Petersens
Photo by Aaron Clark Photography
Some family musical partnerships are marked as much by personal conflict as by blood harmony. This is not the case with The Petersens, a family bluegrass band that has become a favorite in Branson, Missouri. With four siblings as the core of the band, anchored by their parents, both musicians, and their friend Emmet Franz, a mater Dobro player, The Petersens have worked through the dynamics to create personal harmony as well.
According to Ellen Peterson Haygood, who handles publicity for the group, all the siblings have found their strengths. Katie, the oldest, is in charge of the music. “If we disagree about doing a song or if we’re making a set list,” Ellen said, “she has final say.” Matt hands the business end of the partnership—contracts, bookings, and taxes; Ellen does all the marketing, manages the website and design. Julianne, who graduates from college this spring, brings skills acquired as an English major when she rejoins the band full-time.
“It’s cool to have our own lanes, said Haygood. “We all give input to everything but at the end of the day, we aren’t going to be in a fight over whether or not we’re doing a show because we’ve given that to Matt.” Musically and instrumentally, they have their lanes as well.
The Petersens had been singing together as a family long before they decided to form a family band, so harmonizing came easily. Karen Petersen, the matriarch of the group, has a master’s degree in music education. They sang on road trips and when other families might have watched movies together, they were singing. “We didn’t know any different,” said Ellen. “That’s just what we always did.” Since the Petersen siblings were homeschooled, she added, “music was just another class we’d take. We’d do history and math and then practice piano for thirty minutes.”
They also performed together at their grandparents’ church, and prior to settling in Branson, while stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, their dad had signed them up to perform at a bluegrass event held regularly in a former Radio Shack.
The inspiration to form the band came when the family attended a bluegrass festival in Gettysburg together. They were drawn to the safe, family-friendly multi-generational atmosphere, with everyone watching out for each other. “I don’t know any other activity you can do that spans all the generations,” Haygood said.
Katie, thirteen at the time, had been studying classical violin, so her dad enrolled her in fiddle boot camp there, and while she was reluctant at first, she loved the experience. He also bought Ellen a banjo at the festival, announcing, “You’re going to be the banjo player.” Ricky Skaggs was headlining the festival, so her father got Jim Mills, his banjo player, to spend some time with her. “It was a great start; this genre of music is very welcoming,” Ellen said. “In what other festival do that headlining acts come down and talk with people?”
The Petersens settled in the right place to develop their musical chops. Jon Petersen retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel, where he had pursued a medical career, and moved the family to Branson in 2007, where he began working at a local hospital. They saw other families there playing music together, which served as catalyst for them to keep playing.
The family played together for fun as Katie and Ellen went through the College of the Ozarks, both graduating in 2014 and majoring in chemistry. Matt followed them to the College of Ozarks where he studied business, graduating in 2017. Ellen went on to earn a master’s degree in business with an emphasis in marketing from the Missouri State University.
In 2017, when they had just started playing full time, they were approached by Dobro player Emmett Franz. He had also grown up playing in a musical family, but family members had taken other roads. At the time, The Petersens didn’t feel financially ready to add a new member. Then Julianne, the youngest Petersen sibling, and their mother Karen traveled to the Augusta Heritage Festival to learn mandolin and bass, respectively. Needing to add an instrumentalist, The Petersens invited Franz to join them occasionally. His talent and rapport with the group convinced them to take the leap of faith, and in 2018 he became an honorary Petersen.
Ellen credits God with making some of their connections, since they often heard of people who had found the family on YouTube while going through dark times in their lives: “They would tell us their spouse was diagnosed with cancer or they just lost a loved one when they found our family on YouTube. I heard that story so many times.” Thanks to social media, people who came to see them live for the for time knew all the words to The Petersens’ original music.
In November 2022, The Petersens released their latest album My Ozark Mountain Home, recorded at the East Nashville studio Forty-One Fifteen and produced by the band and Troy Dixon. Theirs was the first bluegrass album mixed using innovative Dolby Atmos sound technology. The title song was an original by Katie, music director and fiddler for the group. The other tracks include such traditional songs as “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Down to the River to Pray” and more recent covers such as “Here Comes the Sun” and Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
The pièce de résistance on the album is the closing track “Amazing Grace.” They already planned to include the song on the album, Ellen said, so she started listening to different versions of the song. “When the last chorus hit, I had a vision of friends from all over the world coming in and singing with us. We pitched the idea to our producer, and he said, ‘The more the merrier!’ I don’t think he realized how many people would submit an audio recording,” said Haygood.
To recruit their chorus, they posted a YouTube video with directions. They had completed the rough mix, so Katie sang the different harmony parts over the top of the recording, so anyone with headphone, a smart phone, and a car or closet to sit in could listen and sing along, recording into the phone’s voice memo, to ensure singing in the right key with the right timing. The Petersens were overwhelmed by the response, with almost five hundred voices from around the world included on the track.
“It makes you think of heaven when everyone’s going to be singing the same songs in different language, so it was cool to have that as a part on that album,” Ellen said. “We just recorded a Christmas album in the same studio with the same people, so we joked and asked, “What song are we going to invite everyone to sing on?” He said, ‘No, no, no!’” Fans can also look forward to the new album due out in November. Because they perform Christmas shows at their Branson theater, they had the material worked up, and Katie had written an original Christmas song as well. Most Christmas projects are recorded in spring or early summer, but they saw a window of opportunity in December and returned to Nashville to finish the project.
While their website refers to “American roots music,” The Petersens consider their music bluegrass. “Instrumentally, we’re definitely a bluegrass band,” Ellen said, “but our song selection is not.” They realize that some in their audience “may not know that they like bluegrass. They won’t go to a bluegrass show, but they’ll hear American roots music, and they won’t be quite sure what that is. A traditional bluegrass lover might not like all the songs we play, and someone that may not like bluegrass may love the songs. It’s an interesting dance we play, being a bluegrass band, but not a traditional one.” The Petersens have also built a Patreon community of fans who suggest songs they would like to hear the band cover, which has also widened their range of music.
Julianne, the youngest Petersen, is set to graduate from John Brown University in May and rejoin the family full-time, after playing during summers and breaks while in school. Ellen said the band has been in a holding pattern while Julianne was away, so they look forward to a big reset including a possible overseas tour, once she rejoins them full-time.
With all the voices reunited, The Petersens’ fan community can look forward to more of their special brand of harmony.
