Randy Travis’ life story is a movie waiting to be made. From troubled North Carolina teenager to Nashville club cook and dishwasher, to platinum 1st album, membership in the Grand Ole Opry, to DUI arrest and jail sentence, to heart attack and stroke, to the Country Music Hall of Fame, to living legend – Randy Travis’ life is a country music song in itself.
Travis debut album Storms of Life in 1986 not only took country music by storm but was a prelude to the storms to come in his life.
Randy Travis’s Life Story and Music Played Out at Bama Theater
Last night the man who most profess saved traditional country music brought his life story and his music to the historic Bama Theatre. Randy can no longer perform due to the lasting impact of the stroke, but the unique presentation was no less entertaining, informative, nostalgic and inspiring.
Randy was helped onstage by his beautiful and supportive wife Mary to a thunderous welcome by a crowd that reflected all generations. For the next 90 minutes or so she recounted Randy’s story accompanied by countless photos and videos from the entertainer’s remarkable life.
Mary recounted how doctors urged her to “pull the plug” and prematurely end the Randy Travis story in 2013. “I think Randy, there was never a doubt in his mind that he could make it through it. It was that magical moment that I went to his bedside when they said, ‘We need to pull the plug. He’s got too many things going against him at that point.’ He had gotten a staph infection and three other hospital-born bacterial viruses like Serratia, Pseudomonas, one thing after another, and the doctors were just saying, ‘He just doesn’t have the strength to get through this,'” Mary told the supportive Bama crowd
“I knew at that point in time, because he had every odd in the world against him, that he wasn’t giving up. And I was so encouraged by that, to be honest. He was my inspiration,” Mary added.
Travi’s story is also told in his book, Forever and Ever, Amen: A Memoir of Music, Faith, and Braving the Storms of Life and Diane Diekman’s appropriately named Randy Travis: Storms of Life.
Mary credits Randy’s perseverance with the development of the tour. The pair, as a team, decided to tell his story to not only keep his music alive but to give hope to anyone facing significant life problems.
RT’s Alter Ego – James Dupre
James Dupre, Travis’ alter ego, backed by his boss’s longtime band, took the audience through the Randy Travis songbook, singing hit after hit. You didn’t have to close your eyes to imagine you were listening to RT himself. Dupre looks amazing like a young Randy Travis and has a baritone voice that sounds exactly like him.
It is no wonder Travis chose Dupre to help tell his musical story. Dupre is a talent himself. Rolling Stone Magazine labeled him one of the “Country Artists You Need to Know”. His backstory is also intriguing. He was once an aspiring meteorologist who became a paramedic and then took his talent to the internet where he became a YouTube sensation. His obvious talent took him to television for appearances on “Ellen” and NBC’s “The Voice”.
After charting several song’s Dupre moved to acting, landing a part in the movie “The Price” playing the son of, wait for it….Randy Travis. From there he was chosen by Mary and Randy to perform Travis’ music in the “More Life” tour that came to Tuscaloosa last night.
Travis Not Done With “Singing”
Randy Travis still wants to create music. He can’t vocalize songs he writes but artificial intelligence can. He has used AI to create “One in a Row”, his first music the singer has released since suffering the stroke six years ago.
Mary explained how they use AI to create new songs: “AI will be able to use Randy’s vocal from the stems and create a whole new song from a song that may not be completed. And it may work with another artist to co-write, to finish it. And I think the sky’s the limit and AI is a wonderful tool if used correctly, just like the telephone, the computer, everything else in life that we use every day now and take for granted, at one point in time, it was as frightening as AI is today.”
The use of AI has drawn critics who fear what that might mean to the music industry, but Mary and Randy see it as a way for him to continue to tell his stories.
The evening at the Bama concluded, as it should have, with Dupre singing Travis’ 2011 mega hit “Forever and Ever, Amen”. The audience remembered that Travis actually sang “Amazing Grace” at his 2016 Country Music Hall of Fame induction and with hundreds of cameras at the ready, they were not disappointed when the legend himself punctuated the end by singing the word “Amen”.
It was the perfect end to the night, leaving the audience to exit the theatre with a renewed feeling of hope, that no matter the problems, faith, perseverance, support and willpower will help us through it. The “More Life” tour is appropriately named.