We grew up in a duplex in the McKees Rocks neighborhood. When I came home for family dinners, I’d catch him fiddling around in his room with his unplugged, secondhand Mitchell, looking out the window onto the Ohio River. I knew he had dreams of making it out of our industrial little backwater someday. So I took him along with me to concerts whenever I could.
He was with me when I shot the Dust and Roses show that Ryan opened. Country wasn’t quite his style—he very much identified with Bruce Springsteen back then—but he wasn’t about to turn down a free ticket to the New Hazlett.
I, too, remember being intrigued by the number of young girls I saw up front. All decked out in silver accessories to match Ryan’s style. There was a tiny girl on her dad’s shoulders right near the front, wearing an equally tiny cowgirl hat.
What stuck with me, more than anything, was how Ryan genuinely acknowledged this group—how she seemed to meet every eye in the room when she strode onstage, already breaking into “Shoes on the Dash.” She couldn’t have, it’s silly to think so—but I swear she winked at me before she got to the mic.
My brother must have thought the same.
I’ve heard about how connected Ryan is to her fans. Throughout the course of her entire career, she never seemed to get aloof like other major stars or to take her audience for granted. Maybe she knew, back then, that it was their collective power that could launch her into stardom, and she was going to do all she could to earn their attention.
Or maybe she was just having fun.
Either way, when she stretched her arm out to touch the reaching hand of the little girl in the cowgirl hat during “Highway 71,” I captured it.
Two young bluegrass fans looking for all the world like the fresco in the Sistine Chapel.
ThePittsburgh Post-Gazettebought my photo to use in a write-up about bluegrass’s revival in young female audiences.Entertainment Weeklyasked permission to use it a week later.
And as Ryan’s career grew, so did mine.
Jasmine
I don’t know what kind of magic Ryan managed to work on the Dust and Roses tour, but by the time she got back to Austin, Skip had booked her a tour of her own. San Antonio, Phoenix, San Diego, LA, Vegas, and San Francisco. He joked that it was the “Southwest Sans,” whichpersonally reminded me of a Taco Bell order, or maybe a font, but someone thought he said SouthwestSands, and I guess it caught on.
That photo from the Pittsburgh show, the one with the little girl in the silver cowgirl hat, did wonders—even my auntie called and told me how cute it was, and was that the young bluegrass lady I was working for?
Yes, Gomo, that’s Ryan. That’s Ryan to a T.
I think she knew exactly what she was doing with that photo.
Skip
Kshhhhhhh.Glide, baby.
Gavin Armstrong,lead singer of Montana Line
Ryan Holding’s crew brought us on as openers for the Southwest Sands tour. That was back when Ryan was still country. I don’t mean no disrespect—people change, and I guess their music can too. I don’t want to say she sold out. I guess I just mean ... we had her first, you know? I know some folks in my genre find it easy to think she sold out on all of us. It’s a real tight-knit group, and that’s only gotten more true in, well ... in our current political climate, should I say. There’s a mindset in the industry that country’s gotta stick together. And some would say Ryan gave it up down the road.
But I remember that tour. She was just a half-bit of a girl, she was, but what a spitfire. Me and the guys were young, too, barely in our twenties, so it felt a little weird to be opening for someone who could’ve been your kid sister. I mean, we were happy for the opportunity—don’t get me wrong for a second. No one knew us from Adam in those days. But Ryan really had her own way of doing things, and for a bunch of guys who were already trying to do everything we could to be “cool,” well—it was different.
Different, but . . . great.
Part of it was that she was so normal. Our first rehearsal, she comes in wearing Hollister sweatpants and a hoodie, and you’re likeWait, is this her? Is that Ryan?She was always professional in demeanor, but you could tell she was still learning to handle fame, this being her very first brush with it. Still notquitebig enough to be recognized on the street—and neither were we, not by a long shot—but big enough to find on any country station or Best Buy CD rack.
It hadn’t made her self-conscious yet, if that makes any sense.
Kylie Cameron,model and singer
One thing that Ryan would do at her early shows was pick audience members by random, and on their ticket, they’d get a little june-bug icon—you know, like the song. That meant they had VIP access.
It wasn’t like my shows, or, I mean,anyshows, where you had to pay extra to get the VIP ticket. No—it was totally democratic, totally random.
And that kind of pissed me off, you know? Because this girl was starting to be a big deal, even though I didn’t know what the hell bluegrass was. But she had this bomb-ass dress in thatEntertainment Weeklyphoto, and Iwanteda dress like that. Silver was having a huge comeback because of her.
And I wanted to meet her. I wanted to know what was going on in those VIP meet and greets.
I was just modeling back then; I didn’t have any music industry cred, so I didn’t have any connections who could get me backstage like I do now. In fact, I got into musicbecauseof Ryan. She’s really been so influential to so many people. But the only way I could get to that backstage was if I bought someone else’s little june-bug ticket, and those were quite hard to come by.
