ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Army News Service, Dec. 5, 2007) - Army Entertainment Division is seeking military musicians and singers to deliver entertainment to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, Djibouti and Kuwait.
The deadline to apply for a spot on the deployable musical performance team is Dec. 14, but recruiting and artistic development director Victor Hurtado said he will consider extending the cutoff for those who contact him before the deadline via e-mail at victor.hurtado@us.army.mil or telephone at 703-806-5827.
Soldiers who play keyboard, guitar or drums are needed - along with vocalists and an audio technician - to put the show on the road. Other instrumentalists may apply. Vocalists must be strong audience communicators who are comfortable with a variety of musical styles and dance. Audio techs must be able to operate a public address system and a digital audio sound mixing board, and have an understanding of audio equalization.
USA Express, a revolving door of deployable musical-performance groups, began entertaining Soldiers in 1992. It often changed faces and toured different places, but the mission remained the same: to provide "entertainment for the Soldier, by the Soldier," the working motto of Army Entertainment Division.
After a two-year hiatus, the traveling cover band will be reinvented by a group of Soldiers that will tour this spring and summer.
"The USA Express product will not be what it has been," Hurtado explained. "Technically, it's been a cover band, but it will be whatever the best talent is at the moment. So USA Express could virtually be one great singer or rapper and a keyboard, or it could be a seven-piece unit. But it will be a high-quality piece of work that we will be sending to our forward-deployed Soldiers."
The USA Express lineup should be set before Christmas. Rehearsals will begin in January. The entourage will hit the road in March and tour until late summer.
"We're really, really excited about the potential for this unit," Hurtado said. "It will have the artistic direction that the U.S. Army Soldier Show had, just in a smaller unit."
The 2005 USA Express covered tunes by the Commodores, Green Day, Faith Hill, Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, Whitney Houston and Tony Toni Tone, among others. This go-round could tilt more toward Hip-hop.
"I'm not averse to putting a rapper in there who can communicate with the Soldiers because that is a very viable genre of entertainment for the Soldiers right now, especially the young Soldiers downrange," Mr. Hurtado said. "I'm just excited that we're going to be able to take some entertainment to the deployed Soldiers."
"Some of that music will be what is commonly referred to as combat music because we take it right to the troops and give them a little piece of home," USA Express music and artistic director Cordell Hall said. "Every place that we've gone, the Soldiers just loved the show because they got to see other Soldiers performing in civilian clothes rather than in uniform - seeing them in a light like never before."
That in turn, Mr. Hall said, attracts even more Soldiers to the program. To audition for USA Express, men and women of the U.S. Army with the rank of sergeant or below must mail a demo tape or CD and current copy of their Enlisted Record Brief, Physical Training Test and military license to U.S. AED, Attention: USA Express, P.O. Box 439, Fort Belvoir, VA 22060.
Once notified, a letter from the unit commander releasing the Soldier for temporary duty with the Army Entertainment Division from Jan. 4 through Aug. 30 will be required. For more details, contact Mr. Hall via e-mail at Cordell.Hall@us.army.mil or phone (703) 806-3220 or fax (703) 806-5251.
The Coalition Land Forces Component Command will sponsor USA Express, a production of the Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command, throughout its tour of the Middle East. A continental United States portion of the tour also is being scheduled.
"I'm totally excited about this," Mr. Hall said. "After being away for two years, you get that itch, and this is my first love. I'm happy to have Victor on board working in the recruiting department to seek out Soldier-performers. I'll take his input and incorporate that into a very, very good show."
(Tim Hipps writes for FMWRC Public Affairs.)
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