Last night I had the privilege of playing the Gertrude Ford Castello Center on the campus of Ole Miss. I sat on the stage and couldn’t help but be filled with joy over the wonderful people that showed up to help The Ole Miss Women’s Council raise money to provide scholarships, and mentoring for some very amazing students I met before and after the show.
Simply put; if these students are ‘our future’ we are in good hands.
So, to the Ole Miss Women’s Council, (http://www.umf.olemiss.edu/omwc/) thank you for asking me to be a part of your event, and thank you for making it possible for these very fine young men and women to go to college, and earn their degree.  I love it that you not only award them with the financial help, but you mentor them, and you dont’ forget them during their years at Ole Miss, or after!  I could tell from speaking with your recipients last night that they do not take their gift for granted, and they understand is a privilege.
I found strength, hope, and encouragement by their attitudes, their attention, their respect, their smiles, laughs, manners, and their appreciation of the gift and opportunities given to them.
I love people!

I said I would share an article from the Harald Read Newspaper from my buddy Chuck who co-stars in my play,”Toe Roaster”.  For those of that have not seen him in the show.. well, Hamlet (his best friend in the show) puts it best, “He’s got all his tater’s, but half of ‘em’s mashed”.
So, here is Chuck’s latest article enjoy!
–   Bryan

I have to admit I had not one thought when I woke up this morning. Not a one, but I will tell you something that has been on my mind for the last few days. You ready? The Dentist! I know it ain’t normal at all to walk around for days thinking about the dentist, but it sure has been on my mind. See the Super Bowl is this Sunday, and I am going over to Hamlet’s ranch to watch the game on his big screen TV.  Big Daddy will be coming over with Little Momma and we all will pile in that room off the porch and ‘couch gate’… that’s what I like to call it.  It’s something we invented over at Hamlet’s. Anyway, I was over there the other day a few days back watching the playoff games, and like clock work when one of the three thousand commercials came on I would get up to get me a sandwich and some trail mix.  Well, off in the distance back in the TV room I can hear them commercials.  You might ask yourself, “What does this have to do with the dentist”?  Well, calm down that’s where I get confused too.
Did ya’ll know having a gold tooth ain’t popular no more? See, I was in Hamlet’s kitchen when I heard one of those commercials say something that kinda freaked me out! Here I had been saving up for many years to get me a gold tooth, but as it turns out they ain’t popular any more, or I guess they aren’t in style.
I was spreading some salve (mayonnaise) on a big ol’ bologna sandwich when I head the fella on the TV commercial say you could go down to one of those cell phone stores and get a ‘blue tooth’? A BLUE TOOTH! Well, I bout dropped the jar. I thought I heard him wrong, but he said it again and again. I think to quote him he said, “If you buy a phone you get a free blue tooth”. I set the jar down walked over to that little window in the oven and looked at my reflection. I smiled really big, and began to imagine me, ol’ Chuck, with a blue tooth? Well, I guess I could get use to the thought, but it might take a while, I was kinda liking the flash of the gold one that everyone could see while I’m riding my motor-sickle. I smiled bigger til Willa Dean came in and hit me on the back of my head cause she needed in the oven. (that’s where she puts Hamlet’s cell phone on the weekends so he can’t find it, and can’t get called away)
So there, now you can see why I am walking around thinking about the dentist. All of this is new to me, but I ain’t dumb.  It makes a feller wonder if a dentist don’t own all of them cell phone stores? I mean if you get a blue tooth who is gonna be the one that puts it in? Some sort of raquet I am sure of it. But, never the less it seems to be very popular. So, I guess I’ll give in and get me one of them cell phones so I can call my dentist to make an appointment to get my new blue tooth put in. I hope the women like ‘em. If they do, I might get two!
World Peace
—  Chuck     (Toe Roaster)

