Sean C. Morgan
Brad Paisley will headline the 2004 Oregon Jamboree’s Sunday lineup.
The Jamboree announced six of the artists that will play this year’s festival, the 12th, in August.
Joining Paisley on Sunday will be Pat Green and Pam Tillis. Also playing this year are Neal McCoy, Cowboy Crunch and McQueen.
The Jamboree had a different headliner set up and was preparing to release the name before Christmas.
“I was initially disappointed in it, but our Sunday’s looking really great,” Event Manager Peter LaPonte said. “And I think the headliner we’re going for on Friday will be a great one. We’ve got the makings of a great show, but we’ve still got some holes to be filled too.
“If we can make every day as strong as Sunday, we’ll have a great show,” LaPonte said.
Paisley debuted in 1999 with Who Needs Pictures. He has earned some seven major music awards.
The hilarious smash, “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song),” is Brad Paisley’s most recent hit – making a total of three number-one singles, five top-five hits and seven top 10s to his credit. This song and 12 others make up Paisley’s most recent platinum-certified album, Part II.
Pam Tillis is the daughter of country legend Mel Tillis. Her peers acknowledged her arrival by naming her the CMA Horizon Award recipient in 1991. It would be the first of many awards. She later won Video of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year and a Grammy. Five of her seven albums have been certified gold or platinum, selling five million copies.
She produced six number-one hits; including her first, “Don’t Tell Me What to Do;” 14 top-five hits; and numerous top-20 singles in addition to two back-to-back platinum albums. Other number-one hits include “Mi Vida Loca,” “It’s Lonely Out There,” “In Between Dances” and “Spilled Perfume.”
With Entertainer of the Year and several other awards under his belt, Neal McCoy debuted in 1990 with the album At This Moment. Since then he has produced eight more albums, including No Doubt About It, You Gotta Love That and most recently, 24″7″365.
Pat Green’s last album charted number seven with Billboard and stayed there for a year. His most recent release is Wave on Wave.
On his home turf, the singer/songwriter has become a hero to a legion of rabid fans, having sold nearly 300,000 albums prior to landing a major record label deal, and playing to thousands of ecstatic admirers a night. In the process, he’s helped launch an honest-to-goodness movement that’s led a generation of young Texans to rediscover their regional roots.
Cowboy Crunch is an all-female regional band out of California. McQueen returns for the second to the Jamboree from Canada.
“We spent a lot of time in August and September identifying headline talent,” LaPonte said. “This year, we spent six to eight weeks basically trying to bring an act that in the end didn’t work out.”
Missing a pre-Christmas announcement apparently hasn’t hurt ticket sales, which are more than $100,000 ahead of last year at this time, about $310,000 to $320,000 so far.
Most reserved seating has already been sold, LaPonte said. Only a couple hundred tickets remain for reserved seating.
“I think it takes awhile for a festival to basically become known,” LaPonte said. “I think in our 10th year, we finally got there.”
People attended the Jambore, talked about it and saw the quality continually improve each year, LaPonte said. Now the Jamboree draws an increasing number of visitors from other states, especially Washington.
“I think the thing that makes the Jamboree attractive, it’s a community show … people know about all the volunteers,” LaPonte said. That’s a unique package as the industry goes. “Most of the time it’s a real corporate situation.”
The Jamboree also provides a top value at a cost of about $30 per day over the three-day event, LaPonte said. A business will keep drawing customers when it provides a value, and that’s rare these days.
The Jamboree’s focus on family entertainment, through discounted children’s tickets, also provides a draw, LaPonte said. He also credits the Jamboree site just south of Sweet Home High School, with the backdrop of trees, the covered bridge and other scenery.
“I think these things are what keep people coming back,” LaPonte said.