Tales from the Trails of a Rock ’n’ Roll Bus Driver

by Jerry Fitzpatrick

  Between driving the hundreds of loads of freight and food loads, I tried to time my schedules to get back to work for the production companies in my hometown. Entertainment production was my main interest. The trucking business can be a brutal way to make wages. Somewhere in this time frame, CalBro Sound Company sold itself to Mike Pope from Nashville, Arkansas. Mike renamed the company M.P. Productions. The two Mikes, Mike Pope and Mike Pinner, approached Barbara Mandrell’s management team about providing production logistics and equipment for her tour.

  Once a deal was secured, M.P. expanded their equipment, teamed with Bylites and Bean’s company, Concert Staging Services, and started touring with the Mandrell show. M.P. Productions had gotten the job by impressing Irby Mandrell, I had been told. With my trucking experience and connections, I started driving the trucks that hauled sound and lighting gear for M.P. Productions and thus the Mandrell show.

  Irby was well known in the Nashville area, as not only the father of the Mandrell sisters, but also as a very thrifty man-about-Nashville when negotiating contracts for production. It was also rumored that his bunk on the bus he rode had a speedometer in it, and his driver was never to top 55 mph. I never saw it but heard a lot from his driver about it. I once approached him in the catering tent at one of the shows and thanked him for a tour jacket we had been given.

  He turned toward me frowning, “If it had been up to me the money wouldn’t have been spent on jackets for everyone.”

  I was grateful nonetheless and always admired his approach to the business and his story to success.

  During that time, I had driven several very nice trucks hauling freight. Having a comfortable truck can make the miles a little easier. M.P. was renting older model cab-over International trucks that had hundreds of thousands of miles on them and had had a slew of non-caring drivers who had driven them. The trucks would be nasty inside and it was a crapshoot every time we picked one up from the rental agency.

  Chapter 30 Trucking Tycoon

  Having driven numerous trucks by this time, I understood the difference between a crappy truck and a nice one. One day, I confronted M.P. with the idea of me buying my own truck and using me exclusively to pull their gear. Mike agreed and gave me a letter of intent to use me if I obtained a truck. I went to work writing a business proposal, day dreaming about how I wanted to start with one truck and turning it into a large trucking company specializing in transporting entertainment gear. For several months, my every waking moment was spent reading books about how to write a business proposal, and trying to get someone interested in it. I succeeded in finding a capital investor who was interested in investing in the small business that I named Complete Entertainment Transport.

  With M.P.’s letter of intent to use me if I had my own equipment, I found an investor. His only catch was that I start with a brand new truck instead of the used truck I was dreaming of owning so that he could take advantage of all tax incentives. I had been going to the Kenworth Truck dealer on a daily basis wearing out a salesman over a beautiful, gunmetal grey used truck that they had on the lot. It was in great mechanical shape having been an owner-operator’s truck. Never smoked in and pristine inside and out. Every day I went to the dealership and would sit and pray they wouldn’t sell it before I got the deal organized. I attended classes offered by the Small Business Administration learning how to manage the business of business.

  In 1984, when I was trying to accomplish all of this, the interest rates to borrow money were over 21%. It’s surprising that anyone during that time would have wanted to risk finances with a brand new truck when a used truck half the price could have done the job just as well and was all ready to go. I ended up getting pretty close to the truck of my dreams with a 1984 Kenworth conventional that was loaded with amenities every trucker wants. A very comfortable, VIP interior with a sit-down bunk. It had a brand-new electronic fuel injected 400 HP Caterpillar motor. A 15-speed transmission with the last two gears turned around – that’s trucker talk for “it will go fast and pull strong.”

  M.P. had purchased a specially made drop deck electronics van designed to haul sound and lights for the Mandrell show. It had polished aluminum all the way around and it looked great behind my maroon Kenworth that had silver stripes down the side of the hood up over the sleeper cab.

