That happened to my son Joe last week. Even though it was planned to be a once in a lifetime event, it turned out even better than expected because of kindness and loyalty and became an evening in South Carolina that will be hard to forget. This story is on the long side because it was 25 years in the making.

In a dimly lit warehouse up the hill from the Nashville Speedway track, my son met country artist Deana Carter for the first time. Her initial album and songs, including the classic ‘Strawberry Wine’ and ‘Did I Shave My Legs for This?’

The next year, with Joe as a member of her fan club, we traveled to hometown of Goodlettsville, Tennessee and attended her first fan club party at the roller rink where she skated as a kid.

That day, we waited anxiously at a table for her to come around for a meet and greet. When she did, my son’s face lit up like never before. He had bought a t-shirt with her picture on it, and he had her autograph the shirt. She asked us to skate with her and she pushed his chair around the rink a couple of times. Some things you don’t forget.

In 2019 she performed at Charles Esten’s charity show in Nashville before the CMA Fest.

She spotted us when she arrived and quickly said we’d connect after the show as she made her way backstage. After everyone performed, we nervously sat around for a half hour wondering if she forgot about us and then Jim, her husband, came out and brought us backstage to the green room.

For 30 minutes fan and star hung out in a real 'once in a lifetime' event. Joe and Deana chatted, she signed the t-shirt again for the 15th of 16 times and made my son feel like the most important person in the world. Again. Some things you don’t forget.

Although we moved back to Massachusetts in 2006, we kept going to Nashville every year, but really needed more country music. Let me rephrase that: my son needed more country music.

It started in a small barbecue joint in Franklin, Tennessee in 2015 on one of our trips, when we saw a rising artist, Jilly Martin, who just happened to be from Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

We started going to her shows when we came back home, and soon she connected with Ryan Brooks Kelly and formed the band 'Martin and Kelly'. My son followed their career and schedule, and if they were playing within 2 hours of our home, we were there. Some shows started at 7 pm, but others started at 10 pm and went to 1:30. After a 90-minute drive home, we often went to sleep after 3 pm. 

Since that first show in 2015, we’d seen Martin and Kelly play more than 200 times in six states, in dozens of venues. They countrified Avicii’s song ‘Wake Me Up’ and sometimes dedicated it to me because they knew I had to take a nap to attend the late shows. They usually did a specific song for my son during most shows.

Martin and Kelly have performed up and down the eastern seaboard and, of course, in Nashville, but no one has seen as many shows as my son. No one is even close. Since they also do acoustic appearances without a band, we’ve joked that Joe has been to more shows than their bass player, and it is true.

Needless to say, my son knows every word to every original song Martin and Kelly and Deana Carter have released. He knows all the words to all the covers they play as well. (For two years as a fundraiser for the March of Dimes, Martin and Kelly played at Loretta’s Last Call, made famous by my Boston Marathon in 2021, and helped raise over $10,000 for the cause).  

Time goes by for all of us, and this year the 25^th Anniversary of Deana Carter’s debut album and the start of her career was celebrated by Capitol Records, and she went on tour, including a gig as a presenter on the recently nationally televised CMA Music Awards.

Since Joe follows her on Facebook, he always knows where she is performing. He also follows Martin and Kelly and last week, we were startled to find out that Martin and Kelly were opening for Deana Carter in…Sumter, South Carolina on Friday night, less than a week away.

The obvious question was how could we miss such a show? It was only 852 miles away. I was sure that we could make it there in 11 or 12 hours: a two-hour drive to Boston airport, some airport time, a two-hour flight to Charlotte and a two-hour drive from Charlotte to Sumter. Some might think that is too much trouble and too much money, but it was a once in lifetime chance to see two favorite acts on the same stage on the same night and it would be a Christmas present for my son that would be hard to forget.

As a former professional traveler, I know a thing or two about booking travel, so I arranged a couple of discount tickets on American Airlines with a free rental car and redeemed some points for two free nights at the Holiday Inn Express in Sumter. Easy. We left on Thursday, watched the Patriots defeat the Falcons from our hotel room that night, and at 5 pm on Friday, headed for downtown and the Sumter Opera House.

We took our seats about an hour before the show, in the front row, and waited patiently. Martin and Kelly came out, we clapped, hardly believing that we were actually there. They sang their signature songs and Joe sang along and (illegally) recorded them.

Jilly pointed at Joe from the stage, and in the ‘this one’s for you’ mode they performed one of his favorites for him, to huge applause from the sold-out crowd of 5,500. The night was off to a great start.

About 30 minutes into Martin & Kelly's set, the opera house manager tapped me on the shoulder and said that Deana and her husband wanted to see us in the green room. We hurried back and sure enough in about ten minutes, she was hugging Joe and telling us how happy she was to see us and couldn’t believe we traveled all that way. She had spoken with Martin and Kelly earlier, so she knew the connection we had with them.

We hung out in the green room for about 20 minutes, Martin and Kelly joined after their set, and stories were swapped, and laughs were everywhere as talk about the years gone by and Joe’s fan loyalty took center stage. 

At one point, Deana said that her longest relationship of her life was with…Joe.

When we left the green room, we thought the highlight of the night had happened, but we were wrong, very wrong.

Back in our seats, singing along and still (illegally) taping song after song. Deana paused and told the audience the story of a fan who had traveled from Boston to see the show, had been a fan for 25 years, and how much she appreciated him.

Before she finished, audience members were shouting ‘Joe, Joe,’ and he waved at them with tears in his eyes. She dedicated her next song to Joe: ‘Count Me In’ and blew him a kiss from the stage after the song. Very hard to forget.

The show went on, and when it ended, Deana and her husband waved at Joe again, and we left. On our way out, people called out “Hi Joe.” A real celebrity.

I could tell you this was a story about planning or coincidence or adventure, and while that might be true, this was really a story about dedication. To artists, to fans, to music, and to caring. Caring and dedication are what make once in a lifetime events happen. Some things you don’t forget.

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