Unknown: That was one of them times I was in a dressing room
in Galveston one night, and the oaks were like 20 minutes late,
and I walked - I'm in the dressing room by myself, and the
bushes walked in, and I entertained them for like 15
minutes by myself, which was wild. I had so many questions I
wanted to ask about different things, but I didn't. Did
you kill Kennedy?
He knows who did.
Welcome to a podcast about music and entertainment. Before it all
goes down the disposal, this is Circling the Drain.
Hey, welcome back to Circling the Dray, and of course, Johnny
Boseman, Johnny B here, Jay Harper over there.
I wasn't sure it was really Johnny B. Are you not wearing a
Waylon Jennings shirt? Oh, Jay, single way I can tell it's
really you these
days, you know, you know better
than all right. Well, good to see you, Johnny B, and good to
know it's really you. And, of course, James Patrick - I keep
referring to him. I just think that's a great name, James
Patrick. It's nice and good, Karthy. Good first names. Yeah,
yeah,
I could be on the news. James Patrick, for your 6o'clock
nightly night holy news,
or you could be a morning guy, James Patrick.
Yeah, almost like always, always heard your porn name was
your first and middle name. What would be your porn name? Mine
would be Chip Terry. Wow,
mine would be kneel down,
I think I might add a rap edge to it, and be warm pee
or big pee, yeah, big D, yeah, and I don't mean Dallas, but
before we venture off into really craziness, which we will
anyway, but I've been looking forward to getting this guy on
for quite a while now, but he's always working, he's always
working, but we found some downtime, you know, this guy, he
has been around for a long time, you know, his father, William
Lee Golden from the Oak Ridge Boys, but this cat, he is one of
my favorite singers. I will go down in history saying this.
He's one of my favorite entertainers. Chris Golden has
joined us. How you doing, brother?
Doing great, Johnny P. It's great to be with you today. You
too, Jay.
All right, Dave, great to meet you. I can't believe it's, you
know, I've been kind of around you for years, but never had a
chance to meet you. So, it's cool.
Well, we're gonna have a good time today. Maybe we'll get to
know each other.
So,
yeah, we may be scared of one another. Who knows? But no, he's
award-winning. If you ever get a chance to go see Chris live, I
would suggest you do so. He plays everywhere, in fact,
churches everywhere.
I do that too.
Theaters,
yeah,
you name it. This guy will show up, and I mean, you will be
entertained
every invitation, an answer to a prayer, big time.
There you go, my brother. But he comes from a very, very rich
musical family. And were you born in Alabama?
I was. I was born in Brewton, Alabama, it's a little.on the
map down there, right? You know, it's really close to the Florida
state line.
Yeah,
about 70 miles south of Pence of Montgomery and about 40 miles
north of Pensacola, Florida.
Yeah, in fact, I think you're close to where my father was
born. He was born in a little town called Boothton, which is
no longer there. It's called Booth now.
Wow, but the ton went
away. I think a ton of working left at that time.
Well, the actual community that we grew up in was called
Dixonville, and it's.. it is on the state line. So, my
grandfather had the last farm, actually it's the first farm
south of the airport, and the last farm in Alabama, so the end
of the cotton field is Florida. Yeah, and my dad was born right
there on the state line, and my.. I interviewed my
grandmother before she passed away, and you know about the
places that she had lived growing up, and in her 90 years
she had lived in four or five, I think it was five different
homes, but you could see one from the other. She never moved
out of that quarter mile circle there. So the dad was born on
the backside of our family farm on the Florida line, you know,
like the right by the road, and the middle of the road is the
Florida line, so you could literally throw a rock over it,
you know? When you were five, so that's where we come from. This
don't let this city big city accent fool you,
but you know
there's something about that red Alabama clay, I mean. Some great
talent has come out of Alabama.
Yeah, well, down there is kind of where the white sand makes
the red clay. All the creeks and stuff are just solid white sand.
It's beautiful down there, so sort of where the white sand
makes the red clay. And red clay roads, white sandy banks, you
know.
There you go. Does your dad still have the house on, was it
Oeno Island down there.
No, I think he lost that in the second divorce.
Happened to all of us, brother.
Yeah,
I hate that, because that half sounded so cool.
It was, it was,
in fact,
I saw it from, from a distance. It was a frame, real
well. No, not that. That one wasn't. It might have had a
little bit of an A-frame to it, but it had - it was kind of a
built-around one big main room kitchen, and then just four
bedrooms off to the sides, but you know, like everything down
there on stilts and a deck out back. And he had about 150 foot
pier. We used to go at the end and watch the dolphins come by,
it was great,
tough life.
Yeah, had Kenny Staper was a neighbor, and he come over
sometime, the sneer, yeah, pretty cool. Yeah,
so the whole family, all of you guys seem to have followed in
your dad's footsteps, because your brother Rusty and you both
got into music.
Well, you know, it was something that Dad, my dad, and his sister
got their start. Music's not something that just started with
my dad. My great grandfather, who had been my dad's
grandfather, he was a holiness preacher, and he played the
fiddle, and he had a radio show called The Old Country Church
Hour on W EBJ in Brewton, Alabama, and my dad and his
sister Lynette, she played the mandolin, piano, and acoustic
guitar, and she taught my dad how to play and sing harmonies,
and when they were kids, you know, but I think dad would have
been 10 or 11 years old, they would go over there on Saturdays
and taped the radio show, and they got to be, they were
featured singers on the radio show when he was just a kid. So
my mama's side of the family too, she's one of eight brothers
and sisters, and they all played instruments and sang, they all
played piano, guitars. My granddaddy on my mama's side
played the fiddle and and the saw, when he brought that saw
out at Thanksgiving and Christmas, you knew it was gonna
be a party, anyhow, man. But yeah, so all everything I know
about the saw, I learned anyway. He would bow that would bow the
saw. They all played instruments and sang, and so whenever they
sang together, it's like, you know, a lot of family - every
family get together on both sides of my family always wound
up around the piano when it was over. After the meal, they'd all
get together and sing, and that's just the way it was, man.
So, music came pretty easy for us, but I gotta say, man, I was
blessed this past Monday, just a couple of days ago, of being
invited to sing down at the Opry House for the Inspirational
Country Music Awards,
yes sir,
and they named me their musician of the year, and a lot of those
folks know me as a singer, but my lot, a lot of them may not
know, is I play most of the instruments on the records that
I do. Oh yeah, but when I got up there, it just kind of hit me, I
thought, well, man, I probably wouldn't have been standing
there, you know. First off, without the good Lord and my
family, but my brother, Rusty, God rest his soul, when he was a
little boy, he saw the Beatles on TV. He wanted to be Ringo, so
he started banging on Charlie chip cans and pots and pans
until they got him a little kid of drums and kind of a cheap
kit, and to see if he would get serious with it, and before long
he was about 11 when they, he got a set of Rogers drums, and
and he got good enough to go out on the road with the singing
Rambos, which I don't know if you know Dottie Rambo, I mean,
you know, she was the most prolific songwriter, her and
Bill Gaither ever in gospel music. So he was out on the road
with them when he was 13 years old. Then he played with them
for a little while, went out with the Oaks at 15, playing
drums, and he saw Elton John on TV, and he said, "Man, I want to
play piano, so he taught himself to play piano, and
he
was playing second keys with the Oaks, but he went out with Larry
Gatlin playing on his records, and, and in concert when he was
17. So, all that being said, you know, Rusty was trying to be
like Ringo and Elton,
yeah,
and I was just trying to be like Rusty, yeah. Was trying to play
stuff just to keep up with him, and I remember one night we were
fighting over the drumsticks. He was four years older than me, so
he usually won those deals, but I probably.. I'm sure I showed
out and was crying, you know? I was.. I was a big powder of our
family. Some things never changed, maybe. But anyway, I
was, I was pouting, and my dad took me up to the bedroom, and I
thought he was gonna whip me, but he pulled out this guitar
case, and he had a guitar, and he said, 'Hey, man, instead of
y'all fighting over these drumsticks, and you fighting
over the same thing, he said, maybe if you learn how to play
something else, y'all can play together, and you then you won't
be fighting
it, or
move, and that was
my dad, right then and there, taught me three chords, and I
remember the first song that he taught me was Home on the Range
of All Things, it's a cowboy song, you know, three, and he
said, with these saying three chords, you can do, you ain't
nothing but Hound Dog, you know, it's home on the Range to Hound
Dog, and that's kind of where the guitar thing started for me.
