Ten years later, singer/songwriter James promotes his music through social media, his own producer and manager and a recently released album, “It Took the Fire.”  He also plays as a keyboardist with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and will be with them on a tour that includes dates in Australia, as well as at Coachella and Bonnaroo.
“Hopefully I’ll be done with that tour by the end of June and then I’ll be doing my own stuff again,” James said.

It took him four years as a music business major at Belmont, performing at small venues and in the university’s showcases, two or three years working as a banquet server at Opryland Hotel after graduation and months at a time of optimistic touring along the east and west coasts to get to this point of success.

After he was “rejected,” as he called it, by Belmont’s School of Music, he decided he would continue to strive for a career in music and expand his knowledge of the field with a degree in music business.  He played at the Commons Clubhouse several times and performed in the Best of the Best showcase at the Ryman before the Curb Event Center opened.

“I think I produced the first event ever at the [Curb] Event Center, which was the 2003 pop/rock showcase,” James said.

When James came to Belmont, social media was not really popular or necessary for artists to promote their music.  Many students aiming for music careers did not know how to get started, James said.

“I feel like I was the only kid in my class that was actually playing gigs off campus,” he said.  “When I was there all anyone did was do showcase things and then they’d get out of college and have no idea of how to get a gig or even get started in Nashville.”

James knew he had to start early.  He played at venues like The End and Guido’s Pizza. In playing small shows, he discovered that in order to get more of an audience, he should keep his education information to himself.  That way he could avoid the misconception that all Belmont students play music similar to Dave Matthews or Radiohead.

“Belmont kind of gives this vibe in the Nashville scene like people assume that Belmont bands all kind of sound the same and don’t bring people out,” James said.  “In order to make it in Nashville I had to not let people know I was a Belmont kid so that it was easy to get gigs.”

Using his education of music business, he played a show at the Belcourt Theater with his three favorite bands.

“I finagled this thing with a friend where we booked the Belcourt Theater and we made up this company name then we invited my three favorite bands, the three biggest bands in Nashville at the time to play this showcase,” James said.  “Basically we fooled the three biggest bands in town to play a show with me.”

This idea led James to his first manager and producer.

After graduation, he got jobs at a retirement home and at Opryland Hotel to make money he needed to tour.

“I decided I could get a good job, or I could get a crappy job that allowed me make some money and get off when I needed to tour,” James said.

He worked in his secure jobs for a period of time, he then booked shows across the country. Then he’d return to his jobs in Nashville to continue the cycle.  He toured by himself for the most part, which made it easier to get started as a musician. By touring alone, he made more money for himself and did not humiliate the rest of his band if the show was not prosperous.

“If you get the feeling that not a lot of people are going to come and you’ve never played there before, you should do it by yourself,” James said.  “That way if it doesn’t go well you’re only hurting yourself and not five other people.”

Years of balancing working in Nashville and touring got his name out, and now some current Belmont students know his music from his MySpace page.

“You can really feel the emotion through his music,” said sophomore Lisa Bennett.

“His music works for any scenario, whether you’re working out or listening to it in the car or in a coffee restaurant,” said sophomore Michelle Rogers.  “It applies to a wide range audience.”

In 2009, a TV producer making a pilot asked James to be a cast member, which in the end led James to join Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

One of the other cast members dated the band’s lead singer. The group needed a keyboardist, and James was chosen to be a replacement.

“They sent me the songs the day before the first show, and they put me up there and the next day I’m playing in front of thousands of people,” said James.

James plans on continuing touring his own music when he’s not busy performing for Edward Sharpe.  In future shows, he might open for the band.

I have no idea, but I sure have a hard time deleting any.  There’s always the off chance I’ll want to listen to that remix of that cover by that band featuring that guy from that other band. You really never know.

Somewhere along the way, a music library became a list. It’s not a place where you run your fingers down the spines of your albums anymore, you scroll.

Music consumption feels less about the music and more about the consumption. Arguably, the Internet has created an abundance of opportunity and freedom. Smaller artists can produce and distribute their music without having to compromise and listeners can expose themselves to as much music as they can take.

How much can a listener take? Again, no idea, but there’s always that creeping feeling like if you don’t move on to something else fast enough, you might not find that one band or that one song that changes everything. Take a sampler CD that comes with a magazine or the 20 plus song mixes that Urban Outfitters posts every so often. The chances that all those songs are going to be even “just good” are slim, but the unknown potential is sort of exciting.

