As the end drew closer, we got a hospital bed and somebody to stay with her twenty-four hours a day. Eventually, we brought in hospice.
I wanted to be with her when the end came and almost made it. I sat with her until late at night, and after I kept nodding out in my chair, I went up to the house to sleep a few hours.
I had barely got to bed and drifted off when the lady who was staying with her called and told me she had just passed. Hazel and I went back down to her place, where I closed her eyes and kissed her on the cheek.
No other experience in life compares to losing a parent, and I had lost both of mine. One was suddenly, and one was after a protracted illness. I don’t know which hurts the worst.
We laid my mother to rest on a beautiful sunny day in our family burial plot in Mount Juliet.
Ron Griffin, our gospel record producer who was soon to become an ordained minister, officiated, and my employees, the guys my mother had loved, were pallbearers.
I, at least, had the comfort of knowing that my mother’s last years were some of the happiest of her life.
Life is so precious, so fleeting. It seems that when we lose someone close to us, there are always regrets about how we would do things differently if we had it to do over again. We would have spent more time with them or been more attentive.
We should learn lessons at times like these. Although we can’t do anything about the past, we can certainly affect the present and remember to make time for those who are dear to us while we still have the chance.
CHAPTER 47
CHANGES GOING AND COMING
In 1994, in a somewhat freak accident, Bruce Brown broke his collarbone and was going to be out of work for several weeks. I needed a guitar player immediately.
I had known Chris Wormer in his capacity as a publishing company employee and knew he was rumored as being a great guitar player. He certainly was and is. When I approached him about coming with the band, he was all for it and never missed a lick filling in for Bruce.
When Bruce’s collarbone healed and he came back to work, I decided to keep Chris too. I had toyed with the idea of adding another guitar player, which would increase the versatility of the band and take some of the pressure off of me when I was playing rhythm while I sang.
And besides, it would add another whole twist to the band. We had three guitar players who all played differently and looked at the music from their own unique perspective, putting a little different spin on a tune.
Chris and Bruce worked together like a well-oiled clock, playing their own tasty little guitar parts that put a lot of extra spice into a song.
In 1999 Jack Gavin left to go with another band. I began to audition drummers, but about the third one I auditioned closed the door. He was flashy. He was powerful. He played a dynamite solo and kept the beat like a metronome.
His name was Pat McDonald. He was ready for the CDB, and the CDB was ready for him. Pat was to be our drummer for seventeen years.
In early 2016 Pat came to me and told me he felt that he had to leave the band. He had gone through a divorce, and his ex-wife had moved to Florida, taking their young daughter with her. Although Pat spent as much time as he could with her, it was not nearly as much as she needed. He felt, for the good of his only child, that he needed to be there for her.
I agreed with him. Family has always come first in this outfit. We began auditioning drummers and settled on a locked-in, hard-driving drummer from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, named Ron Gannaway. Ron is talented and learns quickly. So after a couple of rehearsals, it was business as usual.
In the forty-four-year history of The Charlie Daniels Band, I have had only a handful of musicians. I tell them before I hire them that I’m not looking for a player to come and stay six months. If they don’t intend to stay for a while, they’d best just pass on by. I’ve had very few who have not stayed for a significant number of years.
However, for a variety of reasons, musicians come and go occasionally. Although CDB has an extremely small turnover, it’s inevitable to lose a player once in a while.
In 2000 Chris Wormer had some serious personal problems he had to deal with and was going to have to leave the band. After trying out a few players to take his place, I settled on a sharp, personable young picker who was working the club scene around Nashville. His name was Mark Matejka, but he went by the nickname of Sparky. He fit into the CDB like the proverbial hand in glove.
We had it set. The day Chris would be leaving was the day Sparky would be starting. Then Bruce Brown got some devastating news.
He was diagnosed with cancer, and the treatment would require surgery and chemotherapy. Of course, everybody’s main concern was to see our friend cured. I told Bruce to go and do whatever he needed to do. When he was well, his job would be waiting for him.
I asked Chris Wormer if there was any way he could stick around for a couple of months until Bruce could complete his treatments and return to the band.
Chris is a great kid with a good heart. He actually put his life on hold to help me out. Even after a couple of months turned into nine months, he never complained and gave it his all onstage every night.
Only after Bruce had completed his treatment, been declared cancer free, and was able to come back to work did Chris leave to take care of his own problems. A personal favor I’ll never forget.
But that’s not the end of the story.
In 2005, in his off time, Sparky Matejka had been doing some studio work with a band called Hot Apple Pie. They had submitted a demo to a record label and were offered a deal.
The upshot was that Sparky wanted to give it a try with Hot Apple Pie. They had a record being released, and he felt they had a good chance of going somewhere and wanted to leave the CDB. But he wanted to do it the right way, staying around until I could adequately replace him.
