Concert pays tribute to veterans

As Trace Adkins’ voice rumbles along, it seems to offer a tour of working-guy America.

It suggests church choirs and barroom brawls, football games and oil fields. Adkins has been involved with all of them.

During tonight’s “National Memorial Day Concert,” Adkins also will sing about the military experience. He hasn’t been a soldier, but he figures he should have been.

“How can anyone look back and not have regrets?” Adkins asks. “I’ve got thousands of them.

“I chose to go and play college football,” he adds. “I really wish I would have joined the Marines like I’d thought of doing.”

During the concert, he’ll sing the Marine Corps anthem. He’ll also work “I Learned How to Love From You” into a tribute to soldiers and their loved ones.

That’s part of a live, Washington, D.C., event that will also include pop singer Vanessa Williams, opera star Harolyn Blackwell and Erich Kunzel conducting the National Symphony.

There will be comments by veterans of wars in Iraq (Colin Powell), Vietnam (actor Dan Lauria) and World War II’s Normandy invasion (Charles Durning).

Another World War II veteran, Ossie Davis, hosted the concert for 14 years, prior to his death in February at 87. In a speech last year, he praised the show for “the opportunity it affords to reach out to all Americans who have been touched by the pain and sacrifice of war.”

Adkins has been trying to grasp such losses. His new album (“Songs About Me”) includes a powerful piece, “Arlington.”

As a kid, he never saw the usual Memorial Day activities. “My town wasn’t big enough for a parade,” Adkins said.

That was Sarepta, La. With a population of 925, it kept life personal.

“You always knew what everyone was doing,” Adkins recalls. “You couldn’t get away with much.”

As a youngster he strummed the guitar, sang bass in church and played football. He tried to play at Louisiana Tech but was moved to defensive tackle and was practicing against an all-American candidate; an injury cut things short.

Another injury came while he was working on an offshore oil rig. One of his fingers was severed.

For five years, Adkins lived in Dallas, no longer supervised by small-town eyes: “That was really about alcohol and drug use. You get sick of that life.”

He became a gospel singer with the New Commitments, then had his first country album in 1996, with “(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing” hitting No. 1 on the country chart.

His current “Songs About Me” sums up what he’s trying to sing: “Songs about me and who I am, songs about lovin’ and livin’ and good-hearted women, family and God … about scars and cars and broken hearts.”

Another song, “Metropolis,” reflects the view of a guy who can’t wait to leave his little town – then loves it in retrospect. Adkins hasn’t moved back to Sarepta, but he does live on a small-town spread with his wife and five children.

The songs reflect his life – even though Adkins didn’t write them.

“The Career Trace has killed the Songwriter Trace,” Adkins said.

“I don’t know how Toby does it, but I never get time to write.”

That’s Toby Keith, who has a parallel life.

He’s also been a football player and worked on oil rigs.

And both he and Adkins might be big targets for brawlers.

“When I was playing the clubs, there was always some drunken little cowboy who couldn’t go home without getting a good beating,” Adkins says.

“I tried to talk them out of it, but some guys are not going to go home without it.”