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Missed By an Inch or Won
By a Mile?
Oft-repeated Nashville Saga has a BYU Ending
by
Ron Simpson
Utahn
Dan Cahoon moved to Nashville when he was sixteen. It was about
1999. “Mentored” by Dave and Robin Osborn, parents of the country-charting
Utah-born sisters known as SheDaisy, and parents who had seen
their firstborn, Kristin, make the same Music City move at
the same age, Bill and Jeanine Cahoon of Woods Cross, a Salt
Lake suburb, took a leap of faith. On the encouragement of
Brett Manning, Dan’s Salt Lake vocal coach, who had recently
moved to Nashville himself, the Cahoons decided to let Dan
take an early shot at the big time.
Manning
had heard Kenny Rogers talking about forming a Nashville-based
boy-band singing group, and it seemed to Manning that young
Dan Cahoon from Utah would be a perfect candidate.
* * * * *
A
knock on my office door proves to be a welcome visit from songwriter/producer
Tyler Castleton. “So what’s going on?” he asks. [Tyler Castleton
heads Deseret Book’s Music Division.]
“Well...” (I’m
afraid nothing new is going on today.) Then I catch myself,
smile, and take a stab: “Well, for one thing, it looks like
we’ve just admitted one of the members of Marshall Dyllon into
the media music program at BYU.”
 “Really? No kidding? The Utah guy...the redhead?” “Exactly,” I
answer, “Dan Cahoon. And you’re already one big step ahead
of me. I didn’t even know there was a Utah guy in Marshall
Dyllon until I saw the application supported by the same Marshall
Dyllon CD that I have on my shelf.”
Both
of us, it turns out, had been very interested in the beginnings
of Marshall Dyllon, a very well thought out, well funded “boy
band” singing group that was to be Nashville’s entry in the
genre made popular by the likes of pop icons ‘NSync and Backstreet
Boys.
Marshall
Dyllon was the brainchild of Kenny Rogers, whose self-owned
label, Dreamcatcher Records, had just spawned a surprise number-one
record for the aging superstar. “Buy Me a Rose” was a story
in itself. Written by two Utah songwriters, Eric Hickenlooper
and Jim Funk, who reportedly had never even been to Nashville,
the song had come to Rogers’ attention via a circuitous marketing
route one could only describe as something of a miracle.
Marshall
Dyllon was to be Kenny Rogers’ next big thing. Many music business
watchers wondered how they could not succeed, given
Rogers’ broad connections and recent Midas touch.
“I
thought they were great,” Tyler says, sitting down and still
thinking about Marshall Dyllon. “First of all Phil Vassar [Nashville
singer/songwriter/producer] was all over the project...” “Yeah,
it seemed like everyone was,” I added. “Brent Maher and Chris
Farren both produced tracks, Michael D. Clute was there...”
But
sometimes a project can have everything going for it, and still
nothing happens. Or it happens, but so gradually that the investors
lose interest and pull the plug.
And
so, despite a fully-funded start-up that most new artists can
usually only dream about, Marshall Dyllon ultimately couldn’t
survive the timing of being launched at what might have been
the worst possible moment. Though not obvious until later,
a triple-decker record business meltdown was about to happen:
first came a sudden national downturn in the whole boy-band
phenomenon, which arguably had run its course. Second, there
was a slump in the music industry, a delayed reaction to several
factors, including free downloads. The resulting contraction
of the entire record business is still going on. The third
factor–the straw that broke the camel’s back?–was Nashville’s
era of pop crossover, which had blurred the once-sacred borders
between country and the other pop-related genres. When Nashville’s
pop crossover mini-boom showed signs of slowing, the backlash
left country proportionately weaker, with many established
artists losing their record deals. And Marshall Dyllon, it
must be noted, had been produced and positioned precisely as
a pop crossover country group.
* * * * *
 As vocal coach Brett Manning predicted, Kenny Rogers
and his people responded to Dan Cahoon and kept him on the
hot list as they continued to search the country for the rest
of the individuals who would complete the Marshall Dyllon lineup.
Soon Dan and the other finalists were relocated to Florida,
into a talent-development system that has become legendary.
