Rhonda Vincent and Listening Assignment #10

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I’m Not Over You, by Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, has a sound a lot like Alison Krauss and Union Station.  But in addition to her wonderful voice, she also plays the mandolin, guitar, dobro, and fiddle.  She, like Alison, also performs gospel songs and songs that sound more country.   Her song I’ve Gotta Start Somewhere sounds to me like Sara Evans singing, with more emphasis on the singing and a little less emphasis on the instruments.  

Rhonda was born in 1962 in Kirksville, Missouri, where she still resides.  Her musical career started when she was very young.  Her father bought her a snare drum when she was 6, but at age 8, she started playing mandolin in her family’s Sally Mountain Show.  Immediately expanding her thriving skills, she began taking guitar lessons by the age of 10.  She kept playing in bluegrass groups throughout school, but she had her eye on a bigger prize.  TNN had a TV series called “You Can be a Star” where she competed in 1985 and won.  Her award was a recording contract and she started appearing in the Grand Ole Opry.  Alison Krauss replaced her for a short while in the Vincent family’s band.  She branched out into country music, but was soon disappointed and returned to bluegrass music.  Her goal was to innovate bluegrass itself.  She now has 17 albums under her belt and 16 singles.  In the past decade she has been awarded 6 International Bluegrass Music Association awards.  One of her more recent albums  features a duet with Alison Krauss, along with several other songs that she co-wrote with Alison.  It seems to me that the bluegrass industry is just one big happy family.  Many bluegrass musicians change bands and wind up working with a lot of the same people, similar to the jazz music industry in Kansas City in the earlier 1900s.  I also found that Rhonda was with Rounder Records for a while, the same recording company Alison has worked with, and many other bluegrass stars. [1]

But I digress.  This music video was made in 2002 from her album “The Storm Still Rages”.  I’ve Forgotten You is written in 4/4 time.  Vocals (melody and harmony) are included along with the dobro, guitar, string bass, mandolin, and violin.  The form of this song is ABAB binary.  There is an intro, two choruses with a reference back to the intro inserted in between them, and an outro.

Video from YouTube.

The 5 measure intro (first measure begins with a  half rest) starts with the dobro, mandolin, guitar, and bass on two staccato notes, and the third note starts flowing into the rest of the piece as they all start finding their own places for the melody.  The rhythm is immediately established by the bass, guitar, and mandolin as they all strum/pluck on the 2^nd and 4^th beats of every measure. 

A – 16 measures – at end of 8 measures, mandolin picks for a short moment and returns to strumming.

B – 16 measures – vocals include melody and 3-part harmony (female voice in harmony is probably Sonya Isaacs but could also be Alison Krauss)

<4 measure reference back to the intro>

A- 16 measures – Rhonda singing melody again, no other vocals.  Same rhythm on guitar and bass, dobro drops out, mandolin starts conversing with Rhonda – fiddle starts laying slow, drawn-out notes around the 11^th bar

B – 16 measures – vocals same as first B section, violin starts bubbling up in the gaps

Outro - 4 measures just repeating the last phrase of the B section, mandolin and violin close down the song

I was surprised that I never heard the dobro come back in after the reference back to the introduction.  I was also impressed to find out that Rhonda Vincent can play so many instruments, because I thought she was limited to the mandolin and vocals.  I don’t know why I assumed that just because I’ve only seen her perform on the mandolin and sing.  It was quite naïve of me to assume that about a successful bluegrass musician.