On Saturday, June 30, The Mall at Johnson City hosted a Hometown Heroes Celebration. The fun-filled day included inflatables and face painting for the children; food trucks offering a variety of great-tasting food for everyone; an opportunity to witness the induction of a group of young people joining the U.S. Army; a way to say thank you to area first responders and military personnel; and even a fashion show. But, many of those in attendance (some who traveled from as far away as Kentucky, Virginia, and even Illinois) were there for the grand finale’ – a performance from country music’s Michael Ray.
Country’s Chatter posted our first aritcle aboutr Michael back in 2010. Since that time, we have attended several of his concerts, and written dozens of articles about this great artist and his music. The Saturday night show gave us a little bit of ‘everything Michael’ – from his hits like “Kiss You In The Morning” , “Real Men Love Jesus” and “Get To You”, to new music like “Fan Girl”, “Forget About It” and “Summer Water”, from his new album “Amos” – he even ioncluded “Run Away With You”, which he co-wrote with John Rich (and was recorded by Big & Rich back in 2015). We even heard David Lee Murphy’s “Dust on the Bottle”. The show was the perfect mix of fast and slow, old and new, with a bit of time of Michael to chat wit his audience during his performance.
For those of you who have not had an opportunity to see Michael on stage, you really need to put this on your ‘to do’ list. Head over to his website, and pick out a show close to you. A Michael Ray show is about more than the singing. It’s about the way he connects with his audience. He singles you out, waves, smiles, points – and shouts an occasional ‘Hello’ out to someone in the crowd. He has a personality that jumps off the stage.
But, it isn’t just Michael that is fun to watch, it’s the whole band. they work so well together, and the band is having fun. It almost makes you want to jump up on stage and jump around with them. We will include photos of the band members with photos below this article, but we do want to share their names with all of you here. Sharing the stage with Michael were Lucas Chamberlain, lead guitar; Johnathan Sepulveda, bass; Jeff Coleman, lead guitar; and Kyle Wilkerson, drums. .
Sponsors of this great event included the U.S. Army, East Tennessee State University, Home Trust Bank, Olson’s Martial Arts Academy, The Baxter-Milhorn Group, Keller-Williams Tri-Cities, Ballad Health, Office of Veterans Affairs, Childress Commercial Property Maintenance, The Mall at Johnson City, and WXBQ 96.9 FM. (Pictured, on-air personality Marc Tragler with the WXBQ Rabbit).
To keep up with all the latest news about Michael, visit his website at MichaelRayMusic.com or follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/MusicMichaelRay, Instagram @michaelraymusic and Twitter @MichaelrayMusic.
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