  On its first trip, it was impressive sitting next to the Barbra Mandrell rig. Things were rolling along. The first show I showed up to in my new truck someone made mention of it to Barbara, and she came over and climbed up into it and told me how beautiful it was. I was so proud to have an opportunity to show it to her. She congratulated me on getting it and said how good it looked beside her own truck.

  At the time Barbara Mandrell’s husband was involved with the Nashville Peterbilt dealership. They had built for Barbara a cab-over Peterbilt, which at the time was the longest cab-over ever built for on-the-road use. Modern trailers these days can be up to 53 feet long but the cab of the Mandrell Peterbuilt was so long it could only pull a 38-foot trailer to stay within the length-laws for trucks. It had a special Double Eagle sleeper built and put behind the cab. The sleeper was designed like a bus interior with bunks, with the original plan for crew members to ride in. It was a beautiful truck and trailer combination with a matching paint scheme. After a few rides in it, the crew guys complained that the ride was too rough, compromising their rest. The crew eventually went back to riding in buses.

  It was kind of rare at the time for production being provided to a Nashville act by someone other than a Nashville company. Most acts used local Nashville companies for sound, lights and stage gear or at least used a Tennessee company. I was pretty happy being able to tour with my hometown friends. We would go out on the road for a few days at a time, rarely more than a couple of weeks at a time, do a series of shows and return home. Most of the Nashville acts operate this way with acts heading out and doing two or three shows a week and returning to Nashville for a few days off and doing it again. Most rock and pop tours go out for months at a time touring against an album, not returning home until the tour is over.

  Working with Barbara Mandrell, I learned a lot about Nashville and the Nashville scene during that time. I think anyone who lives in that town can tell you that there are so many tour buses leaving that city on Wednesday and Thursday nights that you could get run over by one. Many pick up their passengers at shopping center parking lots around metro Nashville and hit the road by midnight. Leaving Nashville on a Wednesday night for a show in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Thursday, a show in Wisconsin on Friday and a show in Ohio on Saturday night and returning to Nashville Sunday would be a typical weekend for the Weekend Warriors. The next weekend may take you to Texas, Louisiana and Georgia and back. An endless tour or just a job, whichever way you want to look at it.

  A couple of times, when we were out for a few days and there was a day off, the crew and band did some things together. A picnic in a park had Barbara cooking on the grill for everyone. She was so genuine with everyone who worked around her and of course the fans. She was very popular during the early and mid-’80s and was selling out just about everywhere she did a show. Many acts from Nashville opened for her during that time, and I got to see a variety of some of Nashville’s up and comers.

  In 1984, a tour package was put together with Lee Greenwood as opening act for the Mandrell show. Barbara and Lee had recorded together and had a hit on the radio. The tour did well everywhere we went. The Greenwood band and crew was a fun bunch to be around, and as we traveled we played tricks on each other, creating good memories.

  On September 11, 1984, Barbara had a serious automobile accident. The Little Rock production team was gearing up to do a series of shows in Wichita, Kansas and throughout the Midwest. Barbara almost lost her life, and her children were also injured. Everyone on the Little Rock production team was devastated. I was disappointed that all the relationships I had made with the Mandrell team, her band and crew would be put on hold during her recovery.

 
; The Mandrell show was basically the Little Rock production crew’s only source of revenue. We were all left with no way to pay the bills. I grabbed a refrigerated trailer from a truck broker in Arkansas and started trying to make ends meet hauling exempt commodities, chickens and produce and the like. I had been running as a private carrier and had no authority from the government to haul anything else. Eventually, the talk turned to Barbara making a big comeback when she recovered and everyone on the Little Rock crew had their hopes set high.

  When the time came for the comeback, another production team was hired and everyone in Little Rock was left out. We all went into scramble mode trying to make ends meet right after the accident. Leasing my truck to a large carrier wouldn’t have allowed me to grow into the trucking operation I dreamed of, so I tried to do it on my own. One thing I quickly learned about the trucking business is you either have to be a driver or an office person taking care of the accounts, finding the loads and doing the mandatory government paperwork. Generally, you can’t do both. At least I couldn’t.

