This review written by Shane Carl came after Jim's recent 2013 performance in Somerset, KY. Needless to say, we wanted to share it with Jim's fans. We think Shane is right on!Jim Stafford
packed the house at The Center for Rural Development last Saturday and showed
his Somerset fans how show biz is done.
The evening's entertainment was both
intimate and expansive, low-key and high energy. A perfect mix of
down-to-earth audience interaction and Nashville or Hollywood-level
showmanship.
"It was one of the best if not the best show we've had," said
Carl Skaggs, director of Cumberland Productions, the Pulaski-based
charitable organization which brought Stafford to Somerset. The
performance raised nearly six-thousand dollars for the Somerset Christian
School's Needs-Based Scholarship Fund.
Stafford,who has delighted millions
over the years with his unique brand of music and comedy, brought a piece of
Branson, Mo., with him when he and his family performed last
weekend. Branson is an entertainment center with a reputation of having some
of the best live entertainment in the nation. Stafford, his wife Ann, and
children GG and Shea, perform several times a week at the
Jim Stafford Theatre in Branson, which Jim and Ann co-own.
Stafford, something of a
Rennaisance man in American showbusiness, made a national name for himself in
the '70s and '80s as a hit songwriter ("Spiders and Snakes," for example), a
televison personality, an actor, an award-winning composer for motion picture
soundtracks, a comedian, a
script-writer and a virtuoso
multi-instrumentalist.
Jim told his Somerset audience that, about 20 years
ago, he longed for a more permanent location to make money doing what he does
best - entertaining people. So he and Ann created a family business, The
Jim Stafford Theatre, and raised their children, teaching them about the
ethics of art and performance and the importance family life.
"I raised my
children on the stage," said Jim to the audience at The Center for Rural
Development.
And you could sure tell he had worked with his kids since they
were little. GG, his sixteen-year-old daughter, and Shea, his twenty-year-old
son, both showed a level of virtuosity on the piano that would usually be
indicative of artists much older.
In addition, the young performers
displayed a top-level professional stage presence which can only be captured
by those with a true love for their art. Jim started the whole shebang out
last Saturday with just himself and a stool and a few instruments on the
otherwise bare stage.
He impressed with some virtuoso picking and then
commenced to telling stories and cracking jokes while personally shaking the
hands of nearly everyone in the first row or two. The audience was
immediately captured in his spell - a down-to-earth southern gent with
Hollywood class.
Over the next couple of hours, he held the audience in that
spell, right up until the standing ovation at the end - leaving patrons
satisfied and at the same time wanting more.
Labels: branson theaters, comedy, family, GG, Shea, tour shows