The irrepressible spirit of country music has been in Jo Dee’s DNA since her childhood in Holliston, Massachusetts. She was first attracted to country in the music of Alabama and Hank Jr. as well as Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire. She appeared in local plays and musicals as a girl, and by 16 she had a band that included her sister on bass and her brother on drums. She performed in clubs throughout the Northeast, booking shows and hauling gear, with a work ethic she inherited from her single-parent mother.
At 19, she loaded a car and headed to Nashville, where she entered talent contests and got a regular gig on Nashville’s "Live at Libby’s" radio show. Producer Byron Gallimore heard her and introduced her to another struggling newcomer named Tim McGraw. Jo Dee was signed, and then dropped by one major label before. At a backstage meeting at Fan fair, she met and charmed a Curb Records executive and got a record deal on the spot.
With Gallimore and McGraw producing, Jo Dee gained attention out of the box with "Heads Carolina, Tails California" and "You’re Not In Kansas Anymore." Her follow-up album, I’m Alright, exploded with its back-to-back-to-back chart-toppers "Bye Bye" (ASCAP’s Song of the Year), "I’m Alright" and "Stand Beside Me" made her a star. Jo Dee won the ACM’s Top New Female Vocalist award, the CMA Horizon award and the nod for Most Played Country Female of 1999 from Billboard. The Burn album entered the Country Albums chart at #1, went platinum and earned two Grammy nominations. Hits like "Lesson in Leavin’," "Because You Love Me," "Downtime," "Bring On The Rain," "That’s The Way" and "My Give A Damn’s Busted" would cement her reputation as one of country’s most loved and enduring hit-makers. Along the way, Jo Dee earned a well-deserved reputation as an electric live performer, becoming one of the first women of country to mount a major headlining tour.
Jo Dee’s drive is evident in her personal life as well. A dedicated runner, she has completed two marathons and still trains. "On the road, I’ll get up and run, and since my steel player is training with me we run together," she says. "Then I go to the gym and lift weights, have lunch, do the sound check and then my meet and greet, do the show and get to bed as early as I can. No staying up late partying!"
Her marriage to Chris Deffenbaugh and the addition of their son, Noah, in January 2009, is part of a life in which genuine comfort and happiness seem to be the main order of business. Balancing motherhood and her career is a challenge she is facing head-on with a joy befitting the situation.
"My guard is kind of let down a little," she says. "I’m a little more vulnerable because I am in a safe place. And it’s not just my personal life, but me as a person. I’ve just grown. I’ve realized that I can only be who I am. I was married to my career for years," she says. It came first. It came before birthdays, it came before weddings and funerals, and it came before everything. A couple of years ago I said, ‘Wait a minute! This garden needs some tending. The most real thing in my life is relationships.’"
For Jo Dee, it’s now about balance and living life to the fullest.
At 19, she loaded a car and headed to Nashville, where she entered talent contests and got a regular gig on Nashville’s "Live at Libby’s" radio show. Producer Byron Gallimore heard her and introduced her to another struggling newcomer named Tim McGraw. Jo Dee was signed, and then dropped by one major label before. At a backstage meeting at Fan fair, she met and charmed a Curb Records executive and got a record deal on the spot.
With Gallimore and McGraw producing, Jo Dee gained attention out of the box with "Heads Carolina, Tails California" and "You’re Not In Kansas Anymore." Her follow-up album, I’m Alright, exploded with its back-to-back-to-back chart-toppers "Bye Bye" (ASCAP’s Song of the Year), "I’m Alright" and "Stand Beside Me" made her a star. Jo Dee won the ACM’s Top New Female Vocalist award, the CMA Horizon award and the nod for Most Played Country Female of 1999 from Billboard. The Burn album entered the Country Albums chart at #1, went platinum and earned two Grammy nominations. Hits like "Lesson in Leavin’," "Because You Love Me," "Downtime," "Bring On The Rain," "That’s The Way" and "My Give A Damn’s Busted" would cement her reputation as one of country’s most loved and enduring hit-makers. Along the way, Jo Dee earned a well-deserved reputation as an electric live performer, becoming one of the first women of country to mount a major headlining tour.
Jo Dee’s drive is evident in her personal life as well. A dedicated runner, she has completed two marathons and still trains. "On the road, I’ll get up and run, and since my steel player is training with me we run together," she says. "Then I go to the gym and lift weights, have lunch, do the sound check and then my meet and greet, do the show and get to bed as early as I can. No staying up late partying!"
Her marriage to Chris Deffenbaugh and the addition of their son, Noah, in January 2009, is part of a life in which genuine comfort and happiness seem to be the main order of business. Balancing motherhood and her career is a challenge she is facing head-on with a joy befitting the situation.
