{"id":2452939,"date":"2020-01-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=318753"},"modified":"2020-01-07T07:55:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T14:55:39","slug":"local-songwriter-jackson-emmer-will-sing-in-new-colorado-legislative-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/local-songwriter-jackson-emmer-will-sing-in-new-colorado-legislative-session\/","title":{"rendered":"Local songwriter Jackson Emmer will \u2018sing\u2019 in new Colorado legislative session"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Local singer-writer Jackson Emmer has penned songs about losing love, drinking whiskey and life\u2019s struggles and triumphs, but his musical energies will take on a patriotic flair Thursday.<\/p>\n

Emmer, based in Carbondale, will perform as part of the pageantry surrounding Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 Colorado State of the State address before the joint assembly of the Colorado General Assembly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a voicemail out of the blue that said, \u2018Hello, I\u2019m from the state Capitol and we want to invite you to come do this,\u2019 and that was maybe three weeks ago,\u201d Emmer, an Americana music artist, said Friday.<\/p>\n

Emmer later called back to confirm he would take the gig.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I said \u2018yes.\u2019 At the time I\u2019d lost my voice to a cold, but I said I\u2019m going to say \u2018yes\u2019 to it and hopefully I get better in time and learn the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emmer said he\u2019s been on the mend and will be ready. Now 33, the Colorado Rocky Mountain School and Bennington School of Vermont graduate said the vastly different nature of the songs has kept him busy practicing in his home studio.<\/p>\n

His solo performances, with the aid of an acoustic guitar, will include \u201cWhere the Columbines Grow\u201d and \u201cRocky Mountain High,\u201d both official state songs of Colorado, as well as \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music, like politics, can be about connections, and Emmer noted he started one with freshman state Rep. Matt Soper, whose District 54 includes parts of Mesa and Delta counties, last year.<\/p>\n

Soper and his wife, acting on the encouragement of Emmer\u2019s father, Maurice, attended one of Emmer\u2019s country\/roots-inspired concerts in Telluride last year. Soper enjoyed what he saw and heard, especially Emmer\u2019s performance of \u201cMy Love for You Texas,\u201d a track from his second album, 2018\u2019s \u201cJukebox.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two met after the concert, and Soper asked Emmer his thoughts about playing at future legislative session. Emmer was receptive to the idea, but it wasn\u2019t until last month\u2019s call that it began to take hold.<\/p>\n

The Emmer son and father might sit on different parts of the political spectrum, but the two are just fine with that.<\/p>\n

Maurice, an Aspen resident and one-time mayoral candidate, frequently writes letters to the newspapers critical of the Democrats\u2019 politics on the national and global stages, while other letters take aim at the liberal leanings of Aspen City Council and local government.<\/p>\n

Maurice met Soper in recent years though their involvement with Convention of States, a nonpartisan group with the ultimate goal to rewrite the U.S. Constitution through what would be a first constitutional convention. Maurice said he and his wife will attend Thursday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s our governor,\u201d Maurice said of Polis, \u201cand I\u2019ll be interested in what he has to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Jackson, \u201cWhat I will say about politics is I\u2019m not really in the business of shutting out people who I don\u2019t agree with, and I\u2019m pretty liberal. I think for politics to work, it takes a lot of compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said it doesn\u2019t matter that his meeting with an elected Republican \u2014 Soper \u2014 set the stage for his invitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to be there and have been invited by conservatives to celebrate,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not conflicted about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emmer said he won\u2019t have any surprises when he sings the national anthem, which has seen mangled and flawless public performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy approach is to try and keep it simple,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are a lot of great versions and a lot more (people) make it more complicated than it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The anthem\u2019s lyrics came from a poem written in September 1814 by Francis Scott Key about the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The music behind it came from \u201cTo Anacreon in Heaven\u201d composed by Brit John Stafford Smith. It wasn\u2019t until 1931 that it was declared the national anthem through a congressional resolution signed by President Herbert Hoover.<\/p>\n

That was actually 16 years after Dr. Arthur John Fynn\u2019s \u201cWhere the Columbines Grow,\u201d written in 1911, was adapted as Colorado\u2019s official state song in 1915.<\/p>\n

Throw in \u201cRocky Mountain High,\u201d the 1972 hit recorded by John Denver, who wrote the song about Colorado with Mike Taylor, and Emmer will have plenty to sing about.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these were written in pretty different times,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice for me to stretch my ear and voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local singer-writer Jackson Emmer has penned songs about losing love, drinking whiskey and life\u2019s struggles and triumphs, but his musical energies will take on a patriotic flair Thursday. Emmer, based in Carbondale, will perform as part of the pageantry surrounding Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 Colorado State of the State address before the joint assembly of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 22:16:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452957,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452939\/revisions\/2452957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}