Wow, and I was probably, I think I was in the third grade, and I
taught myself how to play guitar from that, and from looking at
books and the little chord charts of where to put your
fingers and
the Mel Bay books,
yeah, or actually just song books, you know, they would have
the, they would have the written music, but a lot of times it'd
be guitar tabs over it with the little dots where the fingers
went on the frets, and that's how I kind of how I learned how
to play, and and I remember in the third grade I did a little
show in school, and I played piano, played guitar, I played
drums, and I did a ventriloquist act, and my brother Rusty drew
the posters for it, and he had them all over the school, you
know, third grade show I was going to be doing, and I've
stayed with the rest of it, but I dropped the ventriloquist.
Remember that was it? I forget who, who the.. they had a record
album for this thing, and it was.. they.. it was a Jimmy
O'Day or something like that. Yeah, like you know, they would
say, you know, instead of saying the B, like Johnny B,
yeah,
it would say use the letter D, and it's like, you know, the Doy
daughter basket doll, just keep doing it over and over, you
know. It took me a lot of years, but you know, then it finally,
it finally hit me when I got a little older. They were on an
album, I couldn't see what they were doing. They were actually
going, the boy bought a basketball, it sounded just like
it. It's good thing you got out of that business.
I did. I got out of.. did I never could get my D's.
Well, you and Rusty, I mean, you guys played music a lot
together. I remember, in
fact,
I've told this story many times, but I played a gig when I was
trying to be a musician, be an entertainer, but it was this
little club called, I think, it was the Music Row Club, it's on
Music Row,
yeah,
and I think Alan Cartier may have owned that place,
I don't remember,
and Buddy Jennings, Waylon's son did the sound, I remember that,
yeah,
but you guys, I was a night that you guys were playing,
was it the Golden Spear?
I
think the
Goldens,
it was the Goldens, I think.
Okay,
and and you guys were so nice because you know we had to, we
were gonna have to set up around your stuff because you were the
main attraction, we were just opening, but the way you guys
were so nice because you told my guys, you said, 'Hey, man, use
our stuff if you want to, that way you don't have to set up
yours. And most, most, you know, most headline acts don't do
that. Yeah,
well, I don't know, anybody could be any harder on drums
than I was. So it's like you're not gonna hit them any harder
than I am, bro. Go for
it. How many enemy instruments do you play?
Whatever's left,
because I've seen you do, I mean, I've seen you drum, I've
seen you play piano, and you play guitar,
mandolin,
yeah, everything,
and the saw,
right?
I can pull out the saw if I have to,
and ventriloquist if asked, right?
I've been blessed, man, it's just I'll try to play anything.
You know
what's the most obscure one that you play? Mouth harp, maybe.
Oh, well, anybody do that. You just got to be careful with the
teeth on that. I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't play
a lot of wind instruments. I do play harmonica. And stuff like
that, but you know, Forrest read instruments, I never, and you
know, trumpets and you know saxes and stuff like that.
So, do you ever read music, or you just all Nashville number
system?
No, sir, I don't read, but I, I do know the Nashville number
system. Oh, yeah, had to, had to learn that pretty quick,
right?
Yeah, but I don't read, never did learn how to be, you know,
and I, that's what I, I've said it a lot of times, only God
could take a boy up to Flunk Band in high school and say,
'Hey, man, I'm gonna make you a music guy,
God thing,
yeah, it is a God thing. So,
how did you get Nick? I didn't, you know, a lot of people around
Nashville, and especially people that have been here for a long
time, will remember Golden Spear
well. You'd have to be here for a little while. It actually
started with when I got out of high school. It was the boys
band,
yeah,
and my brother Rusty. It was Greg Gordon who sang with the
Imperials. He also, he sang lead with the boys band, Steve
Sanders, who at one time took my dad's place with those boys, he
was in that band, and my brother Rusty, and they were putting a
group together, and I wound up playing drums with them for
about a year and a half, they were going to take a year and a
half, they were going to take about a year off, and they went
out to Caribou Ranch, signed to deal with Electra Asylum
Records, and back then it was a pop album. This is before
Wrestler's Heart. It's a pretty, you know, I'm saying all that
because I just saw Larry Stewart a while ago. Oh,
yeah, yeah, yeah,
my buddy Larry, we played together some. I got to play
drums with those guys for
a while.
He brought that
first season, and, but it was kind of before that sound became
popular in country music. What we were doing was a little too
pop for country and a little too country for pop, but it was
called the boys band, but it wound up being on, you know,
released on the pop charts and stuff, and it was, yeah, we
thought it was country compared to Blondie, and some of that
stuff, but back then, you know, they played a wide variety of
things on rock and roll radio and pop radio. Yeah, they would
play anything from, you know, Journey to the Eagles, and, you
know, the Eagles stuff at Sound Country.
Yep,
that was
more country than anything on country radio right now. I mean,
Ben Gile wanted to join a country band, so anyhow, man, it
started out as the boys band, and we recorded an album at
Electris, I mean, at Caribou Ranch in Netherland, Colorado,
and did that for a little while. I wound up playing with a group
from Canada called Cedar Creek for just a little while.
Yes, we're tall, though.
And then we came back to the started doing the Golden Spear
thing, and it was more of Americana rock and roll kind of
thing, Tom Petty-ish, and we still had a lot of country
influence because we had that three part harmony going even
with Golden Spear. We went down to Muscle Shoals, we tried
kicking every, you know, we'd write five songs, go record
them, try to get a record deal, you know, pass. They didn't,
Nashville didn't kind of quite know what to do with us, and
sometimes, you know, that son of one of can be a strike against
you for in certain circles,
and that
drives me crazy, because I've met so many, so many kids that
have come from, you know, country, like Robin Young, you
know, Farron Young's son, he was a great talent,
a man, you know, we're so proud to have been still making music
and all that, but we, during that time, we went to Muscle
Shoals. I was mainly the drummer at that time. I sang a couple of
songs in the show. We went down to Muscle Shoals, and we went to
their B room, Roger Hawkins and David Hood, who were the two.
