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For some bands, a gig at the Jamesville Balloon Fest, this year running from Friday, June 11, to Saturday, June 13, may not be a big deal. A core group of dance, rock and blues bands are predictable choices for most of Central New York’s leading venues, from the Inner Harbor to Taste of Syracuse to the various town park series.
But to country singer Chris Taylor and his crack honky-tonk pickers, the Custom Taylor Band, major shows have been elusive, despite strong popular support. “I would say that most of these major events that you see Custom Taylor Band playing now, it has taken me three years to get into those,” Taylor says. “It’s been stopping out and meeting with the people, calling and calling and pitching them the idea that we’re going to bring people, that country people are going to show up to the event.”
Custom Taylor is breaking new ground, having sold 2,000 CDs and enlisted 4,000 Facebook friends, and now looks forward to high-profile shows at Verona Beach on June 19 for the annual Frog Fest presented by Utica’s WFRG-FM (104.3), going on just before national act Josh Turner, and at Watkins Glen on Aug. 6 as part of the NASCAR race weekend. It’s among the signs that local country bands are starting to break out of a long slump brought on by the loss of many clubs that were strongholds for the genre, inconsistent support from local radio and fewer festivals and special events.
“On the local scene, you don’t have the every Sunday jamborees that we used to have,” acknowledges Southern Comfort Band guitarist and band leader Eric Will, a veteran of 55 years on the Central New York scene. “And they were all good. If you’re playing classic country, you’re working to a more limited audience, because that age group has kids or grandkids and they’re more family-bound. The other thing that really hurt not only the country bands, but rock’n’roll and everything, are the drinking and smoking laws. It killed the business, literally.”
The local landscape is peppered with former country venues that once bulged with crowds of fans dancing to artists from Hank Williams to Shania Twain. Brewerton restaurant Sam’s Lakeside is closed, Liverpool tavern Murphy’s Trackside has been demolished, Palermo’s Carvell’s Roadhouse, also known as the Cattlemen’s Club, was vacated to make way for a motorcycle shop, and the landmark Ozark Inn in Delphi Falls was lost in a tragic fire, all within the past 15 years.
Another favorite spot for the leather boots crowd, the Sables Inn in rural East Syracuse, also fell victim to a devastating fire. But Frank’s Country Roadhouse was built on that spot and is one of the venues that hires country bands.
“Country has done exceptionally well for us,” says Frank’s website coordinator and public relations assistant Tina McNulty. “Custom Taylor draws phenomenally well and Jason Wicks and Pure Country and TJ Sacco also do well. We have more country now than a couple of years ago.”
Frank’s hosts a variety of acts and has recently seen country acts approaching the popularity of the rock acts that pack in the most fans. “One Hard Crank and Under the Gun reach maximum capacity,” McNulty says. “Chris Taylor’s band comes close. Country is coming back big compared to a few years ago. There’s more of a following.”
Country comforts: Jay Draper, Chris Taylor and TJ Sacco strike a pose, while Taylor and his Custom Taylor Band (above) cut loose at Frank's Country Roadhouse, Draper and his band J.D. and Rollin’ South perform at Cross Lake Marina and Sacco sings from the Limp Lizard Lounge stage with his group Electric Rodeo. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTOS
That comes as no surprise to Jay Draper, whose band, J.D. and Rollin’ South, was playing on the Frank’s stage at the same time McNulty was granting country a vote of confidence. Rollin’ South, which features lead guitarist Gary Brockway, a senior member of the honky-tonk brotherhood, is itself a comeback story. “These guys were the old Wolf Mountain Band,” Draper says. “I was looking for a band that had a local connection and knew the music and those guys decided to sign on with me.”
Clubs and taverns booking country are doing so on a part-time basis, slotting a cowboy band in between nights of rock or blues. “We have to go into a rock club, an unusual situation, and try to create an unusual event,” Taylor says. “We’re working together. The camaraderie is real good among country groups trying to help each other get into the same places. Getting together with the other country bands, going to these venues and saying, ‘Look, can we have one night here where these four or six bands go in rotation, so people know we’re here?’ Then we get people to come out.”
With southern rockers Lonesome Crow, emerging band Jason Wicks and Pure Country and favorites from neighboring counties, like Matt Chase and Thunder Canyon and Tink Bennett and Tailor Made, all making Syracuse-area appearances, fans can choose the style of country they prefer. “Country has developed more of a pop kind of sound, a rock’n’roll sound that is more interesting for the younger crowd,“ contends singer TJ Sacco, whose band, the Electric Rodeo has been together for 3½ years. “It’s more than just the Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard fans. It’s brought a whole new generation into it.”
Radio Killed the Country Star
Much of the current generation has been influenced by the “hot country” sound that dominates radio airwaves. Those stations can also be instrumental in boosting the popularity of local bands, as the stations of the 1970s and 1980s supported bands of their day.
