Grace Potter belts out a tune in a recording studio last fall. Photo: File photo by Stefan Hard

By Patrick Timothy Mullikin

Grace Potter blew into her hometown for a few days of rest and relaxation after a recent show at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.

That show, she says, was special because her band, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, formed there. "There's a lot of history and a lot of gratitude that we owed to those people. It was such an incredible show. I ripped my voice apart, but it was so great."

Dressed in a silver-grey Jersey wrap dress that she picked up in London, funky boots and with her long hair pulled back, the 22-year-old Gemini is on a roll as she speaks about fame, the band and revolution.

To those under five or over 65: Grace Potter & The Nocturnals are Vermont's hottest musical act, with a string of sold-out shows in their wake. They've released two successful CDs with a third due next year, toured with the likes of the Dave Matthews Band, Taj Mahal, Trey Anastasio and Robert Cray and are scheduled to share the stage with Radiohead, Beck and Tom Petty this summer at the Bonnaroo Festival, which is considered the festival of summer rock festivals.

Now signed to a major label, Hollywood Records (but recording under their own label, Ragged Company Records), the band, it seems, is on it way to becoming an international act

Not bad for a bunch of St. Lawrence University students who first jammed together just three years ago.

None of this seems to faze Potter, however, who says, matter-of-factly, that this is where she knew she would be all along.

"I've always been the person who knew this was going to happen to me, so I've always been ready for it. I've always been ready to be a star. I know that sounds horrible, but I've always lived with that attitude," Potter says with a laugh.

Potter laughs a lot. Big, hearty laughs that sound like they're whirling through the Leslie speakers of a Hammond B-3 organ. "When I was a little girl I used to say that if there was a competition with all the singers in the world, I would win. That's my attitude. I know that sounds evil, but it's true. I've always had a great impression of myself."

Potter, who plays piano and organ and sings, says she began performing regularly in public at 18 or 19. "I've played farmers markets, arts festivals, every weird little event, and senior citizen's centers. I rocked them. I did mostly blues and Sarah Vaughn, some Memphis Minnie, Nina Simone, Sister Rosetta."

Her first real gig, she recalls with a hint of embarrassment, took place before the student body at her alma mater, Harwood Union High School, when she was 16. "I decided I was going to play this song, 'River of Time.' How cliché can you get. Oh my God. It was really bad. This whole idea of the jam scene was coming into my subconscious, and so I felt I had to have a section of the song that was sort of jammy and this totally corny Sarah McLaughlin part to it. I didn't like Sarah McLaughlin, but I was playing the piano so there was no way not to have it sound that way if you're a girl. I got a standing ovation."

She speaks with an accent that's somewhere between Waitsfield and Waco, Texas. But she's a purebred Vermonter, born and raised in Waitsfield. And despite her rising star, she still lives at home - with her parents and with members of the band, including her partner/band drummer, Matt "Cado" Burr - in a wacky Willy-Wonka-like hillside compound of cottages and buildings called Potterville. "Mom and Dad designed it after delving very deeply into the Lord of the Rings stuff in the early '70s. We all eat together. When we have a rehearsal, Mom will make a catfish stew. It's really cool."

Potter makes it clear that while she may be the band's singer and songwriter, she is still just a band member. "We're a band. Two years ago people were seeing us as a girl with some backing musicians."

She recalls, with some resentment, that when she and the band were being wooed by major record labels, representatives ignored the band and spoke only to her. "They were talking to a girl they pictured in a way-cuter outfit than the one I was wearing, with better hair, maybe some extensions, eye lash curls, whatever, and literally were telling me my most poppy song is all I should be doing and I should write 10 more songs like that and put out a record. They said get rid of your band, but I knew the music we were making was moving in really cool direction. Luckily I got a manager who protected me from that pretty quickly. We're all peaceful people, and we're loving people. I've found a group of people that feel like family."

Potter says growing up in Waitsfield with its cadre of successful entrepreneurs- including her parents, Sparky a sign maker and Peggy who makes hand-painted bowls - was instrumental in her decision to become a musician. "My whole harebrained idea of making a difference on a major level comes from growing up in a community where people are really truly making a difference."

What difference does Potter hope to make in the music industry?

"I want to take it back to the rock and roll that was changing a whole generation. I'm trying to take it back to Led Zeppelin and the Beatles - the way rock and roll mattered to that generation and the difference it was making on a political and mass level. I think that can really happen again."



Patrick Timothy Mullikin is a correspondent for The Times Argus, Rutland Herald and Vermont Sunday Magazine. He lives in East Montpelier.