Amanda Webb wants to go worldwide. She’s getting there, one step at a time.
Step one was her band winning the People’s Choice award at the South Central Indiana Blues Society competition last fall.
Step two was winning the Kentuckiana Blues Society competition a month later to earn a spot at the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge.
This week, the band is competing in that challenge with 260 bands from across the world in Memphis, Tennessee.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]The Amanda Webb Band has been around for three years, but the current group has only been playing together since July. It’s made up of Webb on vocals, her husband, Brian, on guitar and backup vocals, bassist Casey Simmons, guitarist Joe McCadden, and drummer Jeff Routen.
“They are really stellar musicians. I adore them as people. I appreciate all of their dedication. They are amazing skillfully just as people,” she said.
Webb decided about a year ago that she needed to take her blues rock band to the competition circuit. It was January, and she was trying to book shows locally.
“I thought we had a great band and a great sound. I was really getting zero traction. I couldn’t get people to listen to us. I couldn’t get people to pay attention. The people that heard us loved us, but there’s so much noise because there’s so many bands,” she said.
Webb realized she needed an endorsement to prove to venue owners and festival organizers that her band was as good as the fans were saying.
“I said, ‘We have got to compete. We just have to, because I am getting nowhere,” she said.
“Now, we’re winning. I’m ecstatic. We have an endorsement. I’m like, ‘See! I told you so.’ Now, it’s beautiful. I’m writing to these people saying, ‘Hey, could you please book us? Here’s why. … These people said we’re good.’”
The challenge
The international blues challenge is taking place Jan. 22 to 26 in venues along historic Beale Street in Memphis.
On Jan. 26, finalists will perform at the Orpheum Theater. The Amanda Webb Band is guaranteed two performances before the semifinals on Jan. 25.
Blues competitions are challenging because blues is composed of three chords and eight to 12 measures. “It’s been around for 100 years, so it’s been used a lot. You get to this point where you think you have heard everything that could possibly be done with this very finite material, but we have to create something new out of it. We have to make it alive and energetic,” she said.
“The blues isn’t about coming up there and being a firecracker guitarist or a hellion of a vocalist; you have to have emotion and feeling. It has to have that drive.”
Blues fans will recognize a fake, she said. That was part of the learning curve.
“We would play blues, and I was marketing us as a blues band, because that’s what we liked. We were playing what we thought was blues,” she said.
Instead, it was really more rock and soul, she said.
“Blues people are opinionated. They know what their blues should sound like. … They aren’t going to allow you to play something and call it blues when it’s not really blues.”
So, the band took the commentary from their scorecard to heart. They wrote some new tunes. “We put it down and said, ‘We know what we have to do to win,’” she said.
“The People’s Choice Award was a great endorsement. I was happy with that, but I know it’s not enough. I have greater aspirations than simply getting an endorsement anyways. That’s just step one. I’m going worldwide here — conquer the world one step at a time.”
But first, opera
From the ages of 10 to 22, Webb only performed and studied classical music. She graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with a major in opera. She studied classical music and voice there.
“Even though I enjoyed listening to, and was very open to, all kinds of music and I loved all kinds of music, it wasn’t really an acceptable form of study. If your parents are going to pay money for you to study, they send you to what’s acceptable, so what’s acceptable was classical study,” she said.
With the blues, Webb said she has found her place in life.
“This is my people. … I feel like I’m really coming into my own now both as an artist and as a singer. I’m finding my own voice instead of copying what other people have always done, or trying to be something else that I couldn’t quite mold myself into.”
After getting her degree, Webb realized her future in opera would mean debt, instability and lots of traveling with no promise of a payday.
“I didn’t love opera so much as a profession that I was willing to sacrifice a family, stability and my financial stability in order to be mid-range on the totem pole. It’s music, but I could probably find another music to do,” she said.
Amanda and Brian moved back to Brown County, where Brian grew up and had a family business. Their family expanded with five sons.
Webb never really left music behind, though. She performed in church and played around town with Brian from time to time. She never had a paid gig in which she didn’t play classical music until she met local musician Jeff Foster.
“He invited me to come perform with him for a number of shows and he taught me how to book a gig. He taught me how to deal with the crowd,” she said.
“He encouraged me to step up. He encouraged me to keep growing. That’s something I didn’t experience a whole lot of in coming up through the ranks in classical music,” she said.
She also credits some of her support to the nurturing nature of Brown County.
“People here are hugely supportive. They are supportive of their community — not because you’re something phenomenal, but because you’re here. You’re from here and they just love you for being you,” she said.
Webb had grown up in large towns, including Washington, D.C., and Grand Rapid, Michigan. “This is the first time I’ve ever lived in a small community, and I feel overwhelmingly loved by it,” she said.
Full circle
While performing with Foster, Webb only played other bands’ music. When she started her own band, they also only played covers. That is until her bassist, Simmons, encouraged her to play a song she wrote.
“All of the things I would write then were really indicative of being influenced by Madonna, Bon Jovi and … my mom really liked Elvis, so I would write something that sounded like Elvis,” she said.
The band works together to write the music. “We mish-mashed them up together. That’s where the music is coming from. Then you come up with some great melodic riff you add on top of it.”
She feels as if she’s come full circle by writing original blues music. As the lead singer, Webb is responsible for writing all the lyrics.
One of the songs on the band’s demo for the international competition, “Jeffro’s Blues,” is based on her drummer’s life.
Another song on the demo, “Twilight,” is about Amanda and Brian’s relationship. “The whole world is going to change and we’re still going to be together. Just hold onto the one thing that is really good and pure,” she said.
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LISTEN IN: Check out the Amanda Webb Band on Facebook at “Amanda Webb Band” or their website, AmandaWebbBand.com. Their music is available on Spotify, their website, CD Baby and Amazon. Their demo will be available for purchase after the band gets back from the International Blues Challenge this week. It also is available for download online.
KEEP UP: The band’s Facebook page will be updated as they progress through the international competition.
SUPPORT: The band is also hoping to raise money to cover their travel costs for the challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. “The competition itself doesn’t cost us any money, but we had to produce a demo and that’s been expensive. In order to be successful down there we had to print a lot of marketing materials and it’s eating up a lot of money,” lead singer Amanda Webb said. “It’s five days off work, and a couple of my guys do not get vacation pay. I’m hoping if we raise enough money we can help support the families to do it. These guys are dedicated. They are doing it knowing there might not be any money there.” Monetary donations can be sent to Webb at P.O. Box 1132, Nashville, IN 47448.
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