As noted on this blog a few days ago, country superstars Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were the grandstand headliners at the 1973 Lorain County Fair. Their appearance at the Fair is still pretty impressive.
Here's the Journal ad from Saturday, August 25, 1973 – the day of their performance. (I don't know about that clip art of the crowd; it looks more like a birthday party to me.)
As the article notes, "It was a big night for Lorain County Fairgoers. Over 6,000 persons jammed the grandstand area to see Twitty and Mrs. Lynn, two of the most popular country and western entertainers around.
"The two performed separately and then sang a few songs together for two shows. Fair officials put extra bleachers and chairs on the track to make sure everyone got in. They feel last night's performance was the largest since Gene Autry appeared in 1959.
"Mrs. Lynn, dressed in a long, red gown, joked with members of her band and with her audience which was obviously pleased.
"The striking, black-haired entertainer entered the stage to the "Coal Miner's Daughter" and went on to sing other favorites such as "Love is the Foundation," "Blue Kentucky Girl" and "Your Squaw is on the Warpath."
"She then teamed with Twitty to sing two songs, one of them their latest hit "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man."
The article continued. "Twitty also sang a number of songs including "What Am I Living For," "Release Me," "I Can't Stop Loving You," "Proud Mary" and, of course, his well-known "It's Only Make Believe."
"Twitty, who started out with rock and roll, said he had always wanted to do country music and one day just quit the rock and roll scene.
""Country music is more real," he said. "But a lot of your rock hits are country hits.
""Country music has changed but everything has to change and grow,"Twitty added. "I think the biggest change is in the way country music is presented.
""The music, of course, is changed and the style is changed a little bit but the song still says the same things," he said. "The days of the old cornball type thing are gone but that music too, had its day.""
2 comments:
Just as the newspaper article stated,Conway started out singing Rock N Roll.Rockabilly actually.Conway was compared to The King for awhile.People though his song "It's Only Make Believe" was sung by Elvis.Then in 1965 Conway quit Rock N Roll.He walked out in the middle of one of his concerts as he was tired of the scene and the mob mentality of the fans.He always liked country music and wanted to sing it,but when he released his first country songs alot of the country DJs wouldn't play his music as he was always a Rock N Roll artist.But as they say,the rest is history.
I guess nobody else likes classic singers like Conway Twitty today.Everybody must like music acts like Taylor Swift who sings nothing but modern day bubblegum pop.Bubblegum is good,but I'll take The Partridge Family over Taylor Swift any day of the week.
My mom and dad were at the fair when Conway and Loretta performed.They have a couple Polaroids laying around somewhere of them standing with the both of them.Conway and Loretta both signed the back.
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