Wednesday, July 22, 2009

FROM ONE PRESIDENT TO ANOTHER...

A few minutes before Dierks Bentley was to perform last night, he was backstage at The Grand Ole Opry House catching up on his text messages. One in particular caught his attention from his pal Brad. So, the president of the DB Congress decided he wanted to share a "tweet" with all his Twitter friends...

wow...the president of the usa just said "Dierks bentley calls country music the best shrink 15 bucks can buy." thx @bradpaisley for text#fb from TwitterBerry
The Tennessean reported on President Obama's White House Music Series: A Country Music Celebration in the East Room, with live performances last night by Charley Pride, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss--all members of The Grand Ole Opry.

“A lot of people think I’m a city boy, but I do appreciate listening to country music,” Obama said in his opening remarks. The President praised country’s dedication to storytelling, said the music “contributed to the life of this nation and chronicled the history of our people” and quoted Harlan Howard, Garth Brooks and Dierks Bentley.

“Dierks Bentley called (country), ‘The best shrink that fifteen bucks can buy,’” Obama said, drawing laughs from the D.C. crowd and reassured glances from the Nashvillians in the room, who were thinking, “Hey, he pronounced ‘Dierks’ correctly.”

Funny. That's the first thing I wondered--did Obama say Dierks' name correctly? Affirmative!




Opry membership requires a passion for country music's fans, a connection to the music’s history. And it requires commitment – even a willingness to make significant sacrifices to uphold that commitment.

Commitment is something Dierks has always had in abundance. Several of us DB Congress reps were listening online at wsmonline.com and chatting. From the screams we were hearing, we knew he was on stage and sure enough they announced, "It's time to get a little sideways with Dierks Bentley!" But he started out with Free and Easy and it was 'rollin' like Mike Snyder's old banjo'. His voice sounded like he had a slight cold but the gravel sounded great to me! Commitment--the show must go on. He followed up FAE with Feel That Fire and finally closed, surprisingly, with Beautiful World--mentioning the text from Brad and the Presidential quote as his intro to the song he says he would like to be known for. He introduced his "band of brothers" and Jon Randall was actually playing with the band as well.

Dierks said he used to sneak in back stage to the Opry years ago to pick up tips of how to be a better singer. It worked!

God bless you, Dierks! We love you too!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the blog. A great read! And holy cow, the President quoted OUR President. Now that's getting all the way to the top!! Maybe next year Dierks can play there! :)

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