European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 26, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Actor Dennis Weaver my performed at London fest. Is ii Dan Warfield Don Williams doing his thing in London Conway Twitty stayed Home audience finally Learned by Chance. Backstage at the Hank Thompson joined the Nashville invasion. Page 12 by Dan Wak Kieu is entertainment editor j  ski Kcal frowning English country music fans craned their necks trying to Sec past the bbl s Cherry \ picker cameraman from their front Row seats Al i Ondon s packed Wembley Empire Pool. Canadian Carroll Baker introduced her version of a Conway Twitty Standard with a Little speech that began. Since Conway can t lie with us tonight the 1 2.000-seat Hall was suddenly quiet nut Complete silence but the kind of tense mumbling that sweeps a stadium when the Home team s Quarter Buck is Down and moaning and three grim faced Guys inem Breakers Are running across the Field carrying towels bandages and the water bottle visions of not squads flashing before his eyes promoter Mervyn Conn leaped from his Seal and headed for the backstage area at a Trot Baker a relatively new coun try Singer whose performance was one of the pleasant surprises at Conn s ninth annual country music festival had blown Conn s cover unexpectedly right in the Middle no Lur set Only an hour before second night Hadl Iier Twitty was scheduled to be crooning on stage the audience still had t been told the Star had elected to stay Huinia in Nashville link or did t know myth Nir was wrong and kept on singing and by the Lime sin was done the crisis had passed Conn never got around to making his apologies the stars and stripes irom the stage and the show went on. Loretta Lynn closed the show alone and finished the show with an uninspired but adequate performance. The official explanation for the no show was a vague tale of bomb threats in Nashville that kept a reluctant twisty Home to protect his family from unspecified Cra Ziesche unofficial Story making the rounds in the press Box was that Twitty had wanted to come to London a few Days Early and wanted promoter Conn to buy the air plane ticket Conn then supposedly told Twitty to ride the Iran air charter with everybody else or pay his own Way. Whereupon Conway told Mervyn to stuff it. Or something. Whatever the truth of it. Conway never appeared. But then one no show in t bad for any kind of three Day musical event. Loretta was not in her Best form even though she still has the pure Youthful voice of her Early Days. It s nol her Early Days anymore and she was in the spirit of he weekend reeling from the Gauntlet run by most of the weekend s imports from Nashville. It started with the inevitable effects of the charter flight from new York in the hold and in the Pale Green catacombs that passed for dressing rooms and press office Al the concert Hall the stars stumbled and yawned Ami forgot what they were talking about As they tried to beat off the persistent Haze they came up with All the usual remedies after coming Down off a transatlantic crossing drinking too much not drinking anything staying awake i Billic to Spears came on stage after not sleeping for 36 hour sleeping twice As lung As Normal silting in saunas nothing works of course except youth or Acca. To Wesley Rose a Grey haired wide awake Nad publisher that evil noisemaker the concorde. 7 the sense of oot que tied Down abbe def weirdness that prevailed throughout the thrum i festival was t All due to Jet lag though that enough to keep the show from being what it my have been. Smiting and nodding in the absurd morning so 2 . Nashville time the artiste would u Daimler ride on the wrong Side of the Road to the there to stand in record company Booths signing graphs for an hour then an hour or two with the cach from everywhere horde of bbl disc jockeys another dozen press people followed by a perform an the Wembley conference Centre building next door i a live audience that had been waiting in line for Al i As three hours for later broadcast on the bbl Radic Lowed by a soundcheck in the Hall usually with they d never seen before there was a lot of that the musician s Union in Britain has a firm one a Rule for each one of them one of us. This has the Nevolunt effect on Britain s Home grown country t scene of giving several British country bands nation pos Urc every Spring Iha the v would never Hart otherwise u had the sometimes comical effect of giving the an Amateur hour flavor. And it Lead the some tune Zarre effect of fort ing some of America s better country Arti is to strut their stuff in front of a band f 3strangers. A thursday