Thunderstorms during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..
Tonight
A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
Having missed the first Arts in the Park show of the summer because of Winfield’s sesquicentennial — half the music lovers in Kansas were in Lagonda for that — we were pleased to hear country singer and songwriter Johnny Woods on the City Park stage for the second series event on Friday.
Woods and his band presented a little more professional performance than had some of the acts we saw at the Norvell Band Shell last summer. And, yet, the native of Yukon, Oklahoma and his five piece dance band were, in more than a couple of ways, like other country bands we’ve seen the last 10 years.
The bandleader dominated the proceedings, and yet he moved only his lips and his hands. Woods wears his hat low, stays upright behind his microphone stand, and chords away on a flat-top guitar. The group’s material was a mix of tunes familiar to many and original material written by Woods, who sang lead on every verse but one of every song they played.
The backing group was steady. Holding the mid-tempo rhythms together was the bassist. The drummer had ideas, but mostly stayed with the support program. The soloists—an electric guitarist and an electric pianist—were certainly competent, but were mixed pretty far back and were limited to single line appearances in most songs.
The outstanding support musician was the fiddler, a cap-wearing young woman who also sang most of the harmony. She could sound like Robbie Stienhardt of Kansas, but was really best when playing hoedown lines. And there was often a Marshall Tucker-flavor to the music which may have come from the fiddle playing.
Woods did, in fact, play “Can’t You See,” one of Marshall Tucker’s signature tunes. And more than half of the numbers the band gave us seemed more like what people in 1970 called “rock” than what they called “country.” But the ‘70s was a long time ago. “They Call Me the Breeze” and Dobie Gray’s great and endlessly popular “Drift Away” didn’t sound out of place in the two-hour set.
Then, too, some of the less familiar music took forms many in the audience had to recognize. One number had a verse that was very like the one repeated in “Honky Tonk Women.” One of the last songs in the set took the form of the Gin Blossoms’ “Hey, Jealousy.” And so on.
Woods’ own material seemed to be ballads with a little back bone to them and songs referring to places: “I’ll Try Texas” and more than one that referred to Tennessee, a state Woods told us he visits frequently. While one wouldn’t mistake the singer for a ring-master, he did engage the audience regularly. And, more importantly, he didn’t take long pauses between songs.
In fact, he didn’t even leave the stage at the hour break. Instead he (and, for all but two songs, the fiddler) stayed on stage doing a bit of an acoustic set while his band-mates took a break. The music here was a little folkier, but it still didn’t get down into the ballad doldrums, and for that the audience should feel grateful.
It was during the acoustic portion of the program that Woods had us singing along with the deceptively simple “Drift Away.” That was a highlight in this generally entertaining show, which sets a decent standard for the rest of the summer at Arts in the Park, Friday nights through July, 8PM, free.