Though, the bigger my library gets, the less it feels like my own. There are fewer memories attached to albums or songs. It’s a blurred mental montage of pushing the “skip” button repeatedly.

Not long ago, buying an album was a commitment, and in more than one way. Buying an album meant that this might be it for a while (at least it was that way for me), so every little sound and every lyric became a part of life. The CD case sat a foot away and the album art was key to the experience.

Buying an album also meant spending a good chunk of time with it, or better yet, lying down on the carpet of your bedroom and just listening. Music was an activity in itself instead of functioning as auditory wallpaper.

Give it a few years and all of a sudden those periodic album purchases build up. The full CD rack is a real physical presence. It’s a space commitment, not something that can be easily vanished to a recycling bin and replaced with a click.

Though, when you subtract issues of availability, space, cost and time, that’s a few thousand songs stored on a hard drive that looks something like a cigarette case. Charming.

Try throwing away the first album you ever bought. You probably can’t, you probably wouldn’t want to. Yet, music has become tragically disposable, as have many other things in society.

Download something, spend a week with it and then never touch it again. What’s the point?

Every once in a while, though, a song just stops you dead in your tracks. It only takes a few seconds to realize that something special is happening.

“Papa was a Rollin’ Stone” by the Temptations stopped me dead in my tracks. It was dark, sophisticated, funky and sounded nothing like those airtight Motown tunes. It was also my first seven-minute song. That’s commitment for an 8-year-old.

Similarly, the Beach Boys’ “That’s Not Me” was a moment. It was earnest and thoughtful, a side of the band that gets lost in the popularity of their sun and surf image. I remember most everything about the time I first heard it.

Of course detachment is not something that happens to everyone, but these days it feels like the risk is higher.

They say that music is one of the few things that everybody understands. Let’s not throw that away.

Mayer played a concert at the Sommet Center Feb. 10, hours after his controversial Playboy Magazine interview broke in the media.  As song after song started and finished, some wondered if he would address the flap at all.

Regardless, he played a smart set, sticking to the high points of his somewhat disappointing 2009 release “Battle Studies,” and quickly hitting the old favorites, like “No Such Thing” and “Bigger Than My Body.”

Opening with “Heartbreak Warfare,” Mayer segued into the blues heavy “Crossroads,” a Robert Johnson cover featured on “Battle Studies.” This was interesting because the song is not really representative of the pop-tinged tunes that fill most of the album. It was refreshing to hear it so prominently placed in the set because “Crossroads” feels like the direction Mayer should have taken after 2006’s Continuum, instead of backtracking into pop.

Throughout the show, Mayer seemed muted, personality-wise, saying little beyond hammy “thankyouverymuch”’s and one brief shot at relationship advice. Clearly there was something occupying him.

The high point of the evening, was definitely his blazing performance of “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.”  Flames whipped across the giant background screen, the band glowed in red light, smoke slowly consumed the stage, and Mayer’s intense, skilled, mournful guitar playing truly scorched the Sommet. The performance was undeniably the best of the night.

At the end came “Gravity,” off  “Continuum.” Mayer, encircled by mini spotlights sang “just keep me where the light is” and then with a cracking voice, offered his apologies to the fans and his band, saying that in “the quest to be clever,” he “completely forgot about the people that [he] love[s] and the people that love [him].”

Sincere? Self-serving? Either way the apology itself was classic Mayer, down to the his last line on the subject before launching into more pained guitar playing.

“My name is John Mayer and I’m going to figure that out.”  More introspection and vaguely poetic phrasing? We wouldn’t expect anything else.

The “Road to Bonnaroo” series was established last year as a coproduction between Mercy Lounge and BMI. The Cannery Row music venue will host four free monthly showcases, with eight bands in each showcase. A combination of fan votes and votes from a panel of judges will determine the winner of each showcase and who will be granted the chance to play one of the nation’s biggest music festivals.

The Features, Protomen and Heypenny emerged victorious from last year’s Road to Bonnaroo and all performed at Bonnaroo’s Troo Music Lounge, a smaller stage sponsored by Budweiser. In addition to performing, they were also covered by local and national media, including Lightning 100, NewsChannel5 and Vogue.

The dates for this year’s Road to Bonnaroo are February 22, March 22, April 19 and May 17—all Mondays. The shows are strictly 21-and-up only and only those who see every band in the night’s line-up are eligible to vote. The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival will take place June 10-13.

