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| Coastal roads drive music history By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreeview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:02 PM PDT Some day, Coastsiders will see the country music video “To Get to You” – and do a double take. The song, a story of a young man driving miles of lonely roads to visit his beloved, is rhythmic, has a catchy hook --- “I gotta get to you ’cause you sure been gettin’ to me” --- and is sung in a rich baritone. And Coastsiders would swear those wooded roads, ocean backdrop, and rolling hills look awfully familiar. They’d be right: The young man is driving along tree-lined roads south of Half Moon Bay, and he and his girlfriend are frolicking near an old barn on Verde Road and in the Old West ambience of Long Branch Ranch. He is Nashville resident and rising country singer Billy Arnold and the almost uncannily serendipitous story of the video begins with a song he wrote for girlfriend Keli. The video was produced by LAG Records, owned by Coastside resident Dan Gormley, who, upon meeting Arnold, made a turnaround in his software and music business – at one point as vice president of a multimillion-dollar software firm -- to invest in the singer’s future. “I never heard anybody as talented as Billy,” he said. “I think Billy is more talented than Garth Brooks.” Those are words sure to bring a blush to the unassuming Arnold, 32, who gives charity or benefit shows the same care he does to regular gigs at Nashville’s Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge or opening for country icons. “I’m pretty simple, I reckon, I love my family, friends and God,” he writes on his Web site. His humble persona is underscored in person. “I can’t help but be thankful, even in hard times.” Born in Tampa, Fla., Arnold loved sports, hunting and country music, but “was so shy I never dreamed I’d be part of it someday.” He started singing at 22. Criss-crossing the United States playing in honky tonks, fairs or festivals, solo or with his band, led him to Nashville as a singer-songwriter. While playing at Tootsie’s in February, he met Gormley. They almost missed each other: Arnold was to leave the next day for a Panama City gig and Gormley was in town on business. Then Gormley heard Arnold sing, and it was a match: Arnold needed Gormley’s skills in software and video montage, and Gormley was launching the fledgling LAG label as a means of providing for his son, Lance Anthony Gormley, 21, “the apple of my eye” and disabled due to autism. “What better way to do that?” is how Gormley said he sees putting his skills to work in a label to support Lance. Arnold and Gormley decided to go for a video. Arnold polled friends and family for a suitable song, and they named “To Get to You.” He composed it in his head while driving from Nashville to visit Keli in college in Tampa. When he got there, he played the song for the first time. “She teared up,” he said. “I got a lot of Brownie points for that one.” (In the video, Pacifica actress Chasta Freeman plays the girlfriend.) Music close to the heart is not new for Arnold, who will give 10 percent of proceeds generated by the video to David’s House, a homey facility for families of young cancer patients at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. Called “David’s House,” it is named for David Cyr, an abused child diagnosed with acute lymphoma who died in 1984 at age 8. Troubled by having seen fellow patients’ parents sleeping in their cars when they came from long distances for treatment, he asked his adoptive father to let the families stay at his house. So David’s House was created. Touched by the story, Arnold drew on his own skills to write the song “David’s House,” which appears on his album, “Do You Remember,” with “To Get to You.” “If you’re in a position to help, you do it. You just do it. That’s the way I believe,” Arnold said. “If you’re given a gift, with every gift comes responsibility.” Enter Kevin Palmer, owner of Long Branch Ranch. Already acquainted with Gormley through his main business, Premier Termite, Kevin happened to meet Gormley and he heard “David’s House.” That struck a chord with Palmer, who had helped organize the Coastside Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. Palmer invited Arnold to film segments at Long Branch, and sing at a party planned there to thank Relay volunteers. “Man, this guy is good,” said Palmer of Arnold. “It all came about quickly. This was a way to hype people up for the next Relay.” For Arnold, the video is a welcome means of having his family “see I worked hard enough to get that.” It will be marketed to Great American Country, the country music cable television network. |