The 14th Annual Dewey Beach Music Conference

by Lauren Rosier

The 2015 Dewey Beach Music Conference was a completely epic experience in so many ways. The 14th annual music conference began on Thursday, September 24th and continued on through Sunday, September 27th concluding with the farewell breakfast held at Jimmy’s Grille for all the badge holders.

The conference kicked off Thursday with a VIP party at the Rusty Rudder, the main venue for DBMC. Badge holders were treated to free appetizers and drinks from sponsors like Jim Beam, Svedka, and Patron. Conference newcomers like NOHC and Noah Guthrie had outstanding performances inside the Rusty Rudder Thursday night and conference vet Joey Ditullio played an energized set to an excited crowd.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak with Noah Guthrie about his performance, his time on Glee, and his original music. Guthrie’s claim to fame began when he posted a cover of LMFAO’s “Sexy And You Know It” and it received over eight million views in a week. He’s currently up to over 23 million views.

“It was a new time in my life and it was really cool, but so by surprise,” Guthrie explained about how quickly his LMFAO cover blew up in a week. The plan with his management at the time was to post covers because “no one was looking up Noah Guthrie originals, because I didn’t have any of my originals up yet.”

Guthrie completed an arrangement of a blues riff and before you know it, the acoustic singer/songwriter became widely popular for his blues version of the “Sexy And You Know It” record. When the video was first released on his YouTube channel, he was a little worried that he was going to become “that guy”, but quickly realized “it hasn’t pigeonholed me into this one person.”

Besides the covers that Guthrie posts online, his debut album, Among The Wildest Things, is out now. If you have not heard his original material, head on over to his website to purchase the record. Guthrie says, “what’s most consistent with the style that I’m doing now and then, there’s a song on there called ‘My Favorite Kind’, ‘Adore’, and ‘Be With You’ and all of them are love songs in their own way. It’s kind of always been my thing whether they’re happy or they’re sad…”

Guthrie suggests tracks “My Favorite Kind” and “Death of Me” for a good representations of his sound. “My Favorite Kind” has the singer/songwriter and folk vibe and the “Death of Me” has more of a soulful sound.

Noah Guthrie with Ian Guthrie on drums

“Part of it came out of really wanting to get the original music that I’ve been working on for two years prior out there finally and part of it came out needing to get that out,” Guthrie explained. The cover of “Sexy And I Know It” definitely brought him a clamoring of attention for his amazing performance, but he also had people asking about original music as well. “When ‘Sexy And I Know It’ happened we really kicked it into high gear. Always when you finish an album, you hear different things. I love it, I’m very happy with how it came out. The producer who I worked with was really good.”

Among The Wildest Things is a mix of several different genres from singer/songwriter, rock, soul, to folk,.“It’s hard for me to pigeonhole myself into one genre,” Guthrie stated.  Fans can expect some new material released by Guthrie probably sometime next year he mentioned.

The up and coming country music star and daughter of actress Andie McDowell, Rainey Qualley, debuted her performance at Dewey Beach Music Conference on Friday night to a packed house. She also played the Artists’ Party on Friday at Ivy prior to the evening’s showcases beginning and wowed the crowd.

“This year has been incredible. It’s definitely been a big growth for me as an artist. Getting to sign with Cingle [Records] has been such a dream; I’ve wanted to be a recording artist for as long as I can remember, so getting the chance to write songs, record them, and release them has been amazing. I’ve been lucky enough to that they’ve led to some other great things. Opening up for Loretta Lynn, Hank Jr, and doing more and more shows,” Rainey explained.

Her debut EP, Turn Down The Lights, was released in January 2015. Qualley as received a positive reaction from the country music industry, and she’s currently working on new material.

“We released the first set of songs a couple months back. The single, ‘Me And Johnny Cash’ has been working its way up the charts, so that’s been exciting to see,” Qualley exclaimed. “We’re recording five more songs next month and I’m continuing to write and grow as an artist.”

Qualley is still deciding on whether the new material is going to be a new EP, full LP, “it kind of just depends on the songs turn out.”

Acoustic/singer-songwriter duo, Danielle & Jennifer, played a fun set at Jimmy’s on Friday evening and electro pop band, Revolution, I Love You at the Rudder on Saturday night. One of my favorites of weekend was the EDM/dance trio of NOHC based out of New York, NY. NOHC brought an awesome, high energy show that had the crowd dancing. They had three performances during the conference, one each evening, and definitely killed it during their Saturday performance.  

Conference regulars John Faye & Those Meddling Kids, Lovebettie, and Kid Felix were superb as usual. For each set, the bands had attentive, energized, and excited audiences waiting to rock out to some amazing music.

Dewey Beach Music Conference is an event for that showcases great talent, provides information from music industry veterans, and free live music to fans in a three-day event held annually. It’s definitely a weekend that you don’t want to miss in the future. Stay tuned for more features with DBMC bands that played this year.