Confederate Railroad @ MindSay 
Here is our picture with him.
Several weeks after the cruise, we were laid over in Nashville, so we went downtown. We first went to Legends Corner where we saw a guy named Thom Shepard perform. He wrote the David Ball song, "Riding With Private Malone" and the Craig Morgan song, "Redneck Yacht Club". We spotted Mark Wills in the back of the room and got our picture taken with him.
After an hour or so, we decided to walk down Broadway to see what else was going on. We saw several tour buses parked on the street and when we got to them we saw one of those velvet ropes, like they have in Hollywood, going into one of the venues with a long line of people behind it. We didn't bother getting in line because we figured the odds of us getting in were between 0 and 0. But as we walked on down the sidewalk we heard someone yelling "Eddie, Eddie". I thought, "That would be quite a coincidence if we ran into somebody we know here in Nashville". Then we spotted our new buddy from the cruise, Tim, coming down the sidewalk.
He asked us if we were here for the showcase. I said "What showcase"? He said "Cody and some other country music stars were having a showcase there". Cody McCarver is the keyboard player for the "Confederate Railroad Band" and he has a couple of country hits himself. Then Tim said, "Come on. I'll get you in". It's a good thing nobody in the line behind the velvet rope had a feather, because they could have knocked us over with it as we walked by them and were escorted inside.
One of the first country stars that we saw was "Cledus T Judd". He was a co-host for the event.
The other co-host was "Mr Belding" (Dennis Haskins) from "Saved By The Bell".
Here is Cody McCarver performing. That's Jimmy Dormire in the background. He's a great guitar player.
Cody spotted us and came over and told us how much he appreciated us coming "all the way to Nashville to be at his showcase". I didn't know what to say at first, but then I thought, no, I'm not going to lie. I said, "Man, we were just walking down the street and Tim ran us down". He looked a little disappointed and I quickly said, "But we're sure glad to be here", so the awkward moment passed quickly. We saw him in Knoxville a few weeks later and he told his buddies that story and we all got a laugh out of it.
Several other new country stars performed as well.
This is Amanda Hinkel.
And this is Daryle Singletary, who performed several songs.
About half way through the the night, Danny Shirley, Confederate Railroad's lead singer, came strolling in. He came over to where we were and talked to us a bunch. Then Mark Wills came in and he and Danny stood there beside us, talking up a storm. How cool is that?
I didn't have to move to take this picture. This is where we were all standing. Danny did a radio interview during the time he was there and they gave him some very nice T shirts, which he gave to us before he left. It sure is nice to be liked.
Sorry to post such a long blog but nights like this don't happen very often and I wanted to post quite a bit about it. Here is one more picture of our buddy, Tim, playing fiddle on stage. He also played harmonica and lap steel.
We finally met one of our idols and heroes this past Friday night. The Possum. George Jones. I haven't been blogging much lately but this one should be long enough to make up for lost time, because I would like to start this story at the beginning.
A few months ago, while we were on the cruise with the Confederate Railroad Band, I was talking with the lead singer, Danny Shirley, and he mentioned that they were going to be in concert in a few months, in Bristol, TN, with George Jones. I told him "we would be sure to be there". Much to my surprise, he gave me his phone number and said to call him during the week before the concert and he would have tickets waiting for us at the door.
Is this guy great or what?! As I have said before, some people may be prejudiced against this band because of the "Confederate" name, but I have never met a nicer group of guys, and the name "Confederate Railroad" was actually, originally the name of one of the organizations who helped get slaves out of the south, before and during the Civil War. Of course, the band is also a great group of musicians who, in my opinion, are as good or better, now, than they were when they were selling millions of records. That's right. "Trashy Women" alone sold over 3 million and they had many other hits like "Queen of Memphis", "Jesus and Mama","When You Leave That Way","Cadillac Kind" and many more.
Anyway, I happily put the phone number in my wallet and began to anxiously await the day of the concert, but this story has another twist. On the day before Easter, I drove a farm tractor all day long doing some work at the rental property we own. When I stepped down off of the tractor at the end of the day, I was sans wallet. (That means my wallet was missing.) So on Easter Sunday we, and most of our family spent the day looking for a wallet rather than Easter eggs. Unfortunately, it wasn't found. It is probably buried under a foot or 4 of dirt. As my niece said, "Maybe a future archaeologist will dig it up." I replaced all of the cards and my license but now I didn't have Danny Shirley's phone number. I thought about digging the whole place back up but decided there must be an easier way. After several emails and phone calls I was able to reach the bands road manager, Tweak, (Yep, that's his nickname.) who assured me that there would be 6 tickets and backstage passes waiting when we arrived at the concert.
OK, enough of my boring story and on to the pictures. When we arrived we were escorted backstage where we chatted with the band. Here we are talking to Danny and the lead guitar player Jimmy Dormire.
Here is a group picture with the band.
And here are some pictures from their concert.
Now some people who are not huge country music fans might not realize what a big deal this was to us, but if you are a sports fan, think about how great it would be to hang out with your favorite team just before the game and you can realize how we felt. Now imagine how it would feel to meet the greatest player that there ever was and you'll know how we felt about meeting George Jones. As I walked up to him he stuck out his hand. As I shook it, I'll never forget the words we exchanged. I said, "It's an honor to meet you sir" and he said "The pleasure is all mine." I think Tracy had to smack me to bring me out of my daze after that. (Just kidding.) Here is the picture that now hangs on our kitchen wall.
This is his charming wife, Nancy.
And here are some pictures from his show.
If you get a chance to see a George Jones or Confederate Railroad concert, I would highly recommend it. The "Railroad" of course always puts on a great show but I was a little concerned since George is now over 70 years young that he might not be as good as he once was. My concern was without merit. I have been to several concerts by him and let me just say, for the record, as far as I could tell, his voice is as good as ever, and he still has some pretty good moves. Of course, he didn't swing from any ropes or jump off of the drum riser, but an entertainer as good as him, doesn't have to. He sang many of his classic songs like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Rockin' Chair" and a lady who sang like Tammy Wynette sang some of their old duets with him. His show lasted nearly 2 full hours. A screen behind the stage scrolled through some great video and pictures as he sang.
After the show, we visited some more and by the time we went outside to head home the parking lot was nearly empty, so we didn't even have to fight traffic.
I took my fiddle with me and George and Danny both autographed it. Buck Owens autographed it a few years ago, but that is another story. Life is good!