Housed in an apartment in Orlando and given an allowance, the
group was put through its paces to see if it would jell into
a record-quality, radio-worthy group. Marshall Dyllon had boiled
down to a roster that in addition to Dan, included Jesse Littleton,
brothers Michael and Paul Martin, and Todd Sansom. In March
of 2000 the guys were flown to Nashville and received definite
contract offers from Dreamcatcher.
“For
a long time everything was great,” says Jeanine Cahoon. Before
long the group’s debut album, Enjoy the Ride, was under
way with a blue-ribbon list of songwriters and individual track
producers aboard.
Dan
Cahoon, the youngest in the group, was well liked. “We got
us our own Mormon prophet,” quipped Kenny Rogers, and, by this
time having forsaken stronger drink, Rogers would compare notes
with Dan on their choices among the available non-alcoholic
beverages.
Marshall
Dyllon’s debut single was “Live it Up,” which had Phil Vassar’s
creative imprint all over it. It climbed solidly into the country
Top 40. But compared with, say, Diamond Rio a few years earlier,
whose first single, “Meet in the Middle,” had soared, astonishingly,
all the way to number one, this outcome was disappointing.
Dreamcatcher
and Jim Mazza, former head of RCA Records and Kenny Rogers’ go-to
guy, pressed ever onward, knowing the group would eventually
find its bigger radio audience. Marshall Dyllon was on the
road, doing appearances, shooting videos, and posing for photo
shoots, enjoying the ride indeed. Each Sunday, Dan Cahoon quietly
slipped off to Church. Often his late-sleeping bandmates didn’t
even notice. At other times they would be incredulous. In New
York, after Dan came in from a Sunday morning subway-and-bus
trip to Church at Lincoln Center, they said, “You what? You
went to Church?”
A
subsequent Marshall Dyllon single and video, “You,” was a song
co-written by Jimmy Olander of Diamond Rio. The song was produced
to feature Dan’s lead vocal, but again, the outcome at radio
was less than they hoped for. Meanwhile Dan Cahoon found a
friend in Diamond Rio keyboardist Dan Truman, a BYU graduate
and returned LDS missionary. Diamond Rio and Marshall Dyllon
had in common that they were both managed by Dreamcatcher.
Gradually,
by the fall of 2001, the Marshall Dyllon investment partners,
Transcon in New York and Lou Pearlman, who had also been in
on the development of ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys, began to
lose their enthusiasm and the regular advance payments to the
singers stopped coming.
Jim
Mazza began covering the group’s expenses with his own money,
while all the time receiving assurances from Transcon. “Don’t
worry,” they’d say. “You’ll get your money.” But Dreamcatcher
finally announced to Marshall Dyllon that they would need to
become self supporting. Dan Cahoon signed up for music classes
at Belmont University and got a job in a health foods store
at a Nashville mall. During that time, a young co-worker and
son of a minister began asking Dan questions about his lifestyle,
about his religion. Before long, the young colleague was baptized.
Meanwhile
in Salt Lake it was Olympics time, 2002. Greg Ericksen gave
Marshall Dyllon a cut on his silver-and-gold Olympics compilation
CD and there was talk of the group being part of the opening
ceremonies. Plane tickets to Salt Lake were promised, but never
arrived.
“That’s
how we found out Marshall Dyllon was over,” says Dan’s mom. “No
way to get to Salt Lake. When we pestered them, they finally
had to tell us. Dreamcatcher was $700,000 in the hole with
their own money. Transcon was out. Pearlman wasn’t returning
calls. It was over.”
Marshall
Dyllon had missed by an inch.
After
this veritable lifetime of music business experience, Dan Cahoon
was a whopping nineteen years old. He approached his Nashville
bishop, initiated paperwork, and soon was serving as Elder
Daniel Cahoon, a full-time missionary. I believe it’s a major
tribute to young Dan’s character that, while living far away
from family and friends, and in the fast lane that is the entertainer’s
way, he kept himself apart, worthy in every way to serve.
And
so now, soon to be released from missionary service, Elder
Dan Cahoon has decided to give BYU’s media music program a
try. He will stay in music, but take his next shot from a broader,
more flexible educational platform. “That’s fantastic,” smiles
Tyler Castleton, himself a product of the program. “Isn’t it
just,” I agree.
Well
done, Elder. From our point of view it seems like you’re coming
home a big winner.
Author
Ron Simpson coordinates the Media Music Division for the
School of Music, BYU.
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