From the 70s to the 90s, country music made a definite turn, influenced by rock and such artists as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Juice Newton, Garth Brooks, and George Strait. It became more mainstream, finding “Friends in Low Places.” As shown in Florida Studio Theater’s Goldstein Cabaret, it became more intimately connected to its audiences, identifying with their experiences and feelings.
A title song introduces the mixed-aged singer-musicians of both sexes, to the drumming of Grant Watkins. Joe Casey, who’s most often a narrator, announces the country music the group will deliver is “music for everyone.” So the guys’ “I’m the One Mama Warned You About” is followed up by Carrie Lyn Brandon’s “Queen of Hearts” with fitting music made by Madalyn McHugh on keyboard. The youngest guy, Joshua Logan Alexander, is first featured with the clever “Me Neither” that involves set-up situations ending with knock-downs.
“Good Hearted Woman” by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson shows how famous country musicians evolved. When Joe Casey announces “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys,” he doesn’t have to ask the opening night audience to clap during the performance, they’ve already started upon hearing the title.
The clapping shifts a bit later as a shift in sensibility takes place from Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” to the group doing “Mountain Music” to end Act I.
Act II starts instrumentally, mainly on the prominent guitars, then launches into Joe Casey proclaiming “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” and summoning Joshua Alexander to join in nonchalantly. Because, as Grant Watkins explains, especially in Florida, Jimmy Buffet “can’t be left out,” Grant sings an extended “Margaritaville.” Joshua sings perhaps the funniest song in the program, “As She’s Walking Away” — with his emotional admission of how much he’s going to miss his gal.
There’s a bit of fun competition between the women and the men in the songs of Act II, such as the latter’s “We Didn’t See a Thing” and the women’s “We’re Too Pretty for Prison.” But “It’s Your Love” is undeniably romantic.
“Take Me Home Country Road” unites guys and gals before the end of Act II. That’s as it should be, since all in the cast perform well together instrumentally, vocally, and emotionally, under the capable direction of Catherine Randazzo.
Andrew Gray’s varied lighting scheme makes the curtained backdrop in shades of light (sometimes twinkling) and dark, full of color or the opposite, matching the message of the songs. Susan Angermann’s costumes “say country”—nothing too shabby or too dressy. Sound allows the audience to easily hear the lyrics while appreciating differences in their mood. Friends in Low Places maintains Richard and Rebecca Hopkins’s years of success following the progress of country music in their cabaret creations.
