Katie Braxton is a cutie for sure, but that's just looking at her from across the street as she takes the stage on main street in Jones, Oklahoma.  She's come to perform for Old Timers Day, and I'm there visiting family.  My wife's daugher has just built a new house near Jones, and we drove up from central Texas to see the new digs.  We knew in advance about Old Timers Day because Wendy and Brian (he's Wendy's squeeze) were in charge of the vintage car show, and they'd asked me to be a judge.  I love old cars and agreed to do that, but I didn't expect to get much out of the little gathering.  I've been to too many small town shindigs, know what they're like, and generally try to avoid them.  But we were there to visit, and Rojo Grande, the wife, even set up a booth to hawk some of her homemade soaps and lotions.  I checked out the old cars, turned in my judging forms, and then went down the street to see what was going on at my wife's booth.  That's when I saw and heard Katie.  

Actually, I suppose I heard her first.  My wife's booth was just across the street from where they'd set up the stage, and I'm sitting there visiting with her, and all of a sudden I hear this old country song.  It's one I liked a lot back when it was popular many years ago, and so I look around to see who's singing . . . and there's Katie Braxton on stage belting out this vintage country song.  Damn!  What a set of pipes, I'm thinking.  This little gal can sing, and so I get up and move closer.  She singing to canned music background, but it's still great stuff I'm hearing.  My roots go way back with country music, at least to the fifties, and I've spent some time in the company of real pros in the business . . . and now I'm standing on a street in tiny Jones, Oklahoma listening to a young lady sing who can hold her own with the best of them.  I move a little closer again.

Down in Nashville about 15 years ago, I sat in a motel cafe late one night and visited with a songwriter who'd been hanging around that town for some time.  "It ain't about just having a good voice down here," he told me, "cause lots of folks in this town can sing.  It's having a voice that's different, sort of unique, but at the same time not so different that it takes something away from country.  Down here, you don't mess with country."  Those words come back to me as I watch Katie sing, listen to her old style voice quality.  She's singing Patsy Cline and making it sound good.  She's different, but she's country.  And she's up there singing with some presence, like she's not just accustomed to the stage, but like she owns it.

It's hard to say where a good voice comes from, but genetics surely play a role.  Katie's mother sang a few songs, and her kid brother did a couple of sets too.  It's not hard to see that those two apples sure didn't fall far from the tree.  There's plenty of talent in the family . . . but Katie's voice is special because it's so unique.  That's not training, not something that's taught or learned.  I saw and heard other talented people that Saturday in Jones, which made the little gathering all the more surprising.  Some lady sang spiritual songs that morning, did a great job.  Others performed well, but Katie stole the show.  I've got a feeling she's used to that - stealing the show, that is.

Later that afternoon, my friend Boz from Oklahoma CIty shows up.  Katie takes the stage again, and I turn to him and say, "You're not going to believe this."  Three song into her set, she'd won him.  He just looked at me and shook his head.  I explained that she was a local girl, married and with a child.  I had visited with her earlier, told her I did some writing, that I'd like to do an article on her.  It's an old story about a kid with talent who just never quite got the break it takes to make it.  She's got nothing on tape, just sings around places locally when she gets a chance.  I visited with her husband a little, got the impression that Katie was not all that interested in pushing hard to be a star in the music business.  I didn't ask a lot of questions, didn't talk with them long enough to find out a lot.  I didn't need to.

So . . . what do you tell a 23 year old woman who's got a voice big and different enough to make her a success in the music business?  Do you say, "Hey, kid, you need to get out there and go for it.  You need to give it all you've got and see what happens."  For all I know, maybe Katie has already given it all she cares to.  Maybe she doesn't crave Nashville or the stage like lots of aspiring singers . . . and if she doesn't, that's fine with me.  She's still a terrific singer, and whether or not she ever shows that wonderful voice to the world is nobody's business but her own.  I don't know what other people have told her, and I don't care.  I'm certainly not the first person to recognize her talent . . . not unless the rest of the world is deaf and blind.  I just know what I saw and heard, and that was a star that might never shine anywhere except over Oklahoma.

I'll wait a while, then send Katie a note and encourage her to pursue her singing wherever and whenever she can.  And I'll offer to help, for whatever that's worth.  It might not be worth much, since I've been out of the loop for quite some time.  But you never know when that phone call you make turns into something productive.  If and when Katie decides she wants to do more with her singing . . . well, I've got a telephone, and I've still got some numbers.
 
D. Paz, 10/9/07