"My guard is kind of let down a little," she says. "I’m a little more vulnerable because I am in a safe place. And it’s not just my personal life, but me as a person. I’ve just grown. I’ve realized that I can only be who I am. I was married to my career for years," she says. It came first. It came before birthdays, it came before weddings and funerals, and it came before everything. A couple of years ago I said, ‘Wait a minute! This garden needs some tending. The most real thing in my life is relationships.’"
For Jo Dee, it’s now about balance and living life to the fullest.
For more than two decades, Gin Blossoms have defined the sound of jangle pop. From their late 80s start as Arizona's top indie rock outfit, the Tempe-based combo has drawn critical applause and massive popular success for their trademark brand of chiming guitars, introspective lyricism, and irresistible melodies. Gin Blossoms soon unfurled a chain of crossover favorites spanning five different formats, from "Hey Jealousy" and "Until I Fall Away" to "Follow You Down" and the GRAMMY®-nominated "As Long As It Matters," earning the band sales in excess of 10 million in the US alone.
Singer/guitarist Robin Wilson, guitarist Jesse Valenzuela, and bassist Bill Leen co-founded Gin Blossoms in 1987 and quickly became the toast of the Grand Canyon State's local scene. Blending an array of influences – from The Beatles and The Byrds to The Band and The Buckaroos – with pure pop songwriting and their own post-adolescent energy, the band hit upon a truly thrilling sonic approach that instantly set them at the forefront of the always-adventurous American underground. "We were on a course," Wilson says, "inspired by our influences. The bands that unified us were our forefathers like Cheap Trick and R.E.M, The Replacements and The Plimsouls. Those were bands that all of us as Gin Blossoms had in common. When people ask me, what kinda band are you in, I say, 'We're a classic rock band.'"Having taken the local scene by storm with their magnetic live show, Gin Blossoms made their recorded debut in 1989 with Dusted. The album – released on the influential Arizona indie label, San Jacinto Records – highlighted Valenzuela and Wilson's nascent knack for preternaturally catchy hooks and vigorous musicianship. It wasn't long before the majors came a-callin', with A&M Records ultimately the lucky label to get Gin Blossoms' signature on a contract.Gin Blossoms immediately released 1991's self-recorded Up and Crumbling EP and got right to work on their major label debut proper. The band hit Memphis' legendary Ardent Studio to record with equally famed producer/engineer John Hampton (The Replacements, Alex Chilton, The Cramps), armed with such now-classic tunes as "Until I Fall Away," "Allison Road" "Hey Jealousy," and "Found Out About You," the latter two penned by founding member Doug Hopkins. Sadly, Hopkins was asked to leave the band before the album's completion and later took his own life. Lead guitar duties were then taken up by Scott "Scotty" Johnson who promptly put his own indelible six-string imprint on the band's guitar-driven sound.Justly regarded as one of the era's milestone works, New Miserable Experience earned critical acclaim upon its 1992 arrival before exploding into the popular consciousness. "Hey Jealousy" was one of 1993's essential singles, ruling the top 5 at Mainstream Rock radio before ascending to the top 25 on Billboard's "Hot 100." The following year saw "Found Out About You" reach equivalent height on the "Hot 100," while also eclipsing its predecessor by reaching the #1 spot on Billboard's "Modern Rock Tracks" tally. Gin Blossoms toured hard as they wrote their next album, scoring still another smash in the meantime with "Til I Hear It From You," the first single from A&M's Empire Records: The Soundtrack. The unforgettable track – written by Valenzuela, Wilson, and the great singer/songwriter Marshall Crenshaw – was hailed by Billboard as "the closest thing to a perfect pop song to hit radio in recent memory," and as such, duly rose all the way to the top 10 on Billboard's "Hot 100.""Til I Hear It From You" confirmed Gin Blossoms as surefire soundtrack favorites and their songs were soon featured on the RIAA gold and/or platinum certified companion albums to such blockbusters as Speed, Wayne's World 2, and several others. The band were also inescapable presences on TV, dominating MTV and performing on such prestigious shows as Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Saturday Night Live.Congratulations I'm Sorry arrived at last in 1996 and immediately ascended to the top 10 on the Billboard 200, fueled in part by the top 5 single, "Follow You Down." Moreover, the album's next single, "As Long As It Matters," earned Gin Blossoms a prestigious GRAMMY® nomination for "Best Performance by a Duo or Group." Alas, the band was denied the prize as an up-and-coming young Liverpudlian combo took home the trophy in their stead."It was pretty cool to lose a GRAMMY® to The Beatles," Valenzuela says. "Who else