How to Get the Man of the Year to the Chamber Banquet

You lie and plot, that’s how. And oh, what a tangled web was woven. Right off the bat things were more complicated because Lonnie Adrian had made plans not to attend the Muleshoe Chamber of Commerce banquet, but to travel to Liberty, Texas, to build  playground equipment for two of his grandchildren. The first lie was for his daughter Gradee to tell him that they shouldn’t come that weekend because the kids were sick. That wasn’t enough to stop him. So the next lie was from Gina Wilkerson, Chamber president, who called and told Lonnie that his wife Hellen had been named woman of the year and would he see to it that she was in attendance. So even though he fumed that he wasn’t getting to make the trip to Liberty, he then had to come up with a way to talk Hellen into going to the banquet, as they had not been in recent years and he wasn’t sure she would want to go. So then Lonnie lied and told Hellen that they needed to go to see good friend Juana Shelburne get some award, which was not going to happen.  We even invited them to go with us.

The big night came, and after not wanting to go in the first place, Hellen had to rein him in to keep him from getting there too early, fearful of getting a glimpse of  both daughters and their families taking cover in the Bailey County Coliseum green room to hide until the award was presented. The arrival and hiding worked out, and Lonnie was none the wiser.

Lonnie and Hellen sat with us and we were all pleasantly fed by PJ’s Catering From the Heart from Tahoka and entertained by Minnie Pearl and the Grand Ole Opry band from the Cactus Theatre in Lubbock while waiting for the big moment for Lonnie. When the time came, the Woman of the Year, Peggy Bates, was honored first. Lonnie looked a mite bewildered, but didn’t put two and two together until he recognized himself as Gina began the Man of the Year presentation and listed his accomplishment and even mentioned that he thought he was bringing his wife to win something. He nudged Hellen, and there it was. The surprise had been pulled off successfully.

And all those things that won him the award? Well, heading up the Tour de Muleshoe bike ride every year as a fund-raiser for the Muleshoe Heritage Center is a big one. Serving on the Heritage Center board of directors as well as on the chamber board were two more. Lonnie also helped organize the Muleshoe Roadriders motorcycle club and has worked hard to keep the group and its Roadriders Rally up and running.

Between the presentations and songs and music from the band, Jane Prince Jones regaled the crowd with classic and corny Grand Ole Opry jokes, eliciting  as many groans as laughs.  But she sort of brought the house down with the tale of eating the buckshot-laced tapioca pudding, which seemed fine until she bent over to pet the cat and shot the canary…

As I mentioned, Peggy Bates was named Woman of the Year for her work at the Heritage Thrift Shop. And she was pleased to win the award; I just caught her in a pensive moment when I took this picture. Or maybe she was trying to figure out one of Minnie Pearl’s jokes.

 
Lonnie enjoyed the rest of the banquet even more after all the grandkids came out of hiding to join him: Teegan, Parker, Taylor, and Cayden.

Besides naming a man and woman of the year, the Chamber also honored a Farm Family of the Year, this time the three families that make up 3G Farms, the Giesbrechts: Kendall and Michelle; jerry, Sonya and children  Jeremy, Alex, and Kara; Craig, Ashton, and son Blake.  The Business of the Year was the EMS crew. Bob Donaldson was named Employee of the Year. Nancy Kidd won a Cactus Theatre gift certificate donated by Don Caldwell and the band for her lovely version of Minnie Pearl’s hat. Around 395 people attended, the silent auction brought in $2400, and a good time was had by all.

So next year if you get an unexpected invitation to the Chamber of Commerce banquet, you might want to go without a fuss. There might be a surprise waiting for you.

WC Clark Sings Blues For Us

We traveled to the Cactus Theatre in Lubbock last Saturday to hear WC Clark sing his brand of blues. I was surprised to see that the theatre was not filled, but he sang his heart out for those of who were there, and it was a good night.

