Entertainment/Ticket

Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008

Highway 101 detour leads to the Clark Center

Years after the country group first made it big, the band still loves putting on a good show

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It makes sense for the country band Highway 101 to play at the Clark Center in Arroyo Grande. After all, the venue is just a hop, skip and a jump away from Highway 101 the highway.

While it’s true that Californians typically associate the route with California, and while it’s also true that the band Highway 101 came to be in California, the band name doesn’t necessarily refer to that Highway 101.

“When we first got together, we were living out in California and our singer was from Minnesota,” said bass player, songwriter and original band member Curtis Stone. “And there was a Highway 101 near where she lived. So it was something we had in common.”

Neither of those thoroughfares are located anywhere near the hub of country music— Nashville, Tenn. Still, the band scored 15 top-40 records in the 1980s and early ’90s, paving the way for the country giants that followed.

While they didn’t enjoy the monetary success achieved by Garth Brooks or Toby Keith, four No. 1 singles is enough to retire on. Absent from the charts for 15 years now, Highway 101 keeps plugging onward, reflecting not a financial need but rather a desire to perform.

A more low-key life

Now everything is just a little more low key.

“We drive vans now,” said Stone, while driving from Omaha, Neb., to Aberdeen, S. D. “We don’t have a big bus. We don’t have a crew. It’s just four people getting out to play some music.”

The band of session players was brought together by manager Chuck Morris, who first heard lead singer Paulette Carlson on an unsolicited tape. While they hadn’t grown up in the South, the musicians who started the band were experienced country musicians.

“We had all been playing honky-tonks for years,” Stone said.

Music in his blood

Stone grew up in California, but country music was in his blood. His grandfather was a country performer known as Herman the Hermit, who got his start in show business when he provided dogs (which he bred) for “The Big Trail,” an early John Wayne movie in 1930. Stone’s father was Cliffie Stone, a Country Music Hall of Famer who was a musician, producer and personality who hosted radio and TV shows.

Despite the heritage—and the country jam sessions the family took part in—Stone, then a guitarist, performed covers of Beatles and Led Zeppelin tunes when he was younger.

“Then one day my dad had a party that he was playing, and his bass player canceled,” Stone remembered. “And he said, ‘Look, I’ve got this little gig—why don’t you come and play bass?’ ”

Keeping his rock bands on the side, Stone continued to play bass in country bands. And by the time Morris assembled Highway 101 in 1985, Stone was a honed session player.

Stone insists his father didn’t help the band get a foot in the door.

“We were cutting a record before they knew that Cliffie was my dad,” he said. “And they all knew Dad. And I just assumed they did, but they went, ‘You’re Cliffie’s kid?’ ”

Successful singles

Highway 101 could play rock ’n’ roll, but singer Carlson’s vocals steered more toward traditional country, as was evidenced in the band’s first hit singles, “The Bed You Made For Me” and “Whiskey, If You Were a Woman.” The success of those singles led to an album deal that produced four top-five hits, including “Cry, Cry, Cry” and “Somewhere Tonight.”

More hits and Country Music Association awards would follow, and in a couple of years the band was one of the most popular country acts around. But four years after it all began the band

experienced its first lineup change when Carlson went solo.

Her departure occurred just as Garth Brooks and others were taking country music to a new level with huge crossover sales.

“In retrospect, if that hadn’t happened, we might have been Brooks&Dunn or we might have been Alabama,” Stone said.

When Carlson cut a solo album, the band continued to plug away without her.

“We were on fire,” Stone said. “We didn’t really have time to think about anything. We were reacting to the stuff around us. It wasn’t like we were going, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re quitting the band!’ We didn’t do any of that. She didn’t get mad. It just kind of happened.”

Performer changes

Nikki Nelson has, for the most part, been the lead singer of the group since then. But some diehard Carlson fans still have trouble accepting Highway 101 without her.

“The perception of the extreme success we had at the beginning is Paulette,” Stone said. “Because ‘Whiskey, If You Were a Woman’ and ‘The Bed You Made For Me’ were songs Paulette sang. But Nikki definitely brings something new to it.”

While the band hasn’t scored as many hits with Nelson as it did during the three years Carlson was with the group, she does have multiple top-40 hits, including “Baby, I’m Missing You” and “Bing Bang Boom.”

Over the years there have been other personnel changes. Original guitarist Jack Daniels left in the ’90s. But drummer Scott “Cactus” Moser and Stone have been around since the beginning. And now Nelson is a veteran. (Guitarist Andy Gurley is the newest member.)

The band is working on a Christmas album as it continues to tour the country. The members take it easy—they might play a long weekend but usually not a weekday — and they do much of the driving themselves. And as long as fans continue to show up, the band plays on.

“We’re just having a blast,” Stone said.