Randy Van Vooren: Songwriting’s Real Deal

RANDY VAN VOOREN:  SONGWRITING’S REAL DEAL

By John Wills

With Randy Van Vooren

It only takes a song to know when someone’s got something special to offer.  After listening to a veritable catalog of finely composed and executed recordings one learns that a singer-songwriter has more than a gift.  For the past thirty-five years Peshtigo’s Randy VanVooren has shared that gift with audiences around the country, from the regular people who have enjoyed his gifts at the local Porterfield Country Music Festival to the regional musicians and recording studio execs to top-named movers and shakers in the music capitals of the nation.   That gift has blossomed into a full-blown passion that everyone can see and hear whenever he performs.  As a member of the local bands Stormer, South Ellis, Rivertown, and as a solo artist, he has recorded several albums, which have enjoyed a modicum of successful sales in this area.  His rich baritone voice has been heard by thousands of listeners.  Through it all, Randy remains the boy next door and the family man in the small town where he lives and works. Randy VanVooren is the real deal.

But even the real deal has only a ghost of a chance to make the big time, and it isn’t because of a lack of talent or desire.  The music business is filled with excellent singers and songwriters who spend their lives trying to strike it rich.  Often times one has to be in the right place at the right time.  It’s whom you know. Randy has walked the walk and talked the talk, paid dues and then paid even more dues.  But his path has not yet been fully travelled.  There is more to Randy VanVooren than meets the eye.  He has yet to conclude this journey.

Where did this path have its start?  To hear Randy tell the tale, it began back in the day when he was but a mere tousled-haired seven-year old.  “I got my first guitar for Christmas.  I took guitar lessons that following spring.  Actually, I had a cousin who was playing Christmas Carols, and I was in total awe just listening to him.

Back then a guitar teacher would try to impress upon a young protégé the need to learn theory through rigorous repetition of exercises printed onto the pages of the Mel Bay Method, one which was quite popular with many guitar teacher of the time. Randy’s first teacher was Matt DeLaet, also of Peshtigo.

“Like any guitar teacher, they’d teach you songs like On Top of Old Smokey and other songs you don’t understand. Meanwhile, between songs, he would play songs by the Doobie Brothers and BTO or the Beatles.  He was in a band. That’s the stuff you want to play even when you’re a young kid.”

Randy insisted on knowing how to tune a guitar; to him this was tantamount in importance.  Almost to the point of being anal about it.  When Matt was playing these popular melodies between lesson takes, Randy made a point of watching where he put his fingers.  “I didn’t know they were called chords at the time.  I would study him and then go home and put my fingers in those same spots.”  If he knew that the guitar was in tune he would put his fingers in those same spots and play that chord.  The next thing he knew he would say, ‘Yeah, that’s how that sounds’ and he’d make up his own songs.  “I guess that’s when it kind of took off. In between guitar lessons, learning how to play stuff by ear and listening to the radio is how it started.”

In order to get a feel for the anatomy of a song, it was necessary at the time to have an AM radio plus a state-of-the-art dinky little cassette recorder placed strategically in tandem with one another.  A young guitarist in the making would record songs he wanted to play off the radio and then hope that it would be in tune with the guitar, which wasn’t guaranteed because one didn’t know the exact pitch that the radio would play the recording.  That and the fact that those rudimentarily simple guitars one played as youngsters weren’t always the best either.  “The guitar strings were so high off the fret and you weren’t educated enough to be able to set things up like you are today, plus with today’s technology you can build guitars that come off the assembly line and they aren’t as hard to play.  My fingers used to bleed.  I’d have calluses and break them open. Then I’d have to clean off the strings.  I wanted to play so badly that that’s what I thought I had to do.  Clean the blood off and go right back at it!”

Back in the day you did what you had to do to learn about the things for which you were really passionate.  You’d go through guitar teachers, listen to the radio, play by ear and hope that you didn’t leave out too many of the chords.  You played by instinct.  Oftentimes instinct can be a musician’s best friend.  Eventually, you sought out like-minded kids and started a band.  “I remember the first cool moment.  We were in a band called Wizardry.  Dave Spangenberg was our drummer, and his brother Jim was a guitarist.  I was a seventh grader.  Somebody at the high school realized that a bunch of us little kids had a band and thought it was pretty cool.  Before Christmas break we were asked to play in front of the high school.  They got us together. We were a five piece band.  We set up in the corner of the gym and everybody in the high school was there.  I think we played four songs at the time.  The place was just going crazy!”

