MSM 90s Country: First eight
8/14/26
By Monica Collier
Listen, what happened last night at Sheffield's historic Ritz Theatre was a one in a million show. It's true, y'all, the Muscle Shoals Meets the 90s Country concert was one of those super rare concerts very much (metaphorically) akin to a 100-year musical storm.
First off, did y'all see the Shoals Sisters dressed in all black? Marie Lewey and Cindy Walker were giving (wo)men in black Cash-like vibes for sure. Their backing vocals/harmonies were so joyful and as per usual, on point. I promise, by the time their voices reached me up in balcony, they were even more heavenly.
Austin Bohannon kicked off the show with the Brooks and Dunn 90s country standard, "Neon Moon." Then, 18-year-old Addison Myrick, from Colbert Heights, performed Joe Diffie's "Pickup Man." Next, we got our first dose of Matt Prater via John Anderson's powerful and poignant "Seminole Wind."
The first super unique moment of the night happened next. Muscle Shoals music royalty, Mark Hall, took the stage. He told us about his time in the early 1990s representing the FAME catalog in Nashville. Then, Mark performed an iconic 90s country tune he wrote. Yep. "I Like It, I Love It," made popular by Tim McGraw, echoed in the Ritz Theater with Mark Hall at the helm. I wrote this in my notebook: "Is this really happening??" It was very cool, friends.
The next thing I wrote was: "Who's gonna follow that?" Y'all, Ashley Brown followed and she filled those shoes. Her first performance of the night was Jo Dee Messina's empowering anthem, "Heads Carolina, Tails California" and it had us all ready to throw caution to the wind and take some chances in life.
Next, guitar slinger, Jordan Denton, took us for a fun "Watermelon Crawl" and then, our very own Nashville star, Angela Hacker, took the stage. Her first performance of the night was the Wynonna Judd crowd-pleaser, "No one Else On Earth."
What happened next was another super unique moment of the night. Grammy-winning artist and Shoals native son, Gary Nichols, opened his heart and filled the Ritz Theatre with love via his rendition of John Berry's "Your Love Amazes Me." He dedicated the song to fellow musician and girlfriend, Kensie Coppin, and proclaimed "love" to be an underlying theme of the night.
Stay tuned. More to come.
Dig Worms.
