Alabama - Mountain Music

Photo by The Queen Of The World

Last weekend the Queen Of The World and I climbed on the Harley and road to Morgantown, WV for the Mountainfest bike rally.  It's a beautiful, scenic and windy ride and the rally was small but a lot of fun.  While we were there we went to the headline concert by the country supergroup Alabama.  I'd forgotten just how great their music was, which is a statement on my fading memory.  How else fo you explain forgetting this:

40 number 1 singles
10 number 1 albums
75 Million albums sold
3 5x platinum albums
3 4x platinum albums
4 double platinum albums
More ACM and CMA awards than you can shake a stick at
A Start on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame
Billboard Country Music artist of the 1980s
ACM Artist of the Decade

And oh by the way two Grammys, including one for this song.  An you can imagine at a venue called Mountainfest in West Virginia (in the hometown of the WV Mountaineers), this song had the crowd rocking.  So much so, in fact, that they sang it again as an encore.

Photo by The Queen Of The World

They are a very likable band.  Over the years they have donated over $70M to St. Jude's CHildren's Hospital, perhaps the single largest donation by a single private entity.

Mountain Music (Songwriter: Randy Owen):

Oh, play me some mountain music
Like grandma and grandpa used to play
Then I'll float on down the river
To a Cajun hideaway 

Drift away like Tom Sawyer
Ride a raft with ol' Huck Finn
Take a nap like Rip Van Winkle
Daze dreamin' again 

Oh, play me some mountain music
Like grandma and grandpa used to play
Then I'll float on down the river
To a Cajun hideaway 

Swim across the river, just to prove that I'm a man
Spend the day bein' lazy, just bein' nature's friend
Climb a long tall hick'ry bend it over, skinnin' cats
Playin' baseball with chert rocks, usin' sawmill slabs for bats 

Play some back home, come on music
That comes from the heart
Play somethin' with lots of feelin'
'Cause that's where music has to start 

Oh, play me some mountain music
Like grandma and grandpa used to play
Then I'll float on down the river
To a Cajun hideaway, hey hey 

Oh play me mountain music
Oh play me mountain music

It was actually less a concert than a singalong.  Everybody knew all the words, and that even includes me although it's been a long time since I've listened much to their music.  I think that's something that I'm going to change, adding them to my playlists.  They had the crowd rocking to May The Circle Be Unbroken, and while that's a song that lends itself to raucous singalong, they did it particularly well.