Peter: I was at his last show at Princeton. I took my father, who was Shep’s contemporary and a dedicated fan. I was too young to be taken to the Limelight, but my older sister would go with him. Anyway, from our seats we could see Shep and Leigh in the wings, she with a walker and Shep with a cane. When the theme started he gave her a smooch and “dashed” out on stage, coming perilously close to falling off the stage. I’d seen him many times, but never at Princeton. By the way, we lived two blocks from Route 22, and I remember everything he mentions (he missed the Steer In, a small burger joint with 20’ horns across the front of the place. The Leaning Tower of Pizza was a favorite place- as kid the attraction was the fish tank, as a high schooler the girls were. I still miss the place (now a Japanese restaurant)
Remember at that show he was sitting in a big chair (he said it was once sat in by Margaret Thatcher) and he got so into his performance that at the end he forgot he was old and was somewhat surprised that he couldn't get up easily. I'm getting up there myself and a similar thing happened to me lately...
I saw him in Clinton a few times, once I brought my cassette recorder and recorded the whole thing which I still have, the last time I saw him was in Princeton I believe it was in the mid nineties, he didn't stand.
Please consider lending your tape to The Jean Shepard Show RU-vid channel. The fellow who runs it is a devoted Shep fanatic, and is also a technical wizard who uses special artificial intelligence software to raise the audio quality to a fantastic level of clarity. And like you, he went to a lot of live Shep shows. Thanks!
