Larry Graham & Trace Adkins

Artist: Larry Graham

LP: 7" single

Song: "One In a Million You"

[ listen ]

My dad got two free tickets to the Trace Adkins concert at the Puyallup Fair last Friday night, so he invited me to come along.

 [ Trace Adkins ]

I'd never heard of Trace Adkins before, so I read a little about him on the internet before driving down to the fairgrounds after work. He was born in the small town of Sarepta, Louisiana in 1962, sang with a gospel group in high school, played college football, then accidentally cut off one of his pinky fingers while working on an oil rig (doctors stuck it back on so he could still play guitar). Trace then took all his fingers to Nashville, where he started playing in honky-tonk bars and became a country music superstar. He's been hitting the country charts pretty regularly since the release of his debut LP "Dreamin' Out Loud" back in 1996.

Trace came across as a friendly, funny, and down-to-earth guy at the show—refreshing to see for someone with thousands of screaming fair-going fans at his feet. He got the concert off to a rollicking start with "Whoop a Man's Ass," then continued with a string of his popular hits, including "Just Fishin'," "Chrome," "This Ain't No Love Song," and "Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk" (!). He also performed his recent top 40 single "Brown Chicken Brown Cow," for which there's a hilariously absurd music video that was shown on the big screen behind him while he sang. (My favorite part comes just after Betty rips off her clothes—a reminder that removing a tad too much can actually diminish your sex appeal.) I began feeling a little self-conscious, since I seemed to be the only one at the show who didn't know any of Trace's hits. But I perked up when he announced that he was about to sing an old Larry Graham song, after which he performed a beautiful and moving rendition of "One In a Million You."

[ Trace Adkins at the Puyallup Fair — September 23, 2011 ]