Lee Greenwood cut his musician's and performer's teeth working the dark, smoky lounges of Las Vegas. For nearly two decades he played in commercial bands at night, mostly on weekends, while spending the rest of the week as a blackjack dealer in the casinos.
In the early '60s, Greenwood was a teenager living on the east coast when he was asked to be in a band that eventually became The Rascals. He opted to go west instead, and take advantage of the…entire summary
Lee Greenwood - lead vocals, guitar, piano
Gene Lorenzo - keyboards
Mickey Olson - keyboards
Nick Urhing - rhythm guitar, vocals
Paul Urhing - bass, vocals
Harry Robinson - guitar, banjo, pedal steel
Mark Greenwood - drums
Lee Greenwood cut his musician's and performer's teeth working the dark, smoky lounges of Las Vegas. For nearly two decades he played in commercial bands at night, mostly on weekends, while spending the rest of the week as a blackjack dealer in the casinos.
In the early '60s, Greenwood was a teenager living on the east coast when he was asked to be in a band that eventually became The Rascals. He opted to go west instead, and take advantage of the booming Vegas club scene.
What initially appeared to be a great steady income eventually framed him into a one-note. After spending years honing his songwriting and vocals, Greenwood had to spend most of time playing standards and covers to patrons who weren't that interested in what he was doing.
He supplemented his income doing commercial jingles, and like Barry Manilow, landed gigs writing and recording these jingles for McDonalds and Coors (note: Greenwood takes advantage of this by performing jingles in the show featured here.) Eventually, one of his demos made it to the A&R crowd in Nashville. Impressed with his song writing talent, they encourage Greenwood to move to Nashville and become a professional writer. He did just that, and wrote a few hits for other country stars like Kenny Rogers. Soon after that he found himself recording his first album.
By the time Greenwood recorded this show for the Silver Eagle Cross Country Radio Concert Series in 1984, he had already become one of country music's biggest stars, propelled by the patriotic hit, "God Bless the U.S.A." Greenwood is squeaky clean and puts on a show that is easily digested by the entire family, even if it does contain a heavy dose of Vegas schlock in between songs.
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