  In ’84 and ‘85, the interest rate for loans was around the 21% range. To make the revenue to make those payments, driving was all there was time for. With the majority of the speed limits at 55, it made it hard to have the time to do much else. I had had a great deal with M.P.’s production company making $1.25 per hub mile. In general, it was costing me less than 60 cents per mile to operate the new truck. When I started to haul exempt commodities the rates were much lower, paying the truck on book miles, which always seemed short. The rates were generally in the 70-90 cents per mile range for the freight going west and a little higher for loads going to the east from California, which meant I had to cover a lot more miles to make enough revenue to make the payments. The loads were much heavier, thus wearing on the truck more.

  In entertainment transportation, drivers usually have more opportunity for rest time. When the truck is unloaded in the morning it is not until late into the night before you’re reloaded to move to the next town. That leaves the day to sleep and get your paperwork done. Hauling general freight you go, go, go, find another load and go, go, go again. M.P. started getting a few shows commonly referred to as “One-offs” with artist like Patti Labelle, The Bar-Kays, Stephanie Mills and a few festivals. Whenever possible I would make my freight match to a location so I could get back to haul their gear, which is not always an easy task.

  Eventually, in order to keep up with the pace, I turned to drugs to keep me awake and on schedule. Speed could be found at just about any truck stop in America in the mid-’80s. For instance, you could drive into the old Chevron Truck Stop in El Paso, Texas, and before you could get parked someone would be by your truck giving the hand signals for drugs. Uppers, bennies, whatever you needed, it was available there. A yell on the CB radio in West Memphis, Arkansas, can get you just about any type of drug you want or an array of stolen goods that top a Wal-Mart. Listening even today to the CB as you pass there, it’s business as usual.

  “Make a deal with Lucille.” “Fulfill your need for chicken feed” – all CB slang for drugs. In the ’80s stopping at just about any major truck stop in America could get you anything you wanted, just ask the CB.

  Chapter 31 Jeremy

  The life I chose may not be a recipe for home life happiness. I’ve had my ups and downs with relationships, but I knew that it would be tough to maintain a relationship and a family when I got into the transportation business. Along the way, I’ve had my share of drama and bodies left in my wake. I still had my share of drama and bodies left in my wake. I was one of those bodies in another’s wake as well.

  When I had gotten out of prison I returned to Little Rock to start fresh. After I was out for a few months, my parole officer started giving me some leeway to set up a new life. My younger brother and I moved into an old house on John Barrow Road in the west part of town. It was a place to live, frat house style of living and mostly a place to party. The old house had been built in the 1940s, and it was a real dump. Our living in it didn’t help. We were no housekeepers. We were more like doormen. There was always an endless number of people coming and going.

  A block away on Barrow Road was The Electric Cowboy, a place where teenagers hung out playing pool, foosball and video games. The man who owned it had four or five of them located throughout the county. They opened in the afternoons after school, and kids migrated to them every day. Further north up the street was Parkview High School, and in the afternoons, many of the kids stopped by our place, smoked pot, hung out a little and then made it over to the Cowboy. Many afternoons, girls would stop by, and my brother and I would get lucky with some of them. Some days, we had parties well into the night. Who knows how many people would stay over.

  And you never knew who might show up at the door. One day a young girl came over with a child on her hip. She joined in the partying along with everybody else. More than one person knew her and thought it was perfectly fine that she brought her son to the party. She had placed the kid on the floor, sat down and took a bong hit. I was more than a little concerned with a barely walking baby being around while everyone was drinking and getting high. She wasn’t as concerned.