According to a Facebook post made by Cheer Up Charlie Daniels singer Neil O’Neill, the Delta Saints will compete in the final installment of the series. On May 17, they will challenge Cassino, Cortney Tidwell, Space Capone, Tesla Rossa, My Tyger and Cheer Up Charlie Daniels for a shot at Bonnaroo glory. The remaining bands involved include:

AutoVaughn
Born Empty
Brenn
Caitlin Rose
Dozen Dimes
The Effects
Glossary
Hillbilly Casino
Heartbeater
How I Became the Bomb
The Kicks
Kyle Andrews
Leslie
Majestico
Mikky Ekko
Modoc
Mona
Moon Taxi
Nobility
Non-Commissioned Officers
Pico vs. Island Trees
Ponderosa
The Privates
The Silver Seas
Turbo Fruits

The sketch involved a couple students cracking “that’s what she said” jokes. The punch line, popularized by “Wayne’s World” and, more recently, “The Office,” is typically a response to an accidental double entendre spoken by someone else. In the case of the Follies sketch, one student kept getting it wrong, using the phrase after any statement, not just ones with sexual double-meanings.

“I think the problem with that sketch was that it got carried away on stage,” explained Program Board president Amber Garner. Complaints about the sketch led to it being removed from the Follies DVD, but further sanctions were possible because of the student affairs content rider.

The rider, titled “Belmont University Standard Rider to Agreement for Speaker/Artists’ Services” is a page-long document outlining what cannot be said or done while on stage at a Belmont sponsored event. The list includes “actions demeaning the dignity and beauty of human sexuality,” blasphemy, profanity and promotion of drug, alcohol or tobacco use.

According to Henderson Hill, assistant director of student activities, the rider was created to make outside speakers and artists aware of Belmont’s standards.

“When I bring outside people on campus, this is the stuff they have to adhere to,” Hill said. “Our university makes no apologies for who we are and what we stand for.”

In terms of student performances, Hill considers these events to be “learning labs” where students are given experience in dealing with the legal and ethical standards of the venue.

“For me it’s not so much of micro-managing or not wanting students to have the freedom to be creative, it’s you need to learn to be accountable to something,” he said.

University counsel Jason Rogers and representatives of the Office of Student Affairs wrote the rider. According to Hill, it has not been updated since 2003. Some references in the rider, particularly the inclusion of “homosexual acts” in the sexual conduct section, have since been excised from the student code of conduct. It is unclear if the rider will be revised to reflect those changes.

For Belmont students, breaking the terms of the rider can mean disqualification from a competition like the showcase series and perhaps even judicial sanctions based on the disciplinary section of the Bruin Guide. Although Hill admits that punishment depends on how far a performer goes and that he relies on complaints by audience members or student leaders for many performances that don’t fall under Program Board or SGA.

Musicians and speakers aren’t the only performers required to sign the rider. Films and theater performances also fall under the purview of the contract, but, according to Garner, are given some educational and artistic leeway.

At least one recent play, “Arabian Nights,” included a disclaimer to warn audience members about language and sexual situations that would otherwise be banned by the rider.

Similarly, Health Services screened the movie “Thank You For Smoking” despite frequent profanity and sexual situations without complaint because it was part of The Great American Smokeout, a week of anti-smoking events tied to the American Cancer Society’s national program to bring awareness to the health risks of smoking.

Movies that are purely for entertainment, however, are a different story.

“We showed ‘Casino Royale’ and things like that,” Garner said. “It’s a movie, so we can push it a little more, but we’re not going to show an ‘Rated R’ movie.”

Despite the rules, both Hill and Garner stressed that their goal isn’t to hamper students’ creativity. In the case of the “that’s what she said” sketch, Garner brushed it off as an overreaction.

“My favorite part of the mission statement of Belmont is ‘student centered’,” Garner said, “When we start caring too much about that one parent who gets offended or that one staffer that doesn’t understand the joke, then I think it maybe gets taken too far.”

At the forefront of the underground movement is the Belmont Underground Music Scene Awareness Project. BUMSAP was started in late November 2009 by sophomore Trent Houghton with the intention of promoting the local music community by exploiting social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

AUDIO: Listen to a streaming mixtape of BUMSAP affiliated bands.

“I would say that you’ve got this aspect of Belmont that promotes the showcase music, they promote you to get into big, major labels and to sell yourself. To me, the showcase is all just an image. There’s great artists that get turned down by the showcase because they don’t have an image,” said Houghton. “I think there’s so many damn kids at Belmont that don’t relate to that.”