WC (Wesley Curley) Clark, not to be confused with WC Fields, the 1930s-40s comedian, or WC Handy, the 1930s musician/songwriter who, coincidentally, is considered the father of the blues, and is credited with bringing the blues into the mainstream, is a Texas boy, born and reared in Austin in 1939. Surrounded by music and singers in the family, he sang gospel in the church choir and took up the guitar as a teenager.

After he made a local name for himself and played with T.D. Bell’s band The Cadillacs and The Joe Tex Band in the 60s, he found the Austin blues landscape changing as young white kids were learning and playing the blues. In the 70s he formed a band called Southern Feeling which later dissolved, and WC got a job as a mechanic. During that time he was pursued by Stevie Ray Vaughn, younger brother of Jimmy, both of whom he had played with in Austin earlier. He eventually joined Stevie Ray’s band, The Triple Threat Revue, with Stevie on bass, WC on guitar, keyboardist Mike Kindred, drummer Freddie Pharoah, and singer Lou Ann Barton. WC and Kindred went on to co-write “Cold Shot” which became one of Stevie Ray’s big hits and earned WC his first platinum record.

WC has played with some of the great blues musicians, including BB King, James Brown, Albert King, Freddy King, Bobby Blue Bland, and others. Called the Godfather of Austin Blues, WC continues to play his own brand of blues that has been described as a mix of Texas blues, searing guitar, and heartfelt Memphis vocals, and continues to be held in high esteem in the music world. He has won many awards and recognitions that I chose not to list here, but do go to his website www.WCClark,com for all the details of his accomplishments and biographical history.

I have been a fan of the blues from way back. The Triumphs would play Bobby Bland numbers at their dances when I was in high school. My mother and I appreciated the rhythm and musical harmony of the blues that we listened to and enjoyed together. And I always had a gut feeling of what music called the blues was all about, but never thought about its history. So I looked it up. According to Wikipedia- and I know that site is sometimes maligned for misinformation, but I think this about right- the term probably derived from the mysticism involving the blue indigo plant from which blue dye is made, and which was used in many West African cultures in death and mourning ceremonies where the mourners’ garments would have been dyed blue to indicate suffering. The mystical association towards the indigo plant, grown on many southern U.S. slave-owning plantations, combined with West African slaves who sang of their suffering as they worked with the cotton that would be dyed by the indigo dye, eventually resulted in the songs they would sing being known as the blues. Those songs they would sing included spirituals, work songs, filed hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed narrative ballads. It also turns out that true blues music contains specific chord progressions and “blue” notes flattened or gradually bent to achieve that mellow, warm sound that I like so much. And it is my own observation that blues music always has a special kind of harmonious beat, sounding the best when thumped out on a bass fiddle, which doesn’t seem to be used so much any more.

Clark said, “If the blues is played right, it makes your soul feel clean.” I never thought about it that way, but I have noticed a funny thing about the blues. I can be in a down or blue mood, listen to some blues, and lo and behold, I find myself smiling quietly as I listen. It just has that effect. I have also talked to aspiring musicians about playing the blues, and they tell me, quite seriously, that blues are hard to play because “you have to feel it to play it right.” Which says to me you have to feel it in your soul, that same soul that WC says will feel clean when you do it right.

I tried to write down his playlist, which was pretty varied,  as we listened, but my pen wouldn’t cooperate. Some of the high points for me were his rendition of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say?,” “Love and Happiness," that I have also heard done by Etta James, another favorite blues singer of mine, “Further On Down The Line,” that I also have by another blues favorite, Bobby Bland, some Stevie Wonder, the Stevie Ray Vaughn hit, “Cold Shot,” and something I had never heard before with the lyric “What you cryin’ about, what you lost is somethin’ you’ll be better off without.” And there were others that I knew and others that must have been his hits that I had not heard before but enjoyed hearing on this night.

So if you ever get the chance to hear him perform, take advantage of the opportunity. I’ll bet you will come away with a smile on your face and your blues behind you.

http://www.wcclark.com 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WC_Clark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues_music