I spent last week with most of my kids in Austin, Texas. Austin is a wonderful music town with whole streets devoted to live music that you can enjoy. I talked to a man who told me about Willie Nelson’s 4th of July show that he does every year on his property in Austin. We missed that by a few days, but I hope to go back (maybe next year) and see that. He said it was great, that many country music performers where there. He said the main thing that threw him a little was that Willie has cut off his braid. I haven’t seen him braidless, so I’m looking forward to the new look.

During the visit, I had to take my wife to Waco so she could hook up with her daughter who was going to take her to Dallas. After dropping her off, I scanned the radio dial for a country station and stumbled upon a Waco station. I found WACO-FM which broadcasts on 99.9 from Waco. Not only is it a great country music station - it plays a really good mix of recent hits sprinkled with oldies, but I was able to listen to it all the way back to Austin.

What’s interesting about this station (at least to me), it is the only station in Waco that starts with a “W”. Most stations west of the Mississippi river start with “K” by order of the FCC. I don’t know how WACO-FM got away with using those letter in it’s call sign, but how cool is it to have the call letters which spell out the name of the town you are in.

Way to go WACO. Next time I’m in Texas, I’ll be listening.

Boy, it’s been a long time since I have written in this blog. Not sure why I drifted away from it. I am still as big a country music fan as I was a year ago. But priorities change and I was worried about other things and I just didn’t get around to posting here.

I hope to change that. If you stumble across this, then believe that I will be posting on a regular basic from now on. I hope you enjoy them.

To start off, last night my wife and I drove to Wendover, NV to see Trace Adkins in person. Trace is probably my favorite country artist. We see him every time we get a chance. Wendover is a small venue (concert hall holds about 1000), so his concert was a little short. He was on stage just shy of an hour and and half. But it was great. We loved it. He concentrated on new songs that are coming out in his new album which is due in late August. Keep an eye on this blog for a review of the album, because I will be buying it, for sure.

He sang a little of Hillbilly Bone, the song he sang with Blake Sheldon. He did Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, Hot Mama, Ladies Love Country Boys (I asked my wife - they really do), Marry for Money (a lady in the audience had a license plate that she held during that song with “MRY 4 MNY” on it. Trace smiled and pointed at her. She swooned, knowing this was as good as it gets.) , Songs About Me and You’re Gonna Miss This. About this last one, he said “This was the record of the year last year, so we have to sing it.”

My wife wrote on Facebook last night.  “Trace Adkins concert in Wendover last night. What a great way to top off the week. He LOOKED at ME!!!! Can you see me Grin?”

It was a good night. We listened to Trace on the Ipod in the car all the way back home. It was the “concert after the concert”

What a surprize. It was fun to see Shania Twain at the CMA awards last night on ABC. She was brought in as a “surprize” presenter and it really was a surprize. We haven’t seen her in a long time. She gave the award for Entertainer of the Year to (once again) Kenny Chesney. As much as I like Kenny, I really feel the assoication should have given the award to someone one else this year. Kenny has won it now four years in a row. My vote was for Brad Paisley or Sugarland.

But it was good to see Shania Twain again. It’s rumored that she’s working on a new CD, so that will be fun to look forward to. They announced her as the biggest selling country artist of all time time. I really doubt that. I always thought Garth Brooks was the biggest selling, but what do I know.

Anyway, welcome back Shania. I look forward to your album.

Jim Hoag 

For some reason, Kenny Chesney is in the news today. Not sure why, but he may be starting a new tour for 2008. It does give me the chance to remind you that if you like to go to big name concerts and are, like me, struggling to get tickets to these concerts, a good way to go is to join the fan club of the artist you’re interested in seeing. So, if you joined the Kenny Chesney Fan Club (and you can do that by going here.), then you would be able to get tickets earlier than the general public. Now, it usually does cost to join a fan club, but you get great value for your money. If you really like the performer, you should be a member of the fan club anyway and early tickets is just icing on the cake.

My wife and I are members of Brad Paisley’s fan club and Toby Keith’s fan club. Both are well worth the cost.

Jim 

It just ended and is it just me or has Garth lost a little bit from his hey-days as a country singer. I think he is a little out of shape and if he wants to come back as the huge star he used to be, he needs to work on his voice. He seemed flat and out of breath on most of the songs. I love seeing Garth in person. He puts on a great live show. I remember back in the late 90’s, he came to Salt Lake City for 4 shows. I was out of town on the day the tickets went on sale and by the time I got back, they were, of course, all sold out. I was so bummed out. I really wanted to see him live. I never got another chance. He retired shortly after that.

I consider Garth Brooks the greatest living country singer in the world. I have been hoping he would come back to activity. After this concert, I’m not so sure anymore.

Rodney Atkins is one of my favorite new artists. He came on strong in 2007 and had 3 number one hits in a row: “Watching You” which is a great example of why I listen to Country Music. It’s positive and uplifting and delivers a good message. “If You’re Going Through Hell” was his first hit and a rousing country rocker. If he’d have stopped there, he would still have made country history. The third hit was “These are My People”. When an artist gets three number ones songs from the same album, I really consider buying it. But then he came out with “Cleaning My Gun”. I don’t think this has reached number one yet, but it should. What a great song! I will be buying Rodney Atkins new album in the near future.

To answer the question in the title, I think the album was “Honesty”, but it wasn’t released until 2003. He may have produced it in 1997, but it wasn’t released then, as far as I can find. Let me know if I’m mistaken on this.

Jim

The number one video for 2007 on GAC TV was Trace Adkins “Ladies Love Country Boys” I will be saying a lot about Trace in the near future as he is one of our favorite artists and we always buy his CD’s and see his concerts when he is near enough to us.

I’ll make this short and sweet. Garth Brooks and Huey Lewis have teamed up for a video of Huey’s old song “Workin’ for a Livin’”. ‘Workin’ did not make the Top 40 the first time around, but if you’re a Huey Lewis fan, you will certainly know this song. It’s a rocker and Huey still can handle a harmonica with the best.

If you’d like to see the video, right now they’re just playing it on the GAC web site. I just watched it and it was great. Let the video run and next comes just Garth with “More Than a Memory” I’m told that that song was the first in country music history to debut at number one on the Billboard country charts. Welcome back Garth Brooks. You have been sorely missed.

Go here to see the videos.

Jim Hoag

This is the first of comments I will make about country concerts that my wife, Barb, and I go to. Barb and I travelled to Wendover, NV for a small show to see first Asleep At the Wheel, then after a stage change, the Bellamy Brothers came out. They each did about one hour of music. It was a fun night. Asleep at the Wheel really stole the show. Their music was old time and varied. They did “Route 66″ which really isn’t country, but they did a great job with it. They also did “Hot Rod Lincoln” which was a hit on the country charts as well as the pop charts. It goes….”You’re gonin drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop driving that Hot Rod Lincoln.” Very cool song. They had us on our feet and clapping our hands.

Next, the Bellamy Bros took the stage. They really are brothers, they come from Florida and they are definitely feeling their age. They are getting older, but the sound was still good even if the words were a little ludacrous. They did songs like “RedNeck Girl” and “If I Told you You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold it Against Me” and other songs like that.

All in all, a great concert. We’ll talk more later about things like the history of the Bellamy’s, the history of country music, etc. I love it. It’s great. I want this blog to be a real labor of love.

Jim Hoag

True Country Fan