Sunday, January 21, 2007
Beyonce's stick gal has Salem roots
Ralph Berrier
Riffs, the regional music scene as heard by The Roanoke Times reporter Ralph Berrier, will appear weekly on Sundays.
Recent columns
Looks like all that pounding and racket-making paid off for Enos Glaspie's little girl.
Glaspie is a Salem native who returned to his hometown a few years ago after his sales career took him up and down the East Coast. His little girl is Nikki Glaspie, who ain't so little anymore considering she turned 23 on Christmas Day.
Nikki showed an early talent for music, especially percussion. She drummed on anything she could beat her fists on until her parents finally bought her a kiddie drum set when she was 2. Nikki played various instruments in school bands and eventually enrolled in Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music.
Nikki got a job playing drums behind funky sax player Sam Kininger before moving to New York to look for more gigs. She put together bands with friends while touring and recording with Kininger. One day, she decided to audition for a spot on tour as a drummer for Beyonce.
Yes, that Beyonce. You know any other Beyonces?
On June 18, 2006, she got the gig.
She toured with Beyonce last fall and will head out on a European tour in the spring.
On top of all that, she appears on the cover of Modern Drummer magazine.
No, Nikki never called Salem home. She did live here a while when she was a baby, but she grew up mostly in Maryland and North Carolina. But her daddy is back home, and he bought 50 copies of Modern Drummer for all the local members of the Nikki Glaspie fan club.
Even though she isn't really from here, she has deep roots here. And that's what music is all about, isn't it? The roots.
Dishwash the skips
This fascinating music tip comes courtesy of Times' sportswriter Doug Doughty, whose knowledge of popular music would surprise those who have seen him dance, which I have, unfortunately. He claims to have devised a way to clean compact discs that skip:
"Just slap 'em in the dishwasher. Had an old R.E.M. CD that had been skipping for years. It's not that good a CD, but at least it doesn't skip anymore."
I have not tried this method myself, and I am not sure what the suits at Whirlpool think of it, but I am intrigued. I asked Doughty how he stumbled on to such a cure. Was it by design or accident? Had he used the CD as a coaster and need to wash the beer stains off it? Why the dishwasher?
"I thought it would be a little dangerous to put it in the washing machine," he said.
Next stop: bluegrass
You're a young musician and singer in Roanoke. You have worked with everyone from classic rockers the Kings to country veterans Cimmaron to local funk masters Bernard Hairston and Kelly Gravley. You have toured with Tower of Power's Mic Gillette and performed with those sandy-haired beach bums, the Embers.
So, what full-time gig do you get next? Why, lead singer in a bluegrass band, naturally.
Martinsville native and Roanoke resident Josh Shilling, 23, was recently hired as singer for the primo bluegrass outfit Mountain Heart. Shilling, whose musical resume matches that of someone mentioned in an earlier paragraph, hooked up with the band through a mutual friend, sound engineer Scotty Bolen. Even though he had never sung bluegrass, he was familiar with the music from a life spent in Virginia's mountains and Piedmont.
According to thebluegrassblog.com, Shilling told veteran writer Jon Weisberger, "I've got everything from Bill Monroe to Tower of Power, and I find something I like in all of it."
Shilling said that the trickiest part of bluegrass is not the vocal but the rhythm guitar playing.
"Playing rhythm guitar with these guys has been a big challenge," he told Weisberger. "It always seemed almost obsolete in the other bands I've played in. It was like, 'I'm just trying to fill a hole here, who cares what it sounds like?' But here, it's very important. You either do it right or don't do it at all."
Shilling and Mountain Heart performed on the Grand Ole Opry on Jan. 5 and 6. Early reviews were favorable. With Shilling's soaring voice in the lead, the band might want to consider changing its name to Mountain Heart and Soul.
