It’s sort of a rule that actors aspire to be musicians, while musicians dream of being actors. It’s also generally true that, given the chance, neither performs well enough at their alternate career to be more than a curiosity. One exception to this is Billy Bob Thornton, the Academy Award winning actor who has released several well-regarded and quirky albums. Thornton was in Huntsville this weekend with his new band the Boxmasters for two shows. since we missed him the last time he was here, my wife and I jumped on tickets early for the Saturday show.

The day started off with an interview segment, moderated by a lady from the Bravo channel (I think), where Thornton discussed his life and career and fielded a few questions from the audience. Thornton is something of a rustic raconteur, so it was entertaining, although there were no real revelations, unless you count the fact that Thornton weighs only 143 pounds as revealing.

After a supper break, we were on to the actual show. the Boxmasters, their normal three members augmented by four additional musicians, emerged, after a cartoon featuring the band, dressed in stylish retro-style suits. they played a set of what Thornton had earlier described as “hillbilly music”, mostly from their recently released Boxmasters album. the songs were strong, with some entertaining humor, with lyrics such as,

“Darling, I’ll give you a ring
When you give back my balls.”

There were also some unusual cover songs, also taken from the Boxmasters CD, a highlight being the Who’s “The Kids are Alright”. with a lit cigarette constantly in his hand, Thornton sang and demonstrated his showmanship, while the musicians performed at a high level.

After a 45 minute set, the Boxmasters took an intermission, and came back out having shed their suits for T-shirts and jeans, and played a much more energetic, rock-n-roll oriented second set, with many of the songs drawn from Thornton’s 2007 album Beautiful Door. Thornton and his band proved to be just as adept at the more uptempo tunes as they had been with the more countryish selections in the first set.

A mostly instrumental encore featured Thornton on drums, and allowed the others to showcase their musical abilities at greater length.

Although a lot of people would think a movie star such as Billy Bob Thornton playing music to be something of an indulgent joke, he is the real deal. with strong songwriting skills, his show should appeal to any fans of Americana or 60s/70s era rock. May wife and I (and the audience) enjoyed ourselves a lot.

BW took a number of pictures, but they turned out poorly. the following is flawed, but I think it’s unintentionally interesting:

NP: Dwight Yoakam, “Twenty Years”

A Disordered Mind: Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters