Comedian Jeff Foxworthy invites the residents of southwest Missouri to join him this Friday night at the Black Oak Amp in Lampe, as he looks back at memories and reflects on simpler times.
At 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 7, Foxworthy will take to the stage at the BOA with his ‘The Good Old Days Tour,’ which was announced earlier this year as the first, and at the moment, only stand-up comedy performance of the season for the amphitheater.
Throughout his career, Branson and the surrounding Ozarks have welcomed Foxworthy many times. While it has been a few years since he’s performed in the area, the king of the rednecks shared he always looks forward to returning and having some fun in this neck of the woods.
“That’s one of my favorite parts of the country,” Foxworthy said. “I always enjoy coming there and I always have good shows there. That’s one of those places where, let me think of the right way to phrase this, I don’t have to worry as much about what I say, because I know me and my audience are on the same page.”
On the topic of being on the same page as those coming to see his shows, Foxworthy added at one point in his career he was adapting material in the hopes of not offending anyone. However, these days he said he just wants to be himself while he’s up on stage.
“For my whole career, because I’m not mean spirited, I just wrote with the idea of making people laugh,” Foxworthy said. “Because I would always do, ‘Why do women always do this and men do that?’ Well, then I started getting emails from people going, ‘Well, I’m a woman and I don’t do that,’ or ‘I’m a man I don’t do that.’ So, I’m like, I’ll change it to, ‘I do this and my wife does that,’ and I just kind of got to the point where I thought, ‘When you’re having to edit yourself all the time, because a comic is supposed to be a truth teller.’ We’re supposed to look at things that we do in society and kind of hold it up to people and go, ‘Why do we say this or why do we do that?’ I just kind of reached a point where I’m not out to hurt anybody’s feelings, but I don’t care. I’m just going to try to be funny and not worry about it.”
Foxworthy expressed another reason he enjoys coming out to the Ozarks area is it gives him the chance to partake in one of his favorite things to do.
“Probably most people don’t know this about me, but one of my hobbies when I’m not working is looking for arrowheads,” Foxworthy said. “That area, through the Ozarks there, is one of the best places in the country to look for them. I don’t want to buy them. I just like to find them.”
Foxworthy fans will notice the name of the comedian’s current on the road tour, bears the same name as his Netflix Special “Jeff Foxworthy: The Good Old Days,” which was released in March 2022. For anyone coming out to the Stone County venue on Friday worried about being treated to just an under the sun version of the streaming special, the comic explained there will be some major differences between the two.
“I try to do about 90 minutes. I’m going to do maybe a half hour out of whatever was the last special I did and then a half hour of new stuff and then a half hour of something older that people really like and request. I figure if I do it like that, maybe everybody leaves happy you know,” Foxworthy said, “I try to do a third, a third, and a third now. And some nights it goes a different way. You know, somebody will bring something up and then you’ll go down a path. But when I walk out there, that’s kind of where, in my mind, I’m going to go.”
Foxworthy added not only does he want to give people their money’s worth but, after being in the comedy business for the last four decades, he’s learned there’s a blend of material audiences expect to see from him on stage.
“I like music and I always tell my music friends, ‘Our things are totally different, because if you write four hits you can play till you’re 90, because people drive a long way to hear those four hits.’ Whereas with a comic, especially in the early days, if you did a special or something people would say, ‘That’s funny, but I’ve already seen that material, I want to see something new.’ So you’re always trying to write new stuff,” Foxworthy said. “My brain doesn’t hold but about 90 minutes at a time, so whatever the old stuff was I just flushed it. But then I’d have people coming up and going, ‘Hey, would you please tell that thing about the time you saw your grandmother naked?’ And I’d go, ‘How does that start?’ Because I just can’t recall. But now, I’ve come to appreciate that older stuff, because not everybody’s seen it, especially if they hadn’t seen you in concert before or something.”
When “Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One for the Road” came out in 2006, it was the last stand-up special featuring Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy performing together to be released. Since 17 years have come to pass and the concept of sequels, requels and even reunion specials being more relevant than ever, Foxworthy addressed if reuniting the fellas for a Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Together One Last Time special is in the cards.
