Beverly McClellan Returns Home To Her Roots In The Blue Ridge Mountains
Beverly “Bev” McClellan hushes her birds and dogs as she looks out onto the porch and up into the sky at the swirling clouds threatening another thunder and lightning storm at her new home in Ashville, North Carolina.
After 20 years living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Gate City, Virginia native has returned home, settling in a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains about an hour and a half from where she grew up on the border of Virginia and Tennessee.
“I’m sitting on my front porch in my log cabin,” says Bev, a veteran musician and an alumna from NBC’s The Voice. “You can hear the thunderstorms rolling in right here.”
“I grew up country for sure,” says Bev, 45, recalling her grandmother canning preserves and growing vegetables in the garden and her uncle taking one of the cows to the slaughterhouse and dividing up the beef between the relatives to freeze for the winter.
“I love my country roots,” says Bev in her smooth Southern drawl about getting her birthday wish to return to her roots. “This is how I grew up. I feel a live in these hills.”
This weekend, Bev will be in a different country as she heads west to perform in California’s wine country at the Women’s Weekend 2.0, September 12 – 14, in Sonoma.
Bev will be performing some new songs from her forthcoming album, Back to My Roots, which will be released by the end of this year, along with fan favorites out in the redwoods and vines.
Her new album, her sixth, will be a combination of new and reworked songs from her 25 year music career, she says.
Kicking back on a lazy Saturday, Girls That Roam enjoyed a leisurely chat on the phone with Bev over a morning/afternoon cup of coffee. We chat about the important things in life: growing up country and exploring her roots, women in music, her music and what The Voice has done for her, and seeing the world.
It’s Johnny’s Fault
Bev blames Johnny Cash for her lifelong love of music and performing, she says, crooning as she hushes her birds and dogs in the background.
Since she was nearly a babe in arms she performed for her two younger brothers sitting them down to listen to her latest song that she wrote. By the time she was nine years old she was sitting and singing gospel with Mama Carter at the Carter Family Fold near Hiltons, Virginia, but it would take nearly a quarter of a century before the rest of the world would discover her on NBC’s The Voice.
In 2011, she made the final four of the music competition wowing audiences with her voice, musical talent and warm Southern personality.
During her musical career Bev has released five independent albums. She sang and strummed the night away around bars and nightclubs in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and toured around the south for nearly 20 years looking for her breakthrough moment, which happened on The Voice.
Bev’s forever grateful to Christina Aguilera for turning around and taking her onto her team and the experience on The Voice that first season, she says.
“I’m proud. The minute [Christine] turned around, I was like, ‘Wow, I have to go with you baby,’” says Bev about that moment on the musical competition.
“She’s a girl, she’s got the range and the depth, you know? and the soul,” says Bev, who has been influenced by Blues, Bluegrass and Rock songstresses, who also broadened her musical range as she experimented and picked up instrument after instrument until she could play 10 instruments.
“It’s time to hear a different message for the world we need some Joan Jetts of the world, we need some Pat Benatars, some Hearts, some Janices,” says Bev about some of the women who have been her sheroes. “We are all strong women.”
“It’s important because what if I didn’t have Etta James? I wouldn’t know how to do that raw, gritty, crazy, you know, Blues feeling that she puts out. What if I didn’t have Janice? I wouldn’t know how to sing like a rock star in the mirror with a freaking hairbrush,” says Bev, who chose to sing with Cyndi Lauper during her reappearance on The Voice.
“If wasn’t for a strong woman like [Cyndi] coming out – [who] didn’t care what anybody thought about her style or her haircut – I wouldn’t be who I am today,” says Bev, who attempted to cut and shave her hair to look like Cyndi while playing hooky from school one day when she was 13 years old.
The haircut didn’t quite work out. When her mom found her, she didn’t get mad, just took her to the salon to get cleaned up. But, she still ended up looking like the child of Cyndi and Rod Stewart, she says, laughing.
“My mom must have had a talk to Jesus for sure about me many times,” says Bev, about her mother, who simply believed to let Bev march to her own drum as long as she stayed out of trouble.
That’s one message that Bev gives to young people.
“You are not strange. You are cute as a button. Keep on going being you,” says Bev, who simply needed to hear that message regularly herself when she was a kid.
“People need to always be themselves. Strive for it, because no one can be like you,” says Bev, who feels very blessed for everything she’s experienced and has.
Being on The Voice, didn’t change Beverly. It was a blessing that opened doors for her to work with talented people, she says. It gave me, “better options [and] opened doors for me [to] be around the right people [and] help me go the right direction,” says Bev, who hopes to one day do the same for other musicians.
“I just feel real fortunate,” says Bev, who followed her appearance on the TV show with her international release of Fear Nothing and touring with rock legendary Steve Vai.
Rock On Girl
Today, she enjoys listening to Alabama Shakes, The Black Eyed Peas and praises her fellow Voice alumna Frenchie Davis and Vicci Martinez.
“She’s going to stand the test of time,” says Bev about Frenchie and Vicci.
“Every artist changes and grows and has more experiences,” says Bev. “My favorite artists, I have everything they’ve ever done because I want to see the growth.”
Bev isn’t even close to signing off on her music career.
“I’m nowhere near having all of the things that I want of mine recorded, but I still keep writing,” says Bev, who was busy in her basement until 3 a.m. signing and writing.
Bev enjoys her independence having her own record label and traveling and meeting her fans around the world at concerts and festivals, oftentimes hanging out for hours after the show talking with them, she says.
Some of her favorite destinations are Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; and Spokane, Washington, but she’s dreaming of Ireland and not for just touring.
“I want to find my roots,” says Bev, who knows her ancestry stems from the Emerald Isle, but not exactly where in Ireland. “I’m here in my hillbilly roots, so it would be nice to see what foreign roots I have.”
Rooted
Music is Bev’s passion, but her first love is her family and friends.
She was touring Europe with Steve and seeing the world, when she received word that her best friend, who she didn’t name to respect her privacy, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She dropped the tour, flying home from Turkey, to be by her best friend’s side.
“I didn’t know if she was going to be here or not and she was my friend, my best friend that I took to The Voice with me,” says Bev, about her friend who believed in her when no one else did. She is “my everything; my rock.”
“You are darn right I came home,” says Bev, who also moved to Ashville to be closer to one of her brothers and her two nephews. Her other brother lived in Miami’s in South Beach.
“Those are the things that are important to you: your friends, your family, your tribe. You’ve got to take care of one another,” says Bev. “Even if you don’t know people, have sympathy. They are human, just like you.”
“Kindness will change their minds far beyond ugliness,” says Bev, who is an anti-bullying and animal advocate.
Then there’s the fun side of being close to family. Bev, the oldest and the only girl in the family, didn’t want to miss a moment more of her nephews growing up.
“I wanted them to know their Aunt Bev before it’s too late and they aren’t little kids,” says Bev, who looks forward to water balloon fights and doing stuff with her nephews her brother would “definitely not allow them to do.”
“I want to be the bad Aunt Bev,” says Bev. “This is awesome good fun. Gotta have one of those in your life for sure.”
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