I, of course, gave my blessing. Sparky worked out suitable notice and left the band.
Unfortunately, the Hot Apple Pie shot didn’t work out, but something really good did work out for my friend Sparky. A few years later, he was hired by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I love it when good things happen to good people.
Although I have a policy about hiring the same person twice, the situation with Chris Wormer was different. He had left the band not because he had wanted to but because he had to. He had some serious personal problems he needed to work out, which he had done.
Chris was living in Los Angeles and had gotten into writing music for video games and TV shows. When I called him and told him I needed a guitar player, he never hesitated. Arrangements were made, and Chris joined us for a performance at the opening of the Super Bowl 2006. He has been here ever since.
At one time in our band, half of the players were cancer survivors. Bruce Brown in 1999. Then, in 2007, Pat McDonald had a second bout with cancer. He had been diagnosed and treated successfully when he had been fifteen years old. I had been treated successfully for prostate cancer in 2001.
CHAPTER 48
I AIN’T NOTHING BUT A SIMPLE MAN, THEY CALL ME A REDNECK, I RECKON THAT I AM
I had been asked for years to do the commencement speech at graduation at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in my hometown.
I was apprehensive to say the least. I had never done any public speaking, but I had never written a book or hosted a TV show either until I just decided one day to do it. So when we received another request to do the spring commencement address for the class of 1996 and since it fit into our tour routing, I decided to give it a shot.
Well, as soon as the news was released, a few of the college students expressed disdain that the powers that be would select somebody who had never been to college and was known more for redneck songs than for the more genteel pursuits of academia. Soon the criticism showed up in the college newspaper and local media.
The pushback came mainly from two seniors named Moore and Leonard. They seemed to think it would be a disgrace to be addressed by someone they considered sever
al cuts below the intelligence level required to speak before such an august body of young men and women who were preparing to go out and make their way in the world.
What they didn’t realize is that it was my world they were getting ready to go out into. I had been making my way in it since before they were born and had some things to say about life after cutting the apron strings that could prove just as beneficial as anything they had gotten out of their books.
The chancellor, Dr. Leutze, who had invited me in the first place, called the office and asked Bebe if I would cancel in the face of the controversy.
Bebe replied, “You don’t know Charlie. He’ll be there.”
I figured I should respond to the uproar and did so in the form of a poem I wrote that was published in the college newspaper The Seahawk.
ODE TO MOORE and LEONARD (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH ARCHIE AND SUGAR RAY)
Mr. Moore and Mr. Leonard, the elitist status quo
Feverishly put pen to paper to let all the people know
A non-scholar at commencement?
Ridiculous, absurd, forsooth
That a redneck fiddle player, gray of beard and long of tooth
Would think he could say something which could benefit this class
Drawing only on experience from his multi-colored past
He’ll mount the stage in full regalia when
we’ve walked that hallowed aisle
He’ll bore us with his drivel, murdered English, verbiage vile
From whence came this wayward misfit
how dare the powers that be
Give us such an unsung, unsophisticated hick as he
Bring us poets and politicians, novelists, on these we dote
Not some realistic villain who could come and rock our boat
He may actually think differently from us and this we fear
He may tell us of a world we never learned about in here
So remove this sordid shadow falling dark across our land
And let us pea-brained intellectuals stick our heads back in the sand
And if you’re wondering my fine young snobs
How I took your bold comments
I’d say your ignorance is outweighed
Only by your arrogance
If I may borrow from the Bard who so
succinctly states my thoughts
Your words are full of sound and fury signifying naught
And so my fledgling bigots if you’re wont to spurn my speech
You can stay away and kisseth all the hind parts I can’t reach
I’ll See You In May
YeeHaw!!!
On the morning of May 11, 1996, I walked into Trask Coliseum on the campus of UNCW with my speech in hand amid rumors that half the class would walk out as soon as I set foot onstage.
But what nobody but me knew was that the controversy and criticism had spurred me into writing a much better speech than I would have ever written had it not happened.
I wrote and edited and practiced until I had something that I was happy with.
Not only did it tacitly state my point of view on the criticism, but the crux of the speech was about the real world I had lived in for sixty years. The same world they were getting ready to enter, the attitude it took to be a winner, and examples of people who had overcome great obstacles to achieve their place in that world.
It had a modicum of humor and a whole lot of down-to-earth common sense.
We walked down the aisle, the first time I’d worn a cap and gown since graduating high school in 1955. The place was packed. The obligatory preambles taken care of, Dr. Leutze introduced the Wilmingtonian who would be giving the commencement speech to the class of 1996.
I was ready. I had rehearsed every nuance, every rise and softening of the voice. I was ready to tackle my first public speaking engagement.
I stepped to the mic, did the proper thank yous, and launched into my speech. Not only did half of the class not walk out, nobody walked out. I got two standing ovations and an honorary doctorate degree.
