Gig Review – Suzy Bogguss – Canton Historic Theatre, Canton GA
It was quite an experience seeing Suzy Bogguss in this picture book theatre in leafy Canton around 45 minutes north of Atlanta. The promoters of these shows are local people dedicated to bringing great music to their community and worked front of house making sure all went smoothly for the almost sold out crowd.
Suzy Bogguss, accompanied as ever by her personal wrecking crew Pat Bergeson (guitar, harmonica) and Charlie Chadwick (double bass) took the stage shortly after 8 and started the first half the show with Outbound Plane before running into Aces, much to the delight of the audience. Next up was a cover of Johnny Cash’s I Still Miss Someone which had quite a number of those present singing along quietly.
She explained that she and the band have spent the last few weeks working on her next record which is to be a set of Merle Haggard covers. This provided a nice introduction to Somewhere Between, the first of two.
The remainder of the first set was given over to a selection from her last album American Folk Songbook which came with its own live infomercial for the accompanying book.
After a brief interval Ms Bogguss returned with a tale how she played recently in Calgary and met Ian Tyson – described as hot at 80 – writer of set 2’s opener Someday Soon.
Set 2 had a similar mix to the first – folk songs, hits and a Haggard cover. The audience participation stepped up with a stream of requests and a couple more singalongs. There was even a brief stab at Free Bird with Pat Bergeson providing the familiar intro and the singer forgetting the words.
Highlight for me was a fine rendition of Hey Cinderella; a song Ms B co-wrote with Matraca Berg. The set and the show closed with a community sung Red River Valley before Suzy and band slipped off for the night; no encore.
They were due to join Suzy’s husband, Doug Crider, at the merch stand but I had my own long Drive South back so zoomed off before they got there.