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Audience thinks of Randy Travis as a friend, not an entertainer

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Photo by Matthew Wisniewski

Randy Travis performs on the main stage at the 2008 Rock County 4-H Fair.

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2008 Rock County 4-H Fair

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JANESVILLE — Many in the audience Friday night at the Rock County 4-H Fair thought of Randy Travis as a friend rather than as an entertainer.

“This is the third time we’ve seen Randy. He’s my friend,” Gloria Dutcher of Janesville said of herself and her friend, Susan Peterson, another Janesville resident.

“I met him backstage, and I escorted him at Country Thunder,” Dutcher said of an experience at least eight years ago.

And the old-school country balladeer did not disappoint. Besides pleasing the near-capacity crowd with his reassuring baritone and mostly familiar tunes, he joshed with the audience between many songs.

He told a few jokes and spoke of his roots in pre-Internet country music:

“I’ve never downloaded or up-linked—and probably never will.”

But Travis has a new album out—“Around the Bend,” his first country CD in eight years—and his crew was selling CDs, tour shirts and other souvenirs to fans.

“We got T-shirts. We got key chains. We got pictures,” Dutcher said and paused for a breath. “We got CDs. And we got front-row seats.”

A country family

Also in the front row was 12-year-old Matt Sperry of Evansville, a dyed-in-the-wool country fan.

“I listen to him a little bit,” Sperry said of Travis. “My dad listens to him a lot.”

And a whole lot of Sperrys were at the concert.

Matt’s dad is Gene—better known as Hap—Sperry.

“I just like his voice,” Hap said. “He’s got a great voice.”

Sitting next to Hap were his mom, Ruth, and a clutch of cousins.

The every-other-year Sperry family reunion is this weekend—about 120 are back in Evansville—and as usual it’s the last weekend of the 4-H fair.

“I really like Randy,” said cousin Mick Sperry, who traveled from Florida. “He’s pure country. And he’s sincere.”

The Sperrys were raised on country, Ruth said, adding of the family’s attendance at fair concerts:

“We’ve been here for years—since Loretta Lynn, close to 30 years ago.”

Actually 34. Lynn played the fair in 1974.

An annual journey

That’s longer than Paula McTier has been traveling from Endeavor to enjoy the fair entertainment, but the 53-year-old has 20 years of traveling for good times under her belt.

“I come down every year,” McTier said. “I have a bunch of friends who live down here, so we make it a yearly thing. I come down on Thursday and leave on Sunday.

“I leave the husband home. He’s whining because there’s no one there to cook for him. I say Taco Bell.”

Local radio fans

McTier gave credit to Phil Wellnitz of Orfordville for running with blankets and diving into what would become the first row to save spots for her, her pals and his friends.

A few of his young friends thought he had hurt himself with his dive.

“I’m quite well,” said the 18-year-old Parkview High School grad.

“My phone kind of dug into my thigh.”

Asked if had bruised himself, Wellnitz said: “I haven’t checked. I just kind of walked it off.”

The Orfordville gang was sitting next to young Sperry’s Evansville bunch.

A bevy of hands shot into the air when they were asked if they were country music fans.

And in what will come as pleasing news to a local country radio station, all said they had WJVL, 99.9 FM, as one of their presets on their car radios.

If WJVL wasn’t the first button, it was the second, the teenagers said.