Take Me Home Country Roads

Few songs evoke an immediate, full-throated audience response quite like John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," and on March 21, 2026, the Gay Men's Chorus of Tampa Bay used that fact to wonderful effect at Jaeb Theater of Straz Center in Tampa, Florida. Soloists Vic Omila, John Shirley, and Rob Tricarico fronted the number, with the full chorus rallying behind them for one of Out On the Dance Floor's most communal moments.

The arrangement kept faith with the song's folk-pop simplicity, leaning on clear three-part lead vocals and a wide, warm choral backdrop. Rob opened with a relaxed, conversational delivery that set an easygoing tone; Vic joined to lift the second verse with a brighter tenor presence; and John added a third color, leaning into the song's nostalgia without overplaying it. Their blend on the trio sections was tight and gently weathered, like old friends who'd sung this together a hundred times.

What followed was inevitable: the audience joined in, first hesitantly during the second chorus, then unmistakably by the third. The Jaeb's room amplified that participation into something close to a campfire singalong with a full backing chorus.

Within the larger program of Out On the Dance Floor, this number functioned as one of the show's emotional anchors — a reminder that the songs that bring people home are themselves a kind of dance, even when nobody's standing up.