"In Color"

If it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should have seen it in color

You can watch a movie where they’ve got an overpaid teenager trying to play scared, you can dial up a book on your Kindle and read a memory of someone who probably wasn’t even there, or you can listen to a record and know exactly what was felt, in an instant you can be right there yourself.

Sitting on the hard benches of the Ryman Auditorium the curtain went up on Jamey Johnson, standing there in his jeans and boots, like he just came in from doing chores, like when he was done he was gonna be in a bar fight, or sit on the couch, pop a beer and watch the Titans, and when he started picking that guitar I felt like I’d grown up in Alabama or Tennessee.  This was a story not from the keyboard of Diane Warren, not a concoction made for the hit parade, but straight from the heart.

It was a revelation.

Jamey Johnson is no longer a secret.  But the power of seeing the man live gave me goosebumps.  Even after visiting the history of country music in the display cases behind the Ryman’s seats.

You can see Patsy Cline’s outfit, even the murdered Stringbean’s, but what truly blows one’s mind is Johnny Cash’s boots.  Seemingly tall enough to go right up to his underpants.  There are pictures talking about his TV show, his challenges to the network, standing up for what he thought was right.  No one stands up for what’s right on television anymore, you don’t want to fuck up the marketing opportunity.

In other words, music meant something once, can it mean something again?

Chubby Checker got a lifetime achievement award.  Seeing him do his act, he deserved it.  Those were genuine hits, and he got the audience twisting like they did last summer.

And performances by Randy Houser and Jessie James were very good, and the dancing YouTube sensation was a hoot.

But Jamey Johnson…  As agents are prone to saying, he was the real deal.

I said, Grandpa what’s this picture here
It’s all black and white and ain’t real clear
Is that you there, he said, yeah I was eleven
Times were tough back in thirty-five
That’s me and Uncle Joe just tryin’ to survive
A cotton farm in the Great Depression

Times are tough here in ’09, that mansion you bought has been repossessed by the bank and you’re out of work.  You’ve put on a happy face, but how long is that gonna last?  You’ve been lying to yourself, your children, you’ve got more questions than answers, what are you supposed to do?

Watch rich people debate how you shouldn’t have health care?

Watch nimrods and nitwits act inanely, like no one you know, on television?

Or dance like a fool to the ungodly beats of people telling you their lives are better than yours?

You’re looking for some truth, and a salve.  You’ll ultimately have to lift yourself up, but isn’t there someone on your side?

The music used to be on your side, that was its power.  But that was long before MTV allowed not only the acts, but their handlers to make so much money that they were no longer middle class, they were supporting their private jet lifestyles, they didn’t give a shit about you.  Making their evanescent crap.  Which we must buy.

Hogwash.

And then you see someone completely real and you get it, this is the way it used to be!

In a legendary hall, with just his guitar and his voice, his intelligence radiating through, Jamey Johnson was more powerful than a team of dancing idiots, had more sound than turntablists synching to canned beats.  He wasn’t telling a story from streets that don’t exist, he was singing a story about life.  Which folds out behind you, which you hang on to with regrets as it slips from your hands.  You desire to make sense of it, but it’s nonsensical.  How some get cut down by disease and others live to one hundred.  You feel emotions, which are displayed nowhere but in music.

When done right.

Last night Jamey Johnson hit the ball so hard, so long, that it still can’t be found.

I hope and pray you can see him one day.

Randy Rogers Band

"We ain’t had no Top Ten hits, but we’ve played 1500 shows."

We went from the Ryman to the Stage, on NashVegas’ main drag, Broadway, where I ran into Vinny from the Trailer Choir after midnight.

My goal was to see Miranda Lambert.  Which I got to do, up close and personal in this club.

But the highlight of the evening was the Randy Rogers Band.

Randy’s visage is not TV-friendly.  He doesn’t look ready to make it in L.A. or New York.  But in Texas he’s a star.

Playing two hundred nights seven years in a row, the Randy Rogers Band is honed to perfection.  When the fiddler and the lead guitarist trade licks, they make it look easy.  Like the Allman Brothers learned how to do this before kindergarten.

But you only get this good after years on the road.  When you know your band members better than brothers.  When you can play stoned, drunk, half-awake, because you’ve got the material down in your head, it’s almost reflexive.

Not that the Randy Rogers Band played without power.  It’s just that they were so well-oiled, you’d figure this American machine could compete with Europe’s finest, Ferrari and Lamborghini.

It was like the New Riders Of The Purple Sage.  But better.  Even better than the Dead usually were.  The Dead were sloppy, the Randy Rogers Band was clean.

But dirty.

Yup, the accumulated crust of a million miles.

Malcolm Gladwell says it’s about practice.  About the hours you’ve got in.  Desire counts, but it doesn’t make you good.  The Beatles played twelve hundred shows before they broke.  Today’s acts usually don’t play twelve hundred shows in their careers.

It’s all about the road.  It’s a new era, akin to the old.

Acts like Randy Rogers are the future.

I was whoopin’ and hollerin’.  Not because it was shitkicker music, but because it was so right on, in the pocket.

Didn’t make me want to go out and get a record, but did make me want to go see them wherever they appeared, made me want to hear live music not only every week, but every night.