Stars of the West

While in high school, and doing research on Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers on a regular basis, I thought it would be neat to roundup a few of my buddies and start a Western group of my own. This was no easy task. Just the right individuals would be willing to do the job. Hundreds of songs would have to be learned. My idea for a Western harmony group began my freshman year and I would spend the next two years hunting for the right guys or gals for the job. Different ones expressed interest, tried out, walked out, lost interest, to the point that I came close to giving up a couple of times! But in February of 1994, one young man came along at just the right time and he would play a huge role in helping get my group off the ground. He was Jerry Fowler, his folks were pastors of a nearby church in Kirbyville. Jerry was rather young, about thirteen, but could play multiple instruments. I was impressed with his talents on the upright bass. One Wednesday night after church I explained my situation to Jerry and asked he was interested in working with me. Jerry decided to give it a go and over the next few weeks, I gave him several tapes of Sons of the Pioneers material and had him get familiar with the lyrics and such. But we soon discovered a little problem. Jerry's voice hadn't changed yet! So we waited over a year, rehearsed endlessly and by the summer of 1995 (entering my senior year) we were ready to roll. Jerry and I had a lot of difficulty finding someone to handle the third harmony part. For a while at first we performed together as a duet. And then one day the title of a Tim Spencer song, "Stars of the West," kind of hit me as being a good name for a Western group, so that's what we did.

Our first official Stars of the West appearance was at church and we sang Tim Spencer's "You Must Come In At the Door." From there, Jerry and I sang in church together a couple of times a week, and we began appearing in a few local nursing facilities and retirement homes. My cousin Nick Rice was with us at our first appearance,, doing the third harmony part. Nick lived over 200 miles away so we didn't get to have him on a full time basis. In the early part of 1996, I got acquainted with a young man from New York, who was in his junior year at Branson High School. Aaron Chamberlain had vocal experience, was in the H. S. Chamber Choir, his harmony part, high tenor. And golly he could get up there. Aaron would work with us singing in church for about seven months and he moved on. I dropped to baritone while Aaron was with us and Jerry remained lead.

In early 1997 the search began again for the third harmony part, Jerry and I went back to a duo, where I did the tenor, and lead guitar, Jerry would alternate on rhythm guitar or bass and sing lead. After a few weeks of convincing, we chose Jerry Scott of Branson to come on board as the baritone in the Stars of the West. So two Jerry's and a John we became. By this time, we had a decent selection of Sons of the Pioneers type Western songs worked up and we played all sorts of community gatherings and church events. But by the spring of 1997 Jerry Fowler's work schedule began to keep him tied up, and we gave thought to bringing in a new lead vocalist to cover the spot. We didn't know, but at a rehearsal, Jerry Scott's 14 year old brother Same borrowed one of our training tapes, where I would put all our material and it's harmony part alone on cassette. All you had to do was memorize the vocal part and that would be your full time part in the trio. Sam showed up a week later and stated he was ready to sing "Don't Fence Me In." Impressed, Sam would begin rehearsals with older brother Jerry and myself and our new trio was ready to go in a few weeks. Sam had a wonderful vocal range, could sing any harmony part. At the time I was experimenting with some Bluegrass material and we soon took off in that direction, working up Bill Monroe style gospel quartet numbers. Jerry Fowler officially took leave from the Stars of the West in December 1997, but would come back for special occasions thru May of 2000. Jerry and his wife Abbey are currently living in the Kansas City area.

In the fall of 1997, Jerry, Sam and I felt we were ready for the recording studio. We thought of doing a Western project, but chose Bluegrass gospel since we had been devoting quite a bit of time to that particular field as well as performing in area churches all over southern Missouri. We picked 10 Bill Monroe style gospel tunes. I did the instrumentation, mandolin and rhythm guitar, Jerry Fowler came in and did the bass. Jerry Scott did the baritone vocals, while Sam did the lead and I did the tenor. We called the project "Little Community Church" named after our favorite Bill Monroe gospel song, which we were using as our theme song, and still do to this day. A favorite of many Stars of the West fans, we do have the project available on CD.

Early 1998 saw us continually on the road every weekend it seemed, with rehearsal sometimes twice a week. Jerry and Sam both can tell you the time we performed at three churches in one day! In July of 1998 we brought in a banjo picker and vocalist from northern Missouri, Monty Lynch. He would work with us for almost a year. A fine vocalist, he did the baritone part on the gospel quartet numbers. A month later we brought in Lisa Loomis, a California native, who had came to the area sometime back, growing up around Chadwick, MO. Lisa is a gifted songwriter and vocalist and still works in the group part-time to this day. We brought her in on rhythm guitar, this allowed me to focus on the mandolin full time. I did not play mandolin onstage prior to the summer of 1998. The five of us, myself, with Jerry, Sam, Monty and Lisa entered the recording studio in late 1998 and cut a CD called "Rawhide" which has been a Bill Monroe classic (instrumental) for many years. The "Rawhide" CD was a mix of the Western material and Bluegrass. Two great musical styles on one CD. In 1999, back to a four-piece, we continued on, playing all over the area, our recordings getting weekly radio play on Bluegrass programs. Monty left to go back home to northern Missouri, and in June of that year, Sam joined up with the Missouri National Guard. We decided not to hire anyone else and go back to a trio, Lisa doing lead vocals and rhythm guitar, myself on mandolin and harmonies, and Jerry Scott on low baritone. We recorded a third CD that summer called "Third Time's A Charm" and it too features a mix on Sons of the Pioneers style Western music and Bill Monroe Bluegrass.

In June of 2000, I, John Fullerton married the talented Lisa Loomis. She claims she's gonna add some pounds on me with her cooking! I will say that I've gained close to 20 pounds since we were married! Lisa and I really pursued the songwriting side of the business for a while. I came up with the musical arrangements, while Lisa took care of the lyrics. We've written close to 200 songs.

Although my solo career has gotten busier since about 2001, and I worked in another Bluegrass group for three year, we decided to slow things down in the Stars of the West a little bit. For nearly 5 years we were on the road nearly every weekend and never home! We did only a handful of dates in 2002 and 2003. Sam was in the 203rd Engineers Battalion and stationed in Iraq for 14 months, Easter 2003 until later July 2004. In mid 2004, Jerry Scott took on the position of praise and worship leader at New Song Church north of Branson. This put Jerry to part time, and with Sam in Kansas City, now home from Iraq, and Lisa at part-time status, it seemed the Stars of the West were gonna fall apart, but not so! In April 2004, we brought in the talented Kyle Burnett from Theodosia, MO. And in August 2004, we brought in Eli Johnston on five string banjo. We are fulltime Bluegrass, we haven't touched the Western songs for sometime now, we travel as a music ministry performing at area churches. Check out the home page once in a while and you'll see a date or two regarding the Stars of the West. If you'd like info on any of the three CDs we have, email us and we'll tell you all about it.