Houghton’s goals for BUMSAP are simple: set up shows, promote bands and, ultimately, “bring about a local music community within the bands that no one hears at our music school,” according to the project’s Facebook description. But because these bands often can’t or won’t rely on Belmont for support, they’re forced to get creative.

Diarrhea Planet, a punk band formed by Jordan Smith and Evan P. Donohue, is one band in the scene that can’t perform in the Belmont system.

“They probably wouldn’t even listen to our recording if we turned it in. I don’t think we would be allowed to play in [Curb Café] even,” said Smith. “That’s another problem with Belmont, they have too many conservative limitations on what they accept and allow here. Which is weird, because it’s a music school.”

Despite the barriers preventing the band from performing at Belmont, they have developed a name for themselves by performing in houses and smaller venues like The End and Little Hamilton. Their debut EP, “Aloha,” was released for free and was covered positively in local music blogs Nashville Cream and We Own This Town, who rarely devote space to Belmont artists.

“I think there’s that slight prejudice of Belmont music because of the Belmont music that’s known,” Houghton said. He also said that some bands declined to participate in BUMSAP because of the reference to Belmont in the title, even though the project is unaffiliated with the school, its music program or any faculty or staff. Houghton argues that the entire mindset of underground bands is different from what could be considered Belmont’s mainstream.

“I think the mindset of the kids in the showcase scene, the kids who want to conquer the world, is different from those people that know this is what we do for fun because this is what we love,” Houghton said.

The underground has professed a do-it-yourself ethos that traces back to previous independently minded companies and projects. Dirty Eye was founded by Belmont grads Bo Brannon, Edwin O’Brien and Matt Johanson to promote talented artists like Darla Farmer and Andrew Combs who didn’t necessarily fit the mold of their genres. Although they started booking shows at Douglas Corner, eventually they moved on to booking bigger events in downtown warehouses.

“I would really like to maybe teach one day at Belmont in 10 or 15 years, if I can make [Dirty Eye] work the way I see it, because I didn’t feel like the professors at Belmont really encourage [you to] ‘do it differently, do it creatively, do it yourself’,” said Brannon.

Despite the differences in ideology between Belmont and BUMSAP, most of the participants in the scene understand why Belmont professors teach the way they do and have had positive experiences with some forward-thinking classes. But the ultimate goals of the music business program will always conflict with the goals of the underground, according to Houghton.

“Belmont teaches kids to make money and they teach artists to sell themselves to make money and that turns off so many people, including myself, that we faction off into our own little underground community,” Houghton said.

But while dismissing some of the classes, Houghton and others within the scene expressed pride in the creativity coming from the students. Many of these student-musicians come to Belmont seeking a kind of community that does not inherently exist on campus. Houghton hopes that through the efforts of BUMSAP and other similar projects, they can change that.

“That’s all that BUMSAP is, it’s an effort to build a community,” he said.

The record comes after a summer recording session in Smyrna, Ga. Huff contacted producer Randy Bugg and for the first time left the familiarity and comfort of friends’ porches and small local audiences for the professionalism of the studio.

“It was just a big jump, and it was kind of frightening at first, but exciting at the same time,” Huff said describing the recording experience. He spoke of the sense of accomplishment. “To be doing this thing that I’ve dreamed of all my life, to say this isn’t ‘someday I’ll get to record these songs in a studio– that day was yesterday, and it happened;’ it was just overwhelming, but it was wonderful.”

Though, getting to this point came only after eight years of writing songs and ditching nap time as a child.

“My sister was taking piano lessons while it was my nap time, so I, beginning to connive as a little kid, thought ‘I’m going to finagle this and I’m going to get into piano’.” Luckily, Huff said, piano turned out to be something he enjoyed instead of just a trick to stay awake.

From there, Huff turned to the guitar after learning a few choice chords from his dad – C, G and D.

Initially, he started out writing and playing within the church genre but eventually found what was outside of that, namely Sufjan Stevens’ album, “Seven Swans.”

“[He] was the first artist who ever showed me that he could do whatever he wanted with songs,” Huff explained. “I put it on, and I didn’t get what was happening, but I knew it was beautiful. He kind of blew the doors wide open and from there I found a lot of inspiration.”

