CMT Blog: Archive

I just returned from Joe Nichols' fan club party where I had the chance to hear him play a couple of excellent new tunes -- and I think his fans will be very satisfied with them, too. I didn't realize until today how much I have missed his rich, traditional voice. I would like to see his latest single, "Believers," fulfill the promise he showed on his first successful album, Man With a Memory in 2002. To me, he's the most convincing on mid-tempo material about forging ahead despite all the setbacks. (Think "The Impossible" and "I'll Wait for You.") "Believers" falls squarely into that category. I also heard a hint of Kris Kristofferson in the elegant ballad, "Goodbye to an Old Friend of Mine," which quietly closed his set.

Nichols is genuinely funny, too. Fielding questions from fans, he was asked if there would be preferred seating for fan club members during his Broadway run of Pure Country. "First of all, I hope the show goes well," he said. "It might all be preferred seating." He noted that rehearsals begin in New York City in November, followed by a tentative January opening. Asked what his band would do in the meantime, he suddenly acted nervous and said, "I guess we need to have a meeting after the show."

He also talked about his new house in East Texas with his wife, Heather, whom he met when he was playing in a club owned by her father in Longview, Texas. "I knew I would never be married if I wasn't married to her," he said. (Awwwwwwwww.) Toward the end of the concert, he called on a 9-year-old girl whose hand was in the air. Her song request? "Let's Get Drunk and Fight." Now there's a memory, and a funny one at that.