A taste of the country in the Catskills
- Three-day event features Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, Sara Evans and more
Wherever you turn, there are mountains.
They don’t quite soar. But they command your attention nonetheless.
The day can be dusty. The terrain a little rocky. But that sherbet sunset at dusk will mark with ease your transition into nighttime and, perhaps, a bit of a chill in the air.
For thousands this weekend, the Catskill Mountains will offer a taste of the country – your country, my country, our country.
More specifically, Hunter Mountain in Greene County will offer the Taste of Country Music Festival, which gives Hudson Valley residents - including those who live in the urban settings of Poughkeepsie, Beacon or Kingston — the opportunity to literally head for the hills.
The third Taste of Country Music Festival begins today, Friday and continues through Sunday.
This festival will host some of country music’s biggest names, including Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban and Billy Currington.
“I think country music is our country’s music,” Keith, who is scheduled to perform Sunday, told the Journal during a recent telephone interview. “Everything else, in my opinion, is rooted more in music that was founded outside of our borders. I think these people who would sit on the porch on a cool summer evening and get their acoustic instruments out and play represent the tone of the lifestyle here.”
The Taste of Country Music Festival — which will also feature performances by Sara Evans and Sasha McVeigh — also underscores how big of a draw country music remains for the Hudson Valley, which is home to two country music radio stations - WRWD (107.3 FM) and WKXP (94.3 FM), which is also known as “The Wolf.”
And Hunter Mountain is not the only Hudson Valley venue that will host country music concerts in the coming months.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, on the site of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Sullivan County, will concerts by Brad Paisley, Florida Georgia Line and the Zac Brown Band. The Dutchess County Fair in Rhinebeck will host Dan and Shay and A Thousand Horses.
Jordan DiVito, 28, of Rosendale has seen country acts Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker perform. But, she said, country music, “Is not my thing.”
But, she added, “Recently a lot of my friends who never liked country music now love country music. I don’t know if they can relate to it more or maybe they like the up-and-coming people and it’s becoming more mainstream.”
Keith’s path to Hunter Mountain can be traced to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Keith was born in Oklahoma, but his grandmother, a widow, owned a supper club in Arkansas. She gave him a guitar when he was 8 and when he was 12, he spent the summer with her, working at the club.
“I was working in the back,” Keith recalled. “I took empty bottles back and stacked them and I brought new cases of beer up. I washed dishes.”
During the day, Keith said, the front part of the business was “a beer joint, with a jukebox and a pool table and a pinball machine.” They served sandwiches.
At night, Keith continued, “You’d pay a cover. They had a full band with a horn section and a baby grand piano. People got dressed up. They’d eat steak, shrimp and lobster. They would drink and dance and dine. It was kind of the last hurrah for the old supper clubs. It would have been something Al Capone might go to - but in Arkansas.”
Keith said his grandmother “ran a tight ship.”
“Watching her band play every night made me want to play,” he said. “To have that timing and make that sound and be that important. Without your band, you’re just in a dark room with canned music, eating a steak.”
Years later, Keith was working to make a name for himself as a songwriter in Nashville.
He gave a CD with some songs of his on it to a friend who worked as a stewardess. She attended a party with an executive from Mercury Records.
The party — attended by other music industry executives - was on a boat and the radio stopped working. Keith’s friend offered up his CD to entertain the party. The guy from Mercury Records liked what he heard, went and saw Keith play and signed him to a contract.
Keith has attained colossal success since that fateful boat ride. He has generated 32 number one songs. And www.forbes.com reported in July 2013 that Keith over the preceding 12 months had earned $65 million. Over his entire career, according to www.forbes.com, Keith’s total earnings surpass $500 million.
And it can all be traced back to Keith’s songwriting.
Keith told the Journal that he loves, “The whole creative process.”
“Just finding a gem and finding the little jewel and just refining it, making it into a masterpiece,” he said.
And that songwriting, those number one songs and Keith’s colossal career as a country music superstar will, this weekend, lead him to the Hudson Valley.
“Anybody who visits New York without visiting the state of New York is missing out,” he said. “People in the south don’t understand, even, what it looks like. They see New York City on TV and they have no idea. I probably serve as big an audience or bigger in the Northeast.”
John W. Barry: jobarry@poughkeepsiejournal.com, 845-437-4822; Twitter: @JohnBarryPoJo
If You Go
Taste of Country Music Festival
When: June 12-14
Where: Hunter Mountain, Hunter, Greene County
Information: Visit www.tasteofcountryfestival.com for information on tickets, performers, schedules, camping, the venue and more.
Did You Know?
The Taste of Country Music Festival is staged by Chet 5 Festivals and Townsquare Media. Chet 5 Festivals is owned by Gary Chetkof, owner of Radio Woodstock (WDST/100.1 FM). Townsquare Media owns a cluster of radio stations in Dutchess County.