These days, Huff plays songs steeped in folk and Americana. Part of his approach lies in not only listening to artists like Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, Leonard Cohen or, more recently, Hank Williams, but in tracing back the roots of songs and absorbing the rhythm, language and style.

“Style is a weird thing that I’m still trying to figure out,” he explained. “For me, it’s more about writing the song, and the songs sort of dictate the genre.” The result is that Huff’s music seems to flow in a very natural direction, and “natural” is a word well suited to the album and the artist.

“Other Hearts” comes off sincere and earnest, the product of “heart on sleeve” songwriting, informed by “absorbing” influences instead of mimicking, and delivered by a voice, both clear and warm.

Huff writes, in part, about his own experiences. “Little Birdie,” for example, stems from one day when some birds built a nest by his window.

“At first I was kind of annoyed because they would be singing all the time when I was trying to sleep, or in the early mornings, but then I decided ‘OK, this could be kind of cool, I’ll watch it be alive and hatch its eggs’.”

Subject matter like this accounts for an intrinsically hopeful and positive air to the EP, although those vibes are not exclusive.

“Then one day [the nest] was gone,” Huff continued. He never saw the eggs hatch and never found out what happened to them. “Hope and disappointment, and the kind of strain between them– I think that’s the tone that lots of the EP strikes,” he said.

“Other Hearts” seems to say that all is never lost. Perhaps the balance between the good and the bad is exactly what makes up a life. “Blues Man” is an acknowledgment of this dichotomy. While there is cause for sadness, the sadness can manifest itself in something richer and more meaningful.

Huff also leans toward story songs. “Fortune Teller,” is tale whose sentiment is familiar, especially for this age range. Uncertainty for the future, framed with the advice to “stop looking forward and start living.” The song’s imagery works well against the solitary strumming.

“Song writing is something I’m doing all the time,” Huff said, “so I often have songs that I’ve finished all the words and then I’m reworking the melody for a couple months, or there are some that come all together at once.”

Since coming to Belmont, Huff has found community with his friends and fellow songwriters.

“Sometimes, a group of us get together, and just insist on writing a song and say, “OK, by Thursday, you have to bring a song to our house and we have to play them for each other even if they’re terrible, and often times half of them are and half aren’t, and we know it, but we did it– we wrote a song.”

As Huff continues to look beyond the “smaller communities” he has enjoyed, playing house shows or just “huddling around couches,” his post graduation plans revolve around his music.

Though he’s only played in Nashville, Oklahoma City, and a few other cities around his home state, Huff has his sights set on touring.

“I want to tour and take this thing anywhere that has a stage and a microphone,” he said, “anywhere with people who listen.”

Listening in
Other Hearts is available at Grimeys, Cosmic Connections, CDBaby.com, and directly from Huff. Look for a release show in early spring.
For a free download of “Little Birdie,” click here.

Find more at:
Myspace.com/michaelhuff
or
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Huff/114880901163?v=wall&ref=ts

Even though the band has achieved massive mainstream success—both gold (“All We Know is Falling”) and platinum (“RIOT!”) certified albums, along with the lead single from the Twilight soundtrack are in their recent past—the level of emotion wrapped in the first few lyrics from lead singer Hayley Williams’ voice made audible what playing in the venue meant.

The band opened with a haunting, drum-laden introduction written specifically for the tour, the set began with the band’s latest single “Ignorance.” The crowd was immediately to their feet, where they remained for the rest of the night. A fair mix of newer material from the September release “Brand New Eyes” and “RIOT!” composed the set, although the band also offered early staple hits such as “Emergency “ and “Conspiracy.” Paramore also remained true to the fans garnered from their connection to the Twilight franchise with songs like “Decode and “I Caught Myself.”

After the crowd driven chorus vocals of “Decode” faded out, the band made a quick retreat from the stage and the night was over. Or was it? Fans of the band know all too well that Paramore never leaves things on a light note and sure enough, after thunderous applause and a static stampede of the floor, lead guitarist Josh Farro and Hayley Williams took the stage once more.

Williams took the time to address exactly what the band thought of playing the Ryman and how, when out on the road, listening to country music takes them back home. With only an acoustic guitar, the pair played an unplugged cover of Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man).” Stripped of a microphone, the crowd was drenched in utter silence as we watched a vocalist in her prime rival one of the greats and pay her respects.

