Copper Mountain Band performs

It was a warm evening last Saturday and residents from around St. Regis and Mineral County gathered in the St. Regis Community Park for a concert to mark the end of summer.

All summer long the St. Regis Community Council has sponsored a monthly event in the newly constructed park pavilion and a concert on Saturday performed by Copper Mountain Band marked the end of the summer’s events.

The band opened up with a soft tune on Saturday night and lead singer Jacque Jolene jokingly promised that it would be the last one of the evening. Jolene welcomed everybody to the concert and thanked them for coming out. While the rest of the band had only been through St. Regis whether traveling or performing, Jolene grew up in St. Regis and graduated from the high school in 2000.

“I know a lot of the faces out here tonight,” Jolene said. “This is especially exciting for me to be here tonight. I grew up here and so I’m really excited to get to play for you guys tonight.”

While Jolene tackles lead vocals, Israel David plays guitar and sings, Shawn Davis plays lead guitar for the band, while Jolene’s husband Nate Norman plays bass. Casey Mann bangs the drums for the band.

David, Davis and Norman are cousins that were raised on or around Copper Mountain, which is located in Troy. In 2001, Norman and Davis were introduced to Jolene during a music competition and shortly thereafter combined their talents to become an acoustic trio. But it wasn’t until Mann and Davis were brought into the group in 2007 that the band was complete.

The band began their journey by winning a Colgate Country Showdown in 2007 and that same year opened for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Phil Vassar. In 2008, CMB opened for Emerson Drive and Sawyer Brown.

In 2009, Copper Mountain Band released their first studio album. They also opened for The Lost Trailers, backed Nashville Star winner Buddy Jewell and began their first fair tour around Montana and Wyoming. This year, they are slated to back Johnny Lee as well as more dates with Jewell and Doug Stone.

“The first couple of years we were a band, we were performing mostly in bars,” Jolene said, “So we said, ‘we’re a bar band.’ Honestly, we didn’t think we’d be doing something this large. It feels really good. It’s a wonderful feeling to know we have so many fans and opening for the bigger names is an honor.”

Jolene said the passion for her as well as the others is just to perform for people and make sure that they have a good time listening to the music.

“I love to sing and these guys love to play. We want to play for people,” Jolene said. “It would be no fun for me if it was just the same venues for the same people. The most enjoyment I get out of it is when people are out dancing, laughing, smiling and singing along. That’s what it’s all for. There’s nothing better than looking out there and people are tapping their feet and digging the music.”

Jolene said he and David are the two who do the song writing for the band. She said that both of them write from personal experience.

“It’s all based off the way we live, the people we’ve met and what we’ve done,” Jolene said. “It’s the only way I can write.”

Jolene said that the band hopes to continue to expand and play further out. They want to play in Europe, on the east coast and into the Midwest. She said, however, that they had a blast playing in St. Regis.

“I was so thankful that all those people came out and listened,” Jolene said. “It meant the world to me. I hadn’t seen a bunch of those people or talked to them for awhile and a lot of they hadn’t seen the band before. I could see in their faces they were proud of me and I just want to thank them for coming out and spending Saturday night with us.”