ShutdownTown
What happens when a small Texas town shuts down for the evening on any given night? It turns into a place where good music is born.
Both Amanda Graves and Cari Smith graduated from Edgewood High School just 5 years apart from each other but had never met.
Another 5 years down the road and they have joined musical forces to form ShutDownTown – an explosion of Country, Rock and Roll and Red-Dirt Blues. It’s hard to put ShutDownTown in any musical genre considering that they have been known to cover anything from Merle Haggard to Madonna.
Five years of college and a degree later, Graves knew where she was going and there was no doubt that music was the driving force behind it.
Amanda started writing her own songs and learned to play a little guitar and never looked back. She released a solo recording, "Nobody’s Fool," and has built quite a reputation for herself among the Texas/Red Dirt music scene. With her demanding vocals and in-your-face attitude, she is right at home as lead singer of ShutDownTown.
Knowing music would be the center of her life, Cari got started as soon as she could. Always having the desire to learn to play guitar, at 16 years old, Cari used money from her first paycheck at a summer job to buy a guitar and taught herself.
After graduating high school in 2002, she formed the Livingston Hill Band, along with her cousin Bryce Valentine as lead singer, and good friend Matt Stevens on the bass guitar. Along with drummers Jeff Deen and later Mike “MadDog” Madden, both from Wills Point, the Livingston Hill Band enjoyed a good four years of various shows and performances throughout North and East Texas.
These two singer/songwriters have already shared the stage with and opened shows for the likes of Mike McClure, Micky and the Motorcars, Wade Bowen, and Randy Rogers.
ShutDownTown plans to make 2008 a productive and successful year with plans to record a debut album and an already growing schedule of performances. Along with the awesome talents of MadDog on drums, Matt on bass, and Brandon McEnturff, also from Edgewood, on lead guitar, there is no doubt ShutDownTown is well on the right road to make their mark on the Texas Music scene.
2 p.m., Saturday, April 26, 2008, Dodge Real. Texas. Music. Stage.