A Song in His Heart

A Song in His Heart

By Bruce Wood

“I remember last November when I stumbled into town My boots and strings a tumbling all around Fumbling for the words to turn a song in silver hues I was living then without you Green and Blue.”
“Once I tried to kiss you on your softly spoken lips But you turned your head away so shy I missed I'll take one on the cheek if that's the best a boy can do And I'll hide my pride from bruising Green and Blue.”

From Here Comes The Flood Gordy Quist Music/www.GordyQuist.com ***

“When Gordy started Green and Blue, at Momo's, I leaned back to the guy sitting next to me and whispered, ?Clint Black -- meaning that this song is a platinum seller of a ballad. But it is Lady Juliana that just takes my breath away.'” “(O)ne of the talented young guns on the Texas music scene ... (he) knows how to tell the story...and then hitch it to a melody that tells the story, too.” Here Comes the Flood, with 10 of his own songs ... remind(s) this writer of yet another Texan ? Rhodes scholar Kris Kristofferson.” “(An) honest talent in the making. As the stranger on the next bar stool said, ?He sounds like home.'” *** A degree in economics from Dartmouth College helped Gordy Quist '02 land a lucrative job as an investment banker in Houston after graduation.

Feeding the jones that would one day lead him to abruptly leave the corporate world and follow his dream of a career as a singer-songwriter: Dartmouth football, if you can believe it.

Looking back five years, even Quist has a hard time with that one.

“It still boggles my mind the way it worked out,” marveled the Texas-based musician, who just released his second solo album, Here Comes The Flood. “It would be one thing if I'd gone to Berklee (College of Music). But here I was at Dartmouth and not only did I meet other musicians, but they were in my class. And not only were they in my class, but they were on the football team and in my class.” Quist ? an inside linebacker who moved into the starting lineup as a junior ? somehow found time to form a band while at Dartmouth with teammates Damien Roomets, a wide receiver, and Trevor Nealon, a defensive back. Although Lucky Southern enjoyed popularity in and around campus and for a bit after graduation ? even recording an album ? Quist put music on the back burner when he traded his pigskin for a sheepskin. Instead he took the plunge into the three-piece-suit world for which his Ivy League education had prepared him.

Suffice it to say he was miserable.

“When I was at high school looking at colleges I imagined my life being very very different from the way it is now,” Quist explained from his home in music-crazed Austin. “I wasn't afraid of coming out of college with a bunch of debt because I thought I'd be making a lot of money doing something in an office. In college I thought the same thing. Although I was playing in a band with Trevor and Damien, I was sure I'd end up in the banking world.

“But as I played more music with Damien and Trevor I got bit by the bug. I eventually I realized my heart wasn't in that other world.”

And so Quist, who was in fourth grade when his father introduced him to the guitar, packed up his desk the day he got his first banking bonus check in Houston and a few weeks later moved to Austin, capital of the lively Texas music scene. He's steadily built his reputation as a “down-home” singer-songwriter-musician since his 2004 debut album, Songs Play Me, which helped him win the prestigious Kerrville New Folk songwriting contest last year.

Of that first album, one reviewer wrote: “The message is complex, but the lyrics are simple, clear, and precise. And the music just seems to flow and ooze from every direction until it envelops and soothes.”

Quist, who was fifth on Dartmouth team with 56 tackles as a junior, is slimmed down from the 220-or-so pounds he played at and figures he's at about 180 now. Instead of conditioning sprints, he jogs occasionally, “only because I have to.” His album cover reveals the buzz cut in his senior-year media guide photo has been replaced by long, dark strands and sideburns that surely make him look at home with a guitar in hand on an Austin stage.

Although his voice has been described as “pure and personal,” with a “lived-in quality,” one question hangs in the air. Is he a songwriter who sings, or a singer who writes songs? He thought long and hard before trying out an answer.

“Songwriting is what I really enjoy,” he said. “From the beginning of the music thing it was the creative aspect. It was creating new songs that got me into this. But I feel as if in the past couple of years I'm just finding my voice from a singing standpoint. It's a great privilege to perform the songs that I've written but if I couldn't perform the songs I've written, I'd still be writing them. It's what came first for me and I guess it's where my heart lies.”

Where his heart lies, it is clear, is in the music. Whether he's writing it or singing it at an estimated 260 shows this year.

Although he admits to sleeping in his car on the road between towns in the early days after leaving his investment job, he hasn't spent much time looking back at his former life in finance and doesn't expect to go back any time soon.

“I'm pursuing my passion,” he said. “I guess you could say I put all my eggs in one basket, but fortunately things are going well with my music.” Well-received as a solo act from Texas to Nashville to Colorado as well as in Europe and Australia, he has joined with several other Austin-based singer-songwriters in The Band of Heathens, which quickly developed a cult following. The Heathens, who won the 2006-07 Austin Music Awards' Best New Band award, are currently wrapping up a new CD and a DVD. Quist, the former investment banker, was hard at work one morning last week helping plot out the Heathens' business future.

“It's funny that after you get the art finished how long that side of things takes,” he said with a laugh. “I'm sitting here using all my banking skills making Excel documents of cash flow projections on album sales and trying to get the business side of the plan get together.

“We are just trying to get the business side of it lined up, the funding for the album, the radio promoter, the publicist. We have our team assembled for the release and they need three-four months lead time to start promoting these things, to make sure that articles come out when the album comes out.” There are people in and around the Texas music scene who wouldn't be surprised if the Band of Heathens or Quist as a solo performer ? or both ? end up going national before long.
While that's the goal, he's continually amazed when critics and reviewers predict as much. But doesn't sound as if it will change him.

“It's pretty incredible,” he said. “I've met a bunch of my heroes that I grew up listening to. What I've found out, though, whether it's opening a show for them or whatever, is they are just people. “It's the same thing as football. I watch Casey Cramer on TV and I go, ?I used to play ball with that guy.' To some people it's like, ?Whoa. Amazing.? But whether it's a football player like Casey or a songwriter, they may be incredibly talented but once you get past their gift they are just people.”

People like Quist, who follow their passion even with no guarantee of success. “It's not something you can count on,” he said. “You just do the best you can do and if something happens, great. If not, you just keep working. It's nice to have that kind of stuff happen, but it's not the reason you are doing it. I'm doing it because this is what I love.”

A veteran writer and observer of Dartmouth athletics, Bruce Wood launched a web site in 2005, www.biggreenalert.com, specializing in Big Green football news coverage.