morning though and pick up where we left off.

I made it back to the bus on a rainy Saturday night after leaving Eastside Bowl and the amazing show that Jasmine Cain had put together there. Boo Boo, my partner in crime for the weekend arrived shortly after me from his solo outing on Broadway full of inspiration and ready to tackle our big day. We didn't have a lot to do to prepare ourselves for the red carpet and the day was supposed to be spent relaxing. By 10 am that had all changed. We received word from South Dakota that Boo Boo's Grandpa had been admitted to the hospital after suffering a heart attack in church Sunday morning.

Obviously my young friend and mentee was shaken and an earlier exit from Nashville was imminent for him. His grandfather in his love and infinite wisdom though had made him promise to fulfill his commitment to The Scene and to not leave for any reason until after the award show. We spent several hours raising money from our fan base for an emergency flight as it was not in the original tour budget and purchased a ticket for him to fly home on Monday afternoon. After lunch we headed back to the bus to get ready for the show.

As someone raised in a blue collar family and not having my wife with me on this trip it was getting my tie on correctly that proved to be the biggest challenge of the day. Through gritted teeth and 30 times through the 2 minute YouTube tutorial I managed to get the job done and look pretty sharp. You can be the judge of that.

We arrived at the Grand Ole Opry House hours before the Red Carpet would be full of independent artists and nominees. We were given a small space in which to set up our camera equipment and to prepare ourselves for the show. I am very grateful now for the hundreds of episodes that we have released on our channel over the last few years and the events like the Midwest Country Music Organization awards show for the reps necessary to feel confident in this situation. It is not easy to stand in one place and do short interviews one after another for three hours. In fact it was pretty exhausting in retrospect and so incredibly gratifying to have accomplished it.

Neither I nor Boo Boo had ever done anything remotely close to an event of this magnitude or importance. 150 artists blessed us with their presence and their autographs in that short period of time. I was honored to meet so many new independent musicians and have the opportunity to share a moment with them on this historic piece of property in Nashville. Whirlwind is putting it mildly but every second was worth it even if the weather was a little chilly on this November evening. I for one am grateful to see that next years award show will be in September for this reason alone.

We were graced with the presence of fellow Midwest CMO friends Tyler Herwig, Belle Modeen, Alyssa Ruffin, Liv McNair, and Samantha Grimes who all stopped by to see us. New friends from the Texas State Songwriters Association like Tristan Roberson also popped by and shared a short conversation. Quick shout out to our friend Cynthia Dawn Anderson for making sure to send her people our way. Amazing artists like Heather Harper and Rylee Edel of Drifted Harmony, The Swansons, and Luana Sandoval were an absolute treat to have on the show and also to cheer them on during the show.

The three and a half hours we spent doing interviews and promoting our brand absolutely flew by and we did our best to interview all the artists we could in the given time. We killed the battery in both cameras and were relegated to doing interviews on our cell phones by the end of it. Security informed us that the show would actually be starting soon and that is the only reason we began to tear our equipment down, otherwise we might have stayed there all night. We grabbed our tickets and a quick picture in front of the JMA backdrop then entered the storied Grand Ole Opry House for the very first time not just as fans of country music but as part of the show adding to the history of this amazing building.

Inside the doors of the Opry we were welcomed by the staff who were gracious and incredibly helpful to us as we had our gear still and didn't want to carry it during the show. We found our seats then found our friends Larissa and Scott who had better seats and two empty ones next to them and made our way over there. We sat center stage and watched as presenters read the names of the nominees in categories ranging from Americana and country through world music. We shared in the joy as those selected as winners celebrated on their way to that incredible wooden circle on stage to deliver acceptance speeches. It was thrilling to watch our good friend Jasmine Cain win not one but two awards that night and to close out the show with a riveting rock and roll performance of her song Money. It was the perfect ending to a perfect evening before we made our way back to the bus and into the next chapter of our story but that my friends is for another day in Part Three of One Helluva Ride.

Thanks for reading, keep your eyes peeled for Part Three coming soon.