As we all did starting out, one of the guys in the band had a cheap amplifier, and at one moment during a song the cord connecting the guitar and amp tightened up and he inadvertently yanked on it and the amplifier came crashing down onto the floor.  Many of the young people in the audience thought that it was a part of the group’s act and they went crazy.  Randy said that the kid spent the rest of the song crying to himself while trying to put the thing back together.  In addition to Randy and the Spangenbergs   the band also featured Wayne and Brian Devroy.  Randy also performed in a band called Raven Black  which mainly played for high school dances. Other bands included Fairway, and then Mentigo Fairway, an acronym of sorts for Peshtigo and Menominee, because members of the band originated from those two towns.

As Randy played and practiced, he improved.  And he was at the right time in local music history because the opportunity to play and the people with whom to play were at an all-time high.  There was never a time before or since where that was the case.  If you were an up and coming player, you had options, but only if you took the time to learn your craft as a musician. Then there was no problem gaining the necessary experience.

There once was a time in the Twin City area where live music was everywhere.  There were as many bands as there were places to play.  As a musician at the time this writer experienced the best of what the area had to offer and also the many venues in which bands would perform.  “Back in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s, when Marinette and Menominee were hopping with live music, you could walk out of one tavern and into another, there was a band at every bar,” Randy told me. “I was in a band called Stormer .  Me, Jeff Sundstrom, Steve Berton, and Pat Kmechek.“  Between Stormer and Whistle Gear, they would switch off as the house band at the Holiday Inn in Marinette.  Randy was 19 or 20 years old at the time.  Bar patrons were so plentiful that management would only allow so many people in the lounge at one time.  If a room reached its maximum allowable, the only way another could gain entry was if a person would leave.  Then and only then would another be allowed to enter.

“You had to play so well because there was limited technology.”  In order to sell the crowd on your ability to cover popular music, you had to replicate every nuance of a song as if you were the recording artists themselves.  “The only effect you had back then was reverb.  You didn’t have a delay or chorus effect.  It was all dry.  That was back when there were bands like Duran Duran and Blondie, and you had to be as close to the record as you could because there were so many cover bands that. If you didn’t cut it, you didn’t get hired.”

It’s a testimony to the quality and quantity of musicians in the Menominee and Marinette area that so many worked steadily both here and on the road.  You never had to struggle to find a band that couldn’t cover the music of the major artists and who didn’t do their own recording.  “Every time you’d go down to the music stores in the Green Bay or Fox River Valley area to buy your supplies or strings, they would ask. ‘What in the hell’s in the water up there?’”  That area had a large number of musicians and bands that worked regularly in that area, but the music store people and even the local musicians themselves were in awe of what our area had to offer.  Randy related that the bands from up here could also compete in that area and never wanted for opportunities to work there.

It was a very heady time for musicians and bands. The opportunity for experience was second to none. If you wanted to hear or dance to live music of any genre, you didn’t have to leave town. There were rock groups, country bands, jazz groups, and what I like to call “wedding reception bands”, groups that would play any and all types of music for as many generations as would come out to hear you.  Beginning in the late 1970’s, symphony orchestras from big cities would perform in concert in the area.  “Just to relive that time…every bar had a band.  And we weren’t competitors but rather friends.  Between us and Whistle Gear we would draw the same kind of crowd. “

Stormer remained intact for a few years without any personnel changes, but in 1982 lead guitarist Steve Berton went off to college.  His replacement was Tim Burie.   “We then cut a 45.  It was at the same time that Whistle Gear had their 45 out, and I believe  we were the only two bands in the area who had a 45.”  Having a record out in circulation made it easier to get gigs through local talent agencies.  “Any time you had a record, it would open other doors.”  The chance to play in outlying areas improved because of the talent agency connection.

At any time during the life of a band, reality raises its head and that aura of any initial musical nirvana tends to go away.  For whatever reasons, people and personalities change, events take place to change the group dynamic.  None of the bands that were thriving during this time in musical history were working five years later, at least not in the same form.  Stormer was no exception.  Despite what you learn as a musician in a band, time marches on and things change.  Randy married young.  He began to work at Scott Paper Company.  Soon afterward, he was divorced.  “Everybody went off to college or did their own thing. That became the end of that band.”

