Blue-collar roots shape performers music
Thursday, April 7, 2016 2:00 AM
News
Pittsburg, KS
The next big performer to take the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts stage is an artist whose music reflects his blue-collar, Midwestern roots. Country music star Josh Thompson will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 20. Opening for Thompson will be Brody Caster, a current PSU student who recently signed a record deal with Nashville-based SMG Records.
Thomson, the son of a Wisconsin concrete worker, seemed destined to follow in the steel-toed boots of his father, but took a path to Nashville, instead.
“I got a guitar for my birthday when I was 21 years old,” Thompson said. “I asked my parents for it because I wanted to play songs around the campfire. I wanted to learn to play Merle Haggard and Tom T. Hall songs.”
Thompson not only learned to play the guitar, but also began writing.
“What made me want to play guitar and write songs was what attracted me to country music,” Thompson said. “People like George Jones, Merle Haggard, Hank Senior, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Snow and Lefty Frizzell. That was the country I was first introduced to.”
After some early rejections, Thompson finally made it to Nashville in 2005, where he signed his first publishing deal. Four years later, he signed his first recording contract. His first label, Columbia Records, released his debut album, “Way Out Here,” in 2010, which offered two Top-20 singles, “Beer On The Table” and “Way Out Here,” and the romping “Won’t Be Lonely Long.”
Thompson’s second album, “Turn It Up,” debuted in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and produced two singles, “Cold Beer With Your Name On It” and “Wanted Me Gone.”
Thompson recorded some of his most personal songs for a third and fourth albums, “Change: The Lost Record, Volume One” and “Change: The Lost Record, Volume Two.” Those albums include songs that tell the story of Thompson’s humble, yet rich childhood like “Daddy Had A Beer” and the morals and ethics he was raised with like “I Like To Believe In That.”
“As a songwriter, I’ve written every style of country music,” Thompson said. “When it comes to what I want to put on my own records, I’ve never had any desire to chase anything that’s popular. What I like about country music is the honesty and the thoughtful lyrics. Good or bad, that’s the old man in me.
“I think if there’s one thing people can cling to it’s their beliefs and their way of life. I think people need that simplicity in country music. People who hear this record will know how I was raised, they know that I’m into working hard and drinking beer, they know that I’m a Christian and they know I sometimes tend toward the dark side. These songs are my picket sign – they’re all I got.”
Tickets for the performance range from $15-$30 and may be purchased at the Pittsburg State University Ticket Office in the Weede P.E. Building, 1701 S. Homer, 620-235-4796 or online at www.pittstate.edu/tickets. Discounts are available for PSU faculty, staff and students.