Post by Charity on Jan 3, 2007 12:36:23 GMT -5
www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070101/News01/701010382/-1/NEWS01
January 01. 2007 6:59AM
Big country sounds come from small boy
Flint-area youth gets a shot at the Grand Ole Opry.
DOUG PULLEN
The Flint Journal
FLINT, Mich. (AP) -- The voice that bellows from the speakers in Clyde Vaughn's living room sounds young and old at the same time.
"Had me a woman," booms the voice, equal parts precocious and profound, clearly rooted in the rural traditions of country music.
There's the hint of a smile on Vaughn's lips as the music continues to pulse.
I got the lo-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh-nesome blues," comes the refrain, in a voice that modulates from a near-perfect yodel to a pained wail.
"He ain't afraid of nothing," Vaughn says proudly of the owner of that voice, his 11-year-old grandson, Dylan Grantham.
By all accounts, Dylan fearlessly performed the Hank Williams classic "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" for a very receptive audience at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on Oct. 7. The crowd's enthusiasm for the young natural is obvious on a recording of the event. "Go get 'em, boy," one man yells.
So enthusiastic was the response, in fact, that Dylan was allowed to sing a second song, rare for an unknown, and he responded with Merle Haggard's gritty "Rambling Fever."
The crowd that night at Nashville's storied music tradition was overwhelming.
"They gave him a standing ovation," his beaming grandpa says. "They wouldn't let him off the stage."
He wasn't the only one who was tickled pink that night.
"I guarantee that little guy is a ball of talent," says country singer and Opry member Mel McDaniel, who invited Dylan up on the stage that night. "I'm telling you. They don't stand up at the Opry for anybody. He got a full-fledged ovation. They were whooping and hollering like you never heard."
Dylan's big night was the culmination of a dream for Vaughn, 68, a Tennessee native who always wanted to go to the Opry. He was a 1996 inductee into the Michigan Country Music Hall of Fame and a longtime member of the Vaughns, a noted Flint-area Southern gospel family group.
Vaughn has been home schooling young Dylan and his older brother, Taylor, 15, ever since they were little. Obviously, the boys are learning about more than just history and multiplication.
Though Dylan has performed with the Vaughns -- which includes his mother, Tammy Grantham; an aunt, Debbie Caldwell, and his grandmother Freda Vaughn -- since he was 4, he didn't discover a love for classic country until he gave his grandfather a Marty Robbins album a few years ago.
"I liked it better than the others," Dylan says on a recent afternoon at his grandparents' Vienna Township residence, referring to the current country stars he used to favor. "It was the sound of it. It sounds so much different."
What struck his grandparents and his mother was how quickly the then 9-year-old, who loves football and video games, mastered the nuances of songs written and recorded years before he was born.
"He likes the feeling in the old country songs," Vaughn says. "A good artist can put a lot of feeling in a song."
The Vaughn family, confident in Dylan's ability to put a song across to an audience, started making the trek to Nashville in the hopes of making contacts in the music industry. McDaniel, best known for the songs "Louisiana Saturday Night" and "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On," overheard Dylan singing at one of his autograph signing sessions.
"He's got it inside him," McDaniel says by phone from Nashville. "He's doing some of my songs, too, now, so he's not all the way back there. He's doing what his grandfather has taught him to do, and he's doing it great. He does have that soul in him. He just has it all over him."
Grandpa agrees, noting that Dylan's musical education has been relatively easy for him.
"I didn't have to do much. He plays all the time," Vaughn says. "He'll do his school work and take off and do music. He can learn a song in one day. We almost have to pull him away to eat," he says.
It helps that Clyde and Freda Vaughn live next door to daughters Tammy and Debbie in three houses on a 20-acre plot of land in Genesee County's Vienna Township near Clio. But Vaughn readily admits the family would like to move to Nashville "as soon as we can" to get Dylan's career on track.
January 01. 2007 6:59AM
Big country sounds come from small boy
Flint-area youth gets a shot at the Grand Ole Opry.
DOUG PULLEN
The Flint Journal
FLINT, Mich. (AP) -- The voice that bellows from the speakers in Clyde Vaughn's living room sounds young and old at the same time.
"Had me a woman," booms the voice, equal parts precocious and profound, clearly rooted in the rural traditions of country music.
There's the hint of a smile on Vaughn's lips as the music continues to pulse.
I got the lo-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh-nesome blues," comes the refrain, in a voice that modulates from a near-perfect yodel to a pained wail.
"He ain't afraid of nothing," Vaughn says proudly of the owner of that voice, his 11-year-old grandson, Dylan Grantham.
By all accounts, Dylan fearlessly performed the Hank Williams classic "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" for a very receptive audience at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on Oct. 7. The crowd's enthusiasm for the young natural is obvious on a recording of the event. "Go get 'em, boy," one man yells.
So enthusiastic was the response, in fact, that Dylan was allowed to sing a second song, rare for an unknown, and he responded with Merle Haggard's gritty "Rambling Fever."
The crowd that night at Nashville's storied music tradition was overwhelming.
"They gave him a standing ovation," his beaming grandpa says. "They wouldn't let him off the stage."
He wasn't the only one who was tickled pink that night.
"I guarantee that little guy is a ball of talent," says country singer and Opry member Mel McDaniel, who invited Dylan up on the stage that night. "I'm telling you. They don't stand up at the Opry for anybody. He got a full-fledged ovation. They were whooping and hollering like you never heard."
Dylan's big night was the culmination of a dream for Vaughn, 68, a Tennessee native who always wanted to go to the Opry. He was a 1996 inductee into the Michigan Country Music Hall of Fame and a longtime member of the Vaughns, a noted Flint-area Southern gospel family group.
Vaughn has been home schooling young Dylan and his older brother, Taylor, 15, ever since they were little. Obviously, the boys are learning about more than just history and multiplication.
Though Dylan has performed with the Vaughns -- which includes his mother, Tammy Grantham; an aunt, Debbie Caldwell, and his grandmother Freda Vaughn -- since he was 4, he didn't discover a love for classic country until he gave his grandfather a Marty Robbins album a few years ago.
"I liked it better than the others," Dylan says on a recent afternoon at his grandparents' Vienna Township residence, referring to the current country stars he used to favor. "It was the sound of it. It sounds so much different."
What struck his grandparents and his mother was how quickly the then 9-year-old, who loves football and video games, mastered the nuances of songs written and recorded years before he was born.
"He likes the feeling in the old country songs," Vaughn says. "A good artist can put a lot of feeling in a song."
The Vaughn family, confident in Dylan's ability to put a song across to an audience, started making the trek to Nashville in the hopes of making contacts in the music industry. McDaniel, best known for the songs "Louisiana Saturday Night" and "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On," overheard Dylan singing at one of his autograph signing sessions.
"He's got it inside him," McDaniel says by phone from Nashville. "He's doing some of my songs, too, now, so he's not all the way back there. He's doing what his grandfather has taught him to do, and he's doing it great. He does have that soul in him. He just has it all over him."
Grandpa agrees, noting that Dylan's musical education has been relatively easy for him.
"I didn't have to do much. He plays all the time," Vaughn says. "He'll do his school work and take off and do music. He can learn a song in one day. We almost have to pull him away to eat," he says.
It helps that Clyde and Freda Vaughn live next door to daughters Tammy and Debbie in three houses on a 20-acre plot of land in Genesee County's Vienna Township near Clio. But Vaughn readily admits the family would like to move to Nashville "as soon as we can" to get Dylan's career on track.