I found I thoroughly enjoyed public speaking and would engage in it periodically from that point on. You just can’t let somebody else’s doubt and criticism affect your deep-seated confidence in yourself. I knew down deep that I could pull this off, and the dissension had served not as a deterrent but as a motivator.
If you want to count, stand up and be counted.
CHAPTER 49
THERE’S A NEW TRAIN COMING, GET ON BOARD OR JUST KEEP WALKING
The record business had changed exponentially by the turn of the century. The compact disc had, for all practical purposes, replaced the big vinyl 33⅓ albums. The music men who once ran the labels had been replaced by lawyers.
The Ron Alexenburgs, Jerry Wexlers, Jimmy Bowens, and label heads who knew the music, loved the music, lived and breathed the music had been replaced by lawyers. Many didn’t know a good record from a pot lid. Bean counters and deal makers only had concern for the bottom line.
Not always the most practical of people, in my opinion. It was this mentality that would lead to the biggest goof up in the modern record business.
Record companies have always been behind the curve as far as technology is concerned. It has cost the industry through the years. But it was nothing like the incident that took place in 2000 when twenty-one-year-old Sean Parker and nineteen-year-old Shawn Fanning got together and created an Internet site with a capacity to download unlimited pieces of music free of charge.
They called it Napster, and shortly after launching they had tens of millions of users.
It should not have taken an Albert Einstein to realize that this genie was out of the bottle and there was no way of ever putting it back in. As illegal, dishonest, and thieving as it was, it was obviously the wave of the future. It needed to be harnessed and brought into line before it reached the point of completely obliterating the record industry.
Somebody should have gone to these kids, subpoena in hand, and said, “Do you want to spend the next five years of your lives in court and very possibly go to jail? Or do you want to take this ten million dollars, have all be forgiven, and come and create this thing in a legal way so the artists, songwriters, and record companies can get their rightful due?”
But instead, the record companies did what lawyers always do. They chose to litigate, spending untold dollars of stockholder money and making enemies of every kid under the age of eighteen in the country.
Of course, the record companies did get into downloading. They had no choice. But I personally believe the process could have been less painful, much speedier, and more efficient had a little more thought and common sense been applied to the situation.
Meanwhile, back in the real world.
For the first time in more than twenty years, I was without a recording contract. We were no longer an act that a major label would want to sign. We did not even remotely resemble what was happening on radio, which was increasingly being dominated by younger acts.
George Strait, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and a few others stood tall in the onslaught of image-driven, youth-oriented radio, but for the most part the old guard was disappearing from the airwaves, with the exception of classic country and special nostalgic moments.
The country music industry had tried for decades to attract the younger demographic, to little avail. Now they had found the right button to push, and they weren’t about to let it go. Who could blame them? The new country music pushed the format to much higher ratings, and the new artists were packing stadiums and big venues.
We were a band without a radio format but not without a following. As always, our concerts were our bread and butter. We continued crisscrossing the country, playing our music and entertaining hundreds of thousands of concertgoers each year.
I decided that as far as my recording career was concerned, from then on I would record whatever struck my fancy, without being concerned about it having to fit mainstream radio formats, whatever genre,
whatever style.
As do most Southern boys, I always loved the blues. So, my first foray into my newfound musical freedom was a blues project I called Blues Hat, which did pretty well for an independently produced, independently distributed album.
My manager came up with the idea of our own independent label. We had a recording studio that I had seriously upgraded and was capable of handling any kind of project we wanted to attempt. We had a distribution network. We could hire independent promotion people if we felt the need. Most importantly, we could record anything we danged well pleased, with no interference from outside interests.
So, why not?
Enter Blue Hat Records.
We’ve done numerous projects under the auspices of Blue Hat Records, including gospel albums, Christmas albums, bluegrass albums, acoustic, electric, movie tunes, and songs for the Nashville Predators hockey team, the Tennessee Titans football team, and the National Finals Rodeo.
Several years ago, David Corlew gave me a plaque commemorating the sale of half a million albums, not a record but a pretty good beginning.
I will never run out of new projects. I’ve got them backed up in my mind, and when I feel one is complete enough, we just get the band together, call our engineer, and proceed to make some new music.
I did a duet album called Deuces with artists ranging from Dolly Parton to Travis Tritt.
I had long wanted to pay tribute to Bob Dylan. Not just because he has had an impact on my career but out of respect and admiration for his talent and refusal to be anybody but himself. He followed his musical star in whatever direction it led, bucking trend and fad and paying scant attention to what the rest of the industry was doing.
Always a leader. Never a follower. He was an innovator who shunned Tin Pan Alley and single-handedly changed the face of popular music. By inspiring all serious artists who came after him, he introduced a freedom of lyric and unconventional approach to chord structure and meter and a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach in the recording studio.
Never Look at the Empty Seats Page 21