Alice Newman Vestal Blues/Jazz/Americana Vocalist and Guitarist. Grew up singing on pristine land about 60 miles west of Nashville; woods, fields, and creeks. Her early memories are of campsites and guitars round the fire with Mom, Dad and all four kids singing together.
Tracy Nelson, the powerful vocalist who fronted the band Mother Earth, was a neighbor and influential mentor in Alice's musical upbringing. Alice remembers, "From my house I could see two porch lights faintly through the woods. One was Tracy Nelson's front porch. With every latest recording through the 70's and 80's I waited for her knock at the back door for the new record and a delectable Norwegian dish. My brothers and sister devoured the food and I holed up in the attic and devoured the new music."
Alice listened and learned from Tracy and other great voices like Aretha Franklin, Irma Thomas, Anne Murray, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. Tracy encouraged and supported Alice, even accompanying her on piano in grammar school talent shows on songs like, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "You're My World."
Alice studied classical voice in high school and college and more recently jazz vocal and guitar, drums, and fiddle. She has sung in numerous choirs; Tennessee All State Choir, Southeast Women's Chorale, Chamber Choir, and Beauty Shoppe Revue. She sang in several blues bands during college at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville while getting a B.S. in Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design. Alice presently uses her drawing skills to produce beautiful garden designs and various art projects including the cover art for "Goin' to the Dance."
Alice's compositions have been recorded by other artists including Tracy Nelson who recorded Alice's song, "Last Chance" for her CD entitled, "Ebony & Irony." Together they performed the song on Garrison Keillor's, "A Prairie Home Companion." Since then, she has written with other songwriters; Jamie Hartford, Lisa Aschmann, and Paul Craft.
The collaboration between Alice and Jamie Hartford resulted in a tune called, "All Good Now" that they performed on Mountain Stage autumn 2005. Alice provided hand renderings for the cover art, liner notes, and merchandise for Jamie's latest CD entitled, "Part of Your History, The Songs of John Hartford" and she sang on "Wish We Had Our Time Again."
Alice and Don Jones met at The Bell Buckle Café Radio Show in 2000, perform together and have recorded two CDs, "Haven't We Met?" and "Christmas Time." She met Scott while she and Don were recording at Scott's studio, Digital Underground in Greenbrier, Tennessee.
ASV was formed as the result of their jamming after the various recording sessions. All that jamming and recording evolved into "Goin' to the Dance."The other result, according to Alice, is that "needless to say we fell hopelessly in love, married and now live in the hills of Tennessee with our beautiful daughter, Rosa. Life is Good. There's more good coming, have faith and you'll see."
Scott Vestal was born May 8, 1962 in Duncan, OK. The older of two children, music was a constant from Scott's early age. His Grandfather, Famon Self, an old time country fiddler with lots of patience, showed Scott his first chords on the guitar. Scott and his brother, Curtis, would play and sing with their Grandfather at various events ranging from parades to nursing homes to bluegrass festivals. At age 13 Scott got his first 5-string banjo and began learning from the records his Father had around the house, ranging from Flatt and Scruggs to New Grass Revival. After a few years, and many hours of practice, he was playing in contests and touring with local bands across the U.S.
His professional career began at the age of 18 when he moved from Texas to the East Coast to work with Larry Sparks. After performing and recording with Larry for a year, Scott struck out on his own and helped form Southern Connection, which toured the Midwest and East Coast for 3 years.
In 1985, Scott joined Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver performing in the U.S., Canada, and Europe as a member of the critically acclaimed quartet. Four years and five award winning albums later, he once again struck out to broaden his musical knowledge with his own group, Livewire, spent six months touring Japan with an acoustic jazz ensemble, and had a starring role in Phyllis McBride's critically acclaimed original musical production, Cowboy Cafe.
Upon returning home from Japan, Scott got a call from singer/songwriter extraordinaire, Harley Allen to move to Nashville and form a band with him and David Parmley. After a while Harley found that his writing schedule would not allow him to be on the road, thus the beginning of David Parmley, Scott Vestal, and Continental Divide, who went on to record three award winning projects and tour the US and Canada over the next 5 years. During this time Scott was awarded Banjo Player of the Year in 1996 by the International Bluegrass Music Association, and 1998 Banjo Player of the Year by the Bluegrass Now Magazine Fan's Choice Awards.
While working on the Johnny Staats project Scott had a chance to visit with John Cowan and decided they should hook up and play some music together. This situation gave Scott a chance to really stretch out and broaden his musical horizons not just playing banjo but incorporating his solid body electric midi banjo into the show and onto the two CD's they recorded together as the John Cowan Band.
Scott does a lot of session work around Nashville,TN, these days and has his own recording studio where he engineers and produces various projects including an award winning series of instrumental recordings for Pinecastle Records, and has worked with the likes of Bill Monroe, Sam Bush, David Lee Roth, John Jorgenson, Tim O'Brien, Jim Lauderdale, Rick Moranis, Shawn Camp, Ralph Stanley, Ricky Skaggs, Ronnie Bowman, Pat Flynn, Jerry Douglas, John Cowan, Tony Rice, Vassar Clements, Tony Williamson, and many others.
In addition to being an outstanding musician, Scott is also a composer, writing nine of the thirteen compositions on his first solo project, "In Pursuit Of Happiness", and nine out of twelve on his latest solo release, "Millennia".
Along with his busy recording schedule Scott will be touring with the Sam Bush Band starting in early 2005. Be sure to check out the new CD by The Sam Bush Band "Laps In Seven" on Sugar Hill Records due to be released June 13, 2006.
Scott and his wife Alice Newman Vestal are about to release their first CD together "Goin' To The Dance" for Bless Your Heart Music LLC . The release date is set for June 27, 2006. It is a collection of mostly originals by Alice and Scott along with some of their favorite song writers. The project features Byron House, Chris Brown, Randy Kohrs, Steve Thomas, Jeff Autry, Casey Driessen, and Bobby Newman.
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