Jefferson County resident Louise Robertson is getting ready to release her first album, but her musical aspirations began about two decades ago when she seized the chance to sing the national anthem before the start of a game at
De Soto High School.
Back in 2002, Robertson, who was Louise Rieffer at the time, was a member of the girls basketball team and was looking forward to senior night, when she and two teammates would be recognized.
However, she noticed that none of the girls had been asked to sing the national anthem before the game at The Pit.
“Every year before, they had one of the senior players sing the anthem,” said Robertson. “I asked the coach why not this year, and the other girls just laughed. I was just a sports junkie in high school; I didn’t take any music classes. The coach said I had to approach the choir director if I wanted to (sing the anthem). She told me I first had to audition by singing it in front of her class. I did, it went fine, and I sang it at senior night. I’m sure it was not great, but I absolutely loved it. And it planted a seed in me.”
So much so that Robertson, 37, is planning to self-release her first album, “Demonymic Enculturation,” in early April under her maiden name.
Demonym is a word used to identify a group of people native to a particular place.
“I have had countless people try to talk me out of using this title for my album,” she said. “It’s my attempt to pay homage to all of the people before me – my lineage and the lineage of the people I was raised around, our environment.
“My husband (Dane) and I and our twin girls, Carter and Rudy (5 years old) live in a one-room cabin on 127 acres outside of De Soto. I think about the people who inhabited that property for years and years before me.”
Robertson will hold an album release celebration beginning at 5 p.m. Saturday, April 16, at LaChance Vineyards, 12237 Peter Moore Lane, in De Soto.
“We’ll have live music from 6-9 p.m., and I’ll be joined by John Spittle, the drummer for country star Trace Adkins,” she said.
Spittle wrote the percussion lines for Robertson’s album. “It’s cool that I got him to come up to De Soto,” Robertson said. “He lives in Nashville, and performs all over with Trace Adkins, so we had a tough time working out a date, but he said he really has a lot of faith in my project, so he was happy to come.”
Robertson said her family has been a major influence.
“My mother (Bonnie Rieffer of
De Soto) is very musically inclined,” she said. “My whole life she has been the choir director at Redeemer Lutheran Church (in De Soto) and is literally in a constant state of singing or whistling.
“My brother, William (Rieffer of Eureka), was the first person to give me the confidence that I could make something of myself in music. He was the first person to encourage me to enter into some of those early competitions and to start a band, which he helped me do.”
Robertson said writing songs with her sister, Amanda Rieffer of De Soto, gave her the confidence to hone her writing skills, and local music legend Mel Besher has helped school her in the ways of the music world.
The first single, a cover version of the Johnny Cash classic, “Cocaine Blues,” drops early in March on most streaming and digital music outlets.
The album includes 12 tracks, half of which were co-written by Robertson, a teacher and coach at Ste. Genevieve High School.
She said she largely financed the production of the album through her second job as a real estate agent at Heartland Realty in De Soto.
“The 25-year-old me thought I had to have a record label deal to have a chance at success,” she said. “But the 35-year-old me reasoned that I don’t need someone who doesn’t know me or care about me. With the money I’ve put into this, I’ve certainly considered what would happen if this were a flop, but I wanted to be all in.”
She said if sales numbers don’t meet her expectations, she won’t stop recording.
“I have another album of songs ready, but I may have to scale it down to a three- or four-song EP,” she said.
After high school, Robertson said, she got a lot of experience performing music.
“I knew then that I had to sing in front of people,” she said.
Robertson said she started to write songs in her early 20s and entered a contest sponsored by BMG, a music company, one of the major players in the industry.
“There were thousands of entries, and it was set up like a college basketball bracket with the top 64 contestants. I made it to the Sweet 16 before I was eliminated,” she said.
Robertson said she won another contest and the prize was the chance to audition for Big Machine Records, which had Taylor Swift and Trisha Yearwood on its roster.
She said the audition didn’t go as well as she had hoped. “By any means, it was not the highlight of my life, but each day I got further from it, I thought, ‘I’ve had an audition for a major music label. I’m an optimistic person, and I learned from it.”
After advancing in another contest, “Nashville Star,” but falling short of the finals, she reset her sights and joined a cover band, Wheelhorse, that performed in bars in and around Jefferson County.
“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “I learned how to find the balance of professionalism and hanging out with the crowd, some of whom came to see me,” she said.
While Robertson continued to write, she dropped out of the performing scene to go back to school, taking education and business classes at Jefferson College and then earning bachelor’s, master’s and specialist degrees in education and settling into her teaching and coaching career.
But that seed to perform kept growing.
Robertson said she eventually reconnected with one of her former bandmates, Eric Coleman, who encouraged her to join him onstage for an acoustic concert.
“Our first show back was in early 2020 at the KC hall in De Soto,” she said. “It felt so good, being in front of people and performing again. I sang some of my original songs with Eric, and I thought, ‘I think I can do this.’”
Which led to her deciding to record the album. CDs and other items will be sold during the album release party in April.
Robertson said she also has fans at home. “My husband, I’m not sure that he knows what to think about any of this, but he has been very supportive,” she said. “The girls think it’s really exciting. They love all of it, and they love hearing about it. They tell me that when they get older, they want to be on stage like their mom.”