By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Jay Teter's dad, Cass County Commissioner Jack Teter, was well-qualified to teach his son to play guitar. He had been a studio musician for RCA.
Jay's formal musical training is pretty much limited to his sophomore year in choir and playing alto saxophone in band until it conflicted with football.
Teter hopes this scholarship fund will help students get a solid start in a future music career through a quality college education.
While he never attended SMC on campus, Jay earned college credit through dual enrollment in high school.
In Edwardsburg, he performed in school musicals, starting with "Oliver" in third grade.
Four Teter songs have cracked the Top 40 country charts, including "Football, Beer and You" and "Until You Find Your Mr. Right."
The former rodeo cowboy performs weeknights at Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Teter, 32, opened at the Cass County Fair in 2000 for Brad Paisley and in 2002 for Lorrie Morgan.
Last April he appeared with Phil Vassar at Lake Michigan College. "We had a great time together," Teter said. "He actually brought me back up at the end of his set to do his encore. I think that was the third time I played at LMC. The first time was with Chad Brock, then the next year with Trick Pony. I missed a year, then came back with Phil."
Plus, Teter has played Christmas shows at SMC the past two years.
Teter's fourth CD, "jayteter.com," hits stores Sept. 13. "It's been a long time coming," he said. "We had the first single out last March."
His career is "right there on the bubble," he said. "For an independent act, the stuff we've been able to accomplish just in the last couple of years is amazing. We've done shows with just about every major act that's out there, we've been on GAC, the Great American Country television show, CMA has really been great to me. They've had me in their magazine three or four times. We've gotten some great coverage. Last year during football season we got major-market airplay in Baltimore, Dallas, San Jose, Calif., Denver and Knoxville, Tenn." where he lives. "We were all over the place. The station in Dallas brought me in twice in about 10 days," including for a speedway show.
Teter focuses a lot of his attention on smaller market stations because they are more welcoming to rising stars.
Major market stations are often owned by Clear Channel and they have tighter playlists aimed more toward established artists who record for major labels, such as Tim McGraw or Toby Keith.
His "band" consists of a "core group of guys I try to use as much as I can" from several years of playing in Nashville, but a couple of his regulars were absent to be out on the road with Josh Gracin, the "American Idol" alumnus and another Michiganian rising through the ranks of country stardom.
Where he lives in Knoxville is 2 1/2 to three hours east of Nashville. It's home because of its proximity to Pigeon Forge and Dollywood.
Teter, the fifth of Jack and Marian's six musical children, is the only one "who got away" to pursue entertaining as a career.
His sister Misty live in Niles, and his brother Jim lives in Jones, but the rest of the family still have ties to Edwardsburg, including older brother Scott, the former Cass County prosecutor who donned one of Jay's football jerseys for the concert.
Jay sang a "hillbilly happy birthday" during Saturday's show for Jim because his oldest brother teases him about acquiring a southern accent.
Teter attended Michigan State University to study animal science and joined the MSU rodeo team as a bull rider.
Halfway through his senior year he started accompanying himself on guitar, performing songs he wrote, at spots around campus.
MSU "was more of an agricultural campus and a lot of us were farm kids," so country was cooler in East Lansing than one might guess.
Transferring to the Lone Star State, Teter worked it out so he could complete his final 15 credits at the University of Texas in San Antonio.