would you want to lose out to?" Having dominated radio and MTV playlists for most of the 90s, Gin Blossoms took a brief turn of the century hiatus, a provisional parting of the ways that Wilson chalks up to "personal dissatisfaction and the mistaken impression that we could perform at that same level with another group." The brief break allowed Valenzuela and Wilson to reenergize via solo recordings, new combos, and production credits for an array of local Arizona acts. However, Gin Blossoms' idiosyncratic magic proved impossible to ignore for long and on New Years Eve 2001 in their hometown of Tempe the band reconvened and never looked back.The revivified band hit the road hard, earning a well-deserved reputation as one of the busiest touring acts in the world, playing close to 150 shows a year. Those chops were readily apparent on 2006's Major Lodge Victory – Gin Blossoms' long awaited fourth album and first new recording in almost a decade. Rave reviews followed, as did a top 10 Triple A smash in the album's lead single, "Learning The Hard Way." As ever, Gin Blossoms traveled the globe in support of Major Lodge Victory and beyond, their singular onstage power captured for posterity on 2009's Gin Blossoms Live In Concert. No Chocolate Cake, the band's fifth studio collection and 429 Records debut, proved another popular success upon its 2010 arrival, reaching #1 on the Amazon.com sales chart while also earning yet another Hot AC hit with "Miss Disarray."Gin Blossoms' non-stop itinerary carried on, with highlights including a five-city tour of Iraq and Kuwait in 2010. In addition to innumerable headline dates, the band – now featuring drummer Scott Hessell performing alongside Wilson, Valenzuela, Leen, and Johnson – have shared the top of the bill on a pair of successful summer tours featuring an array of chart topping stars from the 90s. Summerland in 2012 was followed by 2013's Under The Sun Tour, a traveling summer festival co-headlined by Gin Blossoms alongside fellow alternative icons Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth.
For more than 30 years, the Bellamy Brothers have been an unassuming picture of consistency in Country music, crafting honest, heartfelt songs that connect with millions of listeners around the world. Even more remarkable is the fact that they’ve remained relevant in a genre that has become increasingly enamored with style over substance, glitz over grit, and fleeting celebrity over artistic vision. Yet Howard and David Bellamy have weathered the trends admirably, enjoying enormous success throughout their career with numerous No. 1 hits on both the Pop and Country charts.
Evidence of the Brothers’ continued popularity today isn’t hard to find. In 2009 alone, “Let Your Love Flow” received the distinguished BMI Five Million Performance Award and was listed at No. 68 on their Top 100 Songs of the Century. It was also prominently featured in the critically acclaimed AMC television series ‘Breaking Bad.’ The ‘70s smash even broke into the Top 20 on the UK Country charts again – 34 years after it was first released!
“In 2008, Barclay Bank used ‘Let Your Love Flow’ for a television commercial in the UK,” Howard explains. “It went Top 20 on the charts, then to No. 1 on the catalog download charts, and then eventually to No. 1 on a compilation album, too! Not bad for a song we cut almost 35 years ago!”
2009 also found the duo partnering with another set of famous siblings, the Bacon Brothers. The unlikely pair teamed up in Memphis to shoot a video for the song “Guilty of the Crime,” the Brothers’ new single from their forthcoming 35-year anniversary collection, The Anthology, Vol. 1. It’s yet another example of the forward-thinking philosophy that helped the modest brothers from Darby, Florida, make the leap to legendary performers.
Howard and David Bellamy were influenced early in their career while touring with R&B acts like Percy Sledge, Eddie Floyd and Little Anthony & the Imperials. Later, the duo benefited from time spent around the blossoming Country/Rock scene in Atlanta, Ga. After moving to the West Coast in the early ‘70s, however, the Brothers developed their own sound and scored perhaps the biggest hit of their career in 1976 with “Let Your Love Flow.” The song was a smash in both the U.S. and Europe, shooting to the top of the Pop charts and helping establish an international fan base that still eagerly awaits the Bellamys’ annual pilgrimage overseas.
The Brothers continued to produce No.1 hit after No. 1 hit in the years that followed,totaling more than a dozen chart-topping singles in the U.S. and Europe. “If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me),” “Sugar Daddy,” “Dancin’ Cowboys,” “Do You Love As Good As You Look,” “Redneck Girl,” “When I’m Away From You,” “I Need More Of You,” “Old Hippie,” “Kids of the Baby Boom,” “Too Much Is Not Enough,” “Crazy From the Heart,” “Santa Fe” and “I Could Be Persuaded” are just some of the Bellamys’ Top Ten hits that populated the Pop/Rock and Country charts from the ‘70s into the ‘90s.
