Shut It Down

We just had a GREAT show at Bowling Green State University, despite a meltdown of gear before soundcheck....

We've all battled so many gear-related issues lately! I mean, you know that upkeep is a part of being on the road... but this seems a little excessive! One of the problems tonight was actually pretty funny. I turned my amp on and a radio station was coming through it CLEAR as day. I tried moving it around, but that didn't help one bit. When the announcer came on and said something that I won't repeat... Time to SHUT IT DOWN.

So I ran my fiddle through a D.I.

Panther's Amp starting popping and cracking so badly, that HE had to SHUT IT DOWN.

So he ran though DAVID's D.I. and David had to play electric the whole set. And he had to use my D.I. for his acoustic during his opening set. Whew.

Anyway... we got around all the electrical problems in time to have an excellent show.

Tonight was an especially emotional night during "Angel". Miguel's Abuela (grandmother) passed away yesterday in Chile. He's doing well and our prayers are with his family. She was in the hospital for the last week and a half, and the doctors were amazed at her strength. I know she was looking down tonight and is SO proud of him. I had more chills than normal. I don't think that was a coincidence.

The UAO was SO great to us tonight. Our green room was filled with BGSU t-shirts, a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and other goodies. I am wearing my tee and sweatshirt already! :) And they got us dinner from this amazing local place. We were all drooling over how great our dinners were.

Thank you UAO Music Board!


















I LOVE my new BGSU Sweatshirt and tee!!! They are awesome.


I was really impressed by this mixer!!! Aunt Carol needs it for making mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. She makes such a huge batch every year and this would really contribute to the cause! :)


Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Nominations

It's always exciting to wake up to GOOD NEWS in the inbox!!!

This year I have been nominated by Campus Activities Magazine in TWO different categories :)

Best Female Performer
and
Best Music

Safety Suit has also been nominated in the best music categoryl!!! I love their song "Stay" that was out on the radio this year - it was actually up to #1 on VH1's countdown... And we are gonna have the chance to open for them some in the upcoming year.

It is such a freakin honor to be nominated in the same category as these guys.

I'm just so excited. I had to share. Thanks for everything, y'all. This has been one heck of a year... but this next one is already going great. And it hasn't even started yet. How's that for awesomeness?? :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

COWBOYZ

We're currently all hanging out in the band house after the show - it's 4:15 am... The night has been filled with a great show and LOTS AND LOTS of hilarity. We're currently waiting on the sheets to dry so we can put them on our beds and go to sleep!!! It has been one loooong night, day, and night all over again.

We had to drive through almost all of last night and most of the day today.

Last night (this morning...) I actually had to pay full price at a hotel for us to sleep a total of 3 hours. Wooo hoooo!!!

Cowboyz is great. It is this awesome club right across from the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. They are open for dinner and then party the night away. :)

I have to say thank you to CAT Country 97.5 and 105.9 for having me on the show today. They gave away Kenny Chesney tickets during my interview to help promote MY show. (Thanks, Kenny... I appreciate it) ; )

Johnny, the owner and DJ of Cowboyz modeled my shirt all night long. I love it!



James' mother and step-dad came down from New York today to see the show!!! The band, Tamara, and I went to eat at Denny's after the show.... and this Denny's DEFINITELY used to be an indoor pool. The meal consisted of lots of laughing, I was crying at one point I was laughing so hard. I love those nights.


Stanley and Donna!!! They read about the show in the paper (I talked to a lot of people who came out from reading about the show... YAY!), and stayed the whole night. Stanley is a huge fan of the fiddle, and knew quite a bit about Columbia, Tennessee. He knew Sterling Marlin grew up there and was impressed that my Mamma cleaned his teeth before :) I dedicated a fiddle song in the first set and we opened the second set with Tn Waltz just for him :) I've never done that before at a show, but it was really awesome!



Other awesome folks from the night!






We do it all over again tomorrow!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Back in PCB!

I can't believe we're already back in Panama City Beach, Fl. I feel like we JUST left. But there's been a whole week in between. Man time flies.

Today's showings in the Suburban:

"Waiting"

"Pineapple Express"

"Any Given Sunday" (One of my personal favs)

And 2 episodes of the British "Office"



I hope we didn't keep our neighbors up... but Miguel and I had to practice a bit. We're gonna be on the lunch hour radio show tomorrow in Panama City. :) Then we set up, and play at Schooners! Can't wait to check out this club. I've heard nothing but great things.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Last Night in Nashville for 6 Weeks!

I had SUCH a long list of things I needed to do this week while I was at home.

