Jamison Road Returns to their Roots at Buckle Up

The Cincinnati-area country trio Jamison Road has just been signed to the record label Sojourn Records. They getting ready to release their second LP, and the band will be playing festivals throughout the summer. Their recent sneak peek party at the Grandview Tavern in Crescent Springs, Kentucky included a red-carpet rollout for the deserving group, and the comments throughout the evening from the venue staff to friends and fans of the music all focused on there being no more deserving a band of their success than Jamison Road.

Let me add to the choruses of praise for Jamison Road by adding this: Please don’t quit your day jobs. Of course we wouldn’t want Jamison Road to quit playing music either, but without the day-to-day professions of the bandmates, they may never have found each other in the first place. Lead guitarist Brent Duersch and bassist/vocalist Laurie Heltsley met through their workplace as computer networking specialists, and when Laurie sat down with Brent and Jennifer DePalma Duersch to play together they knew they were on to something. “Our professional lives allow us to have more freedom than if we had to rely on our music as a lone source of income,” says Jennifer DePalma, who drives every day past the actual Jamison Road the band is named after to get to her job as a pediatrician.

Connecting with people is a big part of Jamison Road’s character. Numerous people who saw this reporter making notes in a darkened corner while listening to the band’s music made it a point to stop by and add that the musicians onstage are some of the best people they know. Carol Wright, agent for Jamison Road, described the band’s first gig in the winter of 2010-11 at the Classy Pig in Ludlow, KY as a humble beginning that foretold of their success. The new trio was “stuffed into the storefront” as friends filled the room. As the band continued to find bigger rooms to play they continued to fill those rooms with more friends. Although Jamison Road loves to plug in and rock their country sound, their set at Buckle Up will be a return to their beginnings as an acoustic trio. You can expect a grinning, joyous group on stage and in the crowd, connecting with each other through their music.

Let’s just hope they keep those day jobs… and their moonlight gig.

Catch Jamison Road at Buckle Up Music Festival on Friday July 18^th on the Acoustic Stage at 4:15 and again in the VIP tent at 7p!

Dan Van Vechten

Dan Van Vechten shares his love for local music by putting it in his blog. If there is a band or a venue you've never heard of in town that could use your attention, he's going to try to get your attention. When he's not writing about music, Dan is often writing songs of his own and playing them in the places folky singer/songwriters go.