Underwood
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Just spend a few evenings going out to eat in this community and you learn fairly quickly that we have a wealth of singer-songwriters here. One of the best known across Cherokee County is Troy Underwood, the Chattanooga, Tenn., transplant with the mellow voice.
If you count the drums – and we do – Troy has been making music since he was 5 years old. However, the real passion to create song, to offer up songs to others, that drive took hold of Troy when he was 12 and attended a concert by Ray Charles.
“That was amazing to me,” he said. “It was like a religious experience.”
Those music lovers who have heard Troy sing can recognize the influence – even similarity in voice – of the famous Brother Ray.
As a formally trained singer myself, I can be objective in assessing Troy Underwood as one of the best vocalists of our local musicians – an immediately recognizable and pleasing sound.
Any of his fans can confirm Troy has a signature guitar style. Scott Stambaugh, who we can thank for urging Troy to come from Chattanooga, Tenn., to explore the music scene in Murphy, is one of the best lyricists among our local songwriters. I don’t doubt Scott could point out the equally fine wordsmithing of Troy.
This line from Troy’s song, “Summertime in Georgia,” for instance, readily evokes the picture of nervous hand holding many of us experienced growing up: “Me and my girl Betty, we never held hands / because our palms got sweaty, and that was something she just couldn’t stand.”
Being an excellent musician, however, does not guarantee fame and fortune, or even consistent popularity. The music makers we enjoy in the several venues around Murphy and Andrews and beyond, most will experience ups and downs with performing success, with confidence in their own talent, and many will be balancing demands of their “day job” while we see only the musical gifts they provide.
So why do they, why does Troy, keep on devoting much of life’s energy to making music? His answer: “The goal is not, I’m gonna make it big – instead, I must do what makes me happy.”
Whatever keeps our local musicians going, they are all giving us a great gift. In a March report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, an analysis of 26 separate studies of the effects of music concluded, among many positive effects, that simply listening to music provides similar health benefits to that of exercise and weight loss.
In the Aug. 10 edition of the Cherokee Scout, I noted with pleasure the story of Mimi Hitselberger, who used her passion for her art as her resource for recovering from loss of her painting skills after surgery. Like the experience of David Rabhan, who used his art to cope with the harsh conditions of a foreign prison, artists like Mimi and Troy are examples among our own neighbors of how art gives purpose to lives.
Many local artists certainly do dream of making it big, but nevertheless keep giving their gifts to us. While we listen with delight to a new song by Stambaugh, Underwood, Heidi Holton or Johnny Scroggs, they may be thinking, “This could be the one.”
And all the while, those singer-songwriters are serving up nutrition for our minds and bodies – all we have to do is show up and listen.
David Vowell is director of visual and literary Arts with the Cherokee County Arts Council. Email him at david4thearts@gmail.com.