In 1984 Randy decided to relocate.  He packed up his van, which included a motorcycle, and towed a 13-foot travel trailer loaded with his music gear and headed off to Florida, where, apparently, he wanted to reinvent himself.   “I was going to be a rock star and meet the girl of my dreams.  I ended up living in a KOA Campground of America.  I was a bouncer at a bar.  I was pretty much lost for a while.”  After bouncing from job to job, Randy took a position as a drafter at a contract company for Southern Bell Telephone Company.  Even then he would sit in with bands at bars where he would be working which allowed him to remain in touch with the music scene in a way.  “The sad thing about it was I had to pawn half the stuff I brought with me down there in order to stay alive, keep myself in Ramon Noodles and soup, but it’s part of what you had to do.”    Eventually, after making some lifelong friends, he found himself laid off and headed back to Peshtigo where he moved back in with his parents.

Once back in the area it didn’t take long for him to connect with music once again, playing with Chuck Travis and the Echoes.  “I did a couple of stints with him, once before and once after Florida, playing ‘50’s and ‘60’s music, and to this day Chuck is still an excellent friend of mine.”   The band had its protocol.  They wore tuxes; everybody dressed the same.  Oftentimes the color scheme changed and the guys in the band would all get phone calls telling them to wear whatever the color choice Chuck made. with Chuck wearing something just the opposite in order to stand out.  Travis was quite the showman.  He would always be the center of attention, which suited Randy quite well as he would rather sit back and do his thing in the comfort of his own anonymity.  The music was special.   “Our harmonies were tight.  He taught me how to sing some damn fine harmonies, for which I will be ever grateful.”

During a period of unemployment he received a call from a friend he met while in Florida working for the phone company. The friend asked if he would be willing to come up to Boston where there were jobs with the phone company which paid triple what the going wage was at home at the time. The call came on a Thursday and Randy was in Boston on the following Tuesday.  “I was out there for over three years.  It’s a beautiful area and is near and dear to my heart.  I was a B- or C student in high school, but when you’re out there and see the history firsthand, that was really something.  That’s where it all started.”

The music was pretty special as well.  “Every single night as far as the music scene goes, all the rock and roll that’s out there, all the bands that I got to see was amazing.  Things start out there and then head west.  From the J. Geils Band to Boston, Bon Jovi, and handfuls of others.  At that time the hair bands and big rock ballads were huge.  I’m not a heavy-metal guy, but I liked the rock ballad era.  I guess that’s where I built my arsenal.  I didn’t have a girlfriend.  I was making huge money working six days a week plus overtime, so I was able to put a lot of money away.”  When he returned from Boston, he carried with him some serious equipment, including Marshall Stacks and Les Paul and strat guitars, what he referred to as a music store in a U-Haul.

Another musical memory nugget that I’m sure he will never forget occurred while playing a guitar at the Wurlitzer Music Store in Framingham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.  “I was in the middle of a song, playing for all it was worth, down on one knee, and a guy walks up and says, ‘Hey that sounds cool.’  The guy’s name was Nuno Bettencourt! He was the lead guitar player for the band Extreme [More than Words & Holehearted] He was on the cover of Guitar Player magazine that month, and I was, like, wow!”  Bettencourt gave Randy two tickets to an Extreme show that night.  He and his roommate attended and, during one of the breaks, Bettencourt spotted Randy in the crowd and remarked, “Hey, it’s the dude from Wurlitzer Music.”  It wasn’t long afterward that the Bettencourt band became huge rock stars, and Randy was quite impressed that he was remembered. A first brush with greatness, one that would pale in comparison to future endeavors.

Randy returned to Green Bay where he took a job with the phone company, which led to a job with the phone company here. While sitting in the Sheridan Lanes Lounge one night with his friend, Menominee native Lenny Neville, talk came around to the possible formation of a local band.  So a jam session took place in Neville’s basement, which clicked.  “We started a band called Bottom Line that took off and got pretty popular.”  Soon after, Neville was seriously injured in an automobile accident that crippled him badly.  As a result, the band broke up.  A benefit was held to help defray the cost of Neville’s care.  During the benefit, it was decided by the remaining members of the band to remain together and find a replacement player.  “We missed playing, so we found Marc Nelson, who had a guitar shop in Oconto at the time, and we begged him to be our guitar player.”

