Blount girls (2/3s of Marshal Hill) on TV next Monday
It’s been a minute since we checked in on Marshal Hill, featuring April, Jason and Mandy Kelly, who grew up in Blount County listening to their father play country songs. Although they at first opted for mainstream career paths — April on a basketball and vocal scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design, Mandy as a nurse and stay-at-home mom with three daughters with husband Eric Hembree and Jason as a father who recently decided to finish a degree in drafting — they never strayed from music. (Mandy and her family still live in Maryville; Jason calls Knoxville home; and April still lives in Savannah, Ga. All, however, are natives of Blount County.)
During holidays and family gatherings, they would pull out their guitars and play. In October 2008, however, their music made its way to a broader audience, thanks to the Internet — a Nashville executive discovered them on April’s YouTube channel, and the three were invited to perform at Nashville’s Listening Room Cafe. That night, Marshal Hill was born, and they’ve been busy ever since, opening for Julia Nunes last year and The Square Room and playing out when they can.
Mandy dropped me a line the other night to tell me that she and her sister will be singing on Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway as contestants of the new reality show “Fast Track To Fame.” The episode featuring them will air two nights later, at 8 p.m. March 8 on Fox’s Speed Channel. According to the program’s website, the show “features real people from across NASCAR Nation including, singers, dancers, musicians, comedians and variety acts of all types! The series premieres Monday, March 1 … and each show is an hour-long with as many as six repeat airings during the following week. Each installment is taped at a stop along the NASCAR schedule from late February through May, and 11 shows are scheduled.”
Check out “Fast Track to Fame” online and Marshal Hill online as well. Here are the sisters:
