Lynyrd Skynyrd, BruceSpringsteen, and Steely Dan are among famous musicians who were once opening acts for others. Most of course don’t go on to be mega stars, but can be quite successful in their own right. Thursday, we attended the Seminole Theatre performance of Asleep at the Wheel as part of the Showcase Season. Neither of us had heard of Brennen Leigh and Hubby now has one of her CDs. Songwriter, guitar player, mandolin player, and singer, she is a two-time Texas Music Awards Best Female Vocalist and 2018 Ameripolitan Music Honky Tonk Award winner. She pairs with different people and last night was Melissa Carper who was on bass; not something you often see women play. She performs primarily with the Buffalo Gals Band and their debut album, “Brand New Old Time Songs”, came in at Number 2 on the European Americana charts in 2018. Both women have toured nationally and internationally and began their music careers fairly young. As the opening act, they provided a thoroughly entertainment stretch of music and I suspect we weren’t the only ones who purchased a CD.

Although the main show, Asleep at the Wheel, is not the kind of music for everyone, they have been around since 1970. Ray Benson, the only original member still with the band, was in fine form and the drummer, David Sanger, has thirty-five years with them. Western Swing is a combination of elements of American blues, swing and traditional fiddling even though I don’t have enough of a music background to identify how much of each element is involved. On the other hand, I don’t need to know. I’m sure that of almost 250 people in the audience, some could explain it in detail. For the rest of us, it was just a fun, lively show.

We don’t usually attend two performances in the same month, but we have been told Derina Harvey and her Celtic rock group are quite good, so we shall see about that one.