Bottom Line, now comprised of Doug Bailey, Tom Steber, Marc Nelson, and Randy Van Vooren, morphed into a group called South Ellis.  The band played a lot of southern rock and songs that Randy wrote.  “We put out the first CD in 1995 and that took off.  WAPL (The “Rockin Apple”, an Appleton rock station) played it.  We were pretty fortunate.  I think, at the risk of sounding conceited, that we sometimes played the songs better than the original artists.  Some of the cover tunes were pretty tight”

South Ellis came on strong quickly and established itself early on as a musical force. They played locally, developing a very large following.  They headlined the Waterfront Festival in Menominee quite often.  “We were together long enough to actually see a whole other evolution and rock creation.  We saw the music change.  We had our own brand of rock but we still did the Bad Company stuff, the 38 Special stuff.”

As the story goes, back in the mid nineties, as Marinette’s Celebrate festival was in its last days, South Ellis opened for 38 Special. The year was 1996.  During the course of the evening, Randy found himself sitting backstage in the midst of famous musicians from the popular rock band of the ‘70’s.  “I was on a table eating a hot dog or something, and Donnie Van Zant walks up to me and introduces himself. I was speechless!”  To Randy, an ardent fan of the band, meeting Van Zant was like meeting the president.   “Here’s your idol coming up and introducing himself.  What do you say?  Then he sits down next to me and starts talking for about twenty minutes.   He’s heard the band by this time, and thought we kicked ass.  He told me to stick with it because we had what it takes. He also told me that we were no different, that we put our pants on the same way; we chew our food the same way. The only difference between us was that 38 Special made it. He made you feel great”

At this point in his life, meeting Van Zant and sharing that time back stage with him became a big-time motivator.   With enthusiasm in his voice, he spoke about how this was pretty much a defining moment in his career as a musician.  To be able to share thoughts with an A class entertainer from one of America’s top rock bands and to be told by him that you were alike in so many ways went far in Randy’s mind in establishing further desire to follow in Van Zant’s footsteps.  Rock child was growing up.

South Ellis was like a family in Randy’s estimation.  They never fought.  They always chose the right music, played in great venues and to top it all off, they had the bus.  Not all bands from small towns can claim to have their own tour bus, but South Ellis did. It was a modified former school bus. “I think, sometimes, we put more money into that bus than we made.  We had a gig down in Milwaukee.  We made some pretty good money, but by the time we got back and put oil and gas in that thing, I don’t think we made more than twenty-five bucks.  If they had a camera when that bus door opened up, it was like a Cheech & Chong movie. That was funnier than hell!”

The bus had been refurbished in Peshtigo by one of the roadies who happened to know someone who worked at the factory that made aircraft seating.  The bus looked like the inside of a plane.  It was outfitted with the aircraft seats, two on one side, and three on the other side of the aisle, complete with overhead luggage compartments.  It even had reading lights.  All that bus needed was wings.  “It was the coolest thing. We had a lot of memories.”

Recently at a conference of the Songwriters of Wisconsin, Randy spoke to those convened about the evolution between his first and last recording sessions; the costs of recording time, the technical differences and advancements.   It took days and hours for him to compile the information he used for his talk, and it brought back all the memories and experiences he had with the band. One of the things that crossed his mind at the time was what brought about the demise of the band. He realized that it was probably the change in music, which is usually accompanied by a change in following.   Nothing is constant.  The most impactful dynamic in popular music is that it is always changing.   “I remember we were at Charlie B’s once, and the place was shoulder to shoulder.  I didn’t recognize a single person. Scott Pettey was out there running the sound and I told him this and he, in typical Scott Pettey fashion, responded by saying, ‘That’s because you’re playing for a whole new generation of alcoholics!  All those people you started playing for, these are their kids.’“    It doesn’t take long for a bar crowd to grow up, marry, and have their own kids.  Before long, you’re playing for the second generation of music locals and it’s difficult to keep current.  It was Bob Dylan who once espoused that you should never trust anyone over 30.  So does a 31-year-old musician have a ghost of a chance in appealing to younger crowds?

