“The more that I listen to (artists who perform) country, folk and Americana based on the Appalachian tradition, the more I feel like I was meant to be here to get that taste of it.” “It’s a different kind of beauty,” Fernandez said. There, she said she met local musicians Rebecca Porter, a country singer-songwriter who released debut EP “Prime Rainbow Conditions” in February, and Charlottesville-based producer, musician and songwriter Ryan Garst, and she began to admire Appalachian music traditions, too. “When I am performing, there is nothing else in the world I would rather be doing,” Fernandez said.Ī senior graphic design major at JMU, Fernandez said she broke out of the campus bubble by visiting the open mic night at Clementine Café in downtown. As she did, the day and the people walking by just melted away, and it was only her and her guitar. Taking Dolly Parton’s fearless words to heart, Fernandez said she began playing on the cold sidewalk. I ran back here and I was like, ‘Keep doing that.’”įernandez said her first “real” performance was busking on the cold front stoop of the Tuning Fork, which Waddington said he encouraged her to do. “I heard her back here singing and I stopped in my tracks. “It was like her second or third lesson and I had to go up front to help a customer,” Waddington said. Seriously picking up the guitar within the last year, Fernandez went into the Tuning Fork - a downtown Harrisonburg music repair shop - for a few lessons with owner Sean Waddington, a Harrisonburg musician. A lot of people that I know by name are just now busting into the scene.”įernandez doesn’t just dabble in different hobbies. “Growing up, I didn’t see that very often. “I really want to be a representation for Latin Americans in country music,” Fernandez said. That’s home for me, it feels natural to play country.”īut, she observed, the two rarely overlapped. “Being from Texas and Florida that’s just what I’m rooted in. “My mom raised me on (country music),” Fernandez said. Her Mexican American mother played a steady stream of American country canon songs in the car and at home, she said. The singer and guitarist performs on campus and at venues throughout downtown Harrisonburg,īorn in Del Rio, Texas, and raised just outside of Miami, Fernandez said she was steeped in Hispanic culture and country music traditions in equal measure. “Every day, when I’m putting my boots on and I don’t see people on campus wearing boots, but I’m like, ‘Just be who you are on purpose. “I live by (Dolly Parton),” Fernandez said, citing a quote about self-expression attributed to the country singer. Rays of morning light beamed across senior Caitlin Fernandez’s thick, dark, curly hair, her broken-in cowboy boots and crisp white Dolly Parton T-shirt - all things she takes pride in. On a dewy recent morning, a clear, confident voice rang sweetly over the sparkling James Madison University quad, accompanied by the adept strumming of a guitar.
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