Dana Gillian prepares to tackle the high banks of BMS – in song.
Mike Clark
Posted On August 7, 2012
Dana Gillian is a highly-motivated singer / songwriter from Johnson City, and she is tackling a huge part of our culture, racing on the high banks of Bristol.
Many aspects of this area cultivate plots and scenarios for songs; song writers have written about rolling hills andmoonshine stills, but not many have discussed racing.
Dana considers herself a musical anthropologist, studying and describing the culture she grew up in.
Dana has been writing for the last 10 years and performing her music in bands such as Dana and the Robots and The Jane Scarletts.
She is releasing a demo this August on race weekend; the title track of the demo Heat on the Track, a song about a young female racer, hardships, and a love for Bristol’s Thunder Valley.
Aside from the race song, the demo will also include Shot Gun and Lonesome. The former is a serious song about love and death, written in memory of a friend that tragically passed away on Valentine’s Day2012.
Lonesome is a mix – Patsy Cline meets Etta James, Gillian’s voice brings chills and croons sorrow in the awesome ballad.
Fellow musicians on the project are drummer Josh Shores (from the band, Utah Moon), Daniel Boner (the Director of Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies at ETSU) on guitar and fiddle, and bassist (and Emmy-nominated sound engineer) Dylan Seals.
Dana will be performing her new songs at The Down Home at the OpenHoot August 22.
This demo will be distributed through out the southeast to celebrate Bristol Race Week
On August 25, call local radio stations and request “Heat on the Track,” to hear a local girl sing about a local treasure.
