Abingdon’s Sleepy Hollow Fall Festival with Dane Bryant

From the file of one person can make a difference comes the story of Dane Bryant.
He was born to Bill and Sarah Bryant in Bristol, Tenn., on Bastille Day, July 14, 1960. The 1978 graduate of Virginia High School has since become a successful touring and recording musician.
See Bryant and a band of his musician buddies called Secrets perform jazz on Oct. 24 during the Sleepy Hollow Fall Festival in Abingdon, Va.
Call it a warm homecoming. That Bryant earns a living playing music in Nashville, Tenn., and throughout the country owes to one person’s faith in him back home in Bristol.
“My parents bought me an organ,” Bryant said by phone from his home in Nashville, “and then of all things watching Lawrence Welk, that really turned me on to music.”
But still Bryant had no band. He loved music, had a talent for it and yet perhaps did not realize the full extent of his talent.
“I did a talent show in high school, maybe one song,” Bryant said. “I didn’t take music seriously until my senior year.”
That’s when he encountered Betty Layman. She taught chorus at Virginia High School and recognized keen talent in Bryant.
“She secretly recorded me, sent it off to James Madison University, and next thing I know, I got a call from JMU’s jazz director,” Bryant said. “That changed my life.”
So Bryant, who to that point had never had a music lesson, crammed the summer before college to learn three classical songs and ventured away from his hometown to pursue music.
While there, he met fellow musicians such as Carter Beauford, who now plays with the Dave Matthews Band, and Keith Horne, who has worked with such artists as Waylon Jennings and Peter Frampton.
By 1984, they formed Secrets, a jazz-fusion band, in Richmond, Va.
“Dave Matthews would come and squat at the stage and watch us,” Bryant said. “We had a big following.”
Secrets recorded two albums by 1991, but time had come to pull the plug.
“We had to disband,” Bryant said. “Carter moved on with Dave Matthews. So we decided after our second album to pull up the stakes and move to Nashville.”
Country star Tanya Tucker hired Bryant to play keyboards in 1991. Four months later, bigger country star Clint Black hired him. He’s been with the singer of “Killin’ Time” ever since.
“I’ve also been playing with Olivia Newton-John off and on for nine and a half years,” he said.
Bryant also works as a session musician. His lengthy resume includes recordings with the Mavericks and their former lead singer Raul Malo, as well as with Black and country singer Buddy Jewell. Bryant also has recorded a pair of his own albums, including a jazz record.
Now, all of that means the world to Bryant. But one thing stands out.
“My dad found a sealed note from Betty Layman about five years ago that she wrote to me,” Bryant said, recalling his late teacher. “She wrote it to me for my graduation in 1978 from Virginia High School.”
That note is Bryant’s most prized possession and memory.
“It says, ‘Dane, you’re the reason why I teach.’ That blew me away,” Bryant said, followed by a pause. “I keep it close to my heart.”

IF YOU GO
What: Sleepy Hollow Fall Festival
Who: Dane Bryant
When: Oct. 24, festival from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with Bryant from 4-6 p.m.
Where: Main Street between Cummings Street and Russell Road, Abingdon, Va.
Admission: Free
Info: (276) 676-2282
Web and audio: http://www.myspace.com/danebryantmusic

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .