Tag Archives: Country music

Willie Nelson’s “Roll Me Up and Smoke When I Die – Musings From the Road

Willie Nelson - Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die

I just finished this slim volume and boy is it a gem of a book. Willie Nelson wrote this book about his life and his family and his philosophy of life. I first took notice of him when he came out in the 70’s with his Red Headed Stranger album (remember albums?) which I played over and over. Well that was over 40 years ago and you know Nelson is still making records and at 83 years of age has a very rigorous performance schedule.

Willie writing about himself is one thing but he includes little snippets from his friends, family, and fellow musicians writing about him. I thought that was great especially the vignette’s from his children from several different mothers. The other thing I really liked is the lyrics. He started out writing poetry when he was six years old and did that until he learned to play the guitar. His lyrics read like poems. One of the last songs he quotes is “Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth”

…We believe everything they tell us

They are going to kill us so we gotta kill them first

But I remember the commandment thou shalt not kill

How much is that soldier’s life worth

And what happened to peace on earth

Wow,

So I am not sure that I would like to hold up Willie Nelson’s life as one everybody should emulate but he has some things to say that are worth reading.

Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood in Concert at BOK in Tulsa

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Friday night and Heather and I headed out to the BOK Arena to attend the Garth Brooks concert in Tulsa. The first of seven. When he put the tickets on sale back in early Noveember he sold 105,000 tickets the first day. Just for Tulsa. You see he is a native Oklahoman and the people here love him. Besides his last concert here was 17 years ago and so we were feeling a little deprived.

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Heather and I got there well before the schedule start time of 7 pm. We are such nerds. When we see a start time we assume that they are serious. Well we waited a while so we had some time kill. You can see the view we had. I’m surprised that we didn’t have Sherpas and oxygen bottles to get to our seats. Oh well, we were in the house and that is what counts.

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What did we do with the time. Well of course we did a selfie!!! Lots of Selfies at the arena that night.

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Especially down close to the stage. I brought my Canon PowerShot SX40 HS super zoom  camera to the concert. It is concert legal, anything that uses detachable lenses is forbidden, but the Canon has the super zoom feature and a low light mode that gives me a decent chance at photographs.

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There were almost lined up. Who invented the term Selfie. You know I might have I am not sure. So anybody making or looking at Selfies you need to send me a dime every time you do do those things. Don’t worry though, it is in effect only today and I should have a billion dollars by this time tomorrow and then they will be free again. Unless I run out of money.

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Then we got a little bit of a warm up act. Singer/Songwriter Karen Rochelle came out and sang and few songs for us. I thought she was really good. She writes songs for Garth’s wife Trisha Yearwood. She was going to be in the concourse after the show to meet people and even take Selfies. If you are going to tonight’s show I’d appreciate if you would stop by her booth afterward and remind about the dime fee that she owes me for each selfie. You know, in accordance with the new policy and all.

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And the Garth came out. Actually he came storming out. I had forgotten how active he is on stage.  His fans love him.

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When he got tired of running around the state, he started climbing stuff. I bet his insurance company has concerns about stuff like this. He was singing the whole time also.

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I judge concerts by how much in tune the performer is with the audience. Nobody is in tune with Okies like Garth is. He blew by everybody else. His musicians are first rate and they have been with him a long time. The “new guy” has been with him only twenty years. Garth even introduced a couple of the road crew. I have never seen anybody do that before.

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He was here, there, and everywhere. He even grabbed a video camera at one point and was running around the stage with it.

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After a while his wife Trisha Yearwood came on stage and they sang a duet.

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And then a little bit smash face and then she sent him off the stage. You know to go fetch something or check on the kids or something.

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And then she sang some songs. She still has the voice as she played some of the favorites.

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She is quite a performer in her own right.

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They are pretty cute together. They have been retired for the last ten years while their daughters were growing up, in the Tulsa suburb of Owasso and they have been seen all over town. I have several friends who have ran into them in various stores and everybody is impressed with how friendly and approachable they are. I think they are two of the world’s really nice people. The kids are out of the house and now and so Garth and Trisha are resuming their careers.

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So, Garth finished up his set, said his goodbyes to the crowd, several times as everybody was still screaming at him.

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He had two encores and then that was that. He is doing two shows on Saturday. It must be grueling for him. He put everything he had into the performance Friday night. I can’t imagine him doing it twice.

If you are not familiar with Garth here is a song.

Garth Brooks with Trisha Yearwood Setlist BOK Center, Tulsa, OK, USA 2015, The Garth Brooks World Tour with Trisha Yearwood

 

If you are familiar with him, here was his set list for the concert.

#garthintulsa #garthbrooks #tulsa #bokcenter got the Tee Shirt

And I got a t shirt. The last concert t shirt I got for Janet Jackson way back when in the early 90’s or late 80’s in Oklahoma City. I still don’t know why I got one.

I just hope that Garth comes back sooner than seventeen years.

Taylor Swift – Fearless in Tulsa and the Hanson Brothers were in the House

Sweetie and I ventured downtwn to the new BOK Center to see Taylor Swift in concert as part of her Fearless Tour.

OK, what’s the deal? She is supposed to be a Country Western singer right? Where’s the hats? Not just hers but everybody elses. I only saw two cowboy hats all night, neither one of them hers and in fact none on the stage. Tim McGraw wore one in a video segment and I saw one other hat. The cowboy garb seems to be boots. She had several pairs. Lots of the girls (Yes, I mean girls, in a half dozen years half of them will be women the rest of them will still be girls.) wore boots with their short dresses. Kind of a strange look, but it has been around a few years and I guess that I’m used to it. I think the rule is that those who look good in short dresses can wear what they want. If they don’t look good in a short dress then the boots are not going to either help or hurt.

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OK, now the other thing, are not Country Western singers actually supposed to sing Country Western songs? I mean, have they changed the rules. There were no steel guitars, no blue jeans, no yee haws, no “heidy yall,” no flags, no horses, no salute to mommy and daddy. What up? Also, at the very end, she took a shower on the stage. Don’t get excited, she kept her clothes on, check out in the collage below. Are all Country singers going to start doing that?
All I know is that she put on a hell of a show. Tulsa loved her, they loved her a lot. I thought it was great. She got a bigger ovation than Oklahoma’s own Carrie Underwood last year and pretty close to Garth Brook’s shows at Driller’s Stadium back in the 90’s. For somebody so young she is so accomplished yet comes across as unspoiled and real. She is certainly talented. She writes the songs, she sings the songs, she plays the guitar and the piano. How can somebody be that talented?

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I’ll be watching young Ms. Swift. I hope that she can stay centered and grow and prosper in her career and develop as a person. She is off to a great start.

Check out her web site here.

Check out the Tulsa World review complete with slide show here.

Oh, by the way, Tulsa’s own Hanson Brothers were in the House sitting about 3 rows down from us. They had better than your average Tulsan’s haircuts but were just like regular people with wives and kids and all that. Sweetie noticed them right away. Nobody else  seemed to be paying them any attention until a plus sized gal flashed about six inches of butt crack clambering over seats to get to them to get a picture.

I have to say they were very gracious about her and the subsequent rush of female fans. They put their arms around each of the fans and posed and even took the camera and did the old self portrait thing a few times. All the while they looked very relaxed and friendly and eventually they were left alone. I was very impressed.