Thom Shepherd played our show this week and he has quite a varied repertoire. He started off the evening with the rousing “Beer Season,” a hit Kevin Fowler recorded that went to #1 on the Texas Country Music Charts. The lighthearted fun continued with “My Texas,” a song about the great landmarks and hot spots in our state (Thom said this one doesn’t go over as well in places like Chicago!) and “Feeder Road Dosey Doe” that had the audience clapping along and nodding their heads to the truth in the lyrics comparing the Texas highway system to a bowl of spaghetti.
Then Thom had host Kyle Hutton sweating on stage when he played “Djibouti .” In January 2007, Thom and his band toured the Middle East and Africa for Armed Forces Entertainment. He said people kept snickering when they said they were going to Djibouti because it just sounds funny (sort of like “your booty”), so they decided to write a song for the troops stationed there that played off the double entendre of the city’s name. They wrote it in less than an hour in a tent at Camp Lemonier and debuted it that evening. Everyone loved it! Kyle said be careful what you write because you’re going to have to play it over and over again!
Kyle must have been feeling a little sentimental that night because the three songs he played during the show were dedicated to his wife, Tara. In keeping with the fun, he sang a tune called “Living Here with You” about his promises to show her the world and visit exotic places, but they wind up in the small town of Archer City, Texas.
Things settled down a bit when Thom played the more serious “Simplify” – his latest single off his new album about downsizing and not stressing about the material things in life. He even apologized to a woman in the audience for making her cry during his rendition of the famous song “Private Malone” that he co-wrote with Wood Newton and was recorded by David Ball.
Another touching moment (which also made that poor audience member cry again) was when Thom played a new song he’d co-written called “I Am A Woman.” Recorded by Lorrie Morgan and Pam Tillis, it’s a song inspired by breast cancer survivors that Thom said he hopes makes it big because of the powerful message behind it. I have a feeling it will…
Thom and Kyle were having such a good time on stage that Kyle asked Thom to stay and play an encore after he closed with “Take Yer Drunk Ass Home” off his latest album. Most of the audience stayed and the two played well into the evening. This one will go down as a memorable show in the RLRM history books.
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