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LUCKENBACH — While escorting convoys across Iraq, Army Sgt. Erika VanDenBerg loved to listen to Roger Creager's song “Everclear,” about having a good time and drinking.
Then an IED went off.
After suffering brain trauma, transitioning back to civilian life wasn't easy. VanDenBerg said she contemplated suicide.
She doesn't like to go into the details.
“But if you talked to me about three months ago, I probably could have not put a sentence together,” she said.
Things are better for VanDenBerg now. On Sunday, she stood on stage with Creager in the iconic village of Luckenbach to help raise money for an organization that aims to help returning veterans like her.
Creager, VanDenBerg and 1,857 others joined together to play the “Luckenbach Song” and “This Land is Your Land.” In doing so, they broke the Guinness World Record for biggest guitar pickin' session.
“I've always wanted to be in a band,” VanDenBerg said.
The total was large enough to break the previous record of 1,803, which was set in Germany. The event was a fundraiser for the Welcome Home Project, a nonprofit organization that puts out albums to raise awareness about veteran issues and uses music to help injured vets recover while finding a creative outlet.
“They let me know it was OK to have those emotions ... I dealt with anger,” said Sgt. Melvin “Buddy” Lee Dobberteen, who was “popped” in the head by shrapnel while serving in Iraq and now deals with memory loss.
Now on full disability, Dobberteen is working on a life for himself in music and a way to memorialize the 23 friends he lost while serving his three tours.
In September, Dobberteen will start classes at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. But on Sunday, there was no place he'd rather be than Luckenbach.
“I've just played my biggest gig today, we are going to beat a world record, and I get to help my brothers and sisters,” he said with a huge grin.
Several of the professionals who headlined the event felt the same.
Guitarist Monte Montgomery was on tour when he was asked to perform. It sounded a bit silly to play with 1,000-plus guitarists, and at the time all he wanted to do was just go home, he recalled.
But Luckenbach is where Montgomery learned to play, and it didn't take long for him to change his mind.
“I want to be a part of this,” he told the organizers.
On Sunday, he was center stage and the crowd cheered.
The idea came up when organizers behind the Kerrville Folk Festival and Cheatham Street Warehouse, a music venue in San Marcos, and the Welcome Home Project talked about a potential fundraiser. For months, the organizers didn't know if enough guitarists would come and were stressed about the boxes of documentation the Guinness organization required.
“Now, you shake a tree and a guitar is going to fall out of it with a guy attached,” said Dow Patterson, whose family has booked bands for Luckenbach — a tiny Hill Country hamlet world-famous for its music — for more than three decades.
That turned out to be true. On Sunday, guitarists were literally perched in the oaks scattered around the property.
And then with a count of four, the music flowed from every corner. The professionals played amplified. The exuberant fans followed as best they could. But they all played together.
At the end, when the official count was announced, they all held up their guitars and gave a clear and unified Texas-style whoop. - Colin McDonald - Express-News
Almost 20 high-spirited performers, many of them recording artists, joined ensembles from the Boys & Girls Club of Central Texas Sunday afternoon to give a multi-media stage production titled "Voices for Vets" in support of American troops and veterans at Killeen High School Sunday afternoon.
The concert was a combined effort of the Boys & Girls Club directed by Jennifer Gilbert, the Killeen Independent School District's technical students and choirs and the nonprofit Soldiers' Angels and Voices of a Grateful Nation, which will produce a DVD of the show available through voicesofagratefulnation.org in the next few months.
The concert highlighted solos by singer/songwriter Denise Romas of New York, who sang "A Healing Angel," and retired Marine Melvin "Buddy Lee" Dobberteen with "A Soldier's Prayer."
Most of the rest of the performances in the lineup narrated by Lucas Howland were solos, duets and trios on about 15 songs expressing empathy with current warriors and veterans by Walt Wilkins, Jeff Plankenhorn, Sally Allen, Dustin Welch, Michael Cross, the hip-hop star Innocent and Alex Ruiz of the band Del Castillo.
The show ended with Boys & Girls Club performances of "As a Nation" with a solo by Innocent. "Hear the Children" accompanied by Innocent and Dustin Welch, and the finale "We Will Have Peace Someday" with the entire cast.
"Hear the Children," written by the youth, will be featured on the upcoming DVD release.
Most of the songs were minor-key, plaintive lyrics including "West Texas," sung by Wilkins, about how the Iraqi desert can feel like the the semi-barren expanses of western Texas some days; "For the Weight of the World" by Ruiz and Allen, about families' anxiety for the safety of soldiers in combat; and "The Boy I Left Behind" by Cross, about a soldier's loss of innocence.
The finale was a hopeful, upbeat song about a world where the only fight will be to maintain the peace.
On many songs, the performers were their own songwriters.
Instrumental accompanists included Jamie Oldaker, drums, John Inmon, electric guitar, Glenn Schuetz, bass; Trisha Keefer, fiddle; Jeff Plankenhorn, acoustic strings; Bukka Allen, keyboards; and Brian Standefer, cello.
Most of the music came from a Voices for Vets CD series produced by Oldaker, who has performed with Eric Clapton and other international stars.
