Country singer Terri Clark in one of her iconic cowboy hats (Courtesy of Sycuan Casino)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nClark was raised in Medicine Hat, Alberta. She got the love for country music from her grandparents, Ray and Betty Gauthier, who had their own music careers and had even appeared on bills with the likes of George Jones and Johnny Cash.<\/p>\n
The Sycuan show will be Clark\u2019s first performance in the San Diego region in almost four years, although she really likes performing here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s not to love, especially this time of year,\u201d Clark said, adding that she has taken up golf since her last visit, and looks forward to playing some of the area\u2019s courses.<\/p>\n
As Clark described it, she is \u201ca little off the cuff with the audience\u201d during her performances. She likes to walk around the cities and towns where she performs and eat at local restaurants. This enables her to talk to the audience about where they live.<\/p>\n
Clark described her music as coming \u201cfrom a place of empowerment, rather than being a victim.\u201d She observed that people, particularly women, seem to gravitate to this theme. Being \u201csomewhat a voice for them,\u201d her songs tell them \u201cit\u2019s OK to dream to dream big and go after what you want in life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I\u2019m a] big believer of pulling yourself up and going for it \u2026 whether it is in the fields or as a nurse in an emergency room. Country music depicts that lifestyle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
To Clark, great country songs are authentic, real, and honest and \u201ctell a story that weaves into your psyche.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said songs like \u201cGood Ole Boys Like Me\u201d by Don Williams, \u201cEverything that Glitters Is Not Gold\u201d by Dan Seals, and \u201cWhiskey Lullaby\u201d by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss are examples of the kind of story songs that represent the best of good country music. This type of song is coming back because country is a wide format.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have the Judds in one corner, Dwight Yoakam in another, and Mary Chapin Carpenter in another,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Late last year, Clark performed at the bedsides of 35 veterans in the Nashville VA Hospital as part of the Musicians on Call initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got more out of it than they did,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Some of the vets could not talk and were confined to their beds. As she performed, Clark said she saw one vet slowly smile and break out into a big grin, then open his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic is a universal language that speaks to the heart,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Clark recalled a performance some months prior, in a pouring rain that left an audience dwindled to about 50 people. When she later performed at the Nashville VA hospital, she encountered a veteran who was one of those who remained in the rain to hear her perform.<\/p>\n
In addition to Musicians On Call, Clark has also supported the Lisa Ross Parker Foundation, a charity located in Nashville dedicated to assisting and caring for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related cancers, and their families. Clark, along with her fans, also helped establish a well in Uganda as part of The Water Project.<\/p>\n
Terri Clark plays the Sycuan Casino March 3 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $49 and $59 and can be purchased at Sycuan.com\/entertainment\/.<\/p>\n
\u2014J.S. Anderson is a freelance writer, a former Marine and a retired college administrator. Reach him at o6rider@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By J.S. Anderson<\/p>","protected":false},"author":785,"featured_media":228576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Hats off to Terri Clark","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/785"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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