Tracy Grammer Performs in Watchung

Born in Homestead, Florida and raised in southern California, Grammer comes from a musical family. Cousin Leo Fortin played double trumpets in Lawrence Welk’s band, while her grandmothers and mother played keyboards and accordion. But it was her guitar-playing father who was her first true inspiration.

“When Dad used to get out his lap steel and electric guitars, we’d invite the neighborhood kids over and sing country songs. I’d sit across from my dad and read the music upside-down so I could turn the pages for him. I developed an ear for harmony early on and hardly ever sang the melody,” she muses, “and it drove my little brother crazy.”

At the age of nine, Grammer began choral and classical violin studies and led regional and school orchestras until she left home for the University of California, Berkeley. Once there, she gave up music while earning an English literature degree and serving as an administrator and graphic designer for the University.

During a semester off, Grammer’s father introduced her to Curtis Coleman, formerly of the New Christy Minstrels. Coleman invited her to perform with him at local pub and coffeehouse shows. Grammer had recorded a few songs in tourist booths at San Francisco’s Pier 39, but getting up on stage with Coleman was pivotal. “Performing revived a part of me that felt like it had been dormant for eternities,” says Grammer. “I had abandoned music for several years and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.” That fall, she took up the guitar, dusted off her violin, and began in earnest to hone her craft.

Grammer returned to school and co-founded the pop band Juicy in the mid-1990’s with friend David Noble. Grammer discovered talents for mixing and arranging, and a love for recording, when the band went into the studio to put together its first and only demo. “I was so new to recording that I expected to take a passive, watch-and-learn role, but before I knew it, I was twiddling knobs and directing edits that significantly improved the songs. It was an insanely creative time, and I was fascinated and fearless, and the guys supported me one hundred per cent. That made all the difference.”

Grammer saw Dave Carter perform at a songwriter showcase in February 1996, just weeks after she moved to Portland, Oregon. “Here were stories that could stand alone as poetry, sung with compassion, intelligence, and a hint of Texas twang. Dave’s entire presentation felt like home to me. I knew instantly that I was in the presence of greatness; I knew I had received my calling in life.” They met on the way out the door, and within weeks were working up material with a band. They began touring in late 1997 and during the summer of 1998, recorded their first album, WHEN I GO, in the kitchen of Grammer’s apartment.

Folk music authority Andrew Calhoun of Waterbug Records comments: “No one sings Dave Carter’s songs better than Tracy. He chose her to be the voice of his songs. His vision, their vision, was that they shared something they both saw. She is half the reason why they were great.”