Early Years
Vincent was born in Kirksville, Missouri, on July 13, 1962 and raised in nearby Greentop, Missouri. She is the oldest of three children, and the only daughter, of Johnny and Carolyn Vincent. Her brother Darrin is a member of the Grammy-nominated bluegrass group Dailey & Vincent. Youngest brother Brian played with the family group for many years but no longer works as a professional musician. A fifth-generation musician, Rhonda's musical career started when her father bought her a snare drum for her sixth birthday. At age eight, Rhonda started playing mandolin. She soon excelled and began guitar lessons at ten years old. Vincent would later add fiddle player to her list of talents. Children of course are used to after-school homework, but Vincent's was a bit different. In an interview with Ingrams magazine she said "Dad used to pick me up after school, and Grandpa would come over and we played until after dinner almost every night. There wasn’t a lot going on in Greentop, but it was always hopping at the Vincent house." Rhonda Vincent recorded her first single, a version of Mule Skinner Blues in 1970. The family, including the younger brothers when they were old enough to play instruments, traveled and performed extensively across the Midwest in the 1970s and early 1980s. Except for living in Texas for a short time in 1974, and two summers (1977, 1978) spent employed as musicians at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, the Vincent family used the Greentop area as home base. The Vincent children all attended Schuyler County R-1 schools, and following high school Rhonda later attended Northeast Missouri State University, majoring in accounting.
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Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“For the writer, there is nothing quite like having someone say that he or she understands, that you have reached them and affected them with what you have written. It is the feeling early humans must have experienced when the firelight first overcame the darkness of the cave. It is the communal cooking pot, the Street, all over again. It is our need to know we are not alone.”
—Virginia Hamilton (b. 1936)
“At thirty years a woman asks her lover to give her back the esteem she has forfeited for his sake; she lives only for him, her thoughts are full of his future, he must have a great career, she bids him make it glorious; she can obey, entreat, command, humble herself, or rise in pride; times without number she brings comfort when a young girl can only make moan.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)