Watching
the Cumberland Highlanders’ Show is an experience of the
senses, mind and spirit.
For the first time ever, the music of rural America has been
combined with the natural rustic environment to create a television
show that aims to preserve not only traditional American blue
grass and mountain music, but also the way of life that it sprang
from. Producer and creator, Dr. Campbell Mercer, has always
had a love for rural America and its ways and music, especially
the music of Bill Monroe, known as the Father of Bluegrass.
Co-producer Julie Ann Mercer met her future husband Campbell
at a blue grass show, her first, in 1980 when Campbell’s
band was playing a gig in Omaha. Thus began a partnership that
would carry the couple on a wild ride through veterinary clinic
ownership, band leadership, cattle farming, radio show production
and television production and finally, parenthood. Married for
23 years, they have three, Natalie Rose, Jenny Lynn and the
most recent addition, born in August, Joseph Carter.
LOVED IT SINCE CHILDHOOD Mercer began listening to
oldtime music while a baby in Lexington, KY. His conscious knowledge
and love of the music continued through his childhood thanks
in large part to the support and encouragement of his family.
“My brother, Eric was a great teacher and influence. He
played a great guitar and had a rich baritone voice. I always
wanted to sing and play as well as he could. While Eric was
in Vietnam I started playing his instruments and decided I was
going to be a country musician”, Mercer said. His other
brother, Chris, also loved old-time mountain music and provided
him with an endless source of records to learn from.
MORE THAN JUST THE MUSIC
Mercer reflected recently from the porch of Bill
Monroe’s boyhood home and birthplace on
Jerusalem Ridge in Rosine, Kentucky. “I love old-time ballads
and fiddle tunes and sacr
numbers and the blues and I love how Bi
Monroe expressed himself in his version
time music.” Mercer says Monroe was hi
boyhood hero, “not only because of the
he played but also because of his steadfas
in the old ways, in himself, and in keepin
music pure.
“The music Mercer plays now and the TV show that he produces
follows that same pattern. “Blue Grass music is about
expressing yourself honestly and simply. It’s about getting
along with each other and giving everything you can to your
fans and to the next generation. It is about preserving farms
and forests and mountains and a way of life. In no other music
will you see people in their nineties and people under the age
of ten playing on the same stage in the same band. The music
is a generation bridge.”
The Mercers’ love of rural America has created a unique
drawing card for the Cumberland Highlanders’ Show: It
is videotaped almost entirely outside. “If a cow moos,
a dog barks or a child screams with delight right in the middle
of a song being sung by a Grammy winner, that is great, we leave
it in there”, Julie explains.
The relaxed style has won the show and the
music many converts. Many of the Cumberland
Highlanders’ fans admit that they didn’t fully
appreciate blue grass music at first but were
drawn by the scenery and the laid back nature
of the musicians. After watching a few shows,
the music grew on them, too. “It’s about blue
grass saving the world, that’s all,” Doc Mercer
says with a grin. “No matter what we do in life,
we all have to do our best to make the world
better for the rest of us and for the future.”
Guest acts on the show include blue grass patriarch and Grammy
winner Dr. Ralph Stanley and Grand Ol’ Opry member Jesse
McReynolds. Many guests are traditional blue grass musicians
and many play music that was part of the roots of blue grass.
Many acts are famous, and many acts are not famous. If Mercer
has his way, that will change. “There are so many great
traditional entertainers that are not getting the exposure they
deserve and the Cumberland Highlander’s Show on RFD aims
to change that,” he says, “and it’s working.”
MODEST BEGINNINGS
The show’s growth is largely due to the owth is largely due to the
Mercers meeting the right
people at the right time. In
1992, the Cumberland
Highlanders teamed up with
local hospital employee and
videographer, Roy Steck,
who videotaped dozens of
songs by the band for broadcast on the Manchester, Ky.,
hospital’s closed circuit
channel.
Doc Mercer continued to
think of ways of getting the
music out to more people. In
1996, he called Joey Kesler,
the owner of upstart hometown TV station WBOZ in
London, Ky. Kesler had expressed a desire to broadcast blue grass music
to his viewers and Mercer says that with that
phone call, “I felt that with my love of the
music and Roy’s love of videography, and the
talent of the Cumberland Highlanders that we
were going to be pushing the start button.”
The Cumberland Highlanders’ Show was
launched in July, 1996.
After the show’s initial success on WOBZ
and then a regional CBS station, Mercer
accepted an offer to take the Cumberland
Highlanders’ Show to a national cable channel,
the Outdoor Channel, where it remained for
three and half years before moving to RFD-TV.
Viewers have one common impression about
the Cumberland Highlanders: they transport
you away from your living room make you a
part of another time and culture. And as Dr.
Ralph Stanley says, “It doesn’t hurt that
Mercer and the gang always seem to be having
a ball.”
Contact Information:
Campbell Mercer
Executive Director
The Bill Monroe Foundation
www.billmonroefoundation.com
docmercer@earthlink.net
270-256-1430 |