I was thinking of writing something about the Super Bowl to get one last ‘football’ blog in before the season is officially over. But, that seems like a very obvious thing to write about this week. I would think there are thousands of ‘cloggers’ doing just as I am at this very moment. Still, there is much to be said about the big event, and my life experience with the sport seems to scream that I should comment on the game of football as I have a few times here before. So, I can’t resist. I began to filter through topics that I find amusing beginning with the most obvious;
1. Dwight Freeney and his ankle injury.
2. Who will win or lose the Super Bowl (the above seems to have a great deal of influence on my thoughts here)
Then the most ridiculous to me;
1. Who is playing at half-time.
2. What my favorite commercial might be?
Or, the one I am scared to write about;
1. Entire Church congregations wearing Football Jersey’s to Sunday service??
Instead I want to write once again about the ‘game’. No, not the super bowl game in particular, but the game of football.
You see having played the game, and having a great deal of respect for its place in our society, and the lessons to be learned from it I would like to suggest a couple of things to the NCAA, and the NFL commissioner. Keep in mind these are only suggestions… and I am injecting some fun.
1. The Goal Post.  All my life I have heard stories of thousands of people that have somehow had seats in the end zone of every game in which the most important kick of the year, the kick that was heard around the world either was called ‘good’, or ‘no good’.  The kicks that send the ball over the edge (one way or the other) of the goal post.  The one that the home team screams was GOOD, and the away team screams NO GOOD.  But, should you ask ANYONE at the game, they all had seats right behind the goal post.. Yep.. all sixty plus thousand fans, all seating in one end zone, and they will tell you the correct call.
Well, I say add ten feet to the length of each goal post, extending it higher in the air, and then place a bar across connecting the two making it a huge rectangle.  Then attach a net behind the goal post.. (like a huge soccer net of sorts), and at the back / at the bottom of the net a hole big enough for a football to exit.  If that balls goes through the goal posts, and finds its way to the back of the net and down to it’s exit.. “IT’S GOOD!”  It’s that simple, and then each home team could sell the rest of their stadium seats and get everyone out of the end zone!
2. Off setting penalties.  This one has bothered me for years.  I am not speaking of the off setting penalties such as an illegal block in the back vs. an interference. I am speaking of off setting personal foul penalties.  The nasty ones.  The penalties called when two players are grabbing each others face masks, jerking someones head around, and punching with the other hand.
Now, I will say I have had my share of ‘hidden’ fights on the football field, there are ways to sneak in many ‘unseen messages’, but these are never called, and if two players are seasoned in the game, neither whines, it’s just a good old fashioned playground battle. But, when it escalates into an after the whistle ‘fight’, that’s taking it too far. Hey, I’m a grown man, I have played the game and I realize this is bound to happen from time to time. Still, I am glad to see the penalty flags thrown and the ruling that these two players have committed ‘personal fouls’. (The key word there being ‘personal’.)  Both players have just committed the worst of all penalties in our game, and the reason is they lost control. They have demonstrated no respect for each other, their teams, their fans, and the ‘GAME’..and while the flags were thrown, and the game was stopped, neither player is penalized?  There is no actual penalty! Oh, there are yellow hankies all over the field.. some ref’s have thrown their back up, but no penalty, they ‘off set’.  Come on… What does that mean? What does that say? What does teach young kids, and older ones?  I think there is a better way, and a simple solution; make each player involved sit out 4 downs. This serves both as an actual ‘penalty’, and it gives each combatant involved a chance to cool down. This method serves well in the game of Hockey.  (You might should know I am a HUGE hockey fan.. Can I get an amen BILLY HUARD?)
3.  This one will be fast; When a fumble occurs and the pile is formed, and the whistle has blown… All those guys that are not in the pile…  the ones that run around the edge and start grabbing legs of the guys fighting for the ball in the pile, then they start pulling and twisting their legs and hitting them in the back. That is so cheap.. Just throw those guys out of the game.  Again, learn from ‘the third man in’ rule like hockey.
To end I want to comment on not a rule change, but the ‘game’.  So I will only comment about the receiver who hits no one, gets hit by no one, runs down the field, catches a football in the end zone, and forms a dance squad, flexes, points, and does a three act play complete with an intermission break!  Hello!  He just caught a ball people! Mothers and daughters, kids, mailmen, computer techs, we can all pretty much run and catch a ball!
I say go shake the hands of your center, guards, and tackles.  Hey, maybe thank the guy that threw it? Or, how about hand the ball the ref and get ready to run and catch again?  I don’t know.. Just a comment.
Regardless,  I love the game.  And I look forward to Super Bowl Sunday.

