Please note that this post contains affiliate links and any sales made through such links will reward MageeNews.com a small commission – at no extra cost to you.
In the Summer of 1982 , I was helping some friends set up a display for a trade show at the Mississippi Trade Mart building in Jackson.
We had worked all day and was tired. We stepped over to Denny’s for some dinner. While sitting at Denny’s , we happened to notice the sign at the Ramada Inn that read they were having live entertainment tonight.
Well, I’m not the type to ever turn down free entertainment from a live band, so we walked down the street to the lounge of the Ramada .
As we went in and sat down, a group of young men began to take the stage. They began to play some tunes with a Country/ Rockabilly flair and some of the people began to dance.
The group called themselves Sawyer Brown and was lead by a very energetic guy by the name of Mark Miller.
We listened to band and thought they were really good. When the show was over, we went back to Magee….. and didn’t think much more of it .
Imagine my surprise about a year later while watching the television show Star Search with Ed McMahon . The group Sawyer Brown was on , and won the talent show competition. Sawyer Brown continued to win , week after week. The group won the grand prize of $100,000 in 1983.
The grand prize money from Star Search helped to launch the band’s career.
To date, Sawyer Brown has released twenty studio albums, of which three have been certified gold in the United States for sales of 500,000 copies. More than fifty of their singles have entered the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three Number One singles. Sawyer Brown also received a Horizon Award from the Country Music Association in 1985, as well as a Vocal Group of the Year award in 1997 from the Academy of Country Music and 5 Vocal Band Of The Year Awards from the TNN Music City News Country Awards.
They’ve come quite a long way from that night at the Ramada Inn. Just goes to show you that you never know where you may run up on great talent.