“I would love to do that. Out of everything that I’ve ever done in my career, and I’ve enjoyed most of it, that was the most fun thing I had ever done,” Foxworthy said. “A few years ago I had said–, and Ron’s kind of the one that’s not as gung-ho on it as the rest of us, and I had said, ‘Come on Ron. It was so much fun. Let’s do it one more time. Ron said, ‘I can’t write 30 minutes of clean material,’ and I said, ‘You can. We did three Blue Collar Tours and you did it for that.’ He said, ‘OK. I’m too lazy to write 30 minutes of clean material.’ If I had one thing I’d like to do before I hung up my cleats that would be it. I would like to do that one more time…When I hang up with you, I’m texting Ron that. ‘C’mon man, let’s do it one more time.’”
Though a public reunion of the four comics continues to remain a fingers crossed scenario, Foxworthy shared he will be reuniting with Larry the Cable Guy at the 2023 National Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan less than 24 hours after exiting the stage in Lampe.
“I hadn’t worked with Larry in almost a year, so I’m really looking forward to that. Because Larry does such stupid stuff that makes me laugh. When we were doing the Blue Collar Tour, we would be out there on the stools. He was kind of like Tim Conway on ‘The Carol Burnett Show.’ All he wanted to do was make me laugh and so he would go off on these tangents,” Foxworthy said with a chuckle. “I knew if I looked at him that I was going to start laughing, so I would just stare down at the floor. And Ron would consistently lean over and go, ‘Just look at him. Just look at him.’ I’d go, ‘No, hell no. I’m not looking at him. Because if I look at him I’ll laugh and that’s what he wants me to do.’”
For anyone riding the fence about coming out to the BOA on Friday to see the comedian perform his stand-up live, Foxworthy shared this last bit which he wanted to share with everyone; whether they’ve made plans to come and see the show yet or not.
“I was telling my wife this a week or two ago, because somebody asked me, ‘What do you think about before you walk out?’ I’m always kind of reminding myself, ‘OK, everybody you’re looking at is going through something. A physical struggle, a financial struggle, an emotional struggle,’ and so my whole life has just been: ‘Be nice to people.’ Be kind to people because you don’t know their story and you don’t know what they’re dealing with. I don’t think laughter makes people’s struggles go away, but laughter is like that release value that keeps the boiler from exploding,” Foxworthy said. “I told my wife, with all the, golly just all the people yelling at each other and all the dissension in the country and it being so divided I said, ‘Now, as much as any time in my career, I have more people coming back after a show and going, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that.’’ Which for a comic is like such an ultimate compliment, because you know for just a little bit you made them forget about all the bad stuff. You know, just for a little bit. So, correct or incorrect, I think it’s almost therapeutic these days.”
The comedian added, even though he honestly never thought would have been doing stand-up comedy for this long, he’s grateful to still be able to do it; especially following the pandemic.
“For me, I didn’t get up on stage for almost two years and I just missed it every week. I think my wife missed me doing it after a while. She’s like, ‘Don’t you have somewhere to go do a show?’ I’ve learned to still be very grateful to be doing it since we’ve been back, because I still love it,” Foxworthy said. “I mean, I always think I’m the luckiest guy in the world, because I’ve made a living doing something I would have done for free. I just kept my mouth shut when they offered to pay me. I can’t imagine not doing it. I know I probably don’t have many years left to do it, so I’m going to appreciate them while I’ve got them.”
Before Foxworthy takes the stage on Friday evening, audiences will be treated to the comedic stylings of Branson based Comedian Yakov Smirnoff. The famous Russian entertainer is celebrating his 30th season in Branson in 2023 and will be opening for Foxworthy to kick-off the evening of laughter.
Additional concerts planned for BOA this summer include Tom Keifer, Winger and John Corabi on Saturday, Aug. 5; Justin Moore & Scotty McCreery, with special guest Avery Anna on Friday, Aug. 18; Show-Me Fest: Featuring Nelly & Friends on Saturday, Aug. 19; and Tobymac, Cade Thompson and Natalie Layne on Friday, Sept. 1.
The doors will open at 6 p.m. and the show will start at 7:30 p.m. The Black Oak Amp is located at 1728 State Highway H in Lampe.
For additional information or to reserve tickets visit blackoakamp.com.