Many of you that read my blog, (or ‘clog’ as I like to call it) know that I play a character named ‘Chuck‘ in my play “Toe Roaster”.  He is an interesting guy to say the least.  I often get asked if this ‘Chuck‘ and I are one in the same… Hmm?  I think to be fair you would have to ask him.  You see if I were him… I don’t think he would want to be me.  That should clear that up.
I do know that Chuck has many ‘different’ thoughts than I.  And I, or….. we were thinking that it might be fun for me to print some of Chuck’s newspaper columns here! Some of you already know he writes a column for his local newspaper, “The Herald Read”. I get a kick out of his column, and I hope you do too.  He is sending me a copy of his column soon.  So, I am looking forward to sharing ‘Chuck‘ with you!

Well, I am back from a great trip to Mississippi (a state I dearly love), looking out the window at the Florida sunshine. I find myself reflecting on all my old friends I saw there and remembering a few of the conversations.
I am thinking of one such conversation that seemed to lead to a deeper meaning than I might have expected.  It went something like; “Bryan, tell me what are you up to, what’s going on”?   Oh I know they didn’t need to know all that soon flowed from my internal, mangled mind calendar… and most likely they didn’t care. But I opened slowly and turned the valve on this free flowing faucet to let the thoughts in my brain out.  Oh, and not so much for them.. but much more for me.. to help me remember just what I am up to!  So, off I went, “Well,  as you know we are shooting the Toe Roaster DVD here this week, I have a new CD just out, I have a new book just out, I am headed back to Florida for a speaking engagement, then back here to Mississippi in two weeks to gig with Rivers Rutherford and brother Gordon, then on to Texas to play with Deryl Dodd, then to Tennessee to Toe Roast again, then down to the Keys for Toe Roasting on the Royal Caribbean Cruise ship”.  You would think that would cover it right?  Then came my big surprise after all of that.  My friend responded with, “Good, Good, so what else is going on”?  I laughed to myself and thought “I hope nothing”!  But, feeling like I had let them down, like I didn’t have enough going on… a phrase came to my mind.  It rattled around my brain as I stared at my friend while we were both wondering was about to come out?  The phrase rose up almost like a secret I didn’t know yet. It crept its way to my tongue and then unfolded between my lips and formed the words… “Oh, I’ve been blogging”.
Geesh.. Even writing the word now sort of scares me. Blogging?  Was that me that said that?  How did I become a blogger?  Hmmm…  Marla Carter, that’s how!  “Why I oughta…..”  She started all of this. (www.marlaandshane.com)  And now look at me.
I mean I’m a blogger?  Really?
Now, I will admit since I began this form of communication, I am a bit more comfortable with actually writing a blog, and I do find it to be a great opportunity to share. So, for sure I  applaud the format, and of course Marla…whom I dearly love.  However, I don’t know that I will ever become comfortable with the word itself… BLOG. It sounds so… ?  Well, it sounds like you should excuse yourself from the table if you were to ‘blog’.  I would for sure place it in my uncomfortable or strange word category.  I am thinking it should be seated (for all of you pun lovers) right next to the word ‘Futon’.
There is something about these two words that just do not exactly ring true with my life style, past or present.  I mean can you picture a man on a tractor, or even a man with a guitar on stage being a blogger, or using the word blog, or futon for any reason?
But, take a word like ‘CLOG’… now that would seem to fit me much better… as I seem to have my thoughts gathering in a wad to do just that.. CLOG.  But, futon?  I don’t know?
Now I try to be an honest man so, I guess you should know that I own one.. a futon that is. But I still like to think of it.. AND call it, a fold out couch.
Well, my protest of using the word doesn’t keep my mind from clogging when it comes to something that has been on my mind for a long while.  And that is; why there seems to be no such thing as a ‘Futon Potato’. Does this mean those that sit on a Futon are active people?  I find it hard to believe that there are no lazy people sitting on their futon…(see that doesn’t sound right). But you have to admit there are no women saying they are married or dating a Futon Potato.  And there are no guys that I know of that are fessing up to being one, and to tell you the truth.. if I were one, I wouldn’t say it either.  I can’t blame them.  I am sure there are worse things to be called, but a Futon Potato has to rank pretty high.
I feel much better now realizing I can clog sitting on my couch.  Thanks for reading!  World Peace.

