When you think of local women musicians who have been a consistent force in the underground music scene over the last decade, Gina Dalmas tops the list.
When I first met Dalmas, she was preparing to delve into the world of being a rock guitar goddess. A woman wielding a Gibson Les Paul is an admirable sight.
In recent years she has returned to her country music roots, forming Gina Dalmas & The Cow Tippin’ Playboys with a seasoned group of blues, Americana musicians in Norfolk. With an acoustic six-string in-hand, boots and flowing dress, she could easily be the darling of Nashville’s honky tonk bar row with shades of Tammy Wynette and Patsy Cline, enhanced with a Johnny Cash-like confidence.
In advance of the band’s February 11 gig at the Belmont House of Smoke, I caught up with Dalmas to look in the rearview mirror as well as up the road.

Take us back to your early years and exposure to music in North Carolina. What was that like? Was Country & Western music a part of family life growing up for you?  
Very young, I was a daddy's girl.  I listened to my father’s favorites, including Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, Webb Pierce, Porter Wagoner, Charlie Pride and Kitty Wells.  While he vehemently professed to be tone deaf, he loved lyrics with wit and humor - both found in abundance in old country tunes.  My mother has a wonderful ear, and listened to all sorts of music, with a tendency to favor the gospels hymn and worship music she grew up experiencing.  I was very fortunate to have a mother who recognized my love of music early on - she signed me up for piano lessons when I turned 6 years old. Though she never had the benefit of any professional training, she fostered my musical aspirations from the start, and both my parents made sacrificed time and money on lessons, carting me to and from rehearsals, and attending plenty of concerts and recitals.  In 6th grade I started playing trumpet and later French Horn - and eventually went off to college on a French Horn music scholarship.

 
When did you really get into rock music as a listener?
That's where my brother came in - at about 10, I decided I was done with all things country and pursued rock music - starting with my brother's favorites at that time - Van Halen, Rush, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Aerosmith, etc.  He was delighted to see me embrace rock music and showered me with recordings.

When did you learn to play guitar?
Also my brother's idea - he suggested it, and my father bought me my first guitar (acoustic, very high action, nearly impossible to play) when I was 15.  I lucked out - through my brother's friends I wound up taking lessons for three years with Audley Freed, who is now an incredibly accomplished musician, having toured with The Black Crowes, Peter Frampton, The Dixie Chicks, Joe Perry. Audley was an incredible teacher; I was a very un-motivated student.  But despite my laziness, I loved guitar, and bought my first electric guitar at age 16 with paper route money I'd earned and saved up for years.  I bought a Les Paul Standard, and it's still my favorite electric guitar to play.

 
Tell us about your first experiences in playing in a rock band. 
While those years were fun, the music created is likely best forgotten.  We played and won our high school talent show twice, but the competition in our category must have been less that fierce.  Luckily, as far as I can tell, the music has been completely forgotten.

You were in Quang T and Action Habit. Compare and contrast those experiences.
Very few similarities.  Quang T was my first real experience performing anything except classical music with an entire symphony playing with me.  So it was a tremendous learning curve, just getting comfortable playing guitar in public.  Fortunately, all the flamboyant costumes, visuals and naked dancing girls that often accompanied the Quang T shows distracted attention away from me, which is what I needed at the time.  I learned to relax and enjoy the show along with everyone else. Musically, all my parts were structured and very specific.  I memorized my bit and was done with it.  Action Habit was completely different.  The leader, Anthony Torres, encouraged improvising - huge segments of songs were designed to be nothing BUT improvising.  I'm afraid I never fully grasped the concept at the time.  After years of reading music and playing classical French Horn in symphonies, I was never able to let go and be IN the music without some solid phrase or riff to hold on to.

How and when did you decide to reconnect with your country music roots?
It wasn't a conscious decision.  I found my hateful attitude toward county music softening; thinking, maybe I don't hate this music after all, as long as I skip most all the popular country of the last 15 years.  My father had died about 10 years earlier, and listening to the old Honky Tonk he loved made me feel closer to him.  Then I fell in love with the music all over again.  When I began playing it, I found my voice, with its low range, well suited to the genre.

You initially started playing as a solo country singer during the "new Gina" phase. How did that go?
That phase was experimental.  Just testing the waters, seeing if I loved playing the music and if I wanted to continue.  I did.

Is it easier to write country tunes?
I find writing difficult in every genre.  Sadly, I'm very un-motivated.  I write a song, and sing it, and while singing it I start thinking of an existing song written by someone else I think is a thousand times better, and I want to sing that song instead.  Of course, singing other people's song is a country music tradition.  Some of my own songs are growing on me though.

How did Gina Dalmas and the Cow Tippin' Playboys band come together?
I looked around, found my favorite two bartenders who are also musicians, and asked them to sign up.  They did.  Thank god they are very talented as well as being able bartenders.  Later on I realized we desperately needed a lead guitar player, so I promptly stole one from a fellow local band, Rodeo Clown.  I'm very grateful to have Greg Wikle, Christopher May, and Gabriel Baesen on my team.  They don't get paid nearly enough for all the time they put in, so I sure hope they enjoy themselves as much as I do.

What are your new recording project?
We are heading in the studio to record a new album this year.  Really!  I said the same thing last year, but this time, I mean it.  I'm toying with some concept album ideas.  A tribute to drinking, though perhaps done to death, is a possibility.  Or perhaps a collection of odes to ex-lovers.

 
The new photos are dramatic. What image are you going for?
Sort of a female Johnny Cash/Waylon Jennings/Merle Haggard.  I'm a woman who often acts like a man, I'm told.

What does the future look like in terms of performing, indie record labels etc?