God’s Record Book
Got a call from my old pal Gina Hawkins the night before the August 3 Hogtown Opry. Gina and her partner Richard Rahall have befriended a disabled fellow named Kyle and Gina was wondering if we’d let him peddle some jewelry a night later in the merch area at University Auditorium. It seemed a little out of place but since I ask Gina for favors now and then and she never asks for any, I said sure. Next night, Gina and Richard wheeled Kyle in and set up shop in a corner near the entrance to the hall.
About a half-hour later, UF’s Daniel Villamil, overseeing the show for the university, sidled up to me, looked at the little jewelry stand and asked, “What’s this?” Knowing Daniel to be a reasonable man, I explained, “This is Kyle, a man with a disability having a good moment plying his trade. He asked and I didn’t feel we could turn him down.” Daniel smiled and said, “We can’t,” then turned on his heel and marched off.
At the end of her marvelous show, Rhonda Vincent, a woman of faith, came out and performed a solo encore called God’s Record Book, a song she wrote which told us we are measured in this life by the good deeds we perform from the cradle to the grave. Others of different beliefs---like Gina---might call this Karma. In any case, on August 3, 2024, Rhonda Vincent, Daniel Villamill, Gina Hawkins and Richard Rahall made a significant night deposit. If one had privy to God’s Record Book, he might see those neon gold stars next to their names.
By the way, Kyle cleaned up.
Exercising Our Perogative
Ernest is coming by today. Ernest is a mobile personal trainer who works for an outfit in Gainesville which dispatches trainers to needy citizens who prefer not to travel into town and/or negotiate sweaty, covid-suspect gyms. He is not terribly expensive and you can toss your wife into the deal for a mere 10% extra. If your diet is at issue, Ernest has a dietician ally at his home base who will examine your food chart and put you on the straight and narrow. We are calling on Ernest’s expertise in these matters because we couldn’t help but notice on vacation that we probably can’t slosh the sixteen miles of the Zion Narrows any more or climb back up to the top of the Grand Canyon from the bottom. When Old Folks National Park opens next year, they promise to have a t-bar on the floor of every canyon so senior citizens can still enjoy their hikes downhill without the pesky problem of septuagenarian ascension. A couple of iced lemonade stands along the trail wouldn’t hurt either.
Baseball pitchers will always tell you the legs are the first to go and the rest of your body parts will fall in line a little later, so we aim to cut off the head of the snake. Maybe Ernest will make us walk like ducks, like our coach did at high school football practice. That’s alright, as long as he lets us quack. He’ll certainly do something about burgeoning bellies, which have no reason to exist on a 155-pound, 5-10 guy. How can you have a beer belly if you don’t drink beer? Marty Jourard says our stomach muscles begin failing us in old age and there’s nothing we can do about it, but I see old guys on TV doing chair exercises who have stomachs like Katie Ledecky. Nobody wants to look like a snake that just swallowed a buffalo.
We think Ernest is a little nervous about us. He called yesterday and seemed a tad taken aback by our medication list. Then there’s that sticky age 83 problem, which insures you’ll be signing a lot of release forms. Ernest asked what my cardiologist thought about all this. “Well, two years ago, I called and asked him if it was alright to climb the 600 steps of the Mist Trail in Yosemite, and he said I have no restrictions” I reassured him. “Have you ever seen the size of those stairs? There’s no mistaking them for those sissy steps on the Mayan pyramids.” I think he felt a little better after that and moved on to asking about Siobhan. My wife, of course, has significant shoulder restrictions and can’t even reach her arms over her head unless it’s to pull down a fifty pound rock off a pile for her collection. Ernest pooh-poohed the issue, claiming he “fixed” a woman with just such a problem. We’ll see. One chapter closes, another begins in the land of the living compromised. Hopefully, we’ll discover The Importance Of Seeing Ernest.
Ho-Hum, It’s A Hurricane
“The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.”---B. Dylan
In professional football, the Big Kahuna is the Super Bowl, in MLB baseball it’s the World Series, in pro eating, it’s Nathan’s 4th of July Gobblefest. All of these pale into insignificance, however, when measured against the Olympics of Meteorology---Hurricane Season. The weathermen have tried to expand it from June to November but we Floridians know the real shitfest takes place between the first of August and the end of September; everything else is weatherman gravy.
While a comparatively sane general public fears and abhors giant windstorms which knock their houses down and blow their children into trees, meteorologists just adore them. The weather reporters are on stage now, screaming statistics in a downpour while tethered to hotel balconies, jumping up and down as docks collapse, wildly clapping their hands in appreciation as the roof comes off the neighborhood Dollar Store. If there is the tiniest chance a summer shower will morph into a modest thunderstorm, they’ll be racing around the TV studio pulling out maps and telling you where to get your free sandbags.
You just can’t believe everything these people say. Even the supposedly reliable Weather Channel is suspect, hauling in enormous heaps of advertising money when Hurricane Lizzie is forming in the Gulf and even more when Hurricane Dexter is zipping right at Boca. If a storm seemingly abates, Windblown Walter is right there to warn you it could be a ploy by the devilish cyclone to throw you off your guard, so don’t fall for it. TV weather reporters have become rich and famous for showing their grit in the face of typhoons by wallowing in the riptides and bungeeing off hotel balconies. You think the X-Games are tough? Try getting into a tangle with a flying STOP sign or swimming back to your hotel against a raging river of sewage.