www.olemisssports.com

Former Rebel Bryan Kennedy To Perform In Oxford

01/19/2010 University of Mississippi

OXFORD, Miss. — Award-winning singer-songwriter and former Ole Miss football player Bryan Kennedy returns to Oxford this week, as his musical play, “Toe Roaster,” will be filmed Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m. CT each night at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center.

Seating is limited for this live recording for DVD. Call (662) 236-6429 to reserve tickets, and visit oxfordarts.com for more information. Donations for tickets support the Oxford Arts Council.

In addition, Kennedy will be back in the area Feb. 5 to perform a concert fundraiser for Ole Miss Women’s Council student scholarships. Beatles tribute band Mystery Trip and other talented musicians will also appear at the 7:30 p.m. concert in the Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Ole Miss Women’s Council, Kennedy will be joined by Rivers Rutherford and Gordon Kennedy in a cafe-style segment where the artists talk about their work and experiences, as well as perform. Gordon Kennedy, Bryan’s brother, also is a member of the Mystery Trip band, which delivers high-energy renditions of Beatles hits.

Tickets range from $10 for Ole Miss students and $25 for general admission to $50 for orchestra seating that includes a reception with performers. To purchase a ticket, visit olemiss.edu/fordcenter, call 662-915-7411 or stop by the Ole Miss Box Office in the Student Union from noon to 4 p.m. weekdays or the Ford Center Box Office from 10 am. to 4 p.m. weekdays.

Bryan Kennedy wrote and performs in “Toe Roaster,” which features three modern-day cowboys philosophizing about everything from women, Wal-Mart and cell phones to sea creatures and world peace. Wynn Varble and Troy Jones join Kennedy, with the trio looking at life through music and humor.

Kennedy’s new CD, “I’m So Jealous of Me,” was released last week. He has written nine hits for country star Garth Brooks, including “Good Ride Cowboy,” “Beaches of Cheyenne” and “American Honky Tonk Bar Association.” Kennedy also opened for Garth Brooks’ tours in the late 1990s.

A 1983 Ole Miss graduate, Kennedy earned three letters as a defensive lineman for the Rebels, 1980-82. Starting alongside Ole Miss greats Andre Townsend and Freddie Joe Nunn on the line, Kennedy totaled 69 tackles with two fumble recoveries as a senior. He posted 30 stops his junior year and intercepted a pass to set up the game-tying field goal in the final minute of a 27-27 result with L.S.U.

A native of Brentwood, Tenn., Kennedy was both a high school and college teammate of former Rebel quarterback and current offensive coordinator Kent Austin.

