National country music acts to perform
Jul. 3—Nationally renowned country music artists and other musical acts will be on stage all day at the 2024 Spirit of America Festival playing their hit singles, and with all the activities and vendors, officials say the festival this year will be much like the ones hosted during the heyday of the festival in years past.
Decatur realtor Chase Grisham, owner of The Grisham Group, agreed to be the festival organizer this year. He said one of the biggest features of the festival will be the live performances of country music stars Frankie Ballard and Easton Corbin as well as Huntsville singer Ally Free and Nashville country music band The Roads Below.
Grisham said that real estate agent Jeanette McWhorter was instrumental in connecting him to music promoters to book Ballard and Corbin.
"The hard part was we only had two to three months to really pull it off," Grisham said. "We kind of put it together last minute, so we really pushed hard to get the best artists in the time frame that we had."
Grisham said there is no cover charge for the concert and festival, but he will be selling VIP tickets and meet-and-greet passes. VIP tickets are $60, meet-and-greet passes for Frankie Ballard are $125 each and the meet-and-greet passes for Easton Corbin are $165 each.
Grisham said tickets and passes may be purchased through the Spirit of America Facebook page or in person at The Grisham Group, LLC, located at 2355 Danville Road S.W. in the old fire station No. 5 building.
"We recommend everyone bring a chair or a blanket," Grisham said. "People purchasing VIP tickets will be guaranteed front row essentially, within a couple of feet of the artist. There will also be a large, tented area for them with complimentary Pepsi products."
Grisham said there will also be several cooling tents set up throughout the Spirit of America field with cooling mist fans.
Decatur resident Kenneth Shelton, 58, is a member of the Spirit of America committee and said he hopes to work with Grisham to rejuvenate the festival that he knew in his youth.
"I remember when President Reagan came here in the 1980s when I was a kid," Shelton said. "We've had a long list of TV celebrities, politicians and famous musicians who have played at the festival."
Shelton said country music singer Tom T. Hall performed in the 1970s and The Man in Black even showed up.
"Johnny Cash was awarded the Audie Murphy Award in 1972," Shelton said.
Shelton said country music singer Martina McBride performed at the Spirit of America Festival in 1993, singing her platinum-selling song "Independence Day" for one of the first times.
"I interviewed her for my publication in Nashville last year," Shelton said. "She said she remembered performing here."
Shelton said he appreciates Grisham's willingness to direct the festival this year because of the festival's decline over the last decade.
"It's sort of diminished and COVID sort of contributed to that," Shelton said of the festival. "His goal is to bring it back to its prominence that it once held. I remember when I was a kid, we had many people come in from out of state and attend the festival regularly and that's what I want to see again."
The musical performances will begin at 1:30 p.m. with Ally Free opening and Easton Corbin's performance will conclude at 9 p.m. before the fireworks show. Gates will open at 1 p.m.
Hailing from Michigan, Ballard first rose to prominence after winning Kenny Chesney's Next Big Star competition in 2008. In 2010, he released his debut single, "Tell Me You Get Lonely," which peaked at No. 33 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts in 2011. Ballard signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2013 and recorded his second album, "Sunshine and Whiskey" and released three No. 1 singles from that album: "Helluva Life, "Sunshine and Whiskey," and "Young and Crazy." One of those singles went gold and another went platinum.
Florida-based artist Corbin released his freshman, self-titled album in 2010 and the album's first two singles, "A Little More Country Than That," and "Roll With It," reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and both went platinum. The album eventually was certified as a gold record. He won three awards from the American Country Music Awards in 2010 including new/breakthrough artist of the year, single by a new/breakthrough artist for "A Little More Country Than That," and music video by a new/breakthrough artist for "A Little More Country Than That." Since then, Corbin has released 11 more singles from three different albums, with two of the songs going platinum and two of them going gold.
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