When Tiffany

Arbuckle was growing up in Fayetteville and hanging out with her friends

at the Chick-fil-A, she never would have guessed that she would have a

career in music. She never thought she would be writing songs for artists

like Mandy Moore and Kaci, releasing CDs under the name of Plumb and touring

with some of the more popular acts in music today or find herself mobbed

Arbuckle, now Plumb, is the very definition of hometown girl makes good

and tomorrow night she comes home for a performance at the Frederick Brown

Jr. Amphitheater.

Arbuckle moved

to Fayetteville when she was in the third grade. She attended Hood Avenue

Elementary School, Fayetteville Elementary School, Fayette Junior High

and then Fayette County High School. She was in the school chorus and

the church choir and enjoyed singing but it wasn't until a year after

high school, when she was working as a bank teller to save money for college,

that her musical career began.

"It was

a friend of a friend type thing," said Plumb. "A friend of the

family knew I sang and also knew that Bill Gaither's son was seeking a

backup singer for his band, Benjamin. I accepted the offer and sang back

up for a few years." From there, she moved to Nashville in 1995 and

began doing back-up work and session work. In order to pay the bills she

was also teaching gymnastics on the side. Her first record deal came along

in 1996 and she put out a few albums but she also began songwriting for

others.

Arbuckle began

focusing on her songwriting career more and more, especially as she was

getting married and wasn't sure she wanted the road life of a musician.

In 2001, she got an offer from Curb Records, known mainly for their success

with country artists, but also beginning to branch out into the pop and

rock world. Her husband was an account manager for artists signed to Curb

and touring sounded more appealing, now that she knew he could come with

her. Her deal with Curb was also appealing because, though she is a Christian,

her music is for everybody and, unlike her former label, Curb was respectful

of her faith but promoted Plumb simply as a pop/rock artist.

"It was

just getting tired the other way," said Plumb. "I felt it was

wrong to market my savior."

Whatever Curb

has done, it seems to be working. Not only will she be performing at the

U-Night 17 Four Nights in October concert tomorrow night, which brings

together a number of artists on the contemporary Christian music scene,

but she has also been playing with artists that are just plain popular,

such as Collective Soul, Jason Mraz, Lifehouse, Lucy Woodward and Simple

Plan. Perhaps the nicest surprise of all is her astonishing success in

southeast Asia.

"A DJ

over there really liked my single, "Real" and just started playing

it over and over," explained Plumb. "The people started liking

it and requesting more, which made MTV Asia want to get their hands on

a video and soon Curb told me that I should go over there." And she

did. What she found was amazing. Clerks at the local Starbucks wanted

their pictures taken with her and everywhere she went people knew who

she was. Though her songs are gaining popularity on the charts over here,

she could probably go to the Chick-fil-A she used to frequent and not

be mobbed. "It was so surreal over there and really just a great

honor."

Currently,

Plumb is preparing to go out on tour this fall to promote her album "Beautiful

Lumps of Coal." She is also in the process of writing songs for her

next album, so that when she gets a window of opportunity either late

this year or early next year she can go into the studio. She is also looking

forward to producing more tracks on her next album. She is still continuing

songwriting for others as well, and it is no surprise that several of

her influences are strong songwriters such as Suzanne Vega and Poe. In

fact, Plumb gave herself that name after a song on Vega's "Nine Objects

of Desire."

Plumb will

perform on Thursday night at the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater. For

ticket information, visit www.unight17.org or www.4nights.org.

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