Being true to yourself can be problematic when the band switches from a 38 Special song to one by a group like Third Eye Blind, Sister Hazel, or Hootie & the Blowfish.  Continuity also suffers and tensions within the band begin to develop.  “The music was kind of like rock.  We were still good enough to be considered rock, but maybe we weren’t enjoying it as much.  You had to play at least half the stuff that was on the radio, or you weren’t going to get the people to come out and listen to you.”  Once again, cue Dylan:  The times they are a-changin’.

Around the turn of the century, Randy found himself looking for a new musical identity.  His personal life had also changed.  He met, courted, and married his wife Shelly during the Bottom Line period.  She had always been a huge country music fan.  After all this time she finally was able to exert some influence on Randy and he began to hear the appeal of what was evolving as the new country music.  “Country music was starting to sound more and more what rock used to sound like in the past. That’s kind of what I liked. I’m starting to listen to more country because that’s more like the old rock and roll was.”

Randy was working at the phone company with Rob LeMay, who would come to figure prominently in Randy’s future.  They began to play guitar on the side and the next thing you know they we’re playing together informally and South Ellis wasn’t practicing anymore.  South Ellis’ gigs became fewer and eventually were played out.  Enter Rivertown.

“What we did was, we went out and got Adam Mullins, to play lead guitar and fiddle and Kevyn Lange to play bass along with Dave Friess to play drums.  We rented the building where Blue Bike Burrito is now to practice so we didn’t have to practice at anybody’s house.  Everybody pitched in.  We put black curtains up so nobody could see in.  All the stuff that I owned from South Ellis was moved there. “

Experience is the best teacher.  What were considered the mistakes of the past were things that Randy and his friends in Rivertown didn’t want to repeat.  Before they even booked a gig, they wanted to do things right.  One of their first moves was to approach local country radio.  “Dave Winters was approached and told, ‘this is who we are and we want you to sponsor our band.”  We recorded three songs and put out an EP (extended play) CD before we even had a gig.  The radio station was our sponsor and they made posters.  All this stuff we had  – bam!  We were marketed before we even had a gig.

The radio station hyped the band as if it were a concert group, putting out radio spots and playing their music before each scheduled gig. Each gig began with airplane lighting, and fog with the band coming out in silhouette with their cowboy hats down and an announcer yelling out  “Ladies and gentlemen. . . the thunder of the North.”  “We thought that if people can’t afford to go and see a show in Green Bay for fifty bucks, they can come and see us.”   The band wanted to give the crowd the same experience they might see at a large city venue.  Randy believes that this approach led to the band’s popularity.

“Where we lucked out was that Kyle Stumbris, the sound man with Nashville Pipeline (A popular country band from Northeast Wisconsin) was in the crowd one night.  They were breaking up.  He was available and came to the rescue. They gave us all their gigs.  We also had the best sound and lighting guru one could possibly ask for.  BAM!  They had booked the Winnebago County Fair, all these huge gigs that were hard to get.  They saw who we were and knew we were the real deal.  They convinced these people that our band was as good as they were.  Call it luck, or call it being at the right place at the right time. “  The band Rivertown exploded.  They were really up and running, seemingly unstoppable.

A perfect example of how popular Rivertown became was when the band talked the management at the Stadium View Bar in Green Bay into booking them. Up until that time the bar did not feature entertainment.  A pact was struck between Rivertown and the manager.  Rivertown promised to bring two busloads of people in if they would book the band.  Three gigs were arranged.  “On the day of the gig, two Westlund busses pulled up, packed with people wearing Rivertown T-shirts who came out, management’s jaws hit the floor.  That was just the beginning.  Next thing you know we’re playing at Anduzzi’s.  Rivertown just took off.”

The tidal wave that was Rivertown washed over the regional music scene with a torrent of popularity.  The group worked and became very well known.  This eventually led to engagements with top name bands like Ricochet.  Randy recalls being on Ricochet’s bus while playing up at the Motongator Festival in mid-Menominee County talking to Junior Bryant, who was the fiddle player with Ricochet at the time. Bryant, along with his brother Jeff, founded the band in 1993.  Bryant, after listening to Rivertown playing, had some eye-opening news for Randy and the band.  “He told me he wanted me to go home and look at every one of my CDs.  ‘I guarantee you’, Bryant said, ‘that at least fifty per cent of them it’s going to be exactly the same people that are on the CDs.  They won’t even let us play on our own CDs.’”