I got the most important ones going.... you know... writing music!!! :) I am walking away with 3 songs finished and many more in the works. But ALL the other little things... :) they took a little back seat...

It's ok though!! I mean, really?? This week: Thursday I am opening for Josh Gracin in Mansfield PA. :) Friday I am singing for the Boston Celtics at a home game, and Sat I am playing at Cafe 939 in Boston - basically at Berklee. :) What a fun way to get this last leg of the tour rolling!!!!

Before I get back to doing laundry, packing, and realizing all the things I meant to do this week that never got done.... I have to give a shout-out to my good friend Mr. Charlie Hutto. We wrote yesterday and I finally got to catch up on all of his good news!!!

Just to remind everyone how I know Charlie: we met at Berklee, played a bunch together at school, and then when he moved to Nashville - he was in the band for a long time until we started going on the road full time.

Along with being an incredible songwriter, upcoming producer (he just produced another good friend, Jenn Bostic's record), and fantastic guitar player....
He is the Band leader and the "Riley" part of Williams Riley Band. :)
The Williams Riley Band just added their new single "I'm Still Me" to radio this week. And the video was added to CMT today!!!

Williams Riley Band   More CMT Music   More CMT Music Videos

They added the song on the same week as Keith Urban and Brad Paisley's new singles were added... that makes it even MORE difficult to get airplay as a new artist. But we can all help by requesting and spreading the word!!! :)

I'm just very happy for Charlie. They are having a blast on their radio tour right now - and we're gonna be zig-zagging along each other's paths up in the Northeast this week. :)

Hope to see y'all out on the road! We're driving to Rhode Island tomorrow. Well... getting a head start at least.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Washburn University

What a DAY!!!

Today started EARLY for a bunch 'o musicians who are usually up until 4am or later! :) But it was AWESOME. I got up and went to 94.5 WIBW this morning to chat and sing with Walker Daniels. We chatted, I think they were VERY surprised about the REASON I was on Oprah :), they played one of my songs on air, and then Miguel and I played "Standing My Ground" acoustic on air. It was so fun.




That's Rusty Walker on the left and Jim Daniels on the right.


They were such great people. It is SO fun to do an interview when it doesn't feel like you're being "interviewed" :) It really just felt like we were having a conversation. And before we even got back to the hotel room, Walker Daniels had already facebooked me, posted a video, and become a "fan"!

To see the a little clip Rusty Walker posted from the studio, click here.


We got back to the hotel, we all worked a bit and even napped for a few minutes and then we met Brian (THE MAN!) for lunch. Brian was our contact with the school, he's the one that set up the radio and tv spots for us, was there all day with us, AND was there ALL night helping out. (Plus, I think he had a trillion meetings in between helping us out all day) Brian is a Champion and we love him!!! But don't make him mad when he has a lighting pole in his hands... the boy sure can whack a head with one! I think I am still seeing stars... I don't even want to know what it would feel like if it was intentional ; )-


After lunch and hanging out with Brian for a little bit, we ran some errands before we had to go to the tv studio. Whew! We were playing FULL band on a local news show. It's pretty intense to set up a full band for tv... especially when you have time restraints. It was a bit tricky because there really wasn't a great way to get our sound to them. But we got something figured out with their sound guy and everything worked out great. It was a quick segment, so we talked for just a bit, and then we got RIGHT to the song. We played "Standing My Ground" and I felt pretty good about the performance.


As soon as we got packed up it was time to head to the school and start setting up there! So we were off once again!

I was REALLY excited. Not only did a whole bunch of students come, but some non-students came as well! This is Jeff and Trina. They are huge Scott Holt fans. Scott is an incredible Blues artist from Columbia, Tn - my hometown! They saw Scott a few years ago and have been going to his shows ever since. They drove all the way from Topeka to Columbia to the annual Christmas Benefit show that Scott and I do together. So they ended up seeing us play with Scott this last Christmas. And then they came to OUR show tonight! How cool, right? And notice that Jeff has on his official Natalie Stovall/Scott Holt t-shirt!!! YAY!




Caleb came up to me after the show and told me that "Angel" meant a lot to him. His grandmother passed away last week, and he told me it felt like I was singing about her. He said she was a lot like my Granny and was always supporting him to follow his dreams in life. When he started taking piano lessons, she BOUGHT him a piano. How amazing is that? So I was very touched by Caleb and his grandmother's story.


These girls were all visiting from Japan!!! They are here for 3 weeks. They were SOOOO sweet. We took tons of pictures, but I HAD to get one with the whole group. They were just adorable.


