Other than the media vans of NBC 5, WFAA 8, and KRLD 1080 parked out front, it was business as usual at The Heart Hospital at Baylor Plano on the morning of Thursday, July 11. Still, there was a palpable awareness inside that country music legend Randy Travis was being treated at the hospital, where he's been since Monday when he was transferred from Baylor Medical Center in McKinney.
The hospital's PR department can't say more right now than that Travis was in critical condition. They did say that the hospital has received lots well-wishes for Travis over the phone and social media, for which the family was very grateful.
Travis' music has touched so many lives, so we made our next stop at famed honky-tonk Love & War in Texas, a restaurant, bar and venue in Plano, to see what average country fans thought of the situation.
See also: -Randy Travis Proved He Hasn't Lost a Step at Billy Bob's Texas
At around noon, L&W, which is about as Texan as a restaurant can get, hosted mostly people on lunch break from work. John Moulden, who owns a landscaping company based in Plano, told me that Travis is a legend who'd be missed. He admires that Travis is an "old school country musician." Whereas much of today's country music is becoming more and more pop, Moulden loves how Travis is "the type to just pick up an acoustic guitar and sing from his heart."
James Sutton, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, says Travis is a true country singer-songwriter, unlike much of today's country, which, according to Sutton, is mostly "tanning beds and designer cowboy hats."
L&W manager Courtney Portwood has always been a fan of Travis and said that it'd be a shame to lose a member of such a great generation of true country music artists. Travis has had his share of issues in the past, but Portwood thinks that the media focuses on them too much. She points out that Travis has done a lot of good deeds as well, including performing at Chris Kyle's memorial service back in February.
For now, we can only hope that Travis, whose legacy is already chiseled into music history, gets healthy again.
