Bucky Covington Makes Every Show Count

Bucky Covington photo courtesy of Lyric Street Records

May 28, 2008 — The summer months are marked by outdoor shows, and some of them — including several festivals and Kenny Chesney’s stadium concerts — have drawn 40,000 or more people. It would be easy to get keyed up for a performance of that magnitude but then let down a bit for a show in a club for maybe 500 fans, but the best live artists give their all no matter the setting. Bucky Covington understands that well. He reached approximately 30 million people each time he performed as a contestant on "American Idol," but he’s also been reminded by Sawyer Brown’s lead singer that even small audiences can be crucial.

"Mark Miller, my producer, told me a long time ago, ‘Even if there’s only five people in the crowd, always do the best show you can do,’" Bucky explains. "He said, ‘A long time, I had this show, it wasn’t hardly nobody there, [and] my performance showed. I was kinda let down, and I didn’t put on a great show. Then after the show,’ — mind you, Mark Miller is a huge basketball fan — Larry Bird comes up to him. He said, ‘Now, there’s nobody at this show, but Larry Bird, my all-time hero, is sittin’ in the crowd, and I didn’t give a good show ‘cause I didn’t think the gig really mattered that much.’"

Bucky got the message: "So definitely all of them are very important to me."

Bucky is set to play for 20,000+ at Nashville’s LP Field on Sunday, June 8, the closing night of the CMA Music Festival. He shares the stage that evening with Billy Ray Cyrus, Dwight Yoakam, Randy Travis, James Otto and Sara Evans.