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When someone hears the name Billy Bob Thornton, they usually think of movie titles like "SlingBlade" or "Daddy and Them." Or Angelina Jolie might even come to mind. But a lot of people don't connect Billy Bob Thornton to music. Well, on Friday August 17th, 2007, about 300 people packed the newly opened Merrimack Hall Performing Arts Center in Huntsville, Alabama to hear Billy Bob Thornton sing ....

Not act.

A few minutes after 7 PM, the theatre lights came down as the few hundred BBT fans held their collective breaths as seven silhouettes stood on stage in the darkness and the music started. The stage lights came up. There, before the crowd's eyes, stood a 52-year-old Billy Bob Thornton and his 6-piece band called The Box Masters. BBT and band were dressed in rhinestone suits reminscent of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos of the 1960's. The 45-minute set consisted of some old country and rock and roll cover songs and a few original tunes. The set was more of a rockabilly sound laced with a Beatles/Gram Parsons style.

Thornton held a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other as he crooned, cried and wailed into the microphone. It seemed that most of the folks in the audience were there as fans of his acting career and not so much for the music, which was a little disappointing for me. But, nonetheless, BBT sang such songs as Mel Tillis's "Sawmill" and the '60's rock and roll song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Somewhere in teh middle of this Hee Haw like serenade, Thornton sang a humorous number called "Shi* List." He said to the audience: "I'm on somebody's shi* list in about 37 states, so we decided to write a song about it." The crowd laughed along with him.

Thornton also whipped out a new tune that he and band members wrote about a guy who had escaped from prison and decided to go and hide out in a place that the lawmen would never look; in his ex-wife's bed (since she was the one who blew the whistle on him in the first place). The upbeat country-sounding song is called "The Last Place They'll Ever Look."

At the end of the first half of the show, Thornton and The Box Masters left the stage and returned after a 15-minute intermission with a new stage presentation and a new wardrobe. The stage was set with 1960's psychedelic regalia like incense, strange lighting effects and lava lamps. Thornton came out on stage in black jeans and a black sleeveless muscle shirt. The Box Masters donned hippy headbands, jeans and a grungy garage band look. The

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