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Wade Bowen to headline Barn Dance

Courtesy Photos WADE BOWEN (top photo) and JOHNNY LEE (above) are featured performers at this year's East Texas Yamboree Barn Dance.

Country music singer-songwriter Wade Bowen will be headlining this year’s Yamboree Barn Dance, set for 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Trinity Street Gym.

Opening act will be country music star Johnny Lee.

Bowen is a familiar and awarded name in music, performing along the active touring highways of Texas and the Southwest and selling out top venues like the legendary Gruene Hall in New Braunfels. Carving out a dedicated fan base with his magnetic appeal and proven abilities, he has enjoyed a 7-year stint as a leader amongst a flourishing Americana and Alt-Country music community.

From the numerous successes of his February 2006 release, Lost Hotel, to his recent tour with Lee Ann Womack and Friends, Wade Bowen shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.

The most recent on his growing list of musical accolades, the single off Lost Hotel, God Bless This Town, charted at #1 on the Texas Music Chart and was voted the # 4 Song of the Year on both the Texas Regional Radio Report and the Texas Music Chart’s Top 30 Songs of 2006, landing just below Pat Green, Jack Ingram, and Randy Rogers on both respective charts. Plus, consider that Bowen is impressively the only artist in that ranking without the support of a major label.

The video for “God Bless This Town” debuted on the Top 20 countdown on CMT and stayed in the #1 spot for several weeks on CMT’s Pure Country 12 Pack Countdown, in the company of pinnacle artists like Alan Jackson and Brad Paisley.

Back in 2000, hardworking Bowen whetted his musical appetite and sharpened his abilities via various bar room and backyard barbecue gigs while he simultaneously pursued and obtained a degree in public relations from Texas Tech University.

Soon, Bowen helped establish West 84, the initial grouping that toured throughout Texas in the wake of the young songwriter’s quality originals and captivating vocal abilities. Eventually the name West 84 was retired for the more apt, Wade Bowen.

As for humility, well, despite his high ranking within the Southwest’s lively Americana music community, Wade Bowen says things like this and means it: “I may be crazy, but it’s hard for me to believe that I have fans that honestly care enough to listen to my music….It shocks me every day.”

Johnny Lee was born on July 3, 1946 in Texas City, and was raised on a dairy farm in Alta Loma. His main interest was Rock ’n Roll, and he led a high school band called Johnny Lee and the Roadrunners, which won local and state-wide competitions.

After high school Lee enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving a tour of duty on the USS Chicago, a guided missile cruiser, in Vietnam. He returned home and started pursuing his music. In 1968, he began a 10-year working relationship with Mickey Gilley, both on the road and in the nightclub in Pasadena, Texas. Recording with ABC/DOT and GRT Records, he had moderate success with Country Party, new lyrics added to Rick Nelson’s Garden Party.

In 1979 Lee’s first screen role was in a 1979 TV movie, The Girls in the Office, starring Barbara Eden and Susan St. James. He was then asked to perform in the film, Urban Cowboy, which starred John Travolta and Debra Winger, and for which he also recorded several songs used in the soundtrack. Lookin’ For Love, from that same soundtrack, became Lee’s first Gold Record. The song spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Country Music Singles Charts as No. 1, and No. 2 on the Pop Music Singles Charts.

He followed up Lookin’ For Love with One In A Million, which spent two weeks at No. 1. More No. 1 singles during this time included Bet Your Heart On Me, The Yellow Rose, and You Could’ve Heart a Heart Break. His string of Top 10 hits continued with Pickin’ Up Strangers, Prisoner of Hope, Be There for Me Baby, Cherokee Fiddle, Sounds Like Love, Hey Bartender, and Rollin’ Lonely.

During the height of his success he appeared on talk shows, several network specials, and series such as Fantasy Island, CHIPS, The Fall Guy, The A-Team, and The Grand Ole Opry. Six young ladies representing local civic clubs will be selling tickets for the barn dance when the annual Yamboree Queen’s Contest gets underway Monday, June 16. Cost is $15 for tickets purchased in advance. Tickets sold at the door will be $20.

The girls will also be selling vouchers for the 71st Queen’s Coronation, to be presented in two performances: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, at the Gilmer Civic Center.

Coronation vouchers are $10.

The contest will conclude June 20.

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