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The folks who showed up at the Kessler Theater on Friday night to see The Gourds and The Naptime Shake perform got a nice little gift when, out of the blue, Johnny Rodriguez stopped by the venue, seemingly on a whim, and ended up performing his hit “That’s The Way Love Goes” with the Austin-based headliners.
And that’s quite the treat indeed: Rodriguez topped the country charts and won various CMA Awards in the ’70s as “the first Latin American country music
singer”; he’s been honored by three U.S. presidents (he even played George H.W. Bush’s inaugural ball); and, according to Wikipedia, he’s got a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. Oh, and he was acquitted on murder charges back in ’99.
Now, I guess, he crashes shows? More power to him.
After the jump, Kessler manager Jeff Liles explains how Rodriguez was coaxed into joining The Gourds on stage for the above performance. Spoiler Alert: Technology is pretty incredible.
On Friday night, legendary Country singer Johnny Rodriguez showed up at The Kessler without any head’s up from his management or booking agent.
The Gourds were our headliner, and he had never heard them, or heard of them. While he smoked a cigarette out on the front porch, I asked him if he wanted to get up and sing a song between sets. He said he didn’t feel like doing doing it without a band, so I told him to give a song title and what he key he normally plays it in. Then I went upstairs to the Green Room, where The Gourds were waiting to go on.
They Googled his big hit on an iPhone, learned it in about five minutes, and the two artists literally met onstage at The Kessler during the middle of their set.
Awesome.
