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It doesn’t get any better for musicians than this past week. The Fabs played our second gig inside the Air and
Space
Museum
(reuniting with the lovely and talented Lisa Mathews), and another great Light the Night walk sponsored by the Leukemia Society. HTC played at a lovely fall festival in Haymarket and met a terrific sound guy – Paul “Soundpig” Koch.
But the highlight was a dream come true: HTC and Bob Schieffer made their debut at the Grand Ole Opry Sunday night. The performance, including Julie Roberts, Darius Rucker, Josh Turner, Trisha Yearwood, (HTC/BS), and Brad Paisley was broadcast on WSM radio.
Stepping out on the stage at the Ryman Auditorium was an incredibly moving experience. The room holds about 2300 people, but it looks a lot smaller. From the big wooden stage with the red Opry barn backdrop, the wooden floor, filled with hard wooden church pews, slopes upward. Plain stained glass windows in the balcony allow light to filter into the Mother Church of Country music.
The dressing rooms are all different – the theme of ours was Johnny Cash – so the walls were covered with his pictures. We first set up shop in the Minnie Pearl dressing room, just off the stage, and then moved upstairs after our sound check.
The guards were terrific and we never had to show id or explain who we were. They treated us as if we played there every night. A back stage door opened into an alley, right across from the back sides of Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and Robert’s Western World, where we spent some time later that night.
Of course we were nervous (read: petrified). But the crew was great, and made sure that we could hear everything. We had one minute (a commercial break) to go on stage, plug into the amps, and wait for our introduction. Mark Lindamood was behind a plexiglass wall and it seemed as if he was about 20 feet away from us. Bobby Martin was way way back near the drums, but we could hear him fine. Our mic stands were covered with the traditional Grand Ole Opry wooden constructs, complete with the WSM logo.
Of course, the acoustics were totally wonderful.
The other artists on the bill were warm and friendly, especially Brad Paisley, who made friends with us (especially Bob). He was nice, funny, and smart. And he played some great guitar solos. He told Bob that we were great and Bob told him that he should cover some of our tunes!!!
On a bill like ours, each artist performs for about 10 or 15 minutes, and Brad Paisley performed for about 30 minutes. The audience gave Bob rousing applause as he strode out on to the stage and threw his hat into the wings, and hooted and hollered after each song. We would have gotten an encore if the schedule hadn’t been so tight!
After the show, we went into the alley, where some tourists had gathered to see the real country stars, and we saw our friend Thom Shepherd waiting for us. Now HE is a really good
Nashville
songwriter, with hits including Riding with Private Malone and Red Neck Yacht Club. He comes to our area every once in a while, and you should definitely check him out. His website is http://www.thomshepherd.com. We went into Tootsie’s and watched Billy Block do his live radio show (he was kind enough to mention us and introduce us to the crowd, along with Thom). We later went into Robert’s Western World and listened to some great country music—the Don Kelley Band, featuring a youngster named JD Simo on guitar (FANtastic) and a 23-year-old hot hot fast fiddler whose name I don’t know.
Other Nashville highlights: We visited Katy K at her great western wear store
www.katyk.com, then went to the great western couturier Manuel’s shop (man oh man what beautiful threads, especially the 50 jackets designed for every state) http://nashville.about.com/library/blank/manuel/blmanuelindex.htm, tooled around lower Broadway, including a tribute to Don Helms at Robert’s, ate barbeque at Jack’s, had breakfast at the Loveless Café just out of town, and saw a spectacular performance by the Time Jumpers http://www.thetimejumpers.com at the Station Inn. The Time Jumpers inspired us to -- (someday- not any time soon) – create our own large western swing orchestra. I’ve always wanted to learn how to write out charts. Anyway, I’m rambling now…. Still on that Opry high, I guess.
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