  “Listen, this is the way I do things,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  After a couple of days of coming and going, she ended up in my bed. We went at it for several times over several days, but one day when she came over, I was with another girl. She got mad, threw a fit and left. She came back a few days later and we went at it again, several times over several days. Then another girl came along. When she showed up, the fireworks started up again. I told her not to come back.

  The parties continued, and I was starting to get a set of drums together, jamming with some kids from a different part of town. A five-piece band with drums, bass, two guitars and a lead singer that we all thought we sounded pretty good, at least in our practice room. For the most part, the kids that were into music didn’t hang out too much with the kids that were always in trouble. I was finding my music friends to be a better crowd, less stressful and more encouraging of positive things.

  Life was just bumping along when one morning, the girl knocked on my door again. I had been working the night shift, running a metal lathe cutting forklift parts and had just gone to bed. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her drama. On top of that, I was just grumpy. I opened the door, and she marched right in with her son on her hip walking at an angle to support him. She turned around looked me in the eye and said those wonderful words every young man wants to hear.

  “I’m pregnant and it’s your kid.”

  She was a full foot shorter than I am, and as I looked down to her I said the first thing that came to my mind.

  “You’re fucking crazy.” That didn’t go over well.

  We argued about her getting it “taken care of” because I had no feelings for her, I hadn’t even given her a ride in my car. Hell, I witnessed her having sex with two other guys at my house. The argument continued.

  “Fuck you! I am going to have the kid and I don’t care what you think. Don’t worry. You won’t have any ties to it,” she said and left in a huff. I honestly believed she didn’t know who the father was. I didn’t think it was me.

  Eight months later she had a little boy and named him Jeremy.

  By the time he was born, I was dating my first wife, Tammy Sue. It was definitely a sore subject with her, the thought of this other woman about to have my baby. Tammy Sue worked in the records department at the children’s hospital where Jeremy was born a few weeks early, and she called me the day he was born.

  “He is sick, and he could die,” she told me. “If you ever want to see him, you should come now.”

  For Christ’s sake, I didn’t want to get involved, I thought, but went to the hospital right away and saw him. I hadn’t had children at that point, but I know that the confusing feelings I felt for Jeremy that day were not from feeling that this child was mine.
I held him and touched him, and I didn’t feel any connection whatsoever. Actually, that was wrong. I started feeling anger toward Jeremy’s mother and the mess she was creating, bringing another child in the world with no way to care for him. Most importantly, he wouldn’t have a father. She had one child already that wasn’t being cared for and nurtured. Those thoughts stayed with me as I walked out of the hospital.

  Jeremy’s mom called me a few months later, and I could tell she was stoned and being a smartass.

  “I just wanted to tell you, you have nothing to worry about,” she started in. “I am not going to chase you for money or try to make you be a dad to Jeremy.”

  “I really think you should give him up for adoption to a secure family that can give him a chance at a decent life,” I shot back. She wasn’t going to have any part of that. She was a young woman with no education, no job and living with her mother.

  Years passed, and I had no contact with her or Jeremy. I got married, had another child, got divorced, met the girl of my dreams, you know, “the one who got away.” Met another girl, fell in love and got married again. We had our first child together. When I met my second wife and we were dating, she started talking marriage. I told Michelle every detail about my past. I was trying to talk my way out of it, but it didn’t seem to work. She assured me that my past had nothing to do with my future anymore. She loved me, and I could put those things behind me and use them to grow on. We could have a good life.

  She knew I drove buses for a living since we met more than a year earlier when she walked through the door of my coach. Michelle was from Los Angeles, and I was almost embarrassed when she wanted to set up shop in Arkansas. The nightmares of my life had started in Arkansas, and I surely didn’t want to start over again in the place I referred to as my “Hillbilly Nightmare World.” She was tired of the L.A. scene, the crowds, the traffic and the smog. She wanted to start a family and raise children in a more serene environment, so we ended up back in Arkansas. Eventually, Michelle became the apartment manager of the complex we lived in. Coming back here seemed to be a good idea after all as life started to grow.