Line Call
Published 8:37 pm Wednesday, July 7, 2010
A Brookhaven musician hoping to make the big time is recordinghis first music video in the area Thursday, inviting everyone topull on some cowboy boots, sharpen the twang in their voices andjoin the party.
Most of the video for “Uhh Huh,” a single from Shane Prather’sfirst album, “I’m All In,” was shot weeks ago at Hattiesburg’sDouble D Bar and Grill during a live performance, but the finalwrap being filmed Thursday beginning at 8 p.m. at Pike County’sDixie Springs CafĂ© and Lounge calls for a local touch. A handful ofskilled local dancers will perform a specially choreographed linedance for the video, and Prather wants to surround the girls with acheering, homegrown crowd.
“I’m trying to get people in Mississippi involved, some qualitypeople I know,” Prather said. “We want a crowd around the linedancers, kind of with them in the middle.”
Prather’s band will perform at the shoot from 8 to 11 p.m. whilethe video is shot. The restaurant will remain open well into thenight to accommodate the crowd.
After the video is completed, Prather plans to submit it tocountry music channels Country Music Television and Great AmericanCountry, hoping to land a spot in the regular rotation andjump-start his career. Videos of the line dance – an easy anddifficult version – will be posted on YouTube.
Prather’s hoping plenty of Brookhavenites show up to makeThursday night’s shoot a success. He’s got a lot riding on thevideo.
“You have to have as many ways as you can to get your music outthere,” he said. “I can get my music all over Mississippi, but howlong would it take to meet all the DJs and talk to those people.Or, you could get on CMT or GAC, get it played there, and thinkabout how many more people you’re reaching in a three-minutespan.”
Prather has hired a private film crew to shoot and produce thevideo. It’s not cheap, he said.
“The tab’s still running right now,” he said.
At least one aspect of Prather’s video is free – the linedancers. Every good country music video needs a good line dance,and a group of eight Southwest Mississippi girls and theirchoreographer have volunteered to don the Daisy Dukes and bootsneeded to give the dance an edge.
“I’m excited. Any opportunity I have to do some kind of dancing,I’ll take it. It’s always been my thing,” said Brookhaven’s LauraLucas, 19, one of eight local girls who will perform for Prather’svideo.
Lucas, a dancer at Copiah-Lincoln Community College with abackground at Brookhaven’s Show Stoppers, said she’s a die-hardcountry music fan and more than happy to lend her footwork to avideo.
“The first thing I thought when they said line dancing was, ‘OK,I’ve got the boots and the hat and I’m ready to go,'” she said.
Lawrence County’s Bailey Brister, 20, said her Daisy Dukes areironed and ready to go.
“It seems like it’s going to be really fun,” she said. “Ilearned the dance yesterday and I’m excited about it. It’sdifferent, it’s fun. We’ve done a few line dances, but nothing likethis.”
East Lincoln’s Rebecca Amic, a 20-year gymnastics, dance andcheerleading teacher who owns Monticello’s Elite Gymnastics, iscaptaining the dancers and wrote the sequence. The dance plannedfor Prather’s video isn’t the average old-folks’ line dance, shesaid.
“Most of your country line dances usually start slow with thegrapevine step, but with (Prather’s) music, we had to step it up,”Amic said. “The actual line dance is going to be different fromwhat you’re accustomed to seeing. I wanted it to be original andunique, not the same thing you see on every country video.”
While the line dance for “Uhh Huh” will be quick and the girlssharp, Amic said the moves were written to be clean andappropriate.
“It’s just about the dancing,” Amic said. “It will definitely begood for the girls. If they wanted to try out somewhere, like theMississippi Braves or the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, they canalways put it on their resume.”