CMT Blog: Archive

As much as I raved yesterday about the crowd at Chicago's Country Music Festival loving Miranda Lambert's new music, I have to add that the fans were just as enthusiastic about Jamey Johnson's old music. And by "old music," I don't mean That Lonesome Song from last year. I mean old-school old. Like Vern Gosdin's "Set 'Em Up Joe" and George Jones' "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?" He also covered George Strait's "Give It Away," but I'm not lumping that it with the other classics because it's only three years old and because Johnson had a hand in writing that one.

It makes me so proud of country fans when I see their response to songs like Waylon Jennings' "The Door Is Always Open," which Johnson included on That Lonesome Song. Those fans were singing along and hootin' and hollerin' like Jennings himself had sauntered onto the stage. It just proves to me that the "country is for soccer moms" image is a little warped. Either soccer moms are dusting off their dad's old country albums from the '70s and '80s and really immersing themselves in that music, or artists like Johnson are expanding the fan base to include music lovers from all demographics.

And as much as these people were digging the old stuff, they were very much into Johnson's own music during his one-hour set before Lambert's show. Like "In Color," "High Cost of Living," "Mary Go Round," "Place Out on the Ocean," and "Mowing Down the Roses." Johnson doesn't say much during his shows, preferring to let the music do the talking. But he does stroke his long beard in this pensive kind of way. I like to think he's channeling the legends, lost in their music every time he starts to play.