This was a development that Randy found hard to believe.  Randy and Shelly took this news and went home to check their CD collection.  Bryant was true to his word.  All the recordings featured studio musicians.  “That’s where I was introduced to how it really works in the music business.  They won’t let the band play any of their own stuff.  Studio musicians go in and knock it out and they go on to the next song.  The record companies only have so much time and money to spend on them.  The bands are only there to go out and promote the music.  The stuff you hear on the radio are done by a few professionals that work for the record company, and that’s what you hear.”  Many of the artists you hear playing on Randy’s CDs are oftentimes the same musicians playing on Toby Keith’s and Kenney Chesney’s.  The same players.

Randy related to me that he was very proud to say that the night before one of his recording sessions, the renowned studio drummer Eddie Bayers flew in from filming an ABC television special with Lionel Ritchie and played on Randy’s recordings.

It came to pass that Rivertown’s first edition dissolved.  Randy, being the creative force and songwriter, made his solo CDs with Nashville A-line studio musicians.  Time marches on.  So did Rivertown, but a different configuration.

Chuck Johnson, local music legend and also Shelly’s uncle, along with drummer Jim Kirkpatrick were invited to join Rivertown.  “I knew my neighbor, bassist Brian Loll forever, and he came over to jam.  Within two weeks the second coming of Rivertown was born, and we actually lasted longer than the original Rivertown.”  A second CD was produced, which actually outsold the first one.  Writing the songs was a combined effort between Randy and Chuck Johnson.

As time passed the economy changed.  The band’s routine three-weekends a month turned into a Saturday or two every month and drunk driving laws became more strictly enforced.  People weren’t coming out to listen to live music as much and consequently bar owners were reluctant to hire a band.  Deejays increased in popularity.  The younger crowds were into exact music replication as opposed to hearing live interpretations.   Rivertown faded off into memory.  So did a number of other bands.

Perhaps the era of live music as we once knew it has passed from the landscape.  It’s difficult to find bands working anywhere in the area on a regular basis.  Some local establishments feature groups occasionally, but what you will find are small one or two person configurations playing, but in smaller venues and earlier hours.

Randy Van Vooren spent the next few years writing music.  There was no band, no recording, and no travelling.  This time was spent honing his craft and collaborating with selected co-writing friends he had made through the years from all over the United States.  His friend Julie Moriva introduced him to Nashville Songwriters’ Association International, or NSAI, and Songwriters of Wisconsin International (SOWI), which in turn introduced him to other individuals in the songwriting business. Many trips were taken to Nashville to build relationships and form bonds within the industry. In 2007 Randy was the first recipient of of SOWI’s Songwriter of the Year Award.  “Every fall I get together with some of my best buds and co-writing friends, Jay Brehmer from Appleton, Kevin VanPay from DePere, and Keith Larsen from Columbus, Ohio, and we spend three or four days up at a secluded cabin and write killer songs.  It’s just like a hunting camp, and from some of those experiences I know someday a number one will eventually find its way into the right hands.  The songs are too good not to.  Those friends and memories will live forever, and so should the songs.  Man, those are some great times.  Not that beer is involved or anything!”

Randy has probably earned the reputation as being the most prolific songwriter of our area, using his skills to record over fifty songs.  But times of transition often test one’s mettle, and the good guys rise to the occasion. Randy has written and recorded two solo CDs since the breakup of Rivertown. “I don’t know where the time went between Rivertown and my second solo CD.  I just counted the other day, because Linda Green just booked me for Porterfield in 2015.  I’ve got some people I’m going to call, get together a band for like fifteen songs for the mainstage.  I looked back from Stormer to today and I’ve had twenty-five songs out that were singles on the radio!  That’s crazy! That spans from 1982 to 2014.

Because of the nature of the business and where it has led, Randy is more recognized for his accomplishments outside of this area than he is here at home.  It strikes Randy as funny because he knows more people here because it’s where he grew up and still lives and works.  But 2014 was his most successful year, even without having a band.  “Having other bands cut my songs was incredible.  Having me and Shelly go out to Minnesota along with our co-writing friends Jay Brehmer and Kevin VanPay and seeing five thousand people shoulder to shoulder, listening to a band and then watching as the band stops playing their most popular song, which is one that I wrote and single us out, with a light shining on us as they say, ‘Our friends are here’ and they introduce us as the songwriters and then they played another…I was humbled.”

