On February 15, the Owen-Withee SEM class and the FBLA brought an exciting night of music to the Owen-Withee High School auditorium. Beginning at 6:15 p.m. Brady Luke and fellow band members Dakota Raab and Judah Herman lit up the stage with country tunes. The band has roots in this area as Brady comes from Stanley, Dakota originally from Auburndale and Judah from Marshfield. Brady and Dakota have written several songs together which led them to Nashville. Brady recounted a story about a trip to Nashville with Dakota where they performed at a nearly empty bar. They were unexpectedly introduced to a veteran songwriter by the host. They reluctantly went to this stranger’s house to discover an 80-year-old woman in a house decorated with ceramic ducks. It turned out the song writer was Jan Buckingham who had a collection of gold and platinum records hanging on the wall and had written for famous artists such as Whitney Houston and Pam Tillis. The trio then collaborated to write “Ball Caps, Boots and Jeans” which was the next song they performed for the O-W audience.
After Brady Luke took their bows for the night, Caleb Green thanked all for coming and the sponsors that helped make this concert possible. He spotlighted the work of the SEM class and the FBLA group for not only learning to be future business leaders but for creating opportunities for the community to gather and be entertained.
Chris Kroeze and Eric Warner then hit the stage bringing a variety of country music as well as a little blues and even an Ozzie song “Baby I’m Coming Home.” Like the previous band, Kroeze also spoke of his small-town experiences, growing up in Barron, WI and initial trips to Nashville.
“My world was pretty small when I was young,” Kroeze began. “I was playing guitar and listening to the radio and trying to play along with it. We had a fancy radio thing. I thought it was fancy at the time. It had two tape decks so you could record on it, you know. So, we'd call and request songs and then record them. I believe they call that stealing now,” Kroeze said as the audience laughed along. “Just for an example, just to explain how small my world was. We didn't leave Barron County like for anything. And when I heard Alan Jackson singing on the radio from the Rice Lake radio station, I thought Alan Jackson was in Rice Lake, like playing for the radio station. I found out later on that all that music got recorded in Nashville. And so that was my goal, since I was just a little kid, to go to Nashville to record music.
“In 2014, I got a phone call from a producer in Nashville inviting me down to record my first single, which was, yeah, a dream come true, right up until I found out how much money it cost to go to Nashville and record a single, and I didn't have any money, and I called my dad. Turns out he didn't have any money either, but a friend of his ran the VFW bar in town, and we talked to the newspaper, and they told him what we were trying to do, raise money to go record a song. They put it on the front page. They gave us the VFW for a day. I think the whole town came out and raised every penny I needed to go record that first song. Fast forward a few months. I went down to Nashville, recorded the song. And I was driving through Rice Lake, Wisconsin, and I was listening to that radio station, and I heard the DJ say, here's our hometown boy, Chris Kroeze, with his first single.”
He then played that single called “Four Letter Words” for a very tuned in audience.
This night of great music ended around 9:30 p.m. and afterwards Chris stayed back to talk and take pictures with his fans. Some of the biggest fans of the night who came from the farthest distance were two sisters. One came from Lake Dubay and the other from the state of Maryland. They said they follow Kroeze all over and saw he was coming to Owen-Withee on his website and were one of the firsts to get a close-up with this country star.
Caleb reported that the concert was a success and the ticket sales more than covered the expenses.