This boy was right up front - he was rappin with Hootie, shouting and hollerin all night, and he even did quite the hoe-down during the last song. :) He had em ALL goin in the front!


And this is Joshua. He was there with Brian when we pulled up to Washburn and helped us load gear before and after the show. AND he took pictures for me because I couldn't find my camera (I was panicked! But I found it later in my coat pocket.... NEVER put it there.... weird) SO I have to thank Joshua for sending me all of these pics tonight so I could do a complete blog!!!



So I have been up almost 24hrs now. I am pretty stoked about sleeping tonight. Pretty ready to get in bed. See y'all tomorrow!

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

CU pics, Indy Radio Spot, and Awesome Write-Up from the University of Wisconsin!

When we had a few hours in Nashville this last weekend - our stop off between PA and OK - James went to get the oil changed and the tires rotated on the Suburban. He went back to the place where he bought the tires a few weeks ago. The guy was so confused when he asked him to rotate the tires - he said "There's NO WAY you've already driven 5,000 miles". James said "Ummm... yeah.... actually we have." The guy didn't believe him, so he compared the odometer with his records. He was stunned. His response was "HOW MUCH DO YOU DRIVE!?!" I love it. :)

We left Oklahoma this morning from our awesome Best Western (Thank you USAO!!!) and it was 65 degrees. We are now a little north of Springfield Illinois and it is snowing. Yup. That's pretty normal these days :)

So I got on facebook today and I was so excited. There were a bunch more pics uploaded from the past few shows. And Amanda Finch actually posted some from MY point of view at Cameron University!!! I didn't even know she was back there taking pics, but I am so glad she did. Now you guys can understand what I am talking about!!


I wish my monitors had been closer to the front of the stage.... I wasn't close enough to everyone!!! But if I am playing fiddle in the song I am singing, I HAVE to stay behind the mic stand because well... I just can't hold the mic, sing, AND play at the same time. That'd be pretty impressive if I could. Maybe if I had a 3rd hand. I should work on that.

But when I got the chance - I was RIGHT UP FRONT!!!
This right here = happiness.



We also just heard our radio spot for our Indianapolis show at the Rathskeller!!! We play on Friday night at the Rathskeller from 8pm -12! So come party with us!!! The Rathskeller is one of our favorite bars. That place is so cool. You can listen to the spot by clicking the video - we added a little visual stimulation since we have the technology :)




Our show tomorrow sounds like so much fun! We are playing at the University of Wisconsin in Kenosha. Here's the awesome write-up they provided:

Arts Alive presents Natalie Stovall
Communication Arts Theatre

The UW-Parkside Arts Alive! series, in partnership with the Parkside Activities Board, proudly presents singer/ fiddler Natalie Stovall in concert. This bundle of musical energy bursts onto the Communication Arts Theatre stage at 7:30 p.m. for a sensational one-night-only performance. Although her star is just beginning to rise nationally, Stovall has been building her musical reputation in her hometown of Nashville for two decades. Starting with the Opryland Kids Club as a youngster, she made her Grand Ole Opry debut as a teenager playing fiddle and singing Mary-Chapin Carpenter’s “Down at the Twist & Shout.” She appeared on “Oprah” at the age of 16. Since then, Stovall’s rapid-fire fiddle and powerful voice—alternating between angelic and sultry—have solidified her status as a hometown hero and put her on a path to national stardom. Arts Alive! Director Dwight Vaught said although Stovall’s roots say “country,” her performance strays to rock, pop and blue-eyed soul. “She, and her band, are so versatile that an evening with Natalie Stovall will take you through several styles of American music--often during the same song--with some great arrangements,” Vaught stated. “She’s as good a songwriter as she is a singer, and she loves to perform. And when you realize she is such a mature artist for only being in her mid-20’s, you’ll be seeing a lot of her in the years to come.” Vaught said her concerts alternate between songs from her “Late Night Conversations” CD like “If I Run To You Now” which is part of the soundtrack for the upcoming Farrelly Brothers film “Bag Boy,” and music made popular by artists like Shania Twain, Bonnie Raitt, and Dusty Springfield. Her version of the Charlie Daniels’ “The Devil went down to Georgia” redefines the song with fiddle playing that rivals Daniels’ very best.

Tomorrow is a great day, and it's not even here yet!!!
Goodnight from a Comfort Inn somewhere in Illinois. :)

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~nat

My First Radio Spot!

This is my first real radio spot!!! They are running this on the radio in Indianapolis for our show at the Rathskeller this weekend!
Just click on the "video" below to hear it!