They were part of the Mount Rushmore of Muscle Shoals and
rhythm sections, really, Barry Beckett was coming to Nashville
and producing Lori Morgan and some other people like that, and
Roger and David kind of wanted to do a little bit of a dip
their toe in that thing, that production thing, for a little
while, so we went down there, they sort of took us under their
wing and taught us how to make records, muscle show style, and,
and that education I wouldn't take anything for, but we went
down there, and we had about 35 songs that we had written at
that time, and we went into their bee room, and we just
recorded everything like a live show, we went down it, so they
could hear what all we did, and out of those 35 songs, we picked
three to re-record, and it happened to be all three that I
was singing, and they said, "Man, it's got a little bit more
of a country influence to it. You live in Nashville, you got
country roots, you know, gonna take a little. Bit of the edge
off of some of the guitar sounds and make it a little more
palatable to Nashville Radio, and that wound up leading to our
developmental deal that we had with CBS at the time, and so we
wound up recording an album for CBS, my brother and I. What my
man Rusty actually with Golden Spear, we dropped, you know,
went from Golden Spear and Mark - it was Mark Spear we had grew
up with Mark in the gospel world too, and it was a type thing
that Mark said, "Man, this more country direction wasn't really
what he was into at the time. He was the singer and one of the
main writers, lead guitar player. He hung with it for a
little while, but he came to us, and he said, "Man, I want a
divorce. So we had, we just went with the Goldens that time, and
me and Rusty had actually sort of split at the time. Rusty was
doing some things with Dee Murray and playing with another
group here in Nashville, and I went over to Memphis and
recorded some things together, brought it back and took it to
CBS, who we never did do a deal with CBS with the Golden Spear
Goldens thing at that time, but I was bringing the stuff to CBS
as a solo act, and I had recorded some things over there
in Memphis. Three songs with Larry Client Crane from John
Mellencamp's band. Kenny Lovelace played fiddle on it.
He, he's with the killer, you know? He was, he plays guitar
with him, but he's a great fiddle player. And Michael
Rhodes played bass, and I played the rest, I think, between me
and Larry Crane from Mellencamps, man, and brought it
over there, and we got a deal that day, and they said, you
know, what we've got like a dozen guys on our label right
now, would you think about doing a group, and I said that would
just kind of been nine months ago that we sort of went had a
group together for three years, it broke up, and I said I would
not, and groups break up, but families for life, and I'll do a
thing with my brother.
Yeah,
I'd love to, you know, because he was writing some of the songs
I was recording anyway, and said, you know, we've been a
team since birth, and families don't break up, so I'll do
something with my brother, and that's how kind of the Goldmans
got back together.
Well, you guys were really good together, you and Rusty. Well,
you just had a great sound.
He was the rocker, and I was, you know, he was. I sang more
about Mama and Home, and he sang more about stoned on love? Yeah,
he was the rocker man.
He was man.
He was a
force.
Boy, anytime he was on stage, I mean, I've never seen a dude. He
just comes alive. He would come alive on stage.
He had
kicked that piano stool, and oh
yeah,
he would give it his best Elton Jerry Lee ever. He was there to
put on a show, but you know, we all come from a long line of
look at me.
Yeah,
you know,
well, and I love that. You guys see, I loved when your dad put
together this group that had come out just a couple of years
ago, after Covid, really around Covid time,
yeah,
and didn't he, that's that was the whole impetus for that was
that he got tired of watching, you know, the negative stuff on
news, just sitting around.
Well, man, I'll backtrack just a little bit on that golden still,
so whenever we, you know, we did an album for CBS Records, and
then the classic National Story, you know, Sony comes in by CBS,
and we're one of 20 people that get cut, so we wound up without
a deal for a while, but we had a great live show, and we were
playing, we had Halsey Company booking us, and you know, we
were playing every fair and festival in the country, man. We
did all the farm maids and all these big, you know, 10 act, you
know, sweat fests that they have out there. We did all of those,
and we had a great live show. That's the thing that kept us
going, was our live show, and TNN people would see us, you
know, on doing the Ralph Emery show. We used to beg them to be
on there, but they finally figured out we loved to
entertain, and they called us a lot to be on there, and you
know, we'd go to Independence, Kansas, and people would, you
know, they, they had seen us on TV a bunch of times, we had
videos and stuff, so that kind of kept us going until we wound
up over at Capitol Records, and has wound up Blake Chancey
produced that album, and I thought it was kind of cool,
because Ron Chancey had produced our dad. Yeah, so it was the
second generation Blake used to come out and run sound for us,
and there he was producing us. The Dixie Chicks and all these
other people, you know, and so during the time where we did our
first album was the during the time that we were in the studio
and Dad found out he was not going to be with the Oak Ridge
Boys anymore, they had decided they were going to try to cut
too big a limb off the tree at the time, and so there wasn't
social media and stuff like that going on, but the phone was
ringing off the wall. So we said, "Hey, man, why don't you
come to the studio with us? And he did. We got him on a couple
of songs. Whenever we went out, we were taking photos for we
were trying to keep him away from telephone and love on him
and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, he come, our Alan Messer
was taking all the photos, and he was taking, so when the
record company got some of these photos back, some of them had
dad in them, and they said, Hey, man, what's going on? You know,
we signed this signs you and your brother and now your dad,
that's not, you know, and if I had any inkling, a lot like I do
now, you know, when you're 26 years old, yeah, we'll do
whatever you say, yes
sir.
Now I'd say, well, that was then, and this is now, and we're
gonna be like, the, you know, we're gonna cut, he's a golden
too,
yeah,
and we're go out, we would have probably, you know, done that if
I'd, but what wound up happening is he recorded for Polygram, we
recorded for a different label, Capital, and at one time CPS,
and we had separate booking agencies and management, but we
toured together, so what we did is, like, you know, we got to
work twice as much that way. Whenever dad would get a
booking, they'd, you know, our agents knew each other, and
they'd say, "Well, hey, for I know the little scratch, you can
get this up and come and ban on the, you know, Capitol Records.
They got a single out doing pretty good right now, and so,
you know, we would get to open the show, and then he had come
out, we'd take a step back, kind of like the band did with Bob
Dylan, and that's that was sort of our model that we used, it
was kind of a one two punch, yeah, so we did that for a long
time, whenever we would get booked, we'd say, hey man, you
know, for an extra little scratch, you can have this
legendary Oakridge Boy, you know, William Lee Golden come
out with us too, so we toured together,
yeah, but
we recorded separately to go full circle back to what you
were talking about, as during that pandemic that was the first
time that we had ever recorded together, other than the, you
know, him being a guest singer on a song, kind of a background
vocalist on song, or whatever. So this was the first time we'd
ever been in the studio and recorded, and we wound up doing
34 songs.
Oh yeah, and they were fun. I mean, they, they did a lot of
covers that were really good, like I loved your version of
Take It Easy and the Eagles. I loved your version of Southern
Accents.
I'm pretty
sure I
still, in fact, I made you sing that at a church.
You did well. It was that last verse about Mama praying. It
kind of pulled it all
off, Rusty. I mean, I usually don't like to hear people do
covers of Bob Seger, but man, he nailed Hollywood nights. Oh,
God,
he sure did, man. And you know, it was a lot of cover stuff,
because whenever we first got together and started doing it,
it was gospel songs. Dad wanted us to do these gospel songs.
Some of them we didn't even know that it was songs of his
childhood, and we learned all those and sang them, and then it
kind of turned into he wanted to do some old time country stuff
with, you know, some Chris Christofferson, and just some
old, old, old tunes, and yeah, stuff like that, we didn't
really, you know, and then it kind of wound up being it
started out as one thing and it sort of just kept evolving, we
thought, well, we got enough gospel songs for a gospel
record, now this is old time country stuff, now let's do
something a little more southern or rock type of stuff, so we
wound up doing three albums together there and a ton of
videos, and yeah, man, it was a lot of fun, and we're still, as
it went on, my kids came on, you know, they've all got records,
and
oh my god, they're talented,
ain't they?
