Gary Allan will be the latest country star to play Waco when he headlines this year’s Black Tie & Boots event for the West Georgia Technical College Foundation.
Allan follows in the bootprints of a host of country music stalwarts including Blake Shelton, Sara Evans, Jo Dee Messina and last year’s star, Josh Turner.
The August 20 concert marks the 10th anniversary for one of the area’s premier fundraising events.
“As our 10th anniversary, this year is special to us,” Vice President of Institutional Advancement Dawn Cook said. “We are working hard to make this our best event ever. I think our guests will be blown away with what we have planned.”
One thing won’t change, though. Black Tie & Boots is one of the hardest tickets to get in West Georgia. “We plan to sell out with corporate sponsors,” Cook said. “Any seats that remain open on July 1 will go on sale to the public at $125 per person or $950 per table.”
“If you want to be sure to get a seat, you need to purchase a corporate sponsorship,” she said.
Allan is a bit of a departure for Black Tie & Boots – a grittier and more serious artist who wouldn’t play the bars that didn’t allow George Jones songs. Allan is a country artist who says, “You’ll never hear me singing about tractors or farms, just because I don’t know anything about that stuff. Wrong roads and dark horses I know about. Still, I think the pain can get to be some kind of a positive for me because it connects to everything I’ve ever dreamed of. While it’s relentless, it’s confirmation of the actual existence of this big musical drama, the result of the dream.”
If his career often has seemed less loud and permanently neon-lit than those of some of his peers, Allan has indeed achieved a robust viability, consistently hitting all the gold and platinum sales benchmarks by which those kinds of determinations are measured.
“I remember talking about this when I first got signed to a Nashville major label,” Allan said. “Even then I was able to say, ‘Look, I’m never going to be the latest greatest thing, because that usually goes straight up and then burns out.’ My goal was — and remains — to be like Willie Nelson or George Strait, people who consistently rise. I think because I’ve done this since I was a little kid that I want it to be in my life forever. I want to be like Willie, playing until I’m 70. That’s what I’m swinging for.”
You can hear that grittiness in his newest album, the 2010 release, Get Off on the Pain.
Allan made his debut on the country music scene with the release of his single “Her Man,” the lead-off to his gold-certified debut album Used Heart for Sale, which was released in 1996.
Allan’s third album, Smoke Rings in the Dark, was the first platinum album of his career. Its successors, Alright Guy (2001) and See If I Care (2003), were all certified platinum as well, while 2005’s Tough All Over and 2007’s Greatest Hits were both certified gold.
Overall, Allan’s seven studio albums and Greatest Hits package have produced 24 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three that reached Number One: “Man to Man” and “Tough Little Boys” in 2003, and “Nothing On but the Radio” in 2004. Seven more of his singles have reached the Top Ten as well: “Her Man,” “It Would Be You,” “Right Where I Need to Be,” “The One,” “Best I Ever Had” (a cover of a Vertical Horizon song), “Life Ain’t Always Beautiful,” and “Watching Airplanes.”
Black Tie & Boots includes a seated meal at 7 p.m. and the concert at 8 p.m. and is the WGTC Foundation’s largest fundraiser of the year, Cook said.
“The proceeds go toward student scholarships, program improvements, facility upgrades and faculty development. The event is absolutely crucial,” she said. “Our Foundation is giving $20,000 in student scholarships this year because of Black Tie & Boots and events like it.”
“Folks in the community have come to know about this event. I have people asking me every year, ‘Who are you going to get next year? Who’s coming this year? When do tickets go on sale?’ There’s a lot of community goodwill that’s built off of this, as well,” Cook said.
President Dr. Skip Sullivan said the College has come to rely on the Foundation’s support.
“When you look at the way they are supporting our students with scholarships, our faculty with reimbursement for continuing education, our plans for future growth through facility improvements, the Foundation is an essential part of our College going forward. We cannot do what we need to do for students without the Foundation.”
“I encourage people to come out and see Gary Allan, have a good time and do something good to support our community and our students,” Sullivan said.
For more information about becoming a sponsor, contact Cook at dawn.cook@westgatech.edu or 770.537.6010.
West Georgia Technical College, with campuses in Carroll, Coweta, Douglas, Haralson and Troup counties and additional class sites in Heard and Meriwether counties, offers over 110 associate degree, diploma and technical certificate programs of study. A unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, West Georgia Tech is the second largest of the state’s 26 technical colleges and one of the fastest-growing two-year colleges in the nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment