FAIR MAIN STAGE LINEUP. The 26th Annual Meramec Community Fair is pleased to announced the mainstay lineup for June 22 and 23. John Michael Montgomery, top, will headline Friday night’s main stage while rising country star Easton Corbin, below, will headline Saturday night. The two stars have a combined 39 Country radio hits.

The Meramec Community Fair is pleased to announce the two headine acts for the 26th Annual Meramec Community Fair set for June 20-23.
Country superstar John Michael Montgomtery will bring his 36 Country Radio Hits, 15 Country Radio #1 Hits and two Billboard Magazine Country Songs of the Year to the fair main stage on Friday night, June 22.
On Saturday night, June 23, Easton Corbin, the first Country Music radio male artist to have his first two singles from his debut album hit #1, will headline the main stage with hits, “I’m A Little More Country Than That,” “Roll With It,” and his latest single, “I Can’t Love You Back,” will have fans on the edge of their seats.
“The fair board decided to go back to our roots and bring in two country acts to the fair this year, and I think we have two of the best acts out there right now coming to the fair,” said James Bartle, Fair Board president and entertainment  chairman. “John Michael will have fair goers singing hit song after hit song and Easton Corbin is one of the hottest young male artists in country music with a new album due out soon.”
Bartle stated that both John Michael Montgomery and Easton Corbin are working on new material.
“John Michael has posted on his website that he is working on new material with his brother from Montgomery Gentry and Easton Corbin should have a new album and single dropping soon. We hope those new singles will hit strong on the Country charts in time for the fair, which would really help increase our attendance,” said Bartle.
The following is John Michael Montgomery’s biography followed by Easton Corbin’s:
John Michael Montgomery has turned an uncanny ability to relate to fans into one of country music’s most storied careers. Behind the string of hit records, the roomful of awards and the critical and fan accolades that have defined his phenomenal success, lies a connection that goes beyond his undeniable talent and his proven knack for picking hits. Since the days when “Life’s A Dance” turned him from an unknown entity into a national star, John Michael’s rich baritone has carried that most important of assets—believability. Few artists in any genre sing with more heart than this handsome Kentucky-born artist.
It is readily apparent in love songs that have helped set the standard for a generation. Songs like “I Swear,” “I Love the Way You Love Me” and “I Can Love You Like That” still resonate across the landscape. It is apparent in the 2004 hit “Letters From Home,” one of the most moving tributes to the connection between soldiers and their families ever recorded, and in “The Little Girl,” a tale of redemption that plumbs both the harrowing and the uplifting. It is apparent even in the pure fun that has always found its way into John Michael’s repertoire—songs like “Be My Baby Tonight” and “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident),” where John Michael’s vocal earnestness takes musical whimsy to another level.
On Time Flies, which he co-produced with Byron Gallimore, John Michael takes another big step forward, strengthening his position as one of the most versatile and compelling vocalists on the country scene. With songs like “Forever” and “If You Ever Went Away,” he proves he is still the master of the power ballad, a man capable of bringing honest emotion to life in song. He brings his ever-present sense of humor to bear on “With My Shirt On” and “Mad Cowboy Disease,” songs with wickedly skewed sensibilities. With songs like “Drunkard’s Prayer” and “All In A Day,” he explores two dramatic facets of human existence, and with “Brothers Till The End,” John Michael celebrates the family background that led both him and his brother Eddie, of Montgomery Gentry, from a small-time family band to the top of the charts.
The emotional centerpiece for John Michael is “All In A Day,” the song that contains the lyric that gave the album its name.
“That song talks about how time flies,” he says, “and I got to thinking…that it seems like yesterday that ‘Life’s A Dance’ was out and people were asking me, ‘Where would you like to be in 10 or 15 years?’ ‘Still here!’ was my answer and, thankfully, I am still here. Longevity was more important to me than anything else, and to still be able to do something I love so much is wonderful. Still, it’s gone by so quickly that I thought, ‘I’m going to build an album around that.’ That’s where the shape of this album comes from.”