Oh my, you are, you are very blessed, they really are, man,
your daughter, my gosh,
yeah, she's great, man,
yeah,
she's so proud of my kids, and it's like just another
generation. I always tell people, man, they passed me a
long time ago. I remember when Elijah was in, like, the sixth
grade, man. He, Ronnie McCrory from the McCorrys, he called me
on the road one time. He said, "I just want you to know, man,
I'm I'm pretty jaded musically, but I just saw your. Son singing
a school play, and cried like a
baby.
He said he has got it, man.
He does,
and he's had it for a long time, and Elizabeth's the same way.
Yeah, so they passed me a long time ago.
Well, it just gives you hope that the family name is going to
continue on in music.
I sure hope so, only if they want to do it, you know. And I
got three kids, one of each, and they are all three are extremely
talented, very talented. Elijah plays a lot of instruments,
Elizabeth plays fiddle and guitar, and she comes out and
plays and sings with me. If she's going to be joining, we
just did four days together down in Florida, and then came up
here and did the Opry House Monday night. She's going to be
joining me. We're opening for Skaggs next week, and
yeah, I saw that.
Yeah, so it made a lot of fun, man. She's comes with me. I
thought, if I'm gonna be opening for him, I need a
fiddle.
And the great thing is, he's got all dudes up there? I got a
country princess coming out,
dude. She is a pretty little girl, man. Well, I gotta tell
you, too. I gotta tell the story. Here is that my wife, for
her birthday, she said, I want Chris Golden and Marie, his
wife, to come have dinner with us, and I said, you know, that's
cool, and she told me that they were coming, and I really didn't
quite believe her. I thought, yeah, I don't think that's gonna
happen, but on the day of her birthday, I'm sitting there
watching an Elvis movie at home, and there's a knock at the door,
son, a gun, there's
Chris Roust about, oh, it's one of my clambake,
but we also found I couldn't believe my wife was giving you
all this Elvis memorabilia.
I know it,
man. We could have sold that.
Well, I don't. On
a music room, and, man, everybody loves Elvis.
Oh, you're not kidding.
Yeah,
I love Elvis. So,
man, that did you see the new one, the bass thing?
I want to see that. I haven't seen it yet. It
was awesome. It was great.
Well, see, I loved Chris, because when Glennon was giving
him all of this, Elvis, he was like a little kid. He was like,
I begged her not to give. Well, you don't want to give
this away.
You don't want to give this away to me. She goes, "Oh, I do. You
know,
she loves
away.
She loves Chris and Marie, and so albums, he's going, going,
get this out to the car quick albums,
cars
get
to see Elvis as a kid, man, Elvis came to the quartet
convention and the municipal auditorium in like early 70s, he
used to come there, and you know, watch the gospel groups,
and I had heard that, you know, he had offered the Oaks that
background gig at one time, but they had a lot of stuff going on
themselves, but he would come, and they built this special
little thing for him to sit on stage, where it was almost like
a booth that nobody knew who was behind the booth, where he could
almost sit on stage and watch them. He watched my brother play
drums, and we used, you know, we knew we knew that that municipal
auditorium and the board memorial building, we knew all
the back out, you know, we were little backstage kids, so we,
you know, we grew up backstage, we could get around any of them
buildings and just ran amok the whole time. But I go out to the
Oaks at the time, they had this I Love the Oaks stickers, and I
was going plastering them on everything. I had a roll, I had
a roll of them, had a roll of these stickers, and I'm just
going, putting them on all over, all over the hallway, and
everything. I heard the crowd just, and I went to go get a
Hershey bar, and I was a little jubo. I had heard this, you
know, I come running in there to see what was going, what was
going on with chocolate all over my mouth, and they said Elvis
just walked across the stage, it's like, oh man, I missed
it,
but he was there. We were in the same building, but I didn't get
to see
that building, baby.
Yeah, you know, some of my heroes during that time were
like Glenn Campbell and Kenny Rogers, and I remember when the
first edition came to came to the municipal auditorium. We
were up in the balcony. It was sold out at the time. They were
huge, man. My brother Rusty gets, he had the little fringe
coat and the little, you know, Brian Jones striped bell bottom
pants, and he goes, they go to get popcorn. Rusty says, I'm
gonna go back there and make candy and. Band, and everything,
and so the guy that was with us that night, his friend came back
to where we were sitting, and they said, "Where's Rusty? He
said, "Well, he said he was gonna go meet the band, and so
we went right backstage. He never came back to
the city,
and that particular night they were given a car away. It was
like, I don't know if Bob, you know, Bob Friendly or somebody
was sponsoring the concert, so they, they had a, you know, keep
your ticket stub, and we're gonna give out a car halfway
through the show. They get the, the big barrel that they spin
with the, with the tickets and the names to draw the winning
names. We're gonna bring out our little buddy Rusty to draw the
weird ticket on stage with them, you know, he's like 12,
that boy was meant
around, he wasn't scared, he looked like he belonged with
them, because he had the, you know, yeah, a little hippie
outfit, it was awesome,
yeah, now he now on his own, he didn't play Dubai a lot.
He went over there, there was a some cousins of ours through
that, through marriage, they had a, they had a place over there,
they had a, it was a, they had American food, American drink,
and American music going on at this place, and he would go over
there and do these three month stints, and come back for a
little while, and go back and do three months, and they had
offered that to me at one time, but I had it paid insane money,
and I had three kids, just like, man, I'm not gonna be gone three
months any anywhere, yeah. You know, I want to come home, and,
but he went over there, he did that for about four or five
years.
He's quite
popular there, wasn't
he? Was yeah, front page stories and all kind of stuff.
Yeah, gosh,
yeah. So before it was over, it was just like the, you know, him
coming out on the stage with Kenny, you know, you're talking
about Elvis. My hero was Glen Campbell, and I used to lay it
in front of that TV and watch that Glenn Campbell, good.
Oh man, yeah. And you know, when the Mother's Brothers had their
summer replacement show,
yeah,
it was the Summer Brothers Smothers show, and it was hosted
by Glenn Campbell, and I was like, you, I mean, he was my
idol, and I got to work with him when I was at MCA, and got to be
around him, and I won't say know him, but you know, got to hang
with him a little bit, and that was, that was so cool. Well, I
mean, the most talented musician guy that I've ever been around,
a player's player, a singer, singer. He was a great host,
yes, actor, funny guy. He was a man. I remember I got, you know,
blessed to be able to be on shows with him too. Every time I
was running, I'd say, man, I just want you to know you're the
guy that got me hooked on hairspray,
and we thought it was Marty Stewart.
You got me a hooked on hairspray. Started out with a
couple of squirts and worked my way up to a half a can a week.
Well, we brought up Jim Halsey a little while ago. My dad got
involved with Jim Halsey, and they had a radio station in
Tulsa, KTOW, and when the Oaks came out, Jim, it was a
requirement for everybody at the station to go to these parties
that they would have for the because they were trying to
break the Oak Ridge Boys with country music, but one guy I got
to hang out with a lot with my dad was Roy Clark, and I know
that he worked a lot with the Oaks, but what a great talent.
Oh, and
what a great guy. My God, I love being around that guy.
Roy was something, man, he was a force too. Now he, he took the
Oaks to Russia before the Oaks ever had a country record, they
were still a gospel group at the time, and they had an exchange
program at Halsey, had kind of put together with the State
Department, and they took an exchange program, they took this
country music show over there, but they had to do it in front
of the Russian consulate, or whatever, you know, whoever's in
charge over there, they had to do their show for them before
they were allowed to perform it, and you know, they was a to
Canaan land, I'm on my way, and they wouldn't let them say
Canaan, they wanted them to say Disney, and they was like, no,
this is a gospel song.
