It was a lovely but humid evening and a lot of folks took advantage of the air-conditioned comfort and what proved to be a wonderful time at Pleasant Hill, MO's Big Creek Country Show. Emcee Dennis Dittemore kicked the evening off with his mellow voice, singing "I Cried My Last Tear For You," "I Wanna Dance With You" and returned later with an appropriate song, "Summertime Blues." We always look forward to hearing Debbie Martin's (Debbie Erikson on KFKF) beautiful voice and it was all of that as she sang "I've Got Better Things To Do," and "Love Can Build A Bridge." Larry Ellis is one of the finest fiddle players we have heard and Big Creek's resident joke teller (You're only as old as you look. But if you look -- you're old!). He sure had those strings a'smokin' tonight as he led the band on "Washington Lee Swing," "Bonaparte's Retreat," "Leavin' Rosene" and "Flop Eared Mule." Denny Osburn filled in at keyboard tonight and had the toes tapping with "Black Mountain Rag" and "Caravan." We (and everyone else, judging from the applause) really enjoyed hearing Cindy Dittemore sing Diamond Rio's "In God We Still Trust" as well as "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" and Patsy's "Crazy." That lead guitar guru, Jim Lower treated everyone to some Western Swing with "Oklahoma Hills" and Chet Atkins' classy "Country Gentleman" while electric bass player Jim Doney showed off his vocal talents with "The Grundy County Auction."
We've just about run out of accolades to describe the talents of Larry Smith, but anyone who has heard him will agree that he sings traditional country music about as well as it can be sung. Tonight he sang "Lone Star Beer And Bob Wills Music," "There Goes My Everything," the George Jones classic "Walk Thru This World With Me," "Truck Drivin' Man" and Little Jimmy Dickins' "We Could." Larry appears here at Big Creek the 4th Saturday of each month. A new face, that of Lori Harris appeared here tonight for the first time and we thought she was remarkable. Lori has a musical background, both writing and performing and did a bang-up job here tonight singing "Once A Day," Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man," "Silver Threads And Golden Needles," "Delta Dawn" and our favorite - "Faded Love." Lorie will be returning next month! We always look forward to seeing one of this area's finest entertainers, Mike O'Roark, not only for his side-splitting comedy (Two dogs were in a disco, one said to the other, "If we acted like that, they'd have us wormed!) but also his incredible picking and singing. MIke recently released his new gospel album "Road To Glory" and tonight sang "The Road To Gloryland," "Rindercella," "Down Deep," "You Can Feel It In Your Soul," "Grandpa Was A Carpenter" and "I'm Walking With Him." Mike will also be returning to Big Creek the 4th Saturday of August. Dennis, Cindy and Debbie closed this evening's show with two beautiful gospel numbers: "Build My Mansion" and "When I Get Carried Away" (below).
