Editor’s Note: Clairemont enthusiastically welcomes Jasmin Sessoms to our team! Follow this former beauty queen’s journey as she documents her first 30 days in a Raleigh PR agency.

What makes a song bluegrass? Searching the web could possibly lead you to a million different definitions. Simply put bluegrass is a style of acoustic music that originated in the 1940’s. Bluegrass has often been referred to as “America’s music”.

There are many distinctions of bluegrass from the typical country sound. Bluegrass usually has a lonesome musical sound with instrumentation of the banjo, guitar, stand-up bass, fiddle and mandolin.

All of these things never really mattered to me until I was tasked to figure out who’s who among America’s vast list of bluegrass bands for a client. My search ranged from North Carolina to Tennessee.

The Clairemont team’s job is to pinpoint an amazing main stage act that will draw the community out, and bring more word-of-mouth advertising for the client’s event.

During my search, I learned some agents don’t even want to talk with you if you aren’t mentioning big money. I didn’t take it personally, instead I opted to tell them there was no real budget and I was looking for the best in the business.

Although I have never experienced haggling with music agents, I think I did a pretty good job. I reminded myself that they are regular people just like me. Every agent I contact needs my business just as bad as I need their band.

After a series of dead end calls, and a few bounce-back emails, I finally had a breakthrough. I spoke with a few agents that were willing to work with us.

Throughout the day, it seems that my list has grown tremendously from five to 15 bands. All afternoon I have been receiving calls from national recording artist reps and I have to say, I feel special.

If you are ever in need of a bluegrass band as a main act at an event, make sure to stop by the Clairemont House and see me! I have added at least twenty bands and contacts to my repertoire.