Yeah,
we can't say Disneyland, we got to say Canaan, because they
said, well, you know, they didn't want them to use the word
Canaan.
Interesting. So, no religious reference of any kind.
Well, all they really had at the time were gospel records, so
they were trying to have an exchange, so they just said, How
about that fair land? Well, instead of Canaan, you know,
land, maybe to that fair land, and
yeah,
so they made compromise on some of that stuff, but Roy took him
over there.
Yeah, he did.
Yeah,
I remember that.
Yeah, wow, Roy was a force.
Well, and Jim Halsey was a force. They, the Oaks had a
great manager in that man, he was very cool.
He did, he saw him when they were gospel, and he said, "Man,
you guys are three minutes away from making it. You need a
country record, and if you can bring that kind of energy that
you've got in gospel. But they were hungry at that time,
because gospel would kind of, you know, shunned them a little
bit. They were getting a little too wild. And
well, I remember too when they decided to go country, that a
lot of gospel groups were not kind to them,
right?
I remember, like, they did a gig somewhere, maybe I forget where
it was, but some gospel group said something awful on stage.
Well, during that time, Johnny Cash also had sort of took them
under their wing, and they were getting to play out in Vegas,
opening for Johnny Cash, because it was the Johnny Cash show, you
know. We had the Carter family and the Tennessee three, Carl
Perkins, and Johnny was the last one on stage, but it was like
they put a.. it was the Johnny Cash show, and the Oaks at that
time were strictly gospel, and all these people thought, well,
they're playing in nightclubs, they're out there in Sin City,
doing that. Well, what they didn't, those narrow-minded
folks didn't know that they were singing "Jesus is coming soon"
on the strip, you know.
Well, yeah, what would Jesus.. well, into.. did Jesus not hang
out with the
junkies, whores, and thieves?
Yeah, I mean, that's that's how they got you
inverted, those who needed a physician,
exactly.
What was it like? When did you realize you were growing up in a
family that was extraordinary? When did you have that
realization,
man? And that part of the country that we're from, my
granddaddy was one of 13 brothers and sisters, and they
are the my granddaddy was an identical triplet, it was
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they were Luke was the run of the
three, and I kind of knew it from them, from the, you know,
from my southern, my, my farm family roots are extraordinary.
People say, you know, like, Dad's a hard act to live up to,
or whatever. His daddy was a heart, was a man's man, and he
was a really hard act to live up to, not just, you know, he had
so many friends in that community because he would
always put himself last and then kind of first, and so he was
actually the one that was the hard one to live up to, but I've
always been proud of my heritage and my roots, and far as you
know, the gospel thing, I might have been when I was in
elementary school, when I finally kind of figured out,
hey, man, this is kind of cool, because you're around other
kids, it was just a natural thing to mess with. My dad did
just a job, it was a, it was a job, you know, and what's really
wild is back then, the Oaks, they couldn't afford second cars
during that time, so that bus would go house to house and pick
them up like a school bus, that's nobody, they didn't have
an office to, you know, meet at and leave your cars at, and for
the bus lot, you know, it's like they would just, they took turns
driving it, and they all set their song sound system up, and
my dad was a sound guy. He ran it from the side of the stage,
and there was one man that told me, about a year ago, I was down
in Florida, and he showed me this old thing that he brought
that my dad had signed, and put our home phone number on it, and
he said the day that I saw them, that was their third show that
that day they had played a high school that morning, like an
assembly, trying to get them to bring their parents back for
that night, and then they played a fair that afternoon, and then
went back to that same high school to
play the show. Wow, are
they breaking down and setting up equipment and everything?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh,
so anyway, you know, they worked hard, but far as that deal, I
remember when I was in elementary school, the bus, the
bus came to pick me up one time, and you know, Dad and Dwayne get
out, and they coming down the hallways, and none of them
teachers is like, I thought, hey, man, you know they're
pretty special, and I've made me feel so big, because you know,
then there are all these kids on the playground, I get to wave at
them while I'm getting on the bus, I'm going with these cool
guys that look like gangsters, they look like good fellows back
then, they always had the suits and the sunglasses. And the, you
know, the hair and all that kind of stuff, yeah, they look like
good fellas, but yeah, man, it was probably when I was in
elementary school, I knew that, you know, the oaks were, and
they were just gospel at that time,
right, right, right,
and by the time I got to high school, they started having some
country success, and, man, but it was always something, it was
just the family business, as far as what that's what my dad did,
you
know,
and
pretty cool job. I
always tell people I was born the son of a paper mill worker.
My dad worked at the paper mill, and for about six years, and one
man, my brothers were little, and he wanted had dreams of
singing, and my mom used to encourage him, and they'd go
around seeing the different groups and stuff, and he would
get had a little trio. My dad built his own PA, he, you know,
put the wood together and put the speakers in it, and the
grill cloth, and all that kind of thing, man. He built his own
PA, and he really wanted to do that. You don't think about
stuff like that, but my dad was, you know, everybody knows him as
the mountain man. Oh, during that time, he, he was working at
a paper mill and dreaming about singing, and they, you know, he
had a microphone, and they would have a little trio, and they
used to open shows for the Oak Ridge Boys when they'd be in
that Pensacola, Florida, the Panhandle area, South Alabama,
and stuff. They might get to be on the same show with them.
That's how he kind of made friends with some of them, and
said, "Hey, man, if y'all ever get an opening, I'd love a shot
at it. And they said, "Well, okay. And it wasn't - he
actually was telling them, "I don't think the guy that you got
in your group right now fits your image and on his job, he
because you know they had a really cool guy named Gary
McSpadden, and Dad loved Gary, and he thought he was cool, and
because he looked like Elvis, and yeah, he was a great singer
too. But anyway, I know I'm just talking in
circles. Hey, man, you're not talking in a circle. We want to
hear these stories before they circle the drain. Hey, full
circle, baby. And with gospel music, did you, did you ever
experience the all-night gospel sing-a-thons?
Yeah,
because a lot of people don't, people, when they hear this,
they don't, they don't think it was an all night.
Yeah,
I'm talking, it was all night.
Well, listen, man, I was.. it was, you know, that you know
what I remember about it more than anything, it was first time
I got to have coffee. Let's get these little kids jacked up on
some coffee, like, how much sugar and cream can I put in
here? No, this tastes like chocolate milk. I want another
one more.
Well, the funniest thing ever experienced one of these.. I
think it was in Hot Springs, Arkansas, but I was playing one
of the
Passion Fest. Was it the Passion?
It may have
been Passion Play,
and I don't.. I don't know if it was that or not, but it was in
Hot Springs, and apparently
that's Eureka Springs, I'm sorry.
Yeah, but what was funny about this was apparently this woman
had brought her husband out, and he was one of these that thought
it wasn't all night, and they rarely take breaks, but they do
take some breaks, and I was outside because I was already
done, and I was outside talking to, I think it was some of the
planesmen, and this door just flies open, and it's this
couple, and she looks just like she's in heaven, having the
greatest time. He comes out and goes, 'Ah, shit, you didn't tell
me it's gonna be this long. No. those things were fun. Yeah,
they used
to call them sundown to sun up.
They have a
sundown to sun up.
