Monthly Archives: June 2016
Patsy Cline . . . Live!
I spent part of the morning plotting out upcoming Alabama trip. Rather than come back to Colorado River on our usual schedule, July 31st we’ll head east for a two week loop through Alabama
We’ll spend the first night at Poche’s Fishing Camp, a Passport America park, just north of Breaux Bridge, LA, and then our second night at the Hollywood Casino in Biloxi, LA.
Jan wants to stop here again, because when we stopped here the last time in 2009, she took the $40 in slot cash they gave us and ran it up to enough to pay for our 3 night stay, and all our meals. And when we left for Gulf Shores, we still had $100 left.
Jan says she’s feeling lucky again.
Leaving the Casino, we’ll spend the next week at the Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, one of our all-time favorite places. And a place I grew up in. Then at the end of the week, we’ll head up to north Alabama to spend a few days with my relatives there.
Coming home we’ll stop off in Meridian, MS for one night, and then another night at Poche’s in Breaux Bridge, before heading back to Conroe.
A little before 6pm Jan and I headed north for La Grange, about 25 miles away. We were going to have dinner at the Whataburger before attending the Fayette County Country Music Opry at the Knight’s of Columbus Hall there.
We first came to a show here back in January, but since they only perform once a month,, on the 3rd Monday, this is the first time our stays here at Colorado River have synced up.
Since they don’t have a website, we had no idea who was performing tonight, but we really lucked up. Normally you find 4 to 6 performers, with one ‘headliner’. Tonight we just got the headliner, and boy was she great.
‘She’ is Lisa Layne, a Patsy Cline Tribute Artist, who’s been performing Patsy Cline shows on Broadway in NYC, and all around the country in touring companies since 1995. Her performances are approved by the Patsy Cline Association, and Lisa and her husband were close friends with Patsy’s husband until he died last year.
The first set covers Patsy’s early years, and somewhat lesser known songs as she was getting her start. Lisa came out in true Grand Ole Opry cowgirl style in an identical outfit from the cover of one her albums.
She did about about 10 songs ending up with her first two big hits, Walking After Midnight and Faded Love.
The second set covered Patsy’s songs as she became a bigger star, a little more mainstream, moved into ballads and torch songs, and a more glamorous look.
Lisa ended the show with what she said was Patsy’s least favorite song that she recorded, “Crazy.”
Willie Nelson, Patsy called him William, wrote ‘Crazy’ in 1961, when he was an up-and-coming songwriter, but not yet recording. Willie did a demo record and pitched it to Charlie, Patsy’s husband, who played it over and over and over.
Patsy hated the song because she absolutely hated Willie Nelson’s nasally voice, and said she couldn’t record it like that. But after it was rearranged as a ballad, it suited her style perfectly. And even though it was a big hit for her, coming right after “I Fall To Pieces”, and going to #2, it still was not one of her favorites.
All I can say is that Lisa Layne passes my ‘Eyes Closed’ test. I close my eyes and just listen, matching in my mind Lisa to the Patsy Cline recordings I’ve played so many times. And she’s dead on.
Lisa matches Patsy trill for trill, overnote for overnote, glissando for glissando (a smooth slide between two notes), and even has Patsy’s range, nailing those high notes perfectly.
Another thing that really sold tonight’s performance was the keyboard player, whose name I didn’t get.
Floyd Cramer played piano on most of Patsy’s hits, and his ‘slip note’, or ‘rollover’ is an integral part of her songs. For the best example of this, listen to Cramer’s instrumental recording of ‘Last Date’.
Listen how each note starts one step off-key and then rolls in the right one.
(At this point, as Jan reads this, she’s shaking her head and thinking OMG, he’s off in the weeds again.)
So to wrap this up, tonight’s keyboard guy has the ‘slip note’ technique down, so it was a perfect complement with Lisa’s Patsy.
All in all, a great evening.
If you need more proof of Lisa’s talent, check out these 3 samples of Patsy’s biggest hits.
Close your eyes and just listen.
Thought for the Day:
I tried to act normal once. It was the worst 5 minutes of my life.
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“Can We Just Buy This Site?”
After being up at 6:30 and finishing the last of our travel day prep, we headed for the Cracker Barrel in Conroe a little after 8am.
For us, it’s a travel day tradition before we leave Conroe, just as we have breakfast at Schobel’s in Columbus before we leave Colorado River. At first we were kind of surprised at how busy they were, much more than usual. Then we realized it was Father’s Day.
After our usual good breakfast , we got back to the park a little after 9. I had already raised the levelers and stowed away the pads, so after I let in the awnings, I cranked up the genset before I unhooked shore power.
Doing it this way, the transfer switch changes over to the genset so smoothly that the AC’s never notice the switchover and keep running.
We pulled out of our site a little before 10 and then stopped in front of the Activity Center to hook up. One of the few failings here at Conroe, besides the eternally bad roads, is that there is no place designated to hitch and unhitch.
We were told originally to use the secondary parking lot off to the side of the Center, and often that works, but other times, like this morning, there were already cars there. So all we could do was to pull over off to the side, partway on the grass and hitch up there. And by 10:15 we were pulling out of the park
Out on I-45 south, our son Chris called about 10:30 to wish me a Happy Father’s Day. One down, one to go.
Hopefully we’ll get down to see everyone later this week.
The trip was about as smooth as it could get. With the genset running the AC’s we were very comfortable all the way. Except for the last couple of miles.
I think when they replaced our diesel tank last year after our blowout, that maybe they didn’t get the genset diesel pickup in the right place. Twice now with more than half a tank of diesel, the genset has shut off during a slow, but sharp turn.
Today, turning off US-71 on to FM-1890, the genset quit immediately after the acute 80 degree turn. I held down the prime button for a few seconds and then restarted the genset. Not really a problem, but irritating anyway.
We got into the park about 12:30 and really lucked up. We definitely weren’t going back to the back ‘A’ ring with all the electrical problems, but we’re still in the ‘A’ section.
After we got backed in and parked, Jan looked around and said to me, “Can we just buy this site?”
It doesn’t get much better, with two big shade trees, a good satellite shot, a level pad, and a concrete patio with a picnic table.
And with the shaded picnic table I’ll be able to get on some of my outside projects like rebuilding my armrests.
Right after we got parked, our daughter Brandi also called to wish me Happy Father’s Day. So now it’s a two’fer.
We got set up pretty quickly, but by the time I was finished, I was drenched in sweat from all the humidity.
But a cool shower and a hour-long nap made it all better.
Thought for the Day:
Arriving at the mortuary about 30 minutes before the scheduled viewing of her dead husband, the grieving widow was horrified to discover that her husband was not dressed in his favorite expensive black suit, but a cheap blue one. She started screaming at the funeral director that he better have this fixed in time or she will sue him for every last cent he has.
The director and his assistant start looking for the missing suit, and found it on the body in the next viewing room, The director immediately tells his assistant to go calm the widow down and tell her the problem will be corrected in time for the viewing.
And right on schedule, the viewing takes place and the widow is relieved to find her husband in his favorite suit.
After everyone leaves, the assistant asks the funeral directory how he switched the suits so quickly, since it would normally take at least an hour to do that.
The funeral director smiles and says, “Switched the suits? No, I just switched the heads!”
I guess it’s just another way of handling my problem with switching heads in photographs. At least I generally use the same head, though.
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