They recorded another song that is quite popular now; one you can find on You Tube called Tubin’.  And you watch a professional production of a video featuring a successful band playing the song and it takes Randy aback each time he sees it.  “I guess when I got that email with that on there…I opened it up, and I got done and I was….it was like watching a train accident or something.  I didn’t know what to say…I cried.  Shelly was standing right over me and she was crying.  I played it about three more times.”

Amid all of his success Randy does get concerned that it will be taken the wrong way whenever he finds himself describing all the good things that have happened to him since all of the success began.  He doesn’t want people to think he’s bragging as he recalls all of his exploits, each one a different thrill. But the truth is the truth.  And I’m certain that each retelling can be just as exciting as experiencing it all for the first time.  “To be able to be where I’m from, well I put it in NASCAR terms. If you knew how to drive a racecar, and you went down south and got to meet Tony Stewart or Kesolowski and Jeff Gordon and got to hang with them and then got to race against them, and you beat them, and the next time you went down there you hung with them and beat them, they realize that you knew how to drive a car just as good as they could and that you knew what you were doing.  But at the end of the day, they have sponsors, and you go back to Wisconsin.”

Randy is sure that the racing analogy works for him when he needs to explain to locals about his music adventures and successes.  He explained to me how his work with Meghan Linsey of the country duo Steel Magnolia has affected him.  “She’s a co-writer with me on three of my songs on my first solo CD.  There are a couple of instances where I wrote with her that I can’t explain unless you saw them through my eyes.  You had to be there for those intense sessions.  She had a song that reached number 5 on the Billboards and another that reached number 7 and one other inside the top 40.  Here I am in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, looking out my window watching it snow outside, and I got to write with someone who had three songs on the top 40 on the Billboards in the last three years.  If you would’ve told me that when I was 25, I would’ve called you a freakin’ liar.  What are the odds of that?  If I told you that within the last ten years I was going to go down and be mentored by Jimbeau Hinson, who won a Grammy award for writing Fancy Free by the Oak Ridge Boys, you’d have to slap me in the face.”  Or sharing a beer with Gary Hannan who wrote Tequila Makes My Clothes Fall Off, you’d call me a liar.  But they are no different than me or you.”

Life has been rather good to Randy VanVooren.  He has been able to rub shoulders and commiserate with the best that Country music has to offer.  He has honed his singing and songwriting skills to a point where he is recognized by some of the top people in the business.  Yet he keeps a pretty low profile back here in his neck of the woods.  On a return trip from Nashville, he and Shelly had reached Kentucky when they looked at each other and laughed, saying, “Who in the hell is going to believe us when we tell them what we’ve been doing and with whom we have been doing it?”

One of Randy and Shelly’s good friends is Sean Patrick McGraw, an up and coming country superstar.  Recently, he was performing a show in Minnesota and travelling by motorcycle between appearances to Buffalo, New York, and on his way through his motorcycle broke down in Manistique.  Knowing that Randy and Shelly lived nearby, he called Shelly for help. “’How far are you guys away from Manistique?’ were the first words out of his mouth.  We told him, and a friend of ours went and picked him up and brought his motorcycle back.  He stayed with while his bike was repaired. “We had a blast…just hangin’ out.  A fish fry on Friday and he even helped me get the camper set up out at the Porterfield grounds on Saturday.”

The two have known each other for a while and have developed a deep respect for each other and what they do.  Randy would no more try to take advantage of Sean anymore than anyone in the business.  He doesn’t operate that way and the majority of his friends in the business feel the same way.  “He knows I’m a songwriter, but never once have I pushed myself on him to write.  He has brought it up…when he knew I was going to be in Nashville he had said, ‘I’m up for writin’ if you have the time.’  That’s huge!  Sean has had a Montgomery Gentry cut.  I happened to be playing out at the Forgotten Fire Winery when he was staying at our house so he got to hear me play for like a half an hour before he left.  He realized that I’m for real.  Again, I treated him like a real person and never pushed myself on him.  He also commented to Shelly, ‘That was a bad-ass song.’  That meant more to me than anything.”