BENTON – Recording artist Vickie Vaughn will join with other young local musicians in a free concert of bluegrass and country music at 2 p.m. Sunday, August 2nd, at Mt. Carmel Methodist Church.
The appearance for Vaughn will follow a milestone for the 25-year-old Marshall County High School graduate, who is scheduled to appear on the world-famous Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on Saturday, August 1st.
It’s the next step in an upward-moving career for Vaughn, who fronts her own five-piece group, the Vickie Vaughn Band. She will join country music star Patty Loveless on a European tour later this year.
Playing on the Opry, Vaughn said, is “something I’ve always dreamed of, and wondered if it was going to happen.”
Now, she said, “It’s kind of surreal – it’s coming up next week!”
Vaughn, who started performing at the Kentucky Opry in Draffenville as a vocalist when she was 9, learned to play upright bass when she was 14 after watching Missy Raines, a seven-time bass player of the year by the International Bluegrass Music Association.
“It was just really cool to see a female dominating a huge instrument like that,” Vaughn said.
She will be joined onstage at Mt. Carmel Church by fiddler Carson McKee, guitarist Logan Oakley and banjo player Aaron Thompson. All, like Vaughn, are veterans of the Kentucky Opry.
McKee, 16, is a student at Graves County High School who has been taking violin lessons since age 3. She opened for Charlie Daniels in March 2011 and has been the Kentucky Opry staff fiddle player ever since.
Oakley, 25, played lead guitar at the Kentucky Opry for six years, then played with Danielle Bradbery as she opened for Miranda Lambert, and is now a member of the western Kentucky string band Bawn and the Mash.
Thompson, 20, began playing banjo at age 9 and won state and national banjo championship titles three years later. He has opened for bluegrass bands such as Russell Moore and Third Tyme Out, The Grascals and others, as well as local standouts Josh Williams and Clayton Campbell.
McKee and Thompson also currently play with the local Highway 641 band.
The public is invited to the performance at Mt. Carmel, located at 1950 Big Bear Highway.