Oh, they would,
you know, a lot of the times when they would get that many
groups together. I think the reason that they.. I know the
reason that they did the sun down to sun up thing, because it
was, you know, and they didn't have as many air-conditioned
buildings back then, so they were waiting for the sun to go
down,
exactly.
Yeah, they done under the football lights or the baseball
lights. Yeah,
but I had more fun. I mean, gospel groups were fun. I really
enjoyed watching them perform, and then hanging out with them.
When
I was in, I was like, I think I was about two weeks before I
turned 15. I went and auditioned for this little gospel group. My
mama was selling houses at the time. This guy, he was singing
with the gospel group. I was, my son plays piano, and so I played
piano, and he sang a song. He said, 'Hey, man, we're... They
called a month later and said, 'We're looking for a piano
player, you want to come try. It's like, man, I was only 14 at
the time. I wound up getting the gig, and I, you know, I turned
15, and so between 15 and almost, I was only about a year,
I guess, about one season, but I went out with this little gospel
crew from Madison, and my dad kind of warned. Me, a little bit
about it,
then
you know, I could make more money on the weekend than you
know, just going out for a couple of days, and my friends
could work on all through the week.
Oh, yeah,
so I did that Southern Gospel circuit for a little while,
yeah, and then I have come full circle on that, and I circle in
the drain back, back to some of it. Maybe I ought to move to
Australia and go the other way.
Circle
back the other way.
What was there any like a prodigal son moment musically,
where you kind of veered off, because when you grew up in the
heyday of the bands, and you know, the 80s, and stuff like
that, especially I would, in your teenage years, was there
anything that influenced you, like that would surprise
somebody, you know, any hair, hair bands, or anything like
that,
we were definitely a hair act
of
Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, that kind of thing, and
say, man, we like that kind of fashion, but you know, I
remember whenever they, the label came to us, said, you
know, you don't look like you sound, and they wanted us to
kind of clean up a little bit, and during that time, we knew
that we were, our gig was up with Capitol Records at the
time, but we wanted them to know that we were a country act, and
so I had the idea. We had a song called Little Piece of Land at
the time. We were sort of a video act, and it was one that I
loved video back then, but I took a home camera and did
pre-production for this thing down around our hometown, and
then we went with, then we took a skeleton crew down there with
us and filmed, tried to recreate what I'd done with a home movie
camera with film, and you know, videos just cost a lot more
because of film and developing and this and that, so we knew we
were only gonna get one or two, we didn't want to do a lot of
editing, so we were planning these, I had all the shots kind
of planned out, but it revolved around our home movies, so we
would go to the exact same spot where that home movie was filmed
and try to line the camera up, so it faded back in and out of
time, and you know all our home movies, when we were little,
there's like chickens running around our legs, you know, you
know, cattle and grandma chopping wood and working in the
fields, and yeah, yes, sir. Every, every, every, every,
every piece of video we have, my grandmother, she's never sitting
still, she's gathering eggs, she's hanging clothes on the
line, she's chopping wood, she's feeding animals. She never got
to shelling peas, she's never got to do anything other than
work, you know. It didn't seem like
mine was smoking cigarettes and drinking martinis.
Anyway, man, it was like we wanted them to know that we were
country at the time, and far as any kind of big moment during, I
don't know, man, we there's been a lot of great ones.
What's one that really sticks out in your mind, that, like,
man, that was fun, like, like a file cabinet moment, and you
just kind of follow it away, you know. You're always gonna
remember
it. He has tough questions,
hopefully they're good questions.
They are what I felt like, what was the.. what was the original?
Just,
just like you know, a standout moment that you're like, "Oh my
gosh, this is.. I remember this for the rest of my life. You
know,
I got to play for every president one night.
Wow,
pretty, pretty incredible thing. I was playing drums with
Alabama, and we did a thing down in Texas. We had played the
inauguration for our current president, the first time
around, we actually played the, I think it was called the
Chairman's Ball. It was the night before the inauguration,
actually, Steve Wynn and all these busy all kind of wild
people there. I've been so blessed to be around different
things. It's, you know, really have been blessed to be around
certain circles, and you know the thing is, is as a musician,
those kind of gigs, like with Restless and Alabama, and this
and that, I did get to play with the Oak Ridge Boys for 17 years,
but those other groups don't hire you because of who your dad
is. You gotta be able to play to be able to sing, play, and sing
with them. So I was proud of that, being able to do that. But
we did a thing down out in Texas called One America Appeal, and
there I was, man. I had this little snare drum that my
brother found on the side of the road. They were kids. My mama
was driving. My brother says, "I just saw a suitcase on the side
of the road. We turn around and go get it. It was between
Hendersonville and White House at the time, I remember. And
Mama said, "This has got to be somebody's room. So she took out
an ad in the paper, "Lost and Found, and we put it in there
for three months, so this drum just described it, what kind it
was, what color it was, where it was found, what was in the case,
and that was our first real drum that went with the little Jap,
sorry, the off brand kit,
yeah. Sorry, what the cheap
it was a Lud week, and we had this little drum, and man, I had
put a set of drums together for my nephew at the time, and I
gave it when I gave him that drum to put together with these
other drums, it still had the same head on it that we had when
we were kids, because we had drawn little pictures on it and
written, you know, put an STP sticker on the side. So I told
him, I said, 'Hey, man, you still got that drum kit? when he
got a little older, and he said, 'No, I gave it to my cousin on
my mama's side. I said, 'Well, man, oh, it's fine and dandy,
but if you're not playing them, I'd like to get that little red
drum back, because it's sentimental to me. That was my
first reel when I got, I put a new head on it, put new wires on
it, tweaked it out, and I played it, and that's the drum I took
to play on that date with the Presidents.
A drum like that, you'd probably have to get the bearing edges
redone at some point,
well, I never did, because it sounded so good. Oh, that's
just.. I call it my honey boy, and I've played it on, I've
played it on so many sessions, it's just got a great warm sound
to it. And I wound up was kind of a special moment to me to
look down at that little drum and know that's the one I've
been playing since I was five years old.
What it was,
it was a Ludwig,
well, or what kind of wood? Maple,
I don't know, man. It's just it was just a red sparkle
wood. It
was a 1964 I do know that it was one of them, red sparkle woods.
Yeah, but man, I got to play that for them, and that night I
got to meet, you know, it was Clinton, Carter, Obama, both
Bushes, and
George
W.
We were all there together, strategic. Got to talk to Lady
Gaga, stop and talk to me that night. Oh, wow, it's pretty
cool. It was several of us there, and it was I'd also
gotten to play the White House, and been around the bushes
before, and that was one of them times I was in a dressing room
in Galveston one night, and the Oaks were like 20 minutes late,
and I walked, I'm in the dressing room by myself, and the
bushes walked in, and I entertained him for like 15
minutes by myself, which was wild. I had so many questions I
wanted to ask about different things, but I didn't. Hopefully,
you were.. I knew he was head of the CIA. Hey, man, what about
did you kill Kennedy?
He knows who
did. Well, that had to be pretty trippy, because George Bush,
George H.W. Bush, was a huge fan of the Oaks. I know
he was, and then
the, the,
his son, man, I had gotten to play the White House during
that, during that era too, and that night I knew that the
presidents were gonna be there. I was wearing the cuff links
that he had given us, you know, he'd give my got a pair of that
with a presidential seal on it. That's what I wore that night
anyway. Pretty, pretty surreal moment for me. That was a, that
was a big moment. Yeah, mainly because I'd heard later that
they don't, you know, the all of them don't get together in this
very room, unless another one is about passed away, is when they
all get together. So it was a pretty rare deal for them to all
get together for something like that.
