MUSIC

Come to Music City Bar Saturday night for a night of live music ft. a performance by Jared Rogers

The average Music Row singer and songwriter would name Hank Williams or Patsy Cline as his or her favorite artist, but nothing about Jared Rogers is average.

“David Gilmour is No. 1 for me. I want David to produce my record,” Jared says of the legendary Pink Floyd guitarist and vocalist. “But I’m different, man, I’m more Classic Rock with a Country twist.”

This is a combination that has rarely if ever been tried before. Jared’s songs combine the huge, guitar-based sound of artists like Journey, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, and B.B. King with the soulful Country magic of folks like Ray Charles and Garth Brooks to create a powerful Wall of Sound that easily crosses countless musical borders and figures to delight Radio listeners hungry for innovative music.

“I’m real stoked, I’m on Cloud Nine,” he says of his new music. “I always stand my ground. No one can knock me off my horse.”

On his “Bridge We All Must Cross,” Jared’s soulful vocals and soaring guitars ride above a driving bass and drum track with a melody that seems to have sprung equally from Eric Clapton’s Layla period or Garth’s No Fences days, but we immediately sense this is a Jared Rogers signature piece.

Perhaps not since Clapton enlisted Duane Allman to add slide overdubs to “Layla” have we heard Rock’s power and Country’s heart combined this way.

And everything about Jared Rogers – from his movie-star looks to his tattoo-covered arms and his charismatic stage presence – has the look and sound of a Star.

He’s been surrounded by music at the highest levels his entire life.

Jared was born in Athens, Georgia, but early on moved to Nashville. His birth father was Kenny Rogers’s chief pilot and head of security. Kenny’s brother Randy – the youngest of eight children - came into Jared’s life when Jared was just 2, and raised him. Jared and Randy still speak just about every day. Tena, Jared’s mom, has likewise been in the business for decades, working for Country stars including Lorrie Morgan, Tanya Tucker, Sammy Kershaw, and Joe Diffie.

“Kenny’s always been an influence. I’ve been to over 100 of his shows, and what I love most is his ability to make everybody from the front to the back row feel like he’s telling them a story,” Jared says. “But I’ve never asked Kenny for anything.”

Indeed, Jared has been determined to make it on his own and do things his own way. He became so proficient on guitars that he landed an endorsement deal with Samick Guitars, makers of half the world’s guitars. At one point, Rogers owned 28 guitars. And after seeing Bruce Springsteen perform “Thunder Road” solo onstage while he played piano, Jared has taught himself piano as well.

When his family moved to Las Vegas in the mid-1990s, Jared’s life changed as he encountered a rough crowd right off the bat. He was mugged during that terrifying time. “My first week in Vegas, I decided I had to be tougher and bigger and badder,” he says. “I decided that I wasn’t afraid to die, just of not living.”

Jared was also an incredible athlete, but a series of five concussions ended his football career. These injuries gave Jared an abnormally high sensitivity to light. But as with every potential obstacle in Jared’s music and career, he’s turned this into an advantage. He scored an endorsement deal with Morganthal Frederics sunglasses, the same New York-based company that provides shades to the hip-hop superstar Jay-Z.

This fierce competitive instinct and energy affect all of Jared’s music, from his songwriting to his powerhouse live shows.

No place is this more evident than in Jared’s cross-country tours with the Rolling Thunder “Spirit of Freedom” Tour, which he’s performed to honor American POWs, MIAs, soldiers, and veterans. The tours begin in California and climax in Washington, DC over Memorial Day weekend, with free concerts for hundreds of thousands of soldiers and fans in the Nation’s Capital.

The soldiers quickly realized a kindred spirit in Jared’s music and his charisma, and as usual he became a fan favorite.

Now he’s bringing that same magic and fierce competitive spirit back to Nashville, where he returned in July. And he’s ready to break entirely new musical ground.

“I’m the first to do this. If you listen to Country today we hear more 1970s and 1980s guitar riffs in the music,” he says. “Think about it. What were our greatest decades in music? It was the Seventies and Eighties, when Pink Floyd and Aerosmith and John Cougar Mellencamp were all in their prime.”

And now, 25 years later, this young artist who’s been in the industry his entire life has combined that pioneering magic with modern Country stylings, and come up with something that’s both totally new and happily familiar. We can sum up that magic in two words – Jared Rogers.