As the last decade of the millennium gathered steam, so did the Brothers’ creativity. They started their own label (Bellamy Brothers Records) in 1992, producing six independent albums in the ‘90s and several more for exclusive release in Europe on Jupiter Records. It was also a period that prepared the Bellamys for a record number of nominations (since 2000) at the CMA and ACM Awards in the Duo category – another highlight in a career that has unmistakably influenced many of today’s most successful duo acts, including Montgomery Gentry, Big & Rich and Brooks & Dunn, to name just a few.
Today, the Bellamys’ dedicated domestic and international fan base continues to allow the legendary brothers to tour around the globe at their leisure, having performed for fans and military personnel in just about every country imaginable. It’s a routine that has yet to get old for the pair.
“Touring has always been the lifeblood of our career,” says David. “We’re very fortunate in that a lot of our songs were hits around thtouring for us continues to be the most basic, grassroots connection with the people who like our music.”
The Bellamy Brothers’ success and longevity in the Country and Pop genres is a feat that few acts have duplicated, though one many have envied. What began as an unlikely duo from Darby, Florida has emerged 35 years later as one of the most successful and respected groups in Country music history. And they’re still going strong…
Evidence of the Brothers’ continued popularity today isn’t hard to find. In 2009 alone, “Let Your Love Flow” received the distinguished BMI Five Million Performance Award and was listed at No. 68 on their Top 100 Songs of the Century. It was also prominently featured in the critically acclaimed AMC television series ‘Breaking Bad.’ The ‘70s smash even broke into the Top 20 on the UK Country charts again – 34 years after it was first released!
“In 2008, Barclay Bank used ‘Let Your Love Flow’ for a television commercial in the UK,” Howard explains. “It went Top 20 on the charts, then to No. 1 on the catalog download charts, and then eventually to No. 1 on a compilation album, too! Not bad for a song we cut almost 35 years ago!”
2009 also found the duo partnering with another set of famous siblings, the Bacon Brothers. The unlikely pair teamed up in Memphis to shoot a video for the song “Guilty of the Crime,” the Brothers’ new single from their forthcoming 35-year anniversary collection, The Anthology, Vol. 1. It’s yet another example of the forward-thinking philosophy that helped the modest brothers from Darby, Florida, make the leap to legendary performers.
Howard and David Bellamy were influenced early in their career while touring with R&B acts like Percy Sledge, Eddie Floyd and Little Anthony & the Imperials. Later, the duo benefited from time spent around the blossoming Country/Rock scene in Atlanta, Ga. After moving to the West Coast in the early ‘70s, however, the Brothers developed their own sound and scored perhaps the biggest hit of their career in 1976 with “Let Your Love Flow.” The song was a smash in both the U.S. and Europe, shooting to the top of the Pop charts and helping establish an international fan base that still eagerly awaits the Bellamys’ annual pilgrimage overseas.
The Brothers continued to produce No.1 hit after No. 1 hit in the years that followed,totaling more than a dozen chart-topping singles in the U.S. and Europe. “If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me),” “Sugar Daddy,” “Dancin’ Cowboys,” “Do You Love As Good As You Look,” “Redneck Girl,” “When I’m Away From You,” “I Need More Of You,” “Old Hippie,” “Kids of the Baby Boom,” “Too Much Is Not Enough,” “Crazy From the Heart,” “Santa Fe” and “I Could Be Persuaded” are just some of the Bellamys’ Top Ten hits that populated the Pop/Rock and Country charts from the ‘70s into the ‘90s.
As the last decade of the millennium gathered steam, so did the Brothers’ creativity. They started their own label (Bellamy Brothers Records) in 1992, producing six independent albums in the ‘90s and several more for exclusive release in Europe on Jupiter Records. It was also a period that prepared the Bellamys for a record number of nominations (since 2000) at the CMA and ACM Awards in the Duo category – another highlight in a career that has unmistakably influenced many of today’s most successful duo acts, including Montgomery Gentry, Big & Rich and Brooks & Dunn, to name just a few.
Today, the Bellamys’ dedicated domestic and international fan base continues to allow the legendary brothers to tour around the globe at their leisure, having performed for fans and military personnel in just about every country imaginable. It’s a routine that has yet to get old for the pair.
“Touring has always been the lifeblood of our career,” says David. “We’re very fortunate in that a lot of our songs were hits around thtouring for us continues to be the most basic, grassroots connection with the people who like our music.”
The Bellamy Brothers’ success and longevity in the Country and Pop genres is a feat that few acts have duplicated, though one many have envied. What began as an unlikely duo from Darby, Florida has emerged 35 years later as one of the most successful and respected groups in Country music history. And they’re still going strong…
