Contemporary singing and songwriting duo, Garcia and Scott consists of Dalia Garcia, who transplanted to Nashville from South Carolina and her native Nashville husband, Gary Scott. They are firmly committed to their music and to each other. Since 2007, they’ve performed non-stop at clubs, theaters and festivals all over the south and Midwest without a backup band, forcing them to develop a sound that’s all their own. Strong lead and harmony vocals, topped off with Scott’s percussive guitar style and Garcia’s percussion, fill the bill and the room.
Although sometimes hard to remember, Garcia and Scott had individual lives before the duo. Garcia toured the world for nearly 8 years with Julio Iglesias, singing the duet “All of You” with him nightly. She says the experience was, “a world class education in music. I learned that the world really is your stage.” Garcia also had a record deal with Universal Music – Mexico and toured Mexico and the Southwest United States to promote her album, “Resandole A Dios.” The lovely Garcia is a former Miss South Carolina. She was the first Hispanic to don the coveted crown.
In addition to playing music most of his life, Scott spent nearly 10 years in a public radio newsroom. He was a news director, reporter and producer working at NPR member stations in Murray, KY and Oxford, OH. Scott produced 12 national news features for NPR. He says it was good training ground for songwriting, “I learned how to tell a complicated story in under 4 minutes. A well-written news story should grab you from the first sentence and keep you until the end…just like a good song.” Scott is the son of an original Nashvile Cat. Through his father Arliss’ work as a musician, Scott was fortunate to be around folks like: Johnny Cash, Ed Bruce, Alabama, Earl Thomas Conley and dozens of other renown artists and songwriters.
Garcia says, “we come from slightly different worlds musically, but it works. I spent my childhood in Madrid, Spain, so I have the Spanish influence. When my family moved back to the states, I was immediately drawn to singers like Ella, Tina and Linda. I spent endless hours listening to their songs, then putting on ‘musicals’ for my family.” Scott cut his teeth on traditional country and rock at the same time. “When I was a kid, my dad would sit me down, put a guitar in my hands, drop the needle on Ray Price’s Night Life album and say, ‘this is all you need to learn how to play music.’ I loved that, but then I’d go upstairs, put on my headphones and play along with bands like The Police, Van Halen, Cheap Trick and Roy Buchanan.” Although they come from different places on the musical map, this diverse music mix offers the same result as an eclectic group of guests at a dinner party; it’s lively and it’s interesting.
The Garcia and Scott story is a little bit like a fairy tale. They had both nearly given up on relationships until fate seemed to intervene. It was a beautiful May afternoon in Paducah, KY at the Lowertown Art and Music Festival. His band had just played; hers was setting up to perform. Scott also emceed the event. Preparing to introduce her band, Al Delory’s Salsa en Nashville, he saw her smile and gorgeous green eyes and nearly fell off the bandstand. As she climbed on stage, Scott spontaneously planted a seed. “I leaned over and told her I’d be willing to change my name.” She was pleasantly shocked. He watched intently as Garcia performed. For him, it was over.
After the show, he caught up with her under an old Texaco sign on the corner of 7th and Madison Streets. The two talked. He asked her out and she said, “yes.” They lived two hours apart, so the next two weeks involved endless hours on the phone. This gave them plenty of time to lay it on the line. When they met for their first date in Nashville, the ice had been broken. Their first kiss across the dinner table sealed the deal.
Months later, they were off to Oxford, OH where he’d taken a job as the News Director at WMUB, a local NPR member station. She quickly started doing commercial work in the Greater Cincinnati area. They both continued to play music in separate bands. Then, fate came knocking again.
While Garcia was off at a commercial shoot one afternoon, Scott got a call at home from their musician friend, John Kogge. He asked if they could fill in for him at Little Sheba’s, a bar in Richmond, IN. They had never performed together. Scott said “yes” anyway. When she got home from work, he announced the news of their first gig as Garcia and Scott. “I thought he was crazy,” Garcia says with a laugh, “but we worked hard and performed our first show as a duo.” Though the sparseness was a little intimidating for them both, they loved it. And, the crowd loved them.
From that first show, their job offers grew exponentially. So much so, they knew they could do this for a living. Fate swooped in again and made their decision easy. Scott lost his day job in 2009 when the economy tanked. So, they decided to shoot for the stars and take their music full time. Garcia and Scott have gone from a small bar in Indiana, to performing at festivals, fairs, concert series, opera houses and theaters in 8 states so far. Their goal is the world.
