06 May 2009

Be Jealous!

The concert last night was a lot better than I expected it to be. I was expecting a full band and some no-name act that I could care less about, but these guys have it going on!

It turned out to be a couple of up and coming country stars who left the bands back in Nashville and just brought their guitars. The concert was to raise money for Relay-For-Life and it was just a couple hundred people in a High School auditorium.

Our first act was Matt Stillwell. He had a hit on the radio in the last year and maybe you’ve heard it or heard of it. It’s called “Shine” (short for moonshine). He played all kinds of country music and he was really good, seeing as it was just him and his guitar. I got a huge kick when he brought up a little 6 year old kid named Austin (must have been his nephew or something) to sing “Shine” with him. Matt told us that it was Austin’s birthday and he wanted to sing “Shine” with Matt for his birthday. So that’s exactly what happened!

Matt Stillwell:

The next guy to come up on stage was a guy y’all might have heard of. Trace Adkins took one of his songs all the way to the top five in the country and by cutting this one song made it so that he could stay in Nashville a few more years and begin to cut his own songs and get a record deal. He wrote “Honkey-Tonk, Ba-donk-a-donk”!

He’s also a fairly new guy on the country scene, at least in having his own hits, he has one on the radio right now. Randy Houser’s recent hit was “Anything Goes” and the next hit is being released next week called, “Boots On”.

He previewed several new songs he’s planning to put on his next album, which he will begin recording in June. I think he’s got several more hits coming, just based on what I heard. Randy has a nice Rock-a-Billy sound and can move from a boot stomping song to a gentle gospel song without missing a beat. I really liked how he took the time to really talk about the origins of some of his songs and how he was really entertaining, even when he was just talking to us. My wife likes the way he laughs.

Randy Houser:

I tried to get You-Tube videos for both guys but for some reason it’s not gonna work for me today (hence the “Oops” post earlier!), so feel free to look ‘em up on You-Tube and enjoy the music!

I’m Alive… So Far…