Passion for Bluegrass
GOOGLE ‘BLUEGRASS’ AND ‘ILLINOIS’ AND PAGE AFTER PAGE WILL SCROLL ACROSS YOUR SCREEN. YOU WILL BE INUNDATED WITH WEBSITES FOR LISTINGS OF MONTHLY CONCERTS, JAMS AND FESTIVALS, HOW TO HIRE BLUEGRASS ENTERTAINMENT, HOW TO JOIN A BLUEGRASS BAND, START YOUR OWN… THE OPTIONS ARE ENDLESS. IT IS LITTLE WONDER THEN THAT BAY OF PLENTY GAL, GINA WEATHERFORD, FOUND HER WAY TO THAT PARTICULAR NECK OF THE WOODS, SUCH IS HER PASSION FOR COUNTRY AND BLUEGRASS SINGING.
Story: Pip Crombie Photography: Roland Bart Ebbing
HER PASSION has become a recognised skill. Earlier in 2007, having returned to New Zealand, Gina won the Senior Gospel Award, the over 18 New Talent Award and was runner up in the Senior Female Award in her Te Puke Country Music Club.
A month later her original song won the Songwriters’ Award at the Gold Star Awards in Papakura and then went on to win the Songwriter of the Year award at the 2007 Country Music, Entertainer of the Year in Rotorua last September. This perky, petite and entirely engaging woman now has her eye on entering - and winning! - a Golden Guitar and Apra award for her country music song in 2008. Oh, and a Tui Award would be lovely too she thinks.
Gina’s musical road has not been one you would call typical. Even she has trouble recounting what came first in her quest for musical prowess. Gina moved from Wanganui to Hamilton as a young teenager, the reason for the move to follow a reputed diving coach. She trained ‘maniacally’ and at the age of 16 was placed sixth in the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in that sport. Throwing herself in the deep end became something of a theme for Gina. She walked off the street in Tauranga to the then Coastline FM Radio Station and said, “I’d like a job”. Her demand was granted and she spent time writing jingles and advertisements for the radio station.
But a visit to Tamworth Country Musical Festival in Australia in 1998 at the age of 25, was a major turning point in her life. She had been living and working in Australia and the trip to the festival which was just an outing with friends, changed her life.
“I just loved the music. I was immediately hooked. And I thought I might have a decent voice,” she laughs. So, with only a year of piano tuition behind her “at some stage during school”, Gina decided she would attend the Australian College of Country Music - never mind that you had to be able to play the guitar, have two of your own songs written and recorded plus all manner of bios and photos. “I was pretty bad!” she recalls. “People had been working towards it for ages - it was really embarrassing at the time and even now when I think about it. But it was fun!”
The condensed, intensive course culminated at a festival and you guessed it, Gina loved performing.
Dating Site
After this positive start, Gina inadvertently lost direction with her music. She returned to Auckland and continued with her writing and singing and playing, trying on a couple of occasions to get a band together but without much success. During this time she became a Christian, something which she says is very important to her and may have been part of the reason she was drawn to bluegrass singing, that particular genre of music sometimes described as a kind of minstrel song, spiritualised.
It was through her meeting on an Internet dating site with now husband Chad, an American, which led her to reigniting her muse once more. With a typically lightning speed decision, Gina and Chad decided to marry two weeks into her month long stay with him in Rockford, Illinois. The ceremony was held in a small town called Oregon in the same state, witnessed by his bosses. Chad’s work as a graphic designer meant Gina was again in the company of a creative medium, and indeed Chad is currently working on the artwork for a new album for Janelle Monae, a new artist recently signed by P.Diddy’s Bad Boy label in the U.S.
The couple moved to the town of Rochelle, Illinois, population 9,000. It was during the three years they spent there before their return to the Bay of Plenty, that Gina threw herself into country music and bluegrass music. Through her church she joined regular ‘open mike nights’ and around the general area they lived in, Gina would attend musical gatherings and festivals. One of the major differences she notices with the Te Puke Country Music Club, is that in Illinois, you had to be able to play your own guitar, even if you became part of a group. Here, you can roll up with sheet music and have a backing band to support you. Another difference would be the culture within which country and bluegrass music is immersed in the United States.
Dyed with Implications
“Bluegrass is like the bones of country music,” Gina explains. “Dolly Parton started with bluegrass, Loretta Lynn was involved before and during her huge country music career. Alison Krauss is big news now in the U.S. and has recently released an album with Robert Plant.”
With the soulful song, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, epitomising bluegrass, it is true that the songs and rhythms of this genre are deeply dyed with social and moral implication and the influence of Afro-American harmony. This in itself conjures up images of smoky fireside gatherings, folklore and family.
In addition to her goal to win the awards, Gina would also like to complete her first solo album. This will need to be juggled with sharing the care of their three year old daughter, Kennedi, with Chad who has at least another year to go to complete his Masters in Illustration, and the running of her newly opened retail fashion store, Celebrity Jane’s on Tauranga’s Elizabeth Street. Somehow, I can see this vivacious songster doing just that.