The remaining members Taylor York, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis later joined Williams and Farro for a campfire-style version of the all-acoustic “Misguided Ghosts.” The ending led into the string introduction of “Misery Business,” the song that took the band’s career into uncharted waters. The energy level of the show was bursting at the seams as the crowd abandoned assigned seats and literally let loose in the aisles. Williams thanked the crowd one last time and announced that “Brick by Boring Brick” would be the last song of the night.

With a final bow, the band left the stage and I, along with other 3,000 fans in attendance was left with an experience I will never forget. Not simply because of the showmanship and raw talent each of the members possess, but because I left hoping only one thing; that there’s more Paramore where that came from.

“Galaxy Star is a non-profit organization that gives everyone the benefit of a doubt no matter how hard they have fallen,” said Belmont junior Jasmine Wiley, one of the hosts of the benefit. “They offer a safe environment for underprivileged youth who are at a disadvantage. ”

Wiley said she heard about the organization through her Junior Cornerstone, Race, Class, and Gender. “At first [the benefit] started out as an assignment that was required, but as we started I think we all became motivated. There were a lot of ups and downs but somehow everything and everyone came together,” said Wiley referring to herself and three of her classmates — Kayln Burke, Elizabeth Wray, Melessa Slobodnyak.

The four students wanted to find a way to bring awareness to the organization due to the limited funding they receive. Wiley said Galaxy Star is losing its current lease at Oasis Center.

The night will start off with a welcome speech from Greenway as well as her story and why she started Galaxy Star. Following the opening, there will be a performance from Future. After that, a couple of Galaxy Star’s teen members who will speak and tell their stories. The night will conclude with DJ Wick-it who has opened for Jennifer Hudson and Robin Thicke.

For more information on Galaxy Star visit their Web site at www.galaxystarda.org.

A seventh-generation Floridian, Young became just another Belmont musician among the best of Music City when she arrived in Nashville in the late nineties. She’s now living in Virginia, and gaining attention not only for her recordings but also for the effort she’s putting into promoting sustainability.

That’s what recently brought her back to Belmont, where she performed in both the singing and dancing arenas – the former in Curb Café, the latter in the Black Box Theater – during the annual Humanities Symposium that focused on “Nature and the Human Spirit.”

For Young, music is not just a talent, but a passion she has long wanted to share with others in a unique way. She graduated magna cum laude from Belmont with a degree in music business and Spanish. Young supported herself during and after college with endless clerical jobs on Music Row as she tried to make it as a singer/songwriter.

Unfortunately, after some time on Music Row, Young became discouraged, as many artists do, and decided to leave.

Young told a close friend, “It’s just not gonna happen. I can’t make it.” But he didn’t let her quit, and he gave her some inspirational advice: “If you’ve got a dream, girl, you’ve gotta plow to the end of the row. … Make up a business plan and come see me.”

These simple words from a friend, who was once just an ole farm boy, spurred Young to start her own record label, AddieBelle Music, and produce the music she wanted to. Although her music is a unique art in and of itself, she went a step further and created an album that was about more than just her and her songs.

Young created a platform with her music that encompassed another love: the earth. More specifically, she began campaigning for local farmers, encouraging others to buy local and buy fresh, as well as partnering with the American Community Gardening Association to raise awareness about the importance of sustainability.

This love, however, did not always exist for Young. “My parents were not agrarian-minded,” she said. “We didn’t even have a garden when I was growing up.” The green thumb grew after Young worked on an organic farm for a year before entering Belmont. There, Young raised all the food that she ate.

Young also attributes her fondness for farming to her grandmother, describing her as someone who “really represented an era and an age where self sufficiency and people interacting with the land and raising their own food and being practically capable was just the way it was.”

Young has crafted her music to represent a unique style as well as to address her mission for sustainability. “I decided that the difference it had made in my life [was] becoming aware of the choice that you make with every bite that you eat and to be able to purchase locally so that you are eating food that has been raised close to the soil you are living on. That empowers us on every level, but I think a lot of it starts with what we put on our tables.”

The strides Young has made in gaining attention for this cause are impressive, but that doesn’t mean she is slacking off or taking it easy just yet. And she admires the strides some local businesses are taking to support local farmers. “It’s nice to see they are serving local eggs there, that was impressive,” she said of Fido, a Hillsboro Village coffee shop.

With all of her concern for the environment, and all of the time she has put into different projects to promote awareness, it is not difficult to believe her when she says, “I just wanted to be able to share that message because it had touched me so much to the soul level and so I thought I want to spread this word.”