Most of us old Floridians have learned to be calm in the face of the would-be storm. The majority of these hurricanes underrepresent their reputations or wander off to Texas or North Carolina to ply their trade. You can always tell the Sunshine State newbies---they’re the ones raging through the supermarket clearing out the toilet paper aisles and buying up all the Zephyrhills products. The rest of us are sitting on the front porch watching the rain, drinking pina coladas and listening to Jimmy Buffet records:
“Squall’s out on the Gulf stream. Big storm’s comin’ soon. I passed out in my hammock. God, I slept way past noon.”
Opry Notes
Rhonda Vincent’s superbus pulled in at 3 p.m., an hour before her scheduled sound check at 4, with bass player Mickey Harris at the wheel. Their bus driver was back at an interstate hotel, having piloted the vehicle the six and one half hours from Talladega, where their show ended around nine the previous night. This is not an untypical day in the life of Rhonda and The Rage, which plays somewhere almost every day of the week. After the Gainesville show, they were back on the bus and headed for Monday and Tuesday shows in Nashville following a rare night off on Sunday.
I was given instructions by Joey, Rhonda’s agent, to hand her a check just before she went on stage after the Hogtown Opry Band’s excellent set. I had visions of an antsy singer sitting in her dressing room waiting to be paid, but that was a far-fetched notion. When I went in, she was back at the bus, more concerned with getting dolled up and ready for action. When she finally walked in she was so focused on her upcoming performance she was almost oblivious to getting paid. She is the ultimate pro.
After a spectacular performance, RV came back out to the lobby where her “Bluegrass Boutique” had been set up and was doing serious business, surrounded by a large knot of fans, many of whom idolize her. She stayed as long as anyone who wanted a photo with her remained. The real Rhonda Vincent is a very natural, unpretentious woman possessed of the unusual stamina to put it out there almost every day of the week. The people in her band are gregarious multi-taskers, whether it involves taking a few laps driving the bus or hauling around the Bluegrass Boutique. There is no pretention, no artifice from any of them and they were easy to work with even when a few difficulties arose with some of the sound equipment earlier in the day.
The crowd for this show was ready for action. They had fun with the Hogtown Opry Band, whose leader Cathy DeWitt hopped out of a covid bed a few days earlier to get ready. Cathy even added a jolly accordionist to the brew so we could have some Jambalaya. This group keeps getting better all the time. Rhonda & The Rage started with a seismic blast and kept on going. I think it’s fair to say many people unfamiliar with the group were stunned by the performance and thrilled they’d had the good sense (or pure luck) to show up. The crowd was a good bit larger this time and very enthusiastic. It was nice to see a number of wheelchairs rolling toward the building. Despite a few showers in the late afternoon, there was no sign a scary storm was pending and everyone went back to their cars high and dry. On Sunday, the rains came and 24 hours after the start of the Opry show, things were getting ugly. If we’d scheduled one day later we’d have been in a hot mess, as they say in Nashville, so thanks for that. If anybody can find His Record Book, give God a gold star.
That’s not all, folks. Below is Rick Davidson's MUSICFESTNEWS review of the concert. Photos by R.D.
Rhonda Vincent and the Rage at Hogtown Opry
For the third episode of Hogtown Opry, promoter Bill Killeen brought in one of the biggest names in bluegrass, Grammy winners Rhonda Vincent and her band The Rage. The Queen of Bluegrass, who was admitted to the Grand Ole Opry in 2020 and has released 11 studio albums, brought her mandolin and her excellent band to University Auditorium on the UF campus and played before an appreciative and involved crowd.
The Hogtown Opry Band, also known as Patchwork, provided a great opening set. Fun covers of “Nowhere Man,” “Locomotion,” and “You’re the One” were combined with some fine western and swing tunes (“Navajo Trail,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing”) and some originals that showcased their fine harmonies.
Rhonda and the Rage kicked off their set with, of all things, an Olivia Newton-John cover (“Please Mister Please”). A cut from their upcoming album is a cover of “City of New Orleans” and has been nominated for Video of the Year at the upcoming IBMA awards in September.
That was followed up by one of Vincent’s best known original songs, “Kentucky Borderline,” which was followed with something unexpected… an excellent bluegrass reworking of the chestnut “Unchained Melody.” The set also included a medley of well-known traditional songs (including “Rawhide,” “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and others) that give her band of remarkable pickers a chance to show off. Flatpicker and excellent vocalist Zack Arnold sang an original song, as did bass player Mickey Harris (“Tractor for Sale”). The newest member of the band, dobro player Jacob Metz, played some very tasteful backups and added some fiery breaks on faster songs. Banjoist Aaron McDaris is as solid as any player around, and Adam Haynes teamed up with Vincent on a blazing twin fiddle version of “Devil’s Dream.”
Two additional fine covers, Alan Jackson’s “Dallas” and Loretta Lynn’s “Blue Kentucky Girl,” rounded out the set, which ended with an a capella gospel song with all the band members singing. The new album, scheduled for release in a few weeks, will include a number of interesting covers, including “Country Roads” and, according to Vincent, will also include a 7-minute cover of “Wagon Wheel” featuring Alison Krauss. Dolly Parton is also on the new album.
Rhonda Vincent and the Rage have been touring for decades, and they are polished and professional entertainers. Many top bluegrass bands today tend to stick to the traditional material, while Vincent provides a great mix of traditional and out-of-the-blue cover songs from other genres. That makes for a fun and diverse evening, and the audience loved the show. We’re hoping the Hogtown Opry will continue to provide more fine acoustic music from national acts for the north central Florida area.
