Take one listen to Brooke Waggoner and you might be confused about her Nashville roots.

More Enya than Carrie Underwood, the Music City-based Waggoner is a refreshingly odd breath of ethereal air out of a city not exactly known for its radio musical exploration.

Come Sunday, Waggoner was to have been one of the five eclectic guests at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston as Mountain Stage with host Larry Groce has a live taping featuring Dashboard Confessional (acoustic), The Watson Twins, Juliana Hatfield and Clare and the Reasons.

The show, which is sold out, has been postponed because of the weather.

A makeup date for the show has not been announced as of press time.

Waggoner, who sports a degree in music composition and orchestration from Louisiana State University, and who recorded her first EP while still in college, said she's been humbled and honored by the folks who've paid attention to her CD, "Go Easy Little Doves," that was a magnet for a mountain of national press including The Washington Post, which called her music "brimming with kooky, clever lyrics, delivered by reedy soprano."

"It was really quickly recorded and put out there and I felt like I was still trying to feel my way around so just to have people paying attention is incredible," Waggoner said by phone from Nashville. "It's been so great because I feel like a lot of times it doesn't translate and that maybe people don't get it, so it is very thrilling for people to connect with it."

Waggoner, who gained critical acclaim for her debut, "Heal for the Honey," is continuing to cultivate the 12 songs she created for "Go Easy Little Doves," which was entirely self-produced.

She's currently working on a live DVD (to be released in April) of the music with the small chamber orchestra that played on the CD.

"The inspiration was to really connect like cinematic music and film scores," Waggoner said. "The DVD is more of a live show so it is supposed to feel like you're at a live concert but then splice in a Q and A and some voice overs and an animator is doing something. It's not like a documentary, but more of a live show, and hopefully it will be entertaining."

While Waggoner was out of town last year touring with a little band that's now tearing up Top 40 radio, Owl City, the Nashville Music Awards were giving her its Next Big Nashville Award for the best emerging artist.

Waggoner said she's found moving to Nashville a great choice as she's discovered great musical diversity under the mainstream music scene.

"It's been an interesting ride growing up in Louisiana and moving to Nashville a little over three years ago I had no expectations and didn't know anybody," Waggoner said. "Just to have the positive reception and the warm embrace was very much unexpected and has been such a huge bonus. There's a lot of great people under the radar and not country and there's a really cool scene. I think people here are into making things happen on an indie basis and I love that from a business aspect and just creatively, the sky is the limit." Waggoner, who has been taking a few months off the road, said she is stoked to come back to Mountain Stage (she was here last year one a bill with Jerry Douglas) and for an upcoming April tour with Seattle-based artist Rocky Votolato.

"I think it's been a year and half ago that I played Mountain Stage," Waggoner said. "Jerry Douglas was kind of the headliner and there was a lot of great Celtic and bluegrass music and we all had such a great time. That was my first experience so I'm really excited to be going back to such a cool thing. That's the kind of show I specifically love, the educated listeners that are attracted to those productions. You gain a loyal crowd through those avenues and it makes you feel like you're not a flash in a pan, and that there's a legitimacy to what you are doing. The opportunities are huge with them on NPR teaming up with such an old broadcast. It's perfect and it's very intimate."

The Herald-Dispatch

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