Did they all mingle with each other and all seem to get along?
Oh no,
like they
were still on two teams, man. Oh, really? Yeah, that That's
real, because you always imagine you always hear, like, behind,
you know, when the cameras are off, it's like professional
wrestling. They're all like, you know, well, yeah, I can see that
to some degree. They were in the same room, it was not very many
of them in there, but I've just remembered that, you know,
Carter and Obama were standing there together, and then the
Bushes were together, and then Clinton was just.. he was
everywhere.
He was looking for interns.
What, but you know, George H.W. Bush, Clinton used to hang out
with him quite a bit. Kenny Buckbird, yeah. He, in fact, he
called himself I'm the black sheep of the family guy.
Different problem child, I like going to islands.
What's wild is, you know, those got to go up there a bunch to
Kenny Punk Port, and Dad was told me that talk about
something, so you know one of his moments would have to be
sitting there in a sauna and a nothing but a toggle with
President this
water's cold,
it's a little nipple,
like sausage
gladiator movies,
you watch gladiator movies.
When you played the White House, did the Secret Service go over
your kit, and you know, check it out?
No, sir. But the one thing about that, that I remember, I
remember them, you know. Honestly, I'm gonna let you on a
little secret. I'm a spoiled. I never set my stuff up. I wasn't
there when they went through everything, but I remember that
day they said, now listen, this, you know, whenever you meet the
queen, you know you don't reach out, you know you don't touch
the queen, right? You don't, you just kind of bow to the queen or
the king or whoever, the princess, whatever. There's a,
the president don't shake his hand unless he puts this out to
you, you know, you don't shake their hand.
Yeah,
you just, you know, so during the show, man, he walks up on
stage, he's looking around. I know we're on a podcast. I don't
know if these cameras work, but soon as he went, soon as he
looked at me, and he kind of nodded like that, my arm just
went.
I couldn't have
it. Did he respond?
Oh, yeah. Oh, good. Yeah,
didn't leave you hanging.
No, sir.
Gosh, there it happened to you where you go to shake somebody's
hand and they don't see you, and you're sitting, you're like,
like Don
Henley.
Yeah,
there you go.
I'll see myself out, or
Joe Biden shaking hands with nobody.
Mitch McConnell moments, total freeze.
What kind of.. what's your kid configuration? What do you like?
Two up, two down,
drums.
Yeah, I'm a drummer. I'm a nerd that way. Okay, man,
I got a hybrid kit. I got a hybrid kit. I got an old, it
would be considered Master Series now, but it was, it was a
Pearl Custom Shop at the time. I wanted 10 by 1012, by 1214,
1416, 2222 So my kick is pretty
22 is
a pretty deep kick,
that's Alex Van Halen size kick,
that's my shells, right?
Oh my gosh, 22
shells, I got DW hardware, Lud Wiggins, Rogers snare drums, I
got a Sabian ride, I got mine, all crashes, I got Zildjian
hats, I got a Yamaha stool, and I classed just total hybrid
kids. So,
basically, you're advertising to everybody, especially the symbol
manufacturers. I am for sale, I mean, an endorsement.
I was not endorsed by anybody. I always went with what sounded
best, as far as, like, the, you know, Zildjian symbols. I love
Zildjian, man. And, but I would, I love that Sabian ride. It just
sounded great to me, and I'd have to hear, you know, people.
It's that sound in my head that I was chasing,
yeah,
from my childhood, mainly.
Yeah, which
were that, but I'm not beholden to any company for, for that,
you know, I just went with what sounded best to me at the time.
Maybe you get endorsements from all of them. The symbols are the
ones that you got to watch, man. Those are the.. I mean, he
couldn't freaking 1000s of the symbols outweigh them, price the
drums sometimes, most of the time.
Well, that's kind of why I went with mine, all for a little
while, because I was going through them, man. I was, go,
you know, I remember the old, in the old days. Maybe I were just
younger, but it didn't seem like I would go through symbols as
much back then. I would have the same symbol for all these, you
know, till I.. we were opening for Louisiana LaRue, and I guess
that guy's got it now. I left it on stage, you know, but anyhow,
I was going through them with the Oaks. I was going one or two
crashes a year, and it just seemed like it was too much,
man. And then I started trying these models. They had a two
year warranty on it, like if it, you know, messes up in two
years, bring it back. Back, so I thought, well, that's, you know,
at this rate I would have, you know, I would be better ahead if
I tried those miles out, and I wound up loving them, and it's
been way over two years, and never, never, nothing ever went
wrong with them, but that's not the, I don't know if it's a
different kind of metal they started using than what they did
on the Vantage stuff, I don't know if they started putting,
you know, yeah, making them watering them down a little bit,
the metal, so I don't know,
I mean, to offer an awardee on a symbol is just ludicrous, but I
mean it goes just as to show you that they, the profit margins
and those things must be massive,
yeah,
but how much does it really cost to make one of them? I mean,
it's probably a lot of, well, that's where that's my stupid
geeky business mind that goes there, but you know,
some of them are hand hammered, yeah, some of them are machine,
yeah.
So, if anybody ever gets it, now, are you going to do any
more shows? Because you do these great shows in Gallatin at the
Gallatin Theater. I love those shows. Are you? I
sure hope so. The last one was the, I think, the best one we've
ever done. The last one, and I sure hope to. That started out
as an album release party.
Yeah,
had a new album out, and I wanted to do an album cover, I
was looking for a small theater to do with this album cover in,
and it was long and narrow, and I had the little colored scone
lights going up. Palace Theatre's the oldest movie house
in the state of Tennessee. It is still operating. It's tiny, but
there's.. it doesn't seed as many as it used to. The people
are bigger now. Did you know that
spread them out a little bit? Yes, we're Americans, we
land issue. Yeah,
I also like the Temple Theater too. That was,
that's a great one too. And we're talking about going up
there, but I've got the palace reserved for this October.
Sometimes
awesome,
mid-October, I'll probably be back down there with my family,
and we just call it family and friends. And I used to have a
lot of friends come with me and get up and do a song or two, and
I wound up being more of the host, where I just kind of
bringing people out all the time, but now my family has come
on so much that just like featuring them a lot.
I don't blame you. They are very talented, but
they are,
and you know, if you ever, you know, if Devin O'Day has ever,
you know, God bless her, I love her, but if she's ever, you
know, she can't do it, or you know, bring you on like she does
sometimes, we'd be glad to do. Yeah,
I think we could swing that. What do you think?
I think so. Or, if Devin wouldn't mind a couple of guys
being up there,
no, she'd love to be right in the middle of, yeah.
Oh, I love her, man. She is a sweetheart.
She is,
but I would suggest to anyone that if you ever get a chance to
go see Chris, no matter, he's on the road all the time. That's
why I had a hard time getting him in here, because I had to
look at his schedule. The dude's constantly on the road.
Well, I gotta keep it rolling.
That's right, baby,
gotta
keep it rolling. I got 478,000 miles on that vehicle
van. You can't give that up, can you?
No, it's like a part of the family now.
