TABLE FOR ONE : Masterful and memorable
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/69903/
When the 6, 000 partygoers at Arvest Ballpark saw Don Tyson and Willie Nelson walking across the outfield toward the giant stage, a wave of applause rippled through the eagerly awaiting crowd.
Don is always like a happy kid. The Latin term is puer aeternus, forever young. His motto is “ No Bad Days. ” Before introducing his good friend he giggled a couple of times and said, “ Isn’t this great. Fifty years for Tyson Foods. Now, here’s my friend, Willie Nelson. ” Willie, who recently celebrated his 75 th birthday, wearing a black shirt and black cowboy hat, stepped forward, strapped on his old worn-out guitar, and said, “ One, two, three. Whiskey River, Take My Mind... ” And the show was on.
Willie Nelson is an American icon. Elvis, Sinatra, Dylan — people like that don’t come around every day. Thanks to Don Tyson, who certainly knows how to throw a party, thousands of his best friends had front-row seats. Willie sang 28 songs, almost every one of them a familiar hit tune. His voice seems deeper than in years past. His unique pacing of words is still there. You never know when that next word or phrase is coming out of his mouth, even on songs long ago memorized by almost every American, like, “ On The Road Again. ”
After four songs he went into his old-time medley: “ Well Hello There, ” “ Crazy, ” “ The Nightlife Ain’t No Good Life, ” and “ Listen To The Blues. ” “ Crazy” was written in 1961 and made famous by country legend Patsy Cline. I remember listening to it in high school, and have enjoyed the song every time I’ve heard it for the past 45 years. I enjoyed it even more last Sunday when Willie belted it through those gigantic speakers at Arvest Ballpark. His voice seems to penetrate speakers better than any singer I know. His words crackled with clarity.
At age 75 and after surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome Willie picks the guitar better than ever. His riffs on classics like “ On The Road Again” are masterful and memorable.
Two Hank Williams Sr. hits brought tears to my eyes. My father used to stand at the sink washing dishes and sing “ Hey Good Lookin ’” to my mother. “ Waaa-cha got cookin ’” seemed to embarrass her for some reason. “ Grady, stop it ! ” she’d scold him. I can’t imagine why. Art evokes memories in all of us; that’s why we love songs. They speak to our own lives, our own memories, our own experiences. The artist is expressing for us what we don’t seem to have the ability to express, or maybe was long ago buried somewhere deep inside.
To me the best songs are stories. Maybe that’s what they call a ballad. One song perhaps not as familiar to the crowd as the major hits was “ Me and Paul. ” I’d heard it before on a CD. Paul English has been playing drums for Willie for almost 40 years. “ Me and Paul” describes their travels together from Nashville to Buffalo to Austin. Five verses describe various close calls with the law for a variety of reasons, usually associated with alcohol or some illegal herbal medicines. The song is very funny and the crowd responded with cheers and laughter. It was my favorite song of the show.
Willie says very little between songs. After years of performing, he knows it’s all about the music. From one hit to another, constantly changing pace from a hard-hitting tune back to a slower beat. From the soft romantic tune “ Take The Ribbon From Your Hair” to the more throbbing “ Bobbie McGee”; and then back to arguably the breakthrough hit that catapulted him into the stratosphere, the classic “ Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, ” which he sings accompanied only by his guitar. Pure Willie and pure magic.
Just when you think he must be done with classic hits, here comes, “ Georgia, ” “ City of New Orleans, ” “ Bloody Mary Morning” and the much loved in Arkansas, “ Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys. ” He surprised the appreciative audience by closing the song with “ Mamas don’t let your cowboys grow up to be babies. ”
For an encore he presented two songs recently written while recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, “ Superman ” (quiet funny ) and “ You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore ” (very funny ). My favorite line in the latter song is, “ I used to fake a heart attack and fall down on the floor; even I don’t think that’s funny anymore. ” Willie can still write songs, play that guitar and entertain a crowd.
The party then moved to the Elks Club, where Willie himself strolled in with Don and Shelby Rogers. I desperately wanted to meet him, show him my song that I wrote for him (you may remember the golf song published here some weeks ago ) and tell him about the time I saw him on television in 1962. He wore a suit and tie and sang “ One in a Row. ”
But meeting the greatest songwriter / balladeer of alltime was not to be. Strange how most people at the Elks Club didn’t know Willie walked into the room. He’s not an imposing man physically. But when word got around, it was interesting to watch grown men and women staring at the legend while he ate and visited with Don. We grown adults were mesmerized by his mere presence. We stole glances hoping, perhaps, that some of his greatness might rub off on our lives of common day mediocrity. Local celebrities like former Hogs quarterback Billy Moore, well-known attorneys Woody Bassett and Bobby Jones and restaurateur Peter Steinhardt could only gaze. However, former governors and senators like David Pryor were privileged to meet him.
After a dinner of unusually fabulous prime rib, Willie slipped out, again virtually unnoticed, like a kind of ghost, walking just a few feet from where I sat, his braided, gray pony tail disappearing through the door, on the road again, back to Austin.
Like I say, Don Tyson can throw a party. He paid for it big time, though. I don’t mean the concert fee, the Arvest Ballpark rental, the prime rib or the continuous cocktails for 200. I mean Shelby’s outfit. After a recent (kiddingly, we assume ) put-down from Don about the drab colors of Shelby’s wardrobe, she immediately flew to Chicago, cabbed to Neiman-Marcus, hired a wardrobe consultant and purchased 25 new outfits, each more colorful than the other. For this special occasion she chose a brightly colored Picasso-like bodice with some sort of see-through netting. It was just darling and a good time was had by all.
Grady Jim Robinson lives in Fayetteville. His column appears on Wednesdays.