Each song, he says, reminds him of an era in his life and an artist or style of music. “What Did I Do” is reminiscent of “the gritty Hank, Jr. stuff we played in our honky-tonk days,” while “Loving And Letting Go” “reminds me a bit of Lionel Ritchie and the Eagles, artists that helped mold me into the artist I am today.”
Beyond that, he maintains, he selected material the way he always has.
“When I go after songs,” he says, “it’s almost like we’re looking for each other. It’s like digging for rocks until now and then I find the shape I’m looking for, and one by one I see how they fit together and where it’s all going.”
It is never, he adds, a matter of second-guessing his fans.
“I always told myself that, if I ever figured out what made the fans tick and what it was about me that they liked, I’d bottle it up and I’d own the most successful record label in the world.”
The irony surrounding that tongue-in-cheek assessment is that John Michael, indeed, founded his own label—Stringtown Records, named for a hamlet near his Kentucky home. He is one of a handful of long-established stars able to take the next step and become label executives as well as artists. John Michael launched Stringtown after parting company with his last label, at a time when major and larger independent record companies in Nashville were retrenching and consolidating.
“I didn’t know where those labels were going,” he says with a grin, “but I knew where I wanted to go. I felt like it was time to branch out on my own. I had learned the executive side of this business enough to start my own label, and I knew that there were going to be a lot of great executives looking for work as the labels downsized.”
With the launch of Stringtown Records, came the release of his album, Time Flies.
Recently, John Michael Montgomery launched yet another business for those hoping to get a foot in the door of the music industry. MontgomeryMixPro is John Michael’s latest venture, offering aspiring artists and writers a professionally mixed and mastered quality recording at do-it-yourself rates. As an added bonus, those who utilize MontgomeryMixPro have the potential to receive exposure to professional music companies and tastemakers.
“I’ve put together a team of top engineers, some who have worked on my own albums, to mix recordings for Montgomerymixpro.com,” says Montgomery. “I will also work on the mix sessions from time to time as well, and who knows, if I hear a song I really like, someone could be hearing from me personally!”
“I’ll continue making records for myself,” Montgomery adds, “but I also love finding other artists to produce, hoping I can open some doors and make some dreams come true like mine did.”
John Michael Montgomery’s vast successes in the music business as both a recording artist and businessman, lie in deceptively modest beginnings. Montgomery was born in Danville, KY, to parents who imparted a lifelong love of music.
“Where most people have chairs and sofas in their living rooms,” laughs John Michael, “we had amplifiers and drum kits.”
The family band played on weekends throughout the area, and John Michael and his brother, Eddie, eagerly soaked up everything about it.
“To a certain extent,” he says, “my dad always had a natural ability to draw fans and entertain people; I don’t care if it was on the front porch, the living room, or on a stage. I think that transitioned to me and my brother being able to do that on stage.”
John Michael took over lead singing chores after his parents divorced, and he performed for a while in a band called Early Tymz with Eddie and their friend, Troy Gentry. Nashville talent scouts began hearing about, and then seeing, John Michael perform and by the early ‘90s he had a record deal.
The hits followed steadily, with songs like “Rope The Moon,” “If You’ve Got Love,” “No Man’s Land,” “Cowboy Love,” “As Long As I Live,” “Friends,” and “How Was I To Know” establishing him as one of the elite acts of the era. He received the CMA Horizon award and was named the ACM’s Top New Vocalist, setting off a long series of awards that included the CMA’s Single and Song of the Year, Billboard’s Top Country Artist, and a Grammy nomination. Heavy touring meant he kept the close touch with fans he had begun in the clubs back home.
“You get to know your fans and what they like more and more through the years,” he says, “and you kind of gravitate towards one another.”
Indeed, he has always had an extraordinarily close relationship with his fans, and they have stayed with him through good and bad times.
Just before releasing Time Flies, John Michael let them know that he was entering treatment to deal with an addiction that was an outgrowth of anxiety and insomnia.