I guess you could say I am a professional Toe Roaster.  Some of you might ask, what is a Toe Roaster, and how does one become a professional?  Well, don’t feel bad that it might be a phrase that you have yet to hear.  And no doubt when you do learn it’s definition you will find that you knew what it was all along, but you have never heard it described as such.  “It’s a fire, it’s a campfire”.  The new term, Toe Roaster was birthed from my musical comedy “Toe Roaster”.
I have had the opportunity to travel all over and I rarely find someone that has never experienced a toe roaster at least once. Some of my friends in California and near by areas may have never had the privilege due to the possibility of starting a much larger toe roaster.. one, we don’t need.  Still, most of us have experienced a small, intimate camp fire at some point in our lives.. at least I hope you have or soon will.
I had experienced sitting around a few campfires as a kid, but back then I had no idea I might one day become a pro at it!
My career began while working on a big farm/ranch west of Nashville, Tennessee.  Terry, Rick, and Tony (my three bosses) let me know early on when they hired me that part of my job description was to have my guitar readily available in my truck for the sole purpose of entertaining around the campfire every evening after the real work.  So, the four of us literally sat around a toe roaster pretty much everyday for two years.  There were literally hundreds of friends and family that would often come out to sit around the fire with us after days of cutting, bailing, and throwing hay. Or after fencing, trail rides, or working cows.
From those years at Woody’s farm (thank for the job Woody, I am forever grateful), to Garth having a crazy idea to ask me and my good friend, and touring partner Dan Roberts, to perform at the Hollywood Bowl. Garth’s idea of taking the campfire to the stage! Brilliant!  So, with the help of Disney and their  propane toe roaster, (another blog someday..  and of course a true story), Garth, Dan, and I sat between the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and 16-18 thousand of Garth’s fans with our guitars around Disney’s campfire underneath the California stars.. literally and figuratively.  It was awesome!
Then from there, Garth asked Dan and I to perform as his opening act on his World Tour around a… you guessed it, a giant campfire. An experience I am forever in debt to Garth for allowing me live.
After that tour I found myself still longing for time around a camp fire.  I loved the experience and common ground of a camp fire. I realized that a lot of people might find themselves in cities or places where a campfire is not an option. Well, that is just not right!
I personally believe, as it is stated in the play, that people might consider building fire pits in their back yards instead of swimming pools! Nothing against swimming, or swimmers! I just believe in families and friends sitting across from one another not watching a TV. Instead finding themselves starting into a flame flickering, and taking them to places they would never jumping and diving in a pool!  And much to my wonderful surprise, it has become very popular for new homes to have a fire pit area in the back yard! Now, that’s progress to me.. It seems when we go back to our roots, we make progress!
So, when I wrote Toe Roaster I gave it a sub title of ‘World Peace‘ for the wishful reason of somehow deep down believing that if we could get world leaders together around a campfire instead of video conferencing, or communicating through their respective talking heads, or all of these people sitting around a huge auditorium deep in the belly of huge sky scrapper, that maybe, just maybe… if we could get them around a toe roaster someplace out in the middle of no where….we might solve the world’s problems?
Those of you that have ‘toe roasted’ or have seen the play know what I am talking about.  A toe roaster is a place to laugh, a place to joke, a place to talk, a place to listen, and maybe most importantly a place to stare into the fire and just be quiet and think.  A toe roaster is a place to discuss, or maybe better defined… a place to argue. Or as we say in the play, have some “Knock down Drag outs!!  But, no one leaves there mad”.  It’s a place to turn off cell phones, text messages, a place to get to know someone you have never met.  A place to talk about life and death, a place  to cry, to hurt, to heal.  A place for music, a place for kids, for dogs, for life.
As I write this now I get very excited to know that in a couple of days Wynn Varble, Troy Jones and I will bring to the stage a real life Toe Roaster in Oxford, Mississippi.  We are performing at the Powerhouse Theater sponsored by the Oxford Arts Council, and friends at the Oxford Film Festival. (go to my ‘gigs’ page for ticket information)
If you are in the area please come join us for some big laughs, great songs, and some real life ’stuff’.  Don’t forget to bring your smile and your heart, we’ll be needing those, as we share ours with you!

