The Joey Riley Show

Kurt L Moore

I thought Joey Riley and I were the only two people in Branson who couldn’t sing. I found, after watching the “Joey Riley Show,” I was half right. I am now the only person in the entire area, that I am aware of, who cannot carry a tune. As a young person I was apparently so bad as a singer that when I left the church choir, they were able to figure out what was wrong with the organ. Go figure.

I come by my musical heritage honestly, and should, by all genetic rights be able to sing. My mother played and sang from early childhood and went on to play for many years on the Grand Ole Opry.

Joey sings a pretty darned good song, plays a mean fiddle and makes some of the most awful faces you have ever seen on a Branson stage, or most any place else, for that matter. Joey is the proud owner of a rubbery face that cannot stand still nor can it be photographed very well. Joey has such an elastic face that his tongue has never found it’s proper home. He never gives it a chance to rest. Whether he is playing, singing or just fooling around, his tongue keeps trying to find a niche to rest and apparently can’t. He actually gives flapping one’s tongue a complete new meaning. I would imagine that he has to read his face a bedtime story so it will settle down enough to allow him to sleep at night.

Joey, like many Branson entertainers, is a truly nice and fairly humble guy. He will fool you into thinking that he is just like your neighbor back home. Folks, don’t fall for it. You have never had a neighbor like Joey. Trust me on that one. He is, if you take away his Katzenjammer Kid’s ears, rubbery face, immense musical talent, (honestly gotten), and his great sense of comedic timing, just your average Joe Blow carpooling to the office with the rest of the guys. In other words, he is anything but average. It seems that he cannot say something without it coming out funny. However, in the “Joey Riley Show,” he has a serious side too. Hard to find, granted, but a couple of times in the show he is reverent and serious. I’m sure it almost kills him to do it, because this man was literally born to be funny.

Joey Riley was raised in a little fat spot in the road called Wylie, Texas. Now for those of you who are not familiar with Texas, Wylie sits smack-dab between Plano and Lavon, just outside of Garland which is on the outer rim of Dallas. Just a flyspeck sitting northeast of Dallas, that’s Wylie. Joey’s family ran the Wylie Opry and from the time he was a lad, he grew up playing anything with strings, singing for audiences and getting a musical education that no school has ever, or will ever teach.

Joey has been with Mickey Gilley for 12 years so I have seen him perform on stage in the past. Joey was funny and if memory serves me well, played steel guitar, fiddle, joked with Mickey and wore a silly hat from time to time. I swear, I do not remember him singing. Of course Gilley took the spotlight there. Now Joey has his place in the sun, and it suits him well.

Joey has a well-rounded cast surrounding him onstage like Kaci Bays. Kaci, performing as one of the Urbanettes on the “Mickey Gilley Show,” has been working with Joey for ten years. Kaci is truly a beauty in every classic sense of the word. I found, as a photographer, there is no way to photograph her that does not come out right. If a photo of her is bad, the culprit is I, not her. Kaci has a tremendous vocal quality with a soft feminine voice that carries one to memories of another time and place. Kaci is as feminine a woman as you are ever likely to meet and has a most warm and engaging personality. Kaci and Joey work well together in the show along with the “Get R Done Band,” to create a show chocked full of comedy and music that you will enjoy enough to tell others to come see. You will also want to come back again and again to bring your friends and relatives.

This is Joey’s first outing with his own show. I am proud to say that I saw the ninth show and that it ran smooth from start to finish.

Joey, in the past, had been asked from time to time about doing his own show. He honestly did not think he was capable of it. I asked Joey what had changed his mind, allowing him to give it a whirl. He told me the following story. Apparently, Joey was asked to do the Mickey Gilley Show, solo, with about an hour's warning, before the show was to start. As it was, something had happened and Mickey could not be there. Joey took the bull by the horns, wrestled the critter to the ground, did a complete two-hour show and convinced himself that he really could do his own show. A lot of people already knew he could, but he had to be convinced. Funny, isn’t it, how circumstances, that we may think of as disasters at the time, turn out to change our lives for the better.

Joey’s life is turning out for the better. Because his life is better, so are yours and mine, because we can now go to the “Joey Riley Show.” Joey, we applaud you for your courage to just be you and let us, your loyal audience, enjoy you, Kaci Bays and the “Get R Done Band.”

Editor’s note: Both Joey Riley and Kaci Bays still perform with Mickey Gilley. We also applaud Mickey Gilley, a true gentlemen and master of show business, for allowing them to try their wings.

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