Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 18, 1991 TAG: 9102180019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They played to the largest audience ever to attend a country music concert at the Salem Civic Center.
Wait a minute.
Randy Travis? Reba McEntire?
They weren't supposed to be on Saturday's bill, were they? No, but they came pretty close - or at least for a brief moment the record crowd of 6,552 thought they might be.
Thanks goes to George Jones, the Possum, who paused late in his opening hour-long set to say he wanted to introduce a friend and fellow singer, Travis, to help him sing their hit duet, "A Few Ole Country Boys."
Needless to say, the announcement sent the audience into frenzied applause. Jones looked around. The spotlight searched.
But Travis was a no-show.
"I said I'd like to . . ." Jones said. "Now don't be mad at me. That was a dirty trick and I'm sorry."
The Possum?
Rat would have been more like it.
Jokes aside, Jones played "A Few Ole Country Boys," anyway with his bass player filling in as best he could on some of the Travis parts.
Vince Gill was next to play the rat, only this time with not quite the same impact.
Playing second on the bill, Gill tried the same trick pulled off earlier by Jones when he tried to introduce McEntire to help him sing their current duet, "Oklahoma Swing."
Gill looked around. The spotlight searched. But McEntire didn't appear, nor did the audience reach a fever pitch.
"You guys have wised up," Gill said.
He too played his song anyway without a famous partner. Instead, his fiddle player sang the McEntire parts.
The song - especially Gill's lead guitar work - was one of the evening's many musical highlights.
Unlike his counterparts, headliner Conway Twitty didn't have any trick up his sleeves.
Love him or not, one thing is certain. Twitty knows how to make an entrance.
But then, he should. He's been making essentially the same entrance for who knows how long.
Amid a swirl of light from two disco balls, Twitty bops on stage and delivers just two simple words:
"Hello, Darlin'."
And then he launches into the song by the same name. Subtle it's not, but his legion of fans love it.
But after "Hello, Darlin'," and aside from a few other Twitty standards - his version of "The Rose," "Love To Lay You Down," "You've Never Been This Far Before" and "It's Only Make Believe" - his set seemed to have more spunk than in recent years past.
For his part, Twitty mixed things up by adding the up-tempo numbers, "Tight Fittin' Jeans" and "When You're Cool (The Sun Shines All The Time)," a song about why cool people wear sunglasses, even at night.
Jones was just as loose, not hesitating to pull out some of his own oldies, including "My Corvette," "Honky-Tonk Angel," "One Woman Man," "If Drinking Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will), "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes," and of course, "He Stopped Lovin' Her Today."
Gill proved why he is one of the top harmony singers working in country music today, with "If It Weren't For Him," "Never Knew Lonely" and "When I Call Your Name" - all proof that soaring vocal harmonies can take good songs a cut above.
by CNB