Hoyt Axton on Today's Country, 10/29/97
Crook and Chase pose with Hoyt on the set after the taping.
Michael Curtis, Jana Lee, Hoyt Axton, Diana DeWitt, Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase on the air.
Hoyt Axton made his first public appearance in two years Wednesday evening, October 29, 1997 on Crook and Chase's Today's Country on The Nashville Network. Marking his official return to the business following his determined recovery from his stroke ("My doctor told me it was a seven on a scale of ten," he revealed on the air), Hoyt did the customary interview, watched a film clip of himself from the early sixties singing Greenback Dollar, took some phone calls from fans, told some jokes and sang The No No Song. He gave Lorianne and Charlie Jeremiah pins and promised if they wore them that they would get better gas mileage, lower taxes, success with the opposite sex (if that's what they wanted), and large salary increases. They put them on, straight away...
Surrounded off stage by family and friends, Hoyt enjoyed his appearance thoroughly. Michael Curtis dropped by to handle the guitar work, and the background singing was rendered by Diana DeWitt and Hoyt's longtime backup singer and best friend, Jana Lee. Crook and Chase's interview revealed that Hoyt considers his role as Alec's father in the film The Black Stallion to be his greatest achievement, and that his favorite foods are tamales and chili. We can look forward to more public appearances by "The Man" in the future, and "The Latest Hoyt News" section will keep you up to date on where and when. Stay tuned!
By way of apology, your Webmaster wants you to know that this Today's Country appearance was taped on the evening of 10/27/97 and was, in fact, scheduled to air that same evening. As fate would have it, however, the NASCAR race scheduled for 10/26 was rained out and run on the 27th instead, pre-empting the broadcast of Today's Country that evening. The tape was finally aired 10/29. Mark was in Nashville that week (along with his wife, Maggie), taking all of the photos of the event on this page, and was thus unable to update you all regarding the changes in scheduling.
Enjoy the rest of the photos!
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Hoyt at the wheel of his Expedition XLT getting ready to depart his Hendersonville home on the spirited drive to the studios for the taping. "Grizzley be bad, but he be better off hidin'..." |
Another shot of Michael, Jana, Hoyt, Diana, Lorianne and Charlie on the air.
| Michael Curtis warms up backstage before the taping. |
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| Hoyt relaxing prior to going on the set. |
Hoyt's longtime backup singer and best friend, Jana Lee.
Copyright 1997, Mark Weierman. All rights reserved.