Used with permission of CMA Closeup News Service
By Crystal Caviness
Yes, Bering Strait is a Country Music band from Russia. More to the point, Bering Strait is a great Country Music band.
A listen to the band's music, including their single "You Make Lovin' Fun" (a remake of the Fleetwood Mac hit), makes it clear that Bering Strait is a group of highly talented, versatile musicians who make music worthy of the GRAMMY nomination they have received.
As the band heads into its 12th year in Nashville, with a second album released in August, the musicians are comfortable with the city they now call home and the many veteran Country Music songwriters and producers they call friends.
Carl Jackson, who produced the group's first demo during their initial trip to Tennessee in 1993, is a vocal supporter.
"They are some of the best musicians I've ever worked with," said Jackson, who has worked with Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris and produced the GRAMMY-winning Universal South Records album Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers.
Jackson produced Bering Strait's second album, Pages, which he and others agree show how the band members have matured while living in the United States.
"I've seen them mature. They were kids (when they first came to Nashville). They were all great musicians, but they were kids," Jackson said. "It's evolved into something that is wonderful."
Bering Strait's core remains Natasha Borzilova on lead vocals and acoustic guitar; Lydia Salnikova on vocals and keyboards; Alexander "Sasha" Ostrovsky on dobro, steel guitar and lap steel; Sergei "Spooky" Olkhovsky on bass; and Alexander Arzamastev on drums. Mike Kinnamon, Senior Partner, Music Central Management and owner of JMK Music, has been the band's manager for eight years.
Some of the band members have been musical colleagues since they were children in Obninsk, Russia, a town two hours from Moscow. Their parents enrolled them in music school when they were ages 6 or 7, where they received formal training in music theory, choral singing or whatever instrument they chose.
The musicians first traveled to Tennessee in 1993, to Oak Ridge, the sister city of their hometown in a cultural exchange program. One year later, they performed at the International Bluegrass Music Association convention in Kentucky, primarily because the band's instrumentation included banjo and dobro.
"Our (classical music) teacher (in Russia) wanted to improve our fingering and get us to play faster, so he introduced us to bluegrass," Ostrovsky said. "We started playing bluegrass festivals and touring Europe, but when we discovered real Country Music artists like Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson, we transformed into a Country band."
Making a living playing Country Music in Russia was not an option.