I love this ‘blog’ thing. I wish my friend Marla Carter would have explained it to me earlier! But, she has that husband Dude, two beautiful kids, and then there is her job as an incredible photographer down here on the gulf coast. (www.marlaandshane.com) She and Shane (Dude) both shot most all of my photos for the web site and CD covers and I am so very grateful for that, but still… why didn’t she tell me about this blog stuff earlier? I mean this is a great!  A really great way for me to share so many things with all of you! So many blessings I have.. and most in the form of people.
This weekend down here on Florida’s Scenic Highway 30-A , They are having the first ever 30-A songwriters festival.  I am very honored to have been asked to participate in it’s inaugural year. They also invited my brother, who will no doubt be blogged about by this little brother.. me.. very soon, so stay tuned. But today I am sharing a blog about the other invitee, Troy Jones. Many of you may or may not have heard of Troy, but most of you will recognize some of the songs he has penned.  Kenny Chesney, and George Strait teamed up as a duet to sing ,”Shift Work”, and most recently Billy Currington recorded Troy’s first #1 song, “People Are Crazy”. You might sing it.. “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy”. If you haven’t heard either of these tunes I hope you do soon, and if you have heard them then you can combine these two songs to see a philosophy emerge that I first discovered in this talent from L.A. A man with a guitar and big club fisted hands that did not achieve their roughness from the frets of a guitar. Rather they have seen their share of manual labor inside a paper mill, and fork lift driving than most anyone you or I know.  You might be asking yourself, “where would a guy in L.A. work in a paper mill, and drive a fork lift”?  Well, L.A. in Troy’s case stands for Lower Alabama.
I first met Troy through a good friend and record producer Blake Chancey. Blake approached me one day and said, “I found this guy that you have to write with”. I could see a different look in Blake’s eyes, he was very serious, he continued, “He is more country than you! You gotta meet this guy, and you gotta write with him”!  I asked Blake to play me something Troy had written and he took me over to his office and played me a song called “New Orleans Love”.  For all of you that have seen my show, or Toe Roaster, then you are already laughing. For those of you that have not… well.. let’s just say it makes an impression on you! I was laughing so hard while trying to figure out what kind of guy could come up with something this bizarre AND this great. I knew before the second chorus that I had to write with this Troy Jones fella, and I did.  And I still do, and hopefully always will.
Troy is one of the most talented and gifted writers I have seen walk down 16th Ave. in Nashville, Tennessee.  His songs are a kin to the likes of the great story teller Tom T. Hall.  He visits lyrics and melodies, and topics that Mickey Newbury, and Kris Kristofferson would smile and take notice of. Troy has a gift of something un-common… he identifies with the common. He writes about the un-expected, yet dead center of where people live every day. Here is a list Tory Jones songs that no one has heard YET.. that I love.. “Naked”, “When God Paints”, “I Wouldn’t Be Gone” (the hardware store song),”Every Thing Like That and All”, “A Little Rough Spot in the Road”, “He Don’t Set the Bar Too High”, “Professional Fools”, “It Takes a Lot”, and I could go on and on.
Together Troy and I have written two songs that appear on my new CD, “Swimming in Women”, and “Grain of Sand”.  Also, together Troy and I act in Toe Roaster along with another crazy and future blog subject, Wynn Varble. Troy and I co-wrote a couple of songs that appear in Toe Roaster including, “Bad Situation”, and “The Jerry Springer Show”. What I am trying to say is the world would be a better place with some fork lift philosophy AND a Troy Jones playlist on everybody’s iPod!
I am blessed to know this man, not only due to his sharing his gifts with me over the pen, paper, and guitars..  But, more so.. Troy is a great human being and forklift philospher.  The title suits him well, and it suits me just fine to be on the receiving end of such hard earned wisdom.
You can see Troy perform in Toe Roaster, and catch him all around performing at writers shows. I hope to catch Troy this weekend in between shows for some back porch conversation, fork lift philosophy, and coffee.
Thanks Marla for showing me this new tool to share my blessings with all my friends!

