By Mark Gregory
Editorial Director
@Hear_The_Beard
mark@buglenewspapers.com
With the ascension of country music in recent years, many artists are taking to a country platform to try and get airplay — some even moving genres to reinvent themselves as country artists.
That is not the case for Clare Dunn — she lived it.
The 31-year-old from Colorado grew up in a town with less than 50 people, where she learned to drive a tractor at a young age and where the comfort of the herd outweighed her own comforts.
“I grew up in the very Southeast corner of Colorado near Kansas and Oklahoma, so it is very rural and it is all agriculture based and that is what the majority of the people do out there,” Dunn said. “In some form or fashion, it is all tied to [agriculture] and the land. We are a small, family operation. It was my parents and my sister and I growing up and it was all hands on deck. We grew up the same way my parents did — driving tractors from a young age and learning the value of a good work ethic and taking care of cattle and sacrificing your well being to take care of animals and making sure they are taken care of and that they are comfortable before anything else and it was a great way to grow up. I go back as often as I can. Those are all my stories I write stories about.”
Dunn will bring her music to Tailgaters Sports Bar & Grill at 431 W Boughton Rd. in Bolingbrook Friday night. The no-cover, Miller Lite Original Next BIG Thing show starts at 7:30 p.m.
Dunn said fans at Tailgaters can expect the same energy she gave when playing arena shows opening for the likes of Bob Segar.
“Our shows are always high energy. No matter if we are playing a dive bar or an arena, we give a show like we are in an arena,” she said. “The one thing I really love about playing bars is that you can really see the fans, you can look into their eyes and see what they are thinking and how good of a time they are having.”
Dunn and her band are currently traveling the country working on getting their music out to the people in any way possible.
“We are crisscrossing the country right now. We are in full travel beast mode right now and all of our airline points are adding up quick,” she said. “I love it all. There are pros to each. I love to get on a bus and see the country and see where we are playing and see the landscape around where we play. I also love playing a show in Boston and waking up the next day in Chicago. It is all fun to me. Coming from a farm, anytime I am pursuing my dream and doing what I love, there are not any complaints from me on how we get there — just as long as we get there.”
This is not the first time Dunn has place the Chicagoland area.
“We have played Joe’s on Weed a couple times, we have done Lake Shake a couple times and we are going to be back at Lake Shake this summer,” she said. “We love it every time we get to come up there — there are great country music fans.”
After leaving the Colorado farm for Belmont University in Nashville, Dunn has been on her way, playing small bars all around the country and getting a big break when SiriusXM’s The Highway channel put her single “Cowboy Side of You” in rotation.
That soon led to a contract with Universal Music Group Nashville.
“I had some believers and I took an opportunity and they took a chance to play my music and it connected with fans out there and I am so grateful for all those opportunities out there,” Dunn said. “I started touring out of an F-150 pickup and a trailer — just me and three dudes. It was a real tough start. It was not the easy route and not the quick route, it was definitely a grind, but it was so fun and so well worth it. Every little step I have taken on this dream journey has made me the artist that I am.”
Dunn sang backup on Luke Bryan’s 2011 smash hit, ‘Country Girl (Shake it for Me)’ and then was chosen by Segar to join him on tour.
“It was a great opportunity for me to get to sing on ‘Country Girl (Shake it for Me)’ and then Bob Segar gave us the opportunity to open his Ride Out Tour and that was a highlight,” she said. “Getting to play in front of 20,000 people every night was just unreal and his fans were so welcoming to us and they didn’t have to be.”
While in college, Dunn decided to broaden her musical reach and picked up a guitar and learned to play – something she does on most of her songs.
“Where I am from there is no place to see a band or no place to see a band or no music store or lessons for hours away. I grew up dancing and singing and performing anywhere I could,” she said. “When I moved to Nashville for college, I was trying to learn how to make records and trying to make a record in my bedroom made me want to learn to play. For me as an artist, it is important for me to be involved in every aspect of my music, because I want people to know it comes from my heart and it is my artistic view on the world and that is how I feel about my heroes. When I listen to a Waylon Jennings record or an Eagles record, I know that they were fully immersed in making that record.”
Not only are Dunn’s songs influenced by where she came from, her sound is also rooted in the artists she grew up listening to.
“There are a lot of influences in what has made me the artist I am — Waylon Jennings, George Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Reba McEntire all the way to the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner. I love Whitney Houston and I grew up on her and a lot of soul music and R&B,” she said. “My sound is rock and roll influenced and are the stories of a girl who grew up in the middle of nowhere just dreaming of making music while she was driving a tractor. It was a country way of life with a rock and roll energy and rhythm.”