“Queen Of Bluegrass” Will Take The Stage In Trenton On Oct. 6

by Ronda Lickteig
R-T Editor

Lots of people follow in the footsteps of their parents – taking over the family farm or business, becoming a teacher or maybe joining a family practice. Rhonda Vincent could barely walk when she started following in the footsteps of her musical family and that walk has taken her from Greentop to the Grand Ole Opry and, next week it will bring her to Trenton.
The fast-talking energetic Vincent, known as the “Queen of Bluegrass,” will take the stage at the Trenton R-9 Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, Oct. 6 in a concert that will benefit the Northwest Missouri Chapter of the Dream Factory.
By the age of five Vincent was performing with her family and friends in “The Sally Mountain Show” on television station KTVO, which was at that time out of Ottumwa, IA. Music was, to put it mildly, the center of her world.
“Every day Dad would pick me up from school, we’d go home and play music. We’d play all evening. When friends came over, we played music. I went to school because I had to,” she said. “It was intense; we played every day.”
Vincent said it wasn’t until she was a teenager that she realized that kids did things besides music, which led to some rebellion and a time when she didn’t want to play music all the time.
“I went to the skating rink and I couldn’t believe everyone was out there doing things like that!”
But music was in her DNA and as the fifth generation of musicians in her family, she felt the pull to the stage.
“People say, ‘when did you choose bluegrass?’ and I say ‘I didn’t ever choose it. It’s just what we did’.”
In 1985, Vincent competed on the TV series “You Can Be a Star,”  winning the contest and along with it a professional recording contract. Her first professional performance was with Jim Ed Brown, a Grand Ole Opry star, who is credited by some with “discovering” her. Her first solo album, “New Dreams and Sunshine” was released in 1988.
After branching out into mainstream country music, which she called “a money pit,” she returned to bluegrass with her album “Back Home Again” in 2000. It was obviously a good move as she was named The International Bluegrass Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year from 2000 to 2006 as well as Entertainer of the Year in 2001. She was the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America’s Entertainer of the Year from 2002 to 2006.
She tours with her band, “The Rage,” a name that at one time was spelled “Raje” and stood for Rhonda, Alan (Jones), Joey (Wieneman) and Earl (Irl Hees) for the names of the original band members. She thinks the name is a good fit.
“There’s a power in what we do – a drive. I have it on my license plate and people think it’s road rage,” she laughed.
A seven-time Grammy nominee, Vincent took home the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2017 and was formally inducted into the Grand Ole Opry just this past February. She will be on the Opry’s 96th birthday show on Saturday, both live and online. She plans to perform the first bluegrass rendition of “Unchained Melody” on the televised portion.
What’s got her excited right now? As has been the case her entire life, it’s music and family.
“Life is so good. I’m on tour. I’m on the Opry and we just had a new grandson,” she said, also noting that her new album, “Music Is What I See” is selling well and she can tell that people instantly react to it.
Until a couple of years ago, when she and her husband, Herb Sandker, moved to the Lake of the Ozarks, the family lived in north Missouri.
“We wanted to raise our kids in north Missouri. There’s no place like home and we wanted them to live in a safe and very calm environment.”
Vincent loves interacting with her fans in person and on social media, where she can be found on her Facebook page, “Rhonda Vincent Official.”  She said she does a lot of “lives” on Facebook, including a “Sunday morning singin’ in my jammies” last week. But for her, there’s nothing like coming home to Missouri for a live performance like the one planned in Trenton.
“It’s always exciting to perform in Missouri because I always see people I haven’t seen in a long time,” she said. “I’ll see people I haven’t seen since I was seven or eight, so that’s fun. It’s like a homecoming. It’s like a family reunion.”
Tickets are on sale at the Trenton Hy-Vee customer service counter and at Ron Dougan Insurance Agency (660-359-0100) and the Trenton Downtown Improvement Association office, both located at 903 Main St., in Trenton. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. A meet and greet will be held at 3 p.m. on the day of the concert at Hy-Vee. Doors open at the Trenton Performing Arts Center at 6 p.m. with the concert scheduled for 7 p.m.