Uneven sound mars country music concert

by Steve Webb, The Knickerbocker News, July 30, 1981

The smattering of listeners on the lawn of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center heard some fine music Wednesday night when Hank Williams Jr. and Asleep at the Wheel performed before a small audience of just over 1,700.

But the majority of the crowd inside the amphitheater heard a noisy, poorly mixed 2 1/2 hours of music from both groups combined. The sound in the theater was poorly mixed, so that vocals throughout the evening were muddy and various instruments were indistinct during their respective solos.

The small crowd is indicative of how a live country-music audience hasn’t been seriously developed in the Capital District. Williams sits with the No. 1 country hit presently, “Dixie on My Mind” from his “Rowdy” album, but he didn’t fill a third of the center’s reserved seating.

One reason for this was that, although three area radio stations play country music, one was adamant when the show was announced that it would not do ticket giveaways. It had apparently been stung by the artist on a live broadcast in which the rock orientation of the music and coarseness of Williams’ language were deemed inappropriate for the station’s audience.

All of this puts Williams in the dilemma of having alienated part of his country audience, but not yet developed a rock audience to make up for it.

Sound problems aside, Williams still did a spotty show. Apparently arriving at the center late, he left his Bama Band to do nine songs before his entrance. They included two with noted country songwriter Merle Kilgore singing, one being possibly the worst vocal rendition of “Truck Driving Man” these ears have heard.

During the first portion of the show, I was still in the theater, and amid the sound problems, nothing sounded good. However, a slow blues about the singer having to get out of the footlights seemed fairly effective, and he showed off some dandy guitar picking on the Marshall Tucker Band standard, “Can’t You See.”

The one that held together least was a Waylon Jennings-penned song, “The Conversation.” Williams sang both parts from a question-answer duet on the “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” album, and it just didn’t work.

I moved outside about the time Williams moved to the piano for a rockabilly medley that hit on “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and then became a Hank Williams Sr. medley. Most of the songs had solid backing, altered lyrics, and a sometimes flailing vocal delivery that obscured the differences between “Cold, Cold Heart” and “Half As Much” at one point. The real highlights came when Williams picked up an acoustic guitar and picked out Gregg Allman’s “Come and Go Blues,” a highlight of “Whiskey Bent.” It was followed by an impressive cut on self-reliance called “Country Boys Can Survive,” a groupie song called “O.D’d in Denver” and a gritty “Ramblin Man.”

But after he had been on stage a little less than an hour, Williams sang one of his most autobiographical songs, “Family Tradition,” and split. Some audience members had done so already, but it was still a short set for him.

Asleep at the Wheel had similar sound problems, doing an opening set divided among the Western-swing band’s most well-known numbers — “Miles and Miles of Texas,” Bobby Troup’s “Route 66,” Bob Wills’ “Take Me Back to Tulsa” and Louis Jordan’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie.”

Mary Ann Price, the singer formerly with Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks who joined the Wheel more than a year ago, has basically replaced Chris O’Connell in the group. The original member of the band retired from the road a year ago, and the band misses her vocal sauciness on stage. Ms. Price, however, was winning in her renditions of “I’m an Old Cowhand” and Hicks’ “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?”

Views: 11