Musician's Hall of Fame Ceremony (2014)

Good morning!

I'll tell you what-- I am WIPED. OUT. from the Musician's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony last night. My father-in-law was playing in the house band and Barbara Mandrell, my dad's beloved seventies' country crush, was being inducted, so Dad and I tagged along with David and April to the ceremony (poor little Bub had to work). We even got to go to the after party afterwards! Swank, n'est-ce pas?

I took a blue million pictures, but between where we were and the amplifiers shaking my already shaky hand, only a few came out all right-- here there are:

I look like a wax figure, but Dad looks pretty cool! I spent a lot of time from this vantage point watching women take their seats in UNBELIEVABLE full length mink coats. Let's just say I was jealous, a bit, a little, a LOT.

Peter Frampton brought out his voicebox for "Do You Feel Like I Do", and joined Will Lee, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Billy Gibbons for a jam out to "La Grange". Matthew's dad is the guy with the trombone! :)

Chris Isaak sang two Roy Orbison songs and wore a Nudie-esque (maybe Manuel??) suit with flashy, gorgeous piping details and a mauve-ish pink tie. Cute as a button.

After the paaaarty, it's the AFTER party. I saw Roy Orbison's sons roaming around, and one of them had a for-real Edwardian walking stick on with a red waistcoast and flowing locks. He looked....well, freakin' awesome, to put it bluntly.

The show was pretty killer, and we even got to mingle around during the after party, but I was out wa-a-a-ay past my bedtime. The Cliff Notes: 

1. Layed actual human eyes on musical hero Neil Young accepting a posthumous award for his longtime steel guitar player, Ben Keith (though he didn't play-- why, Neil! Why no song!). Keith played on, oh, like ALL Young's seventies' records (Harvest, After the Gold Rush, etc). His first gig as a session musician was, I am not kidding, on Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces". No words.
2. Randy Bachman, from BTO and the Guess Who, just MELTED faces with killer guitar riffs and was hands down the best performance of the night. While Robbie Roberston was the frontman (and only American) in Guess Who, Bachman played guitar in the Canadian rock outfit and wrote all their hits ("American Woman", "Undun", "These Eyes", "No Sugar Tonight", "Laughin'" etc). Bachman was singer/songwriter/guitarist in Bachman Turner Overdrive, and he was LAYING IT. DOWN. on "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" (probably in my top 30 favorite songs of all time) and "Takin' Care of Business".
3. Duane Eddy, um, a) was there in person, holy cats; two, played "Rebel Rouser" (!!) with girl rhythm guitar inductee Corki Casey O'Dell, who cut the original record with him in 1958. 
4. PETER M'F'N FRAMPTON WAS ALL UP IN THAT PIECE, OMG. I had honest to goodness forgotten he was on the bill until he came up, even though he was one of the people I was most looking forward to seeing! That's how tired I was at 10:30 after a seventeen hour day. He was so charming and little teeny tiny slim in real life! As was Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top for that matter. His beard (and monster talent) were the biggest things about him! Stars always looks 50 feet high on billboards, it's so weird to see them in real life!
5.  My dad was most impressed with 1) meeting Barbara Mandrell, 2) getting to see Barbara Mandrell, 3) Barbara Mandrell, 4) The cheese selection at the after party. Just kidding, he was really into Randy Bachman's awesome set as well. 

We had a great time, but BOY am I beat! I will share these videos of some of the inductees tearin' it up back-in-the-day, go drink my Emergen-C, and try to make it to 6 pm without collapsing.

                              

                            

                           

                            

Tomorrow, I've got a whale of a midcentury ephemera find to share with you! MIDCENTURY TO THE GILLS, folks. Tune in and I'll be right as rain and back with vintage words of wisdom tomorrow. Take care! Keep a good thought for me at work today! I'll see you then.