“Luckily, I woke up one day and said, ‘I’ve had enough. I need some help with this thing.’ The hardest thing for most people to do is ask for help. I had felt claustrophobic on the bus to the point where I didn’t want to get on it, and now I enjoy getting on the bus a lot more.”
That, of course, is great news for both John Michael and his fans, and he is back out continuing the legacy of performance that has kept him going since he was a boy.
“We were weekend players at the beginning, and then it turned into five nights a week,” he says. “Then we got record deals, and we were still ‘weekend superstars,’ only now it was on much bigger stages.”
Asked what he thinks gave him the edge in a career that calls millions but gives stardom to just a few, he pauses, then thinks back to the legacy of his parents.
“I reckon it was good genes and good blood,” he says with a smile.
Few who know the depth and breadth of his own growing legacy would disagree.
Easton Corbin knew he wanted to be a country singer well before he learned how to play guitar.
“One of my earliest memories is from when I was three or four,” he remembers. “I was sitting between my parents in the car and a song came on the radio—it was Mel McDaniel’s ‘Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On’. I began using the gearshift as my microphone. The desire has always been there.”
Now those lifelong dreams are coming true. The accolades are continuing to roll in for Easton, who is the first country male artist in 17 years to have his first two consecutive singles reach No. 1 – “A Little More Country Than That” and “Roll With It.”
In a six-month period, he received 13 country music award nominations and won three country music trophies. Most recently, he received three nominations from the Academy of Country Music Awards — Top New Solo Vocalist as well as Single and Song of the Year for his debut hit, “A Little More Country Than That.”
He won 2010 American Country Awards in every breakthrough artist category – Artist of the Year: Breakthrough Artist, as well as Single of the Year: Breakthrough Artist and Music Video: Breakthrough Artist for “A Little More Country Than That.” He tied with Lady Antebellum to earn the most nominations, garnering seven. In addition, he received nominations for Best New Artist, and Single and Song of the Year for “A Little More Country Than That” at the 2010 Country Music Association Awards.
Billboard named Easton the Top New Country Artist of 2010 and “Roll With It” the No. 6 Hot Country Song of the Year, while “A Little More Country Than That” was ranked No. 19. His album was also named Country Breakthrough Album of the Year by iTunes Rewind.
The Nashville Scene’s 11th annual Country Music Critics’ Poll named Easton the Best New Act of 2010 and included his self-titled album in its Best Albums list at No. 19. “A Little More Country Than That” was ranked No. 11 on its Best Singles list.
“This is a dream come true,” he says. “This is something I’ve wanted all of my life. To be able to do this for a living and have people like it, I couldn’t ask for any better. I am so blessed.”
Born and raised in rural Gilchrist County, FL, Easton spent much of his time on his grandparents’ cattle farm after his parents divorced when he was young.
“I lived a mile from the Suwannee River,” he says. “I grew up fishing on it and I loved to work on the farm. Every weekend, that’s where I’d be.”
A member of FFA and 4-H, Easton showed cattle at the local livestock fair. Growing up in the smallest county in the state on farmland nestled between two small towns had its advantages.
“It’s a close community,” he says. “Everybody knows everybody.”
“There’s no Wal-Mart there,” he says. “There was a Hardee’s, but it closed. That was the only franchise fast food place in the county. Trenton has a red light; Bell has a blinking light. It’s a great place.”
While no one in his family played a musical instrument, music was a big part of his upbringing.
“My grandparents liked to watch the Opry,” Easton remembers. “We’d start Saturday night off with ‘Hee Haw’ and then ‘Opry Backstage’ and then ‘Opry Live.’”
It was also at his grandparents house that he discovered a record player and his father and aunts’ left-behind records in a front room.
“I’d go in there and play those records for hours,” he says.
When Easton was 15 years old, he began taking guitar lessons from Pee Wee Melton, a local musician who had at one time played on sessions in Nashville.
“He was a great mentor,” Easton says. “He was a great player and a great teacher. He was a really big influence on me.”
