Rex Allen Jr. had just crossed over the Arkansas state line last Friday afternoon and was a good two days from his final destination: Willcox, Arizona.
But the 70-year-old country singer was already thinking ahead to Saturday, Oct. 7, the day when he will perform the final two concerts in a career that has occupied his entire adult life.
Allen’s shows at the 2017 Rex Allen Days have long been sold out. He’s also performing a concert at the Gaslight Music Hall in Oro Valley on Wednesday, Oct. 4.
“This is it,” said Allen, son of Willcox native and Silver Screen legend Rex Allen. “I’ve done it for 50 years; that’s long enough.”
“It’s going to be bittersweet, joyful and sad all at the same time. The first place I ever walked on stage, I was 6 years old and that was during Rex Allen Days in Willcox.”
Allen Jr. has been a regular on Southern Arizona stages throughout his career, including headlining Western Music Association concerts and festivals and playing shows in Willcox as his career took him to Hollywood, Nashville and Vegas.
He said that although he is retiring from live performances, he will continue recording and releasing new music. He runs a pair of internet radio stations and is working with a Hollywood documentary film company on a project about his family. Between him and his father, an Allen has been performing for audiences for 80 years.
The streak won’t end with Rex Jr. On Saturday in Willcox, he is bringing his 7-year-old granddaughter Mary Fletcher Allen on stage.
“She wrote her first song when she was 5,” Allen said, and you could sense the pride beaming in his voice as he spoke. “She said that maybe they will rename the Rex Allen Days the Mary Fletcher Days.”
Mary Fletcher’s path in her grandfather’s footsteps includes singing the very first song he ever sang, Lead Belly’s “Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song).”
