Sunday, April 23, 2017

Baxter Black: Pick it out — at the Starlite

...Music has always been a part of my life. My family emigrated to Oklahoma from Texas. Grandpa played old-time fiddle. He taught his kids. I’ve been seconding good musicians as long as I can remember.

And it’s still goin’ on! I married into a nest of Okies who play the same good music I grew up on. They sing and play and let me hammer and pound along behind ’em. I’ve never really minded playin’ second fiddle. You can’t be good at everything. But there was a time when I shined.

Workin’ cows in the fall is somethin’ I’ve always enjoyed. Some of these ranches I worked were a hundred miles from a K-Mart. It might take several days to preg check 2,000 head so when I showed up, I’d take my guitar. There weren’t VCR’s and satellite dishes in the old days. I was a welcome diversion.

After a day’s work, we’d clean up, have supper and then make music and tell stories in the cookhouse. Sometimes there’d be a cowboy who could sing or a day-work uranium miner who’d played the mandolin. We had a high ol’ time every night.

Now days, I’ve gotten to know folks like Ed Bruce, Red Steagall, Michael Martin Murphy, Charlie Daniels, Reba McEntire, Larry Gatlin, Riders in the Sky, Mo Bandy, Vince Gill, Chris LeDoux and other, not quite so famous but just as talented. I admire their ability, but I don’t envy it. Even if I’d had a portion of their gift and ambition, I suspect I’d still be playin’ at the Starlite Inn in Idaho Falls six nights a week.

I’d have spent my life chasin’ fame instead of chasin’ cows. And I’d have missed all those nights singin’ in the cookhouse to a bunch of cowboys starved for entertainment.

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