Mccready, Mccoy Team For Free Show

It’s one of those shows you can’t buy your way into - a free radio station concert featuring Neal McCoy and Mindy McCready at the Spokane Arena Wednesday night.

McCoy and McCready: The concert of the Macs. Too bad it’s not St. Patrick’s Day.

McCready is the fresh-faced newcomer; McCoy, the grizzled veteran. If she’s the one-year wonder - it took her one week less than a year to land a record contract upon arriving in Nashville - he’s the tenacious long-haul contractor who toiled eight years before cracking the market.

Before allowing her 18-year-old wannabe-country-star daughter to leave home for Nashville with a stack of karaoke tapes under her arm, Malinda McCready extracted a promise that if Mindy didn’t have a deal within a year, she would come home and go to college.

Mindy McCready met Nashville heavyweight Norro Wilson her first day in town. He hooked her up with producer David Malloy and 51 weeks later, she inked a deal with RLG Records.

Just as quickly, it seemed, McCready was a star and her song, “Ten Thousand Angels,” was all over country radio, and Reba McEntire was her biggest fan.

“Reba McEntire scared me to death,” McCready recalls. It was a record industry showcase and McEntire was in the audience.

“I mean I have to sit there and sing “Ten Thousand Angels for her… . When I got done crying all the way through the song, she gets up and hugs me and said that was her favorite song.”

What’s more, McEntire said it again the next night, in front of 5,000 folks at an Oklahoma rodeo.

Success searched a little longer for Neil McCoy. Discovered at a Dallas talent show in 1981, he went out opening for Charlie Pride and cut two records, neither one of which sold beans.

McCoy didn’t quit, though. He sold shoes and did all the menial things people do while trying to get a career off the ground. He and his band slogged it out for eight years, entertaining folks with country schtick and a repertoire that included a heavy helpings of Nashville, a touch of Motown and even a couple of novelty numbers. McCoy is such a shameless ham, he covered Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O, The Banana Boat Song” and worked up a country-rap version of “The Beverly Hillbillies Theme Song.”

The latter dittie even showed up on his 1996 record, “Neal McCoy.”

McCoy possesses a fine baritone and has a love for music that stretches all the way from big band to church music. He even admits to having gone through a disco phase in school.

All his hard work paid off in a free-wheeling stage show that aims to please.

“We couldn’t get a hit so we had to make fans as we played in front of them. And now we’ve worked so hard for so long that we’ve gotten the reputation that you’re gonna have fun if you come and see us.

“They come geared to have fun.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT Neal McCoy and Mindy McCready will perform at the Spokane Arena beginning at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets are free courtesy of KDRK-FM (93.7), which is having daily giveaways until the concert. Call 448-8300 for information.