{"id":23454,"date":"2022-08-03T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T09:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23454"},"modified":"2022-08-01T09:15:24","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T13:15:24","slug":"deep-river-celebrates-30-year-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/03\/deep-river-celebrates-30-year-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep River Celebrates 30 Year Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, Asheville-based, female-fronted country ensemble Deep River celebrates 30 years of making music together.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In 1991, Sharon Lewis was singing and playing drums in an all-woman group she had founded, Amethyst Country. She says that the group broke up the following year because \u201cthe other three women were willing to play in smoky bars, and I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Lewis already had another band concept in mind. \u201cI decided to create a band featuring three woman vocalists: a soprano, first alto and second alto \u2013 for maximum vocal range,\u201d she explains. But that wasn\u2019t all. The group she envisioned would also feature three male instrumentalists, and Lewis would continue to supply the back beat. \u201cPerfect yin-yang,\u201d she says. \u201cBy early summer 1992, Deep River was born!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A few months later, one of the original trio of vocalists left the group. After auditions for a replacement, Sandy Howard got the job. (Today Howard and Lewis are married partners in life, too.) The group settled in Nashville and sought a major-label record deal. But Lewis says that the band\u2019s agent wasn\u2019t encouraging, telling them they were \u201ctoo old.\u201d Lewis didn\u2019t buy that explanation. \u201cWe knew by then that what he couldn\u2019t bring himself to say was that we were \u2018too gay,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cNeedless to say, it was soul-crushing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lewis and Howard moved their home and band to Asheville, a more eclectic and welcoming market. But that didn\u2019t eliminate every challenge. \u201cWe\u2019ve had to work hard to find venues for our \u201880s and \u201890s brand of country music,\u201d Lewis says. \u201cBecause Asheville is simply not a country music town.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Deep River would persist, showcasing the group\u2019s signature vocal harmonies with superb instrumental backing. And the entire enterprise is built on a no-nonsense, meticulously organized and businesslike foundation; Lewis runs a tight ship. \u201cEvery song has a chart and either an MP3 or video,\u201d she says. \u201cEvery musician is expected to learn their parts before coming to rehearsal, every weekly rehearsal has an agenda, and in rehearsals and gigs alike we expect all members to pay attention to tempo, dynamics, starts and stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to \u201cinnumerable\u201d private events, the group maintains a busy public concert schedule. Favorite Deep River venues include the Grove Park Inn, The Grey Eagle, the Feed & Seed in Fletcher, Isis Music Hall and the Purple Onion in Saluda.<\/p>\n

All that hard work has earned Deep River a dedicated following. \u201cW<\/span>e\u2019ve enjoyed a lot of support from our local fan base, which tends to be Baby Boomers and GenX folks, and especially the LGBTQI community,\u201d Lewis says. <\/p>\n

Deep River celebrated 30 years of music with a July 9 concert at Isis. Photos and videos helped tell the band\u2019s story while the music played. \u201cWe\u2019re collaborating with local digital artist Nathan Ebanks to produce our first ever multimedia show,\u201d Lewis says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer, Asheville-based, female-fronted country ensemble Deep River celebrates 30 years of making music together. In 1991, Sharon Lewis was singing and playing drums in an all-woman group she had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,41],"tags":[237,4899],"class_list":["post-23454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-country","category-interview","tag-asheville","tag-deep-river","cat-20-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23457,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23454\/revisions\/23457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}