The youth worked with the adults on all aspects of the show and produced about a dozen "blankets of hope" to be given to Soldiers' Angels for distribution to deployed troops. - Don Bolding Killeen Daily Herald
Yesterday afternoon Voices of a Grateful Nation and Soldiers Angels presented a multi-media stage production at the Killeen High School Auditorium entitled "Voices for Vets". I packed up the pickup with merchandise and picked up New York singer/songwriter Denise Romas in Austin and headed North for the event. Denise opened the show with her beautiful song "A Healing Angel" and our friend Marine "Buddy" (and SA laptop recipient) Melvin "Buddy Lee" Dobberteen sang a song he wrote called "A Soldier's Prayer." Several volunteer Angels came out for the event and a good time was had by all. VOGN threatens a DVD release of the show and it should be a great product and great awareness piece for SA and our newest team Voices/Angels project "Operation Soft landing". The show ended with the kids of the Boys & Girls Club of Central Texas singing "We Will Have Peace Someday" an old 1930's Texas Spiritual in an uptempo arrangement with the entire cast that brought the house down. Unfortunately, the Olympic U.S. - Canadian Hockey game (no doubt more from Toby on this subject later eh?) kept the crowd on the ice but the show was clicking the crowd enthusiastic and we made up in quality what we lacked in quanity. Here's a video of Denise performing her song "A Healing Angel" - A Healing Angel
Discography
Voices of a Grateful Nation- Soldiers Prayer
For His Glory Band- ReBirth
Buddy Lee & The BackRoad Band- Second Chances
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Bio
Considering his unconventional, diversified background, it’s probably best to start at the beginning with Buddy Lee, and then move quickly! Born Melvin Lee Dobberteen in backwoods America, he grew up huntin’, drinkin’ and fightin’ like any good redneck teenager would. Along the way he picked up the nickname “Buddy” from family and friends. In 2001, a day before 9/11, Buddy enlisted in the Marine Corps. The move was consistent with Dobberteen’s penchant for getting into something before he really knew what he was getting into. After five years in the Corps that included three tours of duty in Iraq, numerous drunken brawls, and more than one scrape with death, there came a day when Buddy Lee heard the voice of God. That voice was loud and clear and Buddy Lee honestly thought he might be going nuts. The voice told him to go write songs and play music. It was something that had never crossed Buddy’s mind before. Dobberteen also explains that once he heard the voice, his life was injected with an overwhelming sense of purpose he had never known. That same week, he made arrangements to leave his career in the military and pursue music full time instead.
Buddy Lee wishes he could say his first effort at recording an album was a success story but it wasn’t. He describes his first album as “a half-cocked ride on the lame train…yet another cart-before-the-horse lesson in the Buddy Lee School of Hard Knocks”. His desire to make music bordered on compulsive…but something was missing. In August of 2007, Dobberteen moved from Southern California to South Texas to re-invent himself. Shortly after arriving in the Lone Star State, he began to inexplicably cross paths with legendary music personnel. Before he knew what hit him, Buddy found himself in the company of well-respected folk, rock, and country music artists. Buddy Lee gives credit to God for putting him in situations where he was writing songs with Will Callery (Grammy Award-nominated), jamming with musicians like Roger Creager and Monty Montgomery, and sharing the stage with artists like Bryan White (Grammy winner), Ray Benson, and Jimmy LaFave. Buddy Lee’s game had no choice but to improve.
When Buddy Lee hooked up with former Hank Williams Jr. guitarist Greg Demoore, the Backroad Band was born as Demoore suggested the idea of touring with Buddy on a route of back road honkytonks and bars from Texas to Michigan and back. Dobberteen seemed to stumble upon these kinds of relationships that impacted him in more ways than one. During the process of meeting and befriending these music artists he believed were out of his league, Buddy Lee’s songwriting and musical style improved in a way that is difficult to calculate. Music and clothing companies also began to notice him as he began to build relationships with notable companies such as Taylor Guitars, GHS Strings, Larrivee Guitars, and Truth Soul Armor. Buddy soon had endorsement or sponsorship deals with all of them. More coveted live spots at major events continued including an
invite to play the annual Nashville Songwriters Festival in 2008. He was invited again this year and moved up to being billed as a “Featured Songwriter”. Shortly after that, Buddy Lee found himself on the main stage at Texas’ celebrated Luckenbach music venue this past summer for “Pickin’ For The Record”, an event that ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records. Recently, Dobberteen’s song “A Soldier’s Prayer” won the attention of award-winning producer and longtime Eric Clapton drummer Jamie Oldaker, who recorded the track with Mike Cross and Robyn Ludwick. “A Soldier’s Prayer” also features Gene Elders (Alan Jackson, George Strait, Lyle Lovett) on fiddle and the renowned Lloyd Maines on steel guitar. More touring is scheduled for Buddy Lee & The Backroad Band has finished up his second album which featured an awsome ensemble of musicians and songwriters, Brian Standefer (Wade Bowen, Dixie Chicks, Rolling Stones) on Cello, Bukka Allen (Jack Inghram, Ion Moore) on keyboards, Jeff Plankenhorn (Bob Snider, Slaid Cleaves) on Acoustic, Dobro, Sreel and Electric Guitars, and Glenn Schuetz on bass guitar.
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