{"id":58488,"date":"2013-07-22T22:24:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T04:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-has-got-talent-too\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:09:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:09:26","slug":"cortez-has-got-talent-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-has-got-talent-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez has got talent, too!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former Cortez resident Dan \u201cJay\u201d Jarmon, far left, performs tonight with American Hitmen at Radio City Music Hall in New York.<\/span>Courtesy Photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The list of recent winners of NBC\u2019s America\u2019s Got Talent may not be recognizable super stars, but they all became instant millionaires and a earned a major career boost.<\/p>\n

Past winners of the series, now in its eighth season, have been a performing dog troupe (Olate Dogs), a ventriloquist singing impressionist (Terry Fator), and an opera singer (Neal Boyd).<\/p>\n

But this year a Cortez local and his Marine Corps combat buddies hope their band, American Hitmen, will be the show\u2019s first \u201cpostwar hardcore\u201d rock band to win.<\/p>\n

Bassist Daniel \u201cJay\u201d Jarmon grew up in Cortez and is the son of Marti and Steve Jarmon of Cortez. Jay formed the group with Tim and Dan McCoy while stationed in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked up a guitar one night in the barracks, and started learning songs,\u201d he recalled during a phone interview between shows on the band\u2019s Midwest tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe McCoy brothers asked me to join them playing music and I\u2019ve never looked back, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following successful auditions and performances in Chicago and Las Vegas, American Hitmen has moved on to the finals, to be aired live from New York\u2019s Radio City Music Hall, tonight (Tuesday), on NBC from 7-9 p.m. Mountain Time<\/p>\n

Viewers can call in their choice for the winner during the Wednesday night show, same time and station. First place is $1 million, and a headliner spot on the AGT national tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cVote, vote, vote, and tell your friends too,\u201d Jarmon said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a culture shock coming from Cortez and going to play on a national stage in New York on live TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarmon, 33, a father and husband living in Salt Lake City, has dedicated his career to the band\u2019s success. And it has been paying off.<\/p>\n

During a second Iraq deployment in 2006, American Hitmen played with Charlie Daniels during a USO tour. In 2009, they became the first American rock band in 36 years to be invited by Vietnamese Ministry of Culture perform in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was our largest show, something like 6,000 people,\u201d Jarmon says. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned to check our nerves and just play hard. We really feed of the audience energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

American Hitmen plays their own songs while touring and has recorded original albums. But for America\u2019s Got Talent, they chose a couple of classic rock covers \u201cthat people recognize and are tunes that appeal to the audience,\u201d Jarmon said.<\/p>\n

During their audition in Chicago, the combat vets, and their civilian drummer Phil Snyder, nailed a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s \u201cSimple Man.\u201d They received praise from shock jock Howard Stern, an AGT judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou blew it up tonight. Great rock music. Great band, great audition,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

Jarmon\u2019s parents are pleasantly surprised and have traveled to New York to watch their son\u2019s band perform live tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting,\u201d said Steve Jarmon. \u201cI give them a lot of credit for their persistence. They are a good group of guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jarmons said their son is the first musician in the family, and it all started with a fiddle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe moved here in 1983 and I had him playing the fiddle in the sixth grade,\u201d said mom Martie Jarmon. \u201cHe really loved music at an early age. When he got out of the service, he worked very hard with his band. He stuck with it, and I\u2019m really proud of him. I hope he goes to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay\u2019s parents live vicariously through their prodigy, watching there son on TV and now traveling to the big city to catch his show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually never saw the talent show before he was on it,\u201d laughed Mr. Jarmon. \u201cThey\u2019ve got all kinds of acts: swallowing swords, dancers and such. Going to New York will be a first. I\u2019ll have to check out the Statue of Liberty after the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viewers can vote for local veteran\u2019s band tonight on national show<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,337],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-58488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-television"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63034,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58488\/revisions\/63034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58488"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=58488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}