Harmonies are in their blood
Jordan and Seth Dugger are brothers that together form the Dugger Band. Their father is a pastor of a small community in the eastern part of Tennessee. They are both graduates of the University of Tennessee and are talented multi-instrumentalists as well as singer/songwriters. Their current single, ‘East Tennessee Son,’ is also the title track from their current album.
As CMA Fest 2018 drew to a close, I met up with Seth and Jordan to talk about their music and the audience reaction to their blend of contemporary and traditional country.
This is one of a series of interviews that I conducted with rising singer/songwriters during CMA Fest to find out about their new music, their musical influences and their experience at CMA Fest.
Smoky Mountain influence
Preshias Harris: Jordan, you both grew up in Greenville in East Tennessee, close to the Smoky Mountains. Do you feel that affected how your music developed?
Jordan Dugger: I think so, for sure. Most of our family are musical. A lot of the events we attended with our family, a lot of people would always bring guitars and fiddles and mandolins and all kinds of instruments to family get-togethers. So we grew up with the family harmony stuff and everybody singing together. Of course, growing up near Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge where Dolly Parton is from, we drew influence from a lot of her music. And there’s a big Bluegrass influence and a lot of mountain music, but also a lot of country and some of the rockin’ country as well. It’s a pretty diverse music community in East Tennessee so that definitely influenced our style today. The biggest part, I think, is the harmonies. And the first instruments we were into were guitar and fiddle.
PH: Seth, tell me about being here at CMA Fest. Is it your first time?
Seth Dugger: We’ve been for a couple of years now. But this year, we’ve performed the most at CMA Fest. It’s a great experience! It’s cool to see all the hard-core country music fans from all over the world come to Nashville for this one week. A lot of our fans came in for it to sit in on some of the fan parties that we had and hear some of our acoustic songs. So that was really humbling for us to see all those people from all over the world for this one event.
PH: What was one of your favorite performances? Continue reading “Dugger Band are ‘East Tennessee Sons’”