Every day when he got home from school, Easton would practice guitar for hours, sometimes until his fingers were raw, then help his grandfather around the farm.
Encouraged by Melton, Easton began playing lead guitar in a local band.
“I’d always wanted to play and sing, but up until that time I never really did do it in public,” he says. “We’d play school functions and parties. We were too young to play bars, but we played everything else.”
An impromptu audition at a local music store led to a slot on the Suwannee River Jam, a nearby festival that attracts thousands of people and national touring acts.
“It was just me and a guitar in front of a 40-acre field full of people,” Easton remembers. “It was great.”
Soon he was opening for other national acts when they played the area, including Janie Fricke and Mel McDaniel, the man whose song Easton had performed in the car years earlier.
After earning a business degree through the College of Agriculture at the University of Florida, Easton moved to Nashville.
“I always knew I wanted to move up here,” he says. “There was never any question about it. I didn’t want to wake up one day and wish I would have tried it, but I had to get my education first so I had something to fall back on.”
Easton, who had been making regular trips to Nashville to perform at writers’ nights, took a day job at a local Ace Hardware.
When a distant cousin, also a professor of music management at the University of Montana, heard Easton’s music, he asked if he could send it to some of his Nashville contacts. Among those who were impressed by Easton’s music was booking agent James Yelich, who asked if he could hear him play in person. Easton, eager for a shot to pursue his dream, quickly agreed.
Also at the meeting was Joe Fisher, who had recently joined Universal Music Group Nashville as Senior Director of A&R. The two men were blown away and Fisher quickly signed him to the label.
Easton, whose musical influences include George Jones, Merle Haggard, George Strait and Keith Whitley, found a kindred spirit in producer Carson Chamberlain, who years earlier had toured with Whitley as his steel guitar player and bandleader.
“We really hit it off,” Easton says. “I love traditional music and he does too. I knew he was the producer for me.”
The two men began working in earnest.
“We worked our butts off trying to find the right songs,” Easton says.
The result is an over-the-top album that includes cuts from Nashville’s top songwriters, including Mark D. Sanders, Wynn Varble, Tony Lane and David Lee, among others.
Like his heroes, Strait and Whitley, Easton is unapologetically country. His songs, while rooted in the present, call to mind simpler times when the back porch was where folks gathered to network. Steel guitars and fiddles are as much a part of his sound as his baritone drawl.
First single, “A Little More Country Than That,” which was written by Rory Feek, Don Poythress and Varble, paints a picture of rural life that speaks to Easton’s small town sensibilities.
“Even though I didn’t write it, this song identifies who I am,” he says. “It shows character and that’s important where I’m from. You learn to say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, sir,’ and to open the door for the ladies.”
Among the songs included on the album are three Easton co-wrote with Chamberlain and Sanders during a trip to Colorado.
“When I came to Nashville, I realized how important it was to write songs,” Easton says. “The opportunity to sit in a room with experienced songwriters and learn their craft has helped me become a better writer.”
“I’m still working and developing as a writer, but I was fortunate enough to get some songs on the album,” Easton says, perhaps more humble than he needs to be.
“The Way Love Looks,” which Easton co-wrote with Chamberlain and Sanders, is a love song pure and simple.
“It’s just a fun upbeat song,” Easton says.
Tony Lane, David Lee and Johnny Park wrote “Roll With It,” which speaks to the important things in life like sunsets and pick-up trucks.
“I love that one,” Easton says. “I can imagine listening to it just floatin’ down the river on the boat on a Saturday.”
The tender “I Can’t Love You Back,” written by Chamberlain, Clint Daniels and Jeff Hyde, has a universal message of loss.
“It can mean different things for different people,” Easton says. “She could have died, she could have left him—people can interpret it the way they feel.”
Now that his lifelong dream is upon him, Easton says he’s ready.
“I just want to make great country music,” he says. “Just the opportunity to play music for a living is a great thing. I’m just thankful to have the opportunity to do what I’m doing now.”