“In the workplace, country is the most listened to music in Central New York,” Taylor contends. “When I started out {radio station WBBS-FM} B104.7 was really in my corner and helped to get my name out there. My first show ever was opening for {national recording artist} Radney Foster at a private listener showcase. The importance of being involved with radio is that people hear your name.” Airplay for local acts is still elusive, although B104.7 does allot 30 minutes Sundays at 9 p.m. to allow deejay Amber Taylor to air some home-grown music.
Will, who co-hosted a program of local bands on the WTKW-FM 99.5 (TK99) Homegrown program from 1995 to 2005, misses the neighborly hand that hometown stations gave to bands. “The reason for that is that radio is coming out of California instead of being owned locally like when {deejay/station owners} Dan Dunn and Fred Lewis owned WSCP. And we had {program director} Gary Dennis, when he was with WRRB-FM, supporting local music. Now it’s all dictated from the West Coast what they play. We don’t have a traditional country station left in town. They’re all Top 40 country. They’re going for a younger audience and they’re big business.”
But some musicians are optimistic that radio is helping out local bands, including WFRG’s Frog Fest, during which Electric Rodeo goes on at noon. “I think that all three stations are getting back into it,” Sacco opines. In addition to Frog Fest, “with B104.7 we’re doing one of their showcases June 30 and also with WOLF-FM 105.1, Skip Clark is doing a great job promoting. I’m going out Wednesday to the station to record a little segment advertising all of the local country bands for the weekend.”
WOLF-FM, on the air playing modern country since last August, is busy making connections with local artists. “Every Friday afternoon I have a local talent in the studio,” says program director Clark. “Each week I pick a different local artist and we talk about what’s happening for that upcoming weekend. We talk a little bit about the band and where they’re playing and they all cross-promote each other. On my own, I’ll find out where local bands are playing and I’ll go out and I’ll get on stage and introduce them. Being locally owned, we need to embrace local talent.”
For Draper, a B104.7 showcase gig May 17 with Nashville act Danny Gokey has already paid dividends. “While he was performing, I was going around working the crowd, shaking hands and giving out photos,” Draper recalls. After the show, Rollin’ South landed a gig at the Fireside Inn, 2345 W. Genesee Road, Baldwinsville, for June 19.
Bands hope the payoff will be a return of large-scale country festivals similar to the WRRB-hosted country picnics of the 1980s. “Frog Fest has always had their own thing on that end of the town. But the last big country festival we had in Central New York was with John Anderson, Lee Greenwood and Marty Stuart,” Draper says of WSCP’s Country Fest in Clinton Square in 2004. “For outdoor festivals, people don’t understand the amount of money, a lot of permits and setting up. You need sponsorship. It would help a lot if sponsors really saw the value in country music for what it is.”
Adds Taylor: “What I’ve been told is that with the financial strain of the past few years they weren’t able to put those events on. As a fan who loves to go to all these concerts, the fans really miss these events. We miss B-Jam {an annual WBBS-sponsored concert event that was discontinued a few years ago} and still believe they will come out in numbers. Depending on weather, Frog Fest goes from years of having 15,000, to like last year having 6,000.” In all fairness, the 2009 version was a rainy mess.
All of the bands agree that persistence and hard work on promotions and performance are creating gains for country. “I have averaged 160 shows—solo, duo or with my band—for the past three years,” Sacco says. “So I would say that people really want to hear country music in and around Syracuse.” Sacco also recently taped a television appearance on Rhythmz, a local music show that Will has been hosting on Time Warner Cable’s television channel 98 since 1996. “It was a great experience,” Sacco says. “It’s the first time I’ve done something like that.”
A few long-running events, often spotlighting more traditional-style country, are holdovers. “We have the Cicero American Legion every Friday night for their fish fry and we play from 8 to 11 right there in the lounge,” Will points out. “We do all Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. That’s a real traditional country audience. We’ve been there going on three years.” The Southern Comfort Band, which often morphs into the Blue Suedes to play rock’n’roll, Elvis-style, behind vocalist Tom Gilbo, also checks in monthly at the Phoenix American Legion, where country is still king.
While fan support for the bands is growing, the artists still have to convince promoters and booking agents that they can attract an audience. “That’s the biggest part of the challenge,” Taylor declares. “What they tell me when I call is that country doesn’t draw. That’s what they’re saying. I don’t buy it. We’ve got country bands that can bring a crowd and they’re just as talented as other bands in town.”
Check out the Custom Taylor Band at Balloon Fest on Sunday, June 13, at 3:45 p.m. Admission is $7; free for children 10 and younger. Jamesville Beach is located along Route 91 (Apulia Road), just south of Jamesville. For more information, call 435-5252.
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