Johnson's Southern Illinois Opry, September 29th, 2007 : What has the boss gotten us into?

On the 29th of this month, Marion Illinois is having a talent contest at the Williamson County Pavillion. This idea was concieved by a man named Rick Johnson, who convinced the leader of our band (the Jackie Martin Band), that it would be a good idea to get involved in this.
Without telling us anything about this contest beforehand or even discussing it with us, Jack decided to go ahead and sign us up for the gig. We would be the house band for that night and would play behind all the talent show contestants. When I first heard talk of this show, I was excited. I thought that maybe this would be a good thing, thinking that our fearless leader would have his head on straight and that this contest would be put together correctly....

Now that I am seeing how the competition is being thrown together, I am beginning to have my doubts about this whole thing. I have participated in several talent competitions, and now that I have the chance to help put one on in my hometown, I have never seen or heard of a successful talent comptetition set up this way.

In every other talent show that I have ever been involved with, there are two different ways for songs to be showcased.

1. Contestants could either bring music tracks or karaoke tracks to back them up, bring their own instruments to play the song themselves, or sing acapella.

2. Contestants had to either choose from the list of songs that the house band all ready knew, or teach the band one that they wrote themselves. It was possible to teach the band a new song that was not written by the contestant, but they'd prefer you to pick the list of songs they knew and depending on the song it could be rejected.

For this particular Opry, we are supposed to learn all of the songs that the contestants pick for us. The problems with this could be devastating to the band and could alter the turnout of the competition.

To begin with, many of these contestants have never sang with a live band, only karaoke. This is a problem because all these singers know is what they hear on the CD and that is what they follow.

The band playing there is a local, four-piece band that is used to playing nothing but classic country. A lot of the songs that were picked for the competition are newer country by artists such as the Dixie Chicks, Jessica Andrews, Garth Brooks and Rascal Flatts, just to name a few.

I hate to say it, but as a four piece band, we do not possess the sound to complete some of these songs. We don't have enough members in the group. There are songs that I am confident that we can do, but others such as Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden" which practically need a full orchestra to back up the singer, or Toby Kieth's "Whiskey Girl" which is a very complex song, especially to learn in such a small amount of time, I worry we may not get quite right. We were only notified of the songs on the 8th of this month. We have over 17 songs to learn, most of them new country, by the show on the 29th. There just isn't enough time for us to learn these songs correctly, if we are capable of learning them at all.

I honestly am worried mainly that our lead player is not going to be able to get his part down on a lot of these songs. He has never ventured into newer country and his technique has not stayed current. For as long as I've known him, he plays what he knows and is too stubborn to learn anything outside of his box. Any good player, even Jack, knows that this can break a musician, and a band. I also worry that he isn't taking this contest seriously. Talent contests are an ugly thing to get into... especially if the band isn't up to par that night. It doesn't matter who wins, people are going to be upset and angry because thier kid didn't win. If we mess up a contestant's song and it alters their score, we are going to have to take a LOT of anger from people, as well as the blame.

Another thing I don't understand is how the advertisement in The Review that we are a "prominent Nashville band" was allowed to run. This is turning into a bigger and bigger mess every time I hear anything on it.

We are not the only ones there to put on a show either, there is supposed to be a doo-wop group there... chances are they'll do better than we will.

A radio personality is going to be involved in this too. She's supposed to be the contest MC. I wonder what she's going to think when the band fails her.

I can only guarantee one thing in all of this. If this show flops, then I will be leaving the Jackie Martin Band.