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Y! MyWebFamily bonds through bluegrass
Cherryholmes plays Summer Arts Festival on July 5
AUDIO CLIP: Listen to Cherryholmes sing "I Don't Know"
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Extras
CherryholmesSPRINGFIELD — The story behind the Cherryholmes family is so unbelievably rewarding, it requires little in the way of creative embellishment.
It's so fulfilling, in fact, it can be expressed in something as boring and efficient as bullet points:
• In 1999, Jere and Sandy Lee Cherryholmes lost their 20-year-old daughter, Shelly, to heart problems.
• In an attempt to cheer themselves up, Jere and Sandy took their other kids — Cia, B.J., Skip and Molly — to a bluegrass festival.
• They all had such a good time, they decided to teach themselves how to play bluegrass. Mom and Dad doled out the proper instruments to the kids, and Mom made room for a 30-minute music lesson in their home-schooled schedule.
• Just a few years later, Cherryholmes — now the name of their group — was named entertainer of the year for 2005 by the International Bluegrass Music Association.
• Jere quit his job as a carpenter with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the family came east, to real bluegrass country.
• The group has picked up two Grammy nominations and appears regularly at the Grand Ole Opry.
There. See?
Insanely compelling stuff.
For Cherryholmes, the unlikely trail to bluegrass superstardom passes through the Summer Arts Festival on Saturday, July 5, when the family headlines a night of mountain music in Veterans Park.
And, really, nobody's more surprised by the success of Cherryholmes than Mom and Dad.
"It didn't really matter how good anybody was," explained Sandy Cherryholmes, who took up mandolin only after the other instruments were passed out. "We did it as a way to experience something together. That was our goal. The only goal."
That the four kids — ranging in age from 6 to 15 — could actually play was a pleasant surprise.
"We didn't have any reason to believe they had any phenomenal amount of talent," Sandy Cherryholmes confessed.
But as the family has discovered, a little authenticity has gone a long way.
Basically, if any modern American family was going to suddenly become bluegrass stars, this was the one.
"Because we have lived the way we lived," Sandy Cherryholmes said, "that's what makes us who we are."
Despite living in southern California at the time — Jere was L.A. born and bred, while Sandy was a Buckeye, having grown up in Cuyahoga Falls — the family might as well have been living in some holler in Kentucky.
Circa mid-20th century.
Church and family were the big things in their lives.
They didn't have a computer and didn't watch much TV.
Jere and Sandy had bought up some land in Arizona, where they planned to spend their retirement years in a "survivalist situation" — that is, in a cabin they'd have to build themselves and without running water.
She taught the kids at home.
"At night, we had a family jam," she said. "We've always had our family time.
"It was very organic for us, and when we got in front of a microphone, it became very real."
Kentucky kid Ricky Skaggs, no stranger to true bluegrass ways, signed the group to his Skaggs Family Records label.
The group's second album, "Cherryholmes II: Black and White," debuted atop Billboard's bluegrass chart last year.
They'll release their third album in September. The family also will be doing shows with symphony orchestras.
"It's a reflection of the growth that's taken place in the band," Sandy Cherryholmes said of the upcoming album.
They've also since forgotten about retiring to no-man's land in favor of buying a house north of Nashville. (It's closer to the Opry than some desert mountain encampment.)
"We haven't had a house since 2002," she said.
That was the year Jere took an early retirement from his day job to do bluegrass full-time.
They did, however, have a bus to bring them eastward.
The family then relied on friends, she said, "who were nice enough to let us park in their driveway for 5 or 6 years."
The Cherryholmes family might have scurried up the bluegrass ranks quickly, but they prefer to live life the old fashioned way — slow.
The act of quitting a job and selling the house was a calculated one.
"We're daring," Sandy Cherryholmes said, "but we aren't stupid."
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
How to go
Who: Cherryholmes, with Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers and the Muleskinner Band opening
When: The music begins at 5 p.m. Saturday, with Cherryholmes taking the stage at 8
Where: Veterans Park, rain or shine, as part of the Summer Arts Festival
