Flipside, The Southern
January 2008
by Brent Stewart

It could be said that Southern Illinois is the birthplace of what is now called "alt-country."

This area of the Midwest is a strange combination of the North and the South; though not enough to be fully accepted by either side.

Perhaps it's that lack of singular cultural identity that first produced the mix of front porch country music with bar band punk rock.

It could also be the natural contrariness of the area that renders it best able to integrate those seemingly different genres with the universal themes of "drinkin," "leavin'" and "lovin.'"

Hailing from Belleville, Ill., Uncle Tupelo, the band whose first album inspired the name for "No Depression," a magazine that chronicles the alt-country movement is credited with creating this unique musical genre.

But the granddaddy of them all came from a farm in Sheffield, Ill. and cut his teeth while in school at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

In the early 1980's, when country music in Nashville meant Lee Greenwood and an emerging George Strait, Jason and the Scorchers burst onto the scene with a vengeance.

Whether they were playing covers of songs by Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Faron Young or their own fiery rockers; the Scorchers' intensity could be compared to driving a Cadillac down the interstate and passing George Jones on a lawnmower. And it all started right here.

Jason Ringenberg played his first professional show in the spring of 1978. It was a dorm room cafeteria noon show for which he was paid $30.
"That's when you think your career starts, when you first get paid for playing," he said.

For a while he tried the solo "folk-y" style of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, but just like the latter, Ringenberg's musical career didn't jump into high gear until he plugged in.

While in college at SIUC, he played in a couple of different bands, most notably Shakespeare's Riot and its rockabilly offshoot, the Catalinas.

The bars of Carbondale were the testing ground for a completely different way of playing an old kind of music, but as college life ended, Ringenberg knew there was something more out there.

"I just knew I needed to make a move, a big dramatic move," he said.
"It sounded so romantic to load up my 1971 Econoline van with all my stuff and drive to Nashville, not knowing a soul, and set up camp and start making some noise.

"It pulled me, you know. I couldn't resist that kind of move."
Although he considered New York and Los Angeles, the idea of moving to those cities never really clicked the way Nashville did. . It fit in more with his musical heritage, but it was also close to home in more ways than one.

"There are a lot of similarities in how the land lays and the folks there," Ringenberg said.
"It's the best thing I ever did in my life, the best move I ever made."
When he got down to Music City, Ringenberg was scoffed at when he said that he'd be playing in a band and would have a record out within a year.
And he was right.

"It was immediate," Ringenberg said. "I was chomping at the bit.
"I just knew it was going to work."

It's hard to measure the impact of a bunch of young punks playing "Lost Highway" faster than the legal limit at that point in time in the town that Chet Atkins built.
"Nashville in 1981 it was a much different scene than it is today," Ringenberg said. "It was a sort of backwater sideline of the music business. It was primarily pop country at the time along with a very small core of people who liked punk rock music.

"It was the place where a lot of old, old musicians hung out, and in stepped this little kid off the farm."

It wasn't long before he met Warner Hodges, Jeff Johnson, and Perry Baggs and they began to tear up the town. Despite their punk attitude, it was never a matter of doing away with the establishment, but a deep, deep respect for it.
The audience's response was equally passionate.

"It was divided right down the middle, certain segments of the Nashville country community definitely hated us," Ringenberg said.

"Also there was an equal amount of them that really dug what we did and got it immediately. They were so excited that something cool was happening, something was shaking people up."

After an initial independent EP, "Reckless Country Soul," and two classic albums on EMI Records, "Fervor," and "Lost and Found" as the decade wore on and commercial success became more elusive, the band eventually sputtered out.
"Warner used to say at the time that he'd trade longevity for smash success," Ringenberg said. "Looking back? I would rather have happened what happened.
"We never really did have anything even remotely resembling a hit song. Never even close. But we did have a certain respect from the folks we influenced and a real solid fan base that's with us to this day.

"We sort of lost some creative spark. I'm sure a lot of that was trying to make the band fit in to the musical commercial world when there was absolutely no way to do that. The band was not commercial and never was and never could have been."
After the band broke up, Ringenberg signed a one off deal with Capitol Records at the urging of longtime fan, producer Jerry Crutchfield. The label was just about to have a runaway success with Garth Brooks, but for the former Scorcher the album was a low point in his personal and professional lives.

In just a few years, the musical landscape would finally catch up with the Scorchers when the "alt-country" movement began booming, upon the break up of Uncle Tupelo.

By then just about every band had a pedal steel and was amping up old country chestnuts, a Scorchers speciality.

Ringenberg didn't realize the effect of the alt-country movement until the band reformed and began touring again in 1993.

"It was a quantum shift in the audience," he said. "All of a sudden there were a lot of people interested in our band that had never been there the first time around."
The band was back and playing killer live shows. They released two more albums, but when bassist Jeff Johnson left a second time, it was over.

"The band was those four guys," Ringenberg said. "When Jeff left, he took something with him. We had made the statement we made and it was time to move on."

The end of the Scorchers was the beginning of something completely different. In 2000, Ringenberg went back to his roots and released his first "official" solo album, "A Pocketful of Soul."

"I wanted to make a radically different record than Jason and the Scorchers would have ever made and that's what I did," he said. "I made a solo folk record with no drums."

At that point he had only played solo a couple times in the years since he began playing with bands, but when it came time to promote the release, it was just him and a guitar on stage.

"I had no idea how to do it," Ringenberg said. "When I went out solo after that record, it took some getting used to. Gradually I got into it.

Between 2002 and 2005, he played more shows than he did during the entire nineties.

As his professional life flourished, so did his personal life. Ringenberg remarried and started a new family with two young daughters.

"I was around kids all the time and around the music they were listening to and absolutely loved listening to music with them," he said.

"It dawned on me that if I could do this with other families, it could be a wonderful experience and also I wanted to give my kids an album of mine to listen to."
And Farmer Jason was born, Ringenberg's children's music alter-ego that has released two very successful albums for kids, "A Day at the Farm with Farmer Jason" and "Rockin' in the Forest with farmer Jason."

"As an artist really I don't think of myself as a great songwriter or singer or great recording artist," he said. "I do think that live is where I really shine. I'm a live performing artist. By being farmer Jason, it just opens up a whole new world to do that."

As Farmer Jason, he's reaching an entirely new audience and level of success. His place in Rock n Roll history secure, Ringenberg returns full circle to Southern Illinois to celebrate the release of "Best Tracks and SideTracks: 1979-2007," an overview of his career as a writer and solo artist.

In recent years, he has visited the area quite often, recording with local musician Stace England as well as performing shows and cultivating a relationship with the Woodbox Gang.

"I told Stace the other day that thanks to him I was able to reconnect with my Southern Illinois roots but not in the way of exploring the dusty old past," Ringenberg said.

The old expression that you can't go home again seems not to hold water for one of Southern Illinois' most illustrious sons.

"It's a living experience for me there now," Ringenberg said. "The connections I have there, the relationships. There are new things happening with it all the time."