I can promise you up front that I will not go on and on about what has become known as “The Little Easy”.  I could write for miles about how I feel about this place that William Faulkner called “his little postage stamp of Earth”.  And I don’t think for one second I am the only one that carries a love and extreme fondness for this location, there are many who would say it’s ‘home’ although most of us are not fortunate enough to own a 38655 zip code, but all deep down dream about the day we might!
We have all seen The Andy Griffith Show, and most that have are always scanning the country side imagining what it would be like to live in the fictional Mayberry, USA.  I think the closest one might come is no doubt Oxford, Mississippi. The home of The University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss.  I know I am not the first to write expressing a deep love for Oxford, nor I am the first writer, or musician to have been inspired by this place.  Here is a short list of novelist that have made Oxford home; John Grisham, Willie Morris, Barry Hannah, Cynthia Shearer, Larry Brown… then recently my dear friend Sam Haskell, the author of the best selling book Promises I Made My Mother…. Oh, yes and there is the a fore mentioned William Faulkner whose home remains a must see.  A place I, like many were drawn to for its simple beauty and it’s ever calming peace. A place called Rowan Oak.
Mr. Grisham has a couple of book stores located around the square in downtown Oxford.  When I visit I find myself inside Square Books.  There is no question this is my favorite bookstore anywhere.  I find the charm clinging, and its unique table of ’signed by the author’ books a huge bonus!  And, yes there are often books singed by Mr. Grisham himself.
Oxford, Mississippi, “The Little Easy”, “The postage stamp of Earth”, Home of the University of Mississippi.
Once more I find this big heart humbled by going back ‘home’ next week to Oxford.  This is the place that Wynn Varble (playing the role of Hamlet), Troy Jones (playing the role of John Don John or, Big Daddy), and I (playing the role of Chuck) converge from different parts of the world to the Power House Theatre January 21, and 22nd to perform my musical comedy, “Toe Roaster”!
Wynn, Troy and I have performed this show all over the country, and through all five years of doing so we have had one steady request; “When are you guys going to do a DVD”?  We have been listening, and waiting for the perfect place.  And, we have found the perfect place…  “The Little Easy”, if you have been there you would agree.  We hope to see all our friends in Oxford, Mississippi next week to sit around the Toe Roaster to help support WORLD PEACE !

Dictionary.com defines humbled as; to cause to be meek or modest in spirit.
In a world where most might want a piece of the pie…  I was served with a slice of humble cake.
This was my feeling walking in the front doors of the Santa Rosa Beach club to see a room full of people that one year ago I didn’t know at all.  It was a room full of new friends that have made me feel very welcome from day one since I moved here to the gulf coast.
There were balloons covering the ceiling that at first I thought were perhaps left over from a New Years Eve party, but they were for this party! Each table setting consisted of a cowboy hat, flowers, and bandanna’s. Then there were the smiles and laughs coming from a room full of Floridians all trying to thaw out from rare below freezing weather outside.  And later on, a huge cake (humble cake) topped off with Fire Works!
All of this put together by these wonderful people for the CD release party for my new CD “I’m So Jealous of Me”. Thank you Julie Brown and all the Posse for your extraordinary efforts!
I so enjoyed last night as it was a bit different than most of my shows,  because I was able to sing and tell the story behind each track one by one,  AND.. helping me perform was my great friend JD Shuff (Son, or JT I mean JD) accompanying me on his smallest percussion/drum kit. I had a great time performing, and even a better time getting to visit with everyone afterward while the club played the CD over the house system.
What a great way to kick off this new year, and the new CD that began with my entire family back in Tennessee singing and playing on the recording of this project to my new friends down here on the coast celebrating last night in the final product.
Thank you all, I was completely dictionary.com’d… humbled, and am very full from my wonderful slice of humble cake.