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Fate? Karma? Purgatory? Help me put a good spin on this.

My wife and I are heading out to Clarksdale, Mississippi for the Juke Joint Festival which is primarily a blues festival for local delta and hill country blues acts. It is a ton of fun.

We are staying with some old friends in a nearby town. They have graciously invited us to a music series hosted by local country music singer and songwriter Steve Azar. The event occurs every couple of months and features a meal by a prominent local chef (featured in Southern Living, Garden and Gun, etc) as well as cocktails and a casual performance and interview with other songwriters and musicians. It is a small group and the guests interact with the guest musicians. The tickets are fairly pricey and our friends have insisted on buying our tickets.

Other than their love of country music our musical tastes are similar to our friend's. They are going with us to the blues festival. They are also into Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, etc.

The guest musician/songwriter is named Anthony Smith. I'd never heard of him. Apparently he has written songs for some big names in the country music world as has the host, Steve Azar.

Now, I don't hate country music per se. But I have a hard time with contemporary pop country. Here is a video of Anthony Smith's:

https://youtu.be/sbNVTh2QA7k

It is going to be a long night. Fortunately the music will be acoustic. Just the guest with his guitar. I suspect the food will be great and there will be plenty of booze. And I guess it will be interesting to get some insight into the singer/songwriter world even if it is pop country.

I just think it is funny that the one type of music I can hardly stand is what is being featured. I'd prefer hip-hop or rap to pop country ;-)
n80
53 responses Add your response
frogman
7,437 posts
 
Not so bad; especially after dessert and the third bourbon 😊

https://youtu.be/wWwQ1-lp8oo
n80 OP
2,116 posts
 
@frogman : "To be honest, if you’re going to go into this so predisposed to hate this guy, I would find an excuse to not attend the performance; not fair to the singer."

First off, it was too late to get out of it, but second, I can behave graciously whether I like him or not.

Anyway, we are back home from Mississippi and we enjoyed the event. It was just him and his guitar so even the cheesier songs were much more palatable that way. He did quite a few songs that were decent and enjoyable. He was an excellent guitar player. In addition to that he had three other things going for him. The first was that he has written hit songs for a long list of country music superstars. The second is that between songs he told stories about his life, his songs and those big stars. The third was that he had a great sense of humor so most of the stories were witty and funny. For a writer he was very entertaining.

There was a good crowd and the food was fantastic especially the ribs and brisket. And even though it was on a Wednesday night it was a BYOB event (one cocktail provided with the meal) and the folks in the delta do some serious drinking. They can hold it too; it was never rowdy. You should have seen all the alcohol carried into that old building (old grocery converted into meat market and restaurant).

As several of you mentioned it is true that there is almost always some value to live music. That aspect of it also made the evening enjoyable. All-in-all we had a very good time.

Sadly, the blues festival was hampered by really bad weather with torrential rain, flooding and high winds. All of the outdoor events were canceled and this lead to the indoor events being extremely crowded and the rain made it hard to go from one venue to another. The mini blues festival Sunday morning fared better and we got to several good acts that we had missed the night before.
frogman
7,437 posts
 
Excellent!  Glad you had a good time and thanks for the update.
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