Rhonda Vincent's concert will be a happy state fair homecoming

Rhonda Vincent’s first performance at the Missouri State Fair in more than three decades will be a reunion of family and friends as much as it will be a bluegrass concert. Vincent, who played at the fair’s Show-Me Riverboat stage in the 1970s as a teenager with her family band the Sally Mountain Show, is thrilled by all the emails she’s been getting from old friends who say they’ll be in attendance.

“It’s very exciting to hear from so many people that they are coming,” Vincent, 49, said in a recent phone interview from her Kirksville home. “It’ll be fun to see folks return who maybe haven’t been to the state fair since we have.”

Furthering the family reunion vibe, the opening acts for Rhonda Vincent & the Rage will be Dailey & Vincent, which features Rhonda’s older brother Darrin, and the Next Best Thing, which features Rhonda’s daughters Sally Berry and Tensel Sandker.

“I grew up playing the Missouri State Fair, and that’s why this is very special for us,” said Vincent, who grew up in Greentop. “I’m the fifth generation of the Vincent family of musicians, and my daughters are the sixth generation. With the Sally Mountain Show, Darrin and I and my mom and dad played 12-hour days for 10 consecutive days for seven years on the Show-Me Riverboat. We have strong ties there.”

It’s appropriate that Vincent is returning in 2011 — and capping off a full day of bluegrass music that starts with the Show-Me Bluegrass festival throughout the grounds — because her career has come full circle since those Sally Mountain Show days. As a solo act, Vincent broke through as a country singer, but in the late 1990s, she returned to her bluegrass roots.

“For a long time, when I traveled with my family, people would say ‘Your voice is so country,’ ” Vincent said. “Then I recorded two country albums and they said ‘Can you get the bluegrass out of your voice?’ I was confused. So those five years in country music are like my musical college years. I learned from the best. I came to a crossroads and said, ‘OK, who am I? What am I?’ I put together a band, the first version of the Rage, and I thought ‘I love this, but is it what I’m supposed to be doing?’ Then everything fell into place — I signed with Rounder Records, I won an International Bluegrass Music Association award, I got a sponsorship.

“The defining moment for me was when I opened some shows for George Jones, and this was a country music crowd. I opened these shows, I went to the merchandise area, and as an opening act you usually don’t sell anything, but it was a mob scene. They kept saying ‘We love your country music.’ From that moment, I realized (the definition of country or bluegrass) is the perception of the listener.”

Vincent won seven consecutive IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year awards from 2000 through ’06, while still enjoying a smattering of success in the country world. Keeping a foot in both genres, she re-recorded one of her country hits, “I’m Not Over You,” as a bluegrass song. And earlier this year, she released an album of country duets with Gene Watson, “Your Money and My Good Looks.”

“That’s been a lot of fun to sing with Gene, one of greatest country singers in the world,” Vincent said. “We met on the TV portion of the ‘Grand Ole Opry.’ We sang together, and then met for the first time after the song. When we heard our voices together, there was a magic there. It led to touring together and recording the album. Maybe we can return some day to the state fair. It was fun for me, because we play bluegrass music all the time, but Gene Watson is stone-cold traditional country music.”

Shortly before the Watson album, Rhonda Vincent & the Rage released “Taken,” her first record since leaving Rounder to handle career decisions on her own.

“I researched all of the trends, and it seemed like that was the thing to do,” Vincent said of breaking from her longtime record label. “But my daughter (Sally) got married around the same time, and all of a sudden all of these checks are going out. That’s the one factor where you’re like ‘Where’s the advance? Where’s the budget check?’ There were some sleepless nights, but once the album came out, it’s been selling well.”

Being independent allowed Vincent to venture beyond bluegrass and record a gospel DVD, collaborate with Watson, and generally keep an ear open to whatever outside-the-box projects come her way.

But at the state fair, she will be representing bluegrass. She and her bandmates plan to “take part in anything and everything we possibly can” during the day-long celebration of bluegrass, even though they will be coming off a long flight from Hawaii. Although Vincent said the popularity of bluegrass has always been cyclical and it never stays on top for long, she acknowledges that the genre has found a lot of new fans in the past decade.

“Now there’s a lot of superficial music and superficial things in the world,” Vincent said. “To me, what people come back to is this authenticity. With bluegrass, what you see is what you get. We could play at the grandstand or under a tree in a park. There’s no tricks. We use technology, but there’s no technology that’s going to alter the sound. It’s the wood that’s making that sound, the players who are making that sound. People recognize that and they want to hear that.”