Sumter County is taking over the country music world

Frank Rogers article on scnow.com

By GRAHAM OSTEEN
Editor-At-Large
graham@theitem.com

This week's installment of "Sumter is the Center of the Universe" is about Nashville country music as it pertains to the Big Tuna and the Prince George Ocean Club.

On a recent fall weekend, the lovely and talented Margaret Moses of Sumter was enjoying a casual evening with her strapping husband, Frank, and a cast of suspicious characters in one of coastal South Carolina's finest eateries, the Big Tuna in scenic downtown Georgetown.

A couple of the many wall mottoes to be found there include, "You don't have to go to Key West to find sleaze," and "Fresh Yankee, served daily." The food is great and there's always an entertaining scene. Tell Bucky I sent you and get the scored flounder.

Anyway, Margaret said, "You have to do a story about Frank Rogers. He's a famous record producer in Nashville." Sure enough, he's very famous. Although he was born in the Sumter suburb of Florence, he grew up in Sumter, which makes him ours. His mother was the late Brandon McQuage, who passed away several years ago, and his stepfather is Sumter accountant Jim McQuage. I remember Frank and his sister, Brandon, as little kids at the First Presbyterian Church, where souls are saved daily through Catechism classes with Betty Brogdon. They have a younger sister, Ann Walton, who now lives in Rock Hill.

According to information from a variety of sources, Frank has been in the music business since 1995 and has been producing hits for country music stars since 1999, including Trace Adkins, Brad Paisley, Josh Turner, Darius Rucker, Phil Vassar and Darryl Worley. He has 13 Country Music Association award nominations, with one win for Album of the Year — Paisley's "Time Well Wasted" in 2006. He has received five Academy of Country Music awards (ACM), as well as Billboard magazine's No. 1 Hot Country Producer Award in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and Music Row magazine's Producer of the Year award in 2005, 2007 and 2008.

Among his songwriting credits are two Number One hits: "I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)" by Brad Paisley and "Alright" by Darius Rucker. Other singles that Rogers co-wrote include Paisley's "Who Needs Pictures" and "Me Neither," Rucker's "History in the Making," Trace Adkins' "Don't Lie" and "Swing," Steve Holy's "Don't Make Me Beg," and "He Will, She Knows" by Kenny Rogers.

We'll be doing more on Frank in the near future since this is his real hometown, and no one really wants to be referred to as being "from Florence."

Which brings me to a chance encounter I had Friday night with country music star Lee Brice, a 1997 graduate of Lakewood High School and the son of Carlleene and Kenny Brice of Sumter. His younger brother, Lewis, a 2000 graduate of Lakewood, is also a talented musician who is up and coming, and has appeared on CMT's "Can You Duet?"

Carlleene is the former Carlleene Lewis, and she and Kenny own and operate KMB Electrical Co. in Sumter. They do commercial lighting and did all the lighting for the new Patriot Park Complex. She has sung gospel music her entire life with her sisters – the Lewis Sisters – and Kenny has a gospel group called Cross Anchor. Clearly the kids get their singing and musical talent honestly.

Lee, 30, has been in Nashville for about eight years now, and former Item staff writer Jamie Hudson did a story on him in August 2007. A lot has happened for him since then, and he has a brand new song on the country charts called "Love Like Crazy."

On Friday night I attended an annual event at the Prince George Ocean Club called "Songwriters in the Round" put on by my friend Phillip Lammonds, a gifted singer, musician and songwriter who was one of the original founding members of the Blue Dogs. This year the other performers/songwriters were Sarah Majors, Tony Haselden and Brice, whose first song of the night was a raucous tune titled, "Sumter County, Friday Night." You can read all about him and check out his music and career thus far at www.leebrice.com, and what you'll find is that he's a notable star in the highly competitive (brutal) country music world of Nashville. Aside from being extremely talented, he's also polite, funny and appreciative of both his peers and his fans.

Brother Lewis recently performed downtown at Hamptons in Sumter, and Carlleene and I have vowed to do a better job of getting schedules and information about them both in The Item more frequently.

Another of my Lee Brice favorites is, "Upper Middle Class White Trash." It's hilarious.



If you perceive that I like music, you would be considered perceptive. I am a musicologist whose tastes run wide and deep.

Just this past week I was thinking of my good friend Mick Jagger (I'll save that story for another time) and the Rolling Stones. Serious music fans know that one of the greatest songs ever written, "Honky Tonk Women," has an equally great country variation, "Country Honk."

The sublime lyrics to the first verse of "Honky Tonk Women" are: "I met a gin-soaked bar room queen in Memphis; she tried to take me upstairs for a ride."

"Country Honk" goes like this: "Sittin' in a bar, tipplin' a jar in Jackson; And on the street the summer sun it shines."

Pure Americana poetry.

For more meaningless but interesting information, tune in again next week. I'm full of it.

Graham Osteen is co-president of Osteen Publishing Co. and Editor-At-Large of The Item. Contact him at The Item, 20 North Magnolia St., Sumter, S.C., 29150; graham@theitem.com, or call 803-774-1352.




www.leebrice.com



http://www.cmt.com/shows/series/can_you_duet/season_one_contestants/lewis_brice.jhtml