Most Bands Fight To Make A Name For Themselves And Shenandoah Had To Fight To Keep One
They were singing No. 1 hits while lawyers were burning through the money they earned on the road and the trouble was not a bad record or a broken band because it was the name printed across the front of the drum kit
Shenandoah had spent millions making sure the name they never originally wanted was still theirs
Shenandoah had entered the 1990s exactly where a country band wanted to be
Next to You, Next to Me spent three weeks at No. 1 and Extra Mile went gold and the Academy of Country Music named them Vocal Group of the Year
Behind the stage lights however another clock had started running
The Name Had Never Been Their First Choice
The irony was that Shenandoah had never really been their first choice
Drummer Mike McGuire later said the musicians had wanted the name Diamond Rio and their production company pushed them toward Shenandoah instead and according to McGuire failed to run the trademark search that might have shown other bands were already using it
Then the letters from lawyers began arriving and groups in several states claimed rights to the same name
One dispute was settled and then others followed and at one point Marty Raybon recalled that Shenandoah had 11 attorneys on retainer
Every additional show helped pay legal bills so the band worked harder while spending more time away from home simply to keep fighting for the right to remain Shenandoah
Bankruptcy Did Not Become The Closing Paragraph
By 1991 the fight had consumed more than $2 million in settlements and legal costs and the band filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Their relationship with Columbia eventually ended even though they ultimately kept the name
For many bands that would have been the closing paragraph but Shenandoah signed with RCA instead
Rock My Baby reached No. 2 in 1992 and the following year Under the Kudzu produced another No. 1 with If Bubba Can Dance (I Can Too)
Then came Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart with Alison Krauss and it earned Shenandoah its first Grammy
And somewhere inside that comeback sat one final Nashville irony
The name Diamond Rio that Shenandoah had wanted before anyone had heard of them eventually became the name of another country band entirely
The wrong first choice became the expensive permanent one
Country music fans heard both groups on the radio in the same era while one name slipped away and another nearly destroyed the band forced to defend it and Shenandoah kept going anyway