Yeah, you get sentimental about the vehicles,
so whenever I turned over 300,000 miles, I had this song
out, and a video of this got this van going through the
cotton fields back home, and it's the song is called
Grateful, and it's mainly called Grateful for the Road That Lies
Ahead, you know, it's the name of this song, I'm grateful for
the looking back, I'm thankful, and I'm grateful for the road
ahead, and you know, the one upstairs. Anyway, I wrote, I
wrote Chevrolet. I knew that Ron Chancey had some contact with
them, did all those like a rock commercials with.. I thought,
man, you know, I'm gonna try to.. I would love to be able to
do it, you know. I thought this was just the best song for their
whole next 10 year theme, man, of you know, turning the keys to
the old one in, getting the new car, looking in the rear view
mirror, you know, whatever. And I, so I wrote them, I sent them
that video, and I wrote to their department, I said, you know,
try to make it like just like my father and his father before
him. I'm a Chevy man, you know, and I just went through this
whole thing. I travel the byways and the back roads all across
America. I'm a troubadour, and this is what I do, and I'd love
to, you know, be considered for the consider this song. Said,
well, congratulations on 300 miles to show you how much we
appreciate you. We're gonna send you a free oil change.
Come on, give a guy a break.
Come on, I didn't want a new van, I just. Wanted to be able
to sing a song, and I could have been able to afford a new
band. Have you ever done any? I mean, you got such a tremendous
baritone. I mean, it's the family tradition there. I mean,
voiceover. You ever do anything like
that? I have.
I would think so.
You know what's wild. Speaking of Chancey, they had called,
they were doing this thing for Hines 57 and they, they were
looking for a hillbilly voice, and it was these two guys, mid
one was kind of midwest and one was southern, and they
auditioned people in Houston, Atlanta, and Nashville, and when
I went down there to audition, they at first wanted Dad, Ron
Chance, he said, William Golden is the most southern sounding
guy I know, but what it wound up being, they were going to do
these live events with these two guys, where we, they would go to
Talladega, they'd go to Pittsburgh to the Three Rivers
Fest, see Sea Fest in Seattle, we'd go to upstate New York to
the fair to look at Georgia South Florida, we would go all
over the country doing these events, and they said he's too
recognizable. People, nobody will believe that this guy is
Jim Bruck, because they had to use a different name, but I
needed something bad to happen for me, and I needed something
good to happen for me in a bad way, real man. I prayed that
night before, Lord, if it be your will, please let this come
my way. And I went out to Bradley's barn. There was Hoss
Burns,
oh yeah,
Charlie, Charlie Monk,
oh yeah,
all of these DJs lining up to do this thing, because they knew it
was going to pay good and I just, I kept thinking, how would
Andy Griffith do it? You know, how good is some kind of
extra good.
Oh, and I started just thinking about all that stuff, so bam,
before it was over, it was nothing but it's a great taste.
57 I went out, I did that, and we would go to these events, and
they would have a big booth set up, and they would, you know,
cooking steaks, and they were doing this steak sauce challenge
between a one and 57 and so my partner was the writer, the main
producer on it. It would be like you writing and producing it,
and then all of a sudden they couldn't find anybody better
than you for the voice.
Yeah,
so the he wound up, he was just doing the other read while they
were auditioning.
Yeah,
we'd get there, there were people from Chicago, from the
Leo Burnett agency. He was from Houston, he was the guy
producing it. And then you'd have Heinz people from
Pittsburgh, and we'd all get together at these big events.
They'd fly saying, and we'd be at the Talladega. I'd say, can
you tell me who got the checkered flag today? If this,
you know, you know who came in first, or you know, I was the. I
was the color commentator. Hey, my name is Jim Brook. What's
yours? And he'd say, well, what do you do for a living? I'm a
school teacher. Well, see if you can't educate me about this
steak sauce. That was my thing. Now that you've mentioned that,
I'm starting to kind of.. hey, nothing beats a great Heinz 57 I
did 93 of those with them, yeah.
Sam Elliott, you know that kind of a thing. I mean, I come
across different jobs all the time for voiceover. I, you know,
attempt to do them as best I can, but
if you've got one, you think I could
exchange cards before you leave. Same
here. Hey,
now,
yeah, I mean, you know, I do the voiceover stuff too, and you
know, I've got a couple of agents in the specs, you know,
always either they want somebody that sounds like Sam Elliott or
Morgan Freeman
or Trace Edgar.
Yeah,
there is a Sam Elliott sound a lot out there. Yeah, I did this
one, Devin, that Devin called me about, and said, "Hey, this
electric company's looking for it, could be a pretty big deal.
And I learned the script, and they produced it for me while we
were on. They were the guy was on Zoom while I was recording.
Sure. Oh, wow. And he said, "Man, can you slow it down just
a little bit? Can you get any lower? So it was her, I told
him, I said, "Man, if we could do it at like eight in the
morning, and I had done this script, and I didn't get it, but
I was sitting there watching the Super Bowl, and I hear that
commercial was like
that happens to me too, like I auditioned for that, and they'll
say, you know, we want non-announcer, that's that's the
thing, non-announcer, and then you hear the fight, you see the
final spot, and the guy sounds like the wait a minute, what the
hell,
yeah,
yeah, we call them pukers, yeah,
well, this one's, I think they wound. Up getting the Sam
Elliott sound alike, because it was locking, you know, sounded
just like him.
Can you pull off a Morgan Freeman, Morgan Freeman? It got
us out of like an old man.
No, man, I pretty much got
one gear.
So, if I need a hillbilly,
I'm your guy. So many applications, so many
applications.
What
tractor supply?
Well, tell your dad too, that he needs to get the Goldens,
William Lee and the Goldens back on the on the gig circuit, and
we need to see more shows,
you know.
Tell him Johnny B said that if he doesn't do it, I'm gonna come
visit him.
I hit on it, you know, we took some photos a couple of days
ago, and he got in some of them. We were doing some with the
kids, and so, because we go out and play and sing, I've just
done some solo shots. They do solo things themselves, so we
were doing a big photo shoot. They were going to be in some by
themselves, some with me, and then it's like Dad was there,
and we got him in it on it, and I just said, "Man, I, we sure
miss getting to do all that. I wish we could do it some more. I
said, "I know these kids would sure have fun with it, and he
said, "Well, I'd sure enjoy it too. I'm sure you know, so
you got Michael Sykes, he can play.
We're hopeful that we'll get some more things going there.
Well, I hope so, man. I hope everybody will check out your
site,
Chris golden.net I'm pretty easy to find, man.
You are
on all the socials, and Chris Golden, Chris Golden Muse at
Chris golden.net and out there on bands in town. If you want to
keep up with where I'm coming, and are going,
yeah, and go out and see him, because I'm telling you, you,
you will enjoy it. This guy is a great entertainer, he's a great
singer.
Got a brand new album coming here in about three weeks, it's
called A Better Man, and our Better Man, I wrote about half
of them on at this time got one called Where My People Are that
I'm really excited about, and it's just, I know I sing a lot
of songs about home and all, but it's about where my people are
waiting, and you know, in the third verse makes it to heaven,
so that's where my people are, and that's where I want to go.
The further I get away, the more I want to get where they are,
you know. Oh,
exactly. And I have to tell you, your song, Home Man, that helped
me so much when I was going through a rough patch.
Well,
and it, no songs ever made me cry, but that one did. Yeah,
it's really good,
man. We all hit them little patches, and look at you now,
I have to say, this guy on Twitter, after I was let go, he
really put out something inspirational out there to just
really touch me. Wow, he said I would land on my feet like a
cat, said I was cool as a cat, and I would land on my feet like
a cat.
Well,
very nice.
I think I've about used all mine up now.
You can come back and see us sometime,
man. That'd be a lot of fun. I appreciate this.
Well, you're
always fun, and my wife loves you, and your wife,
so I
love her too.
Oh, she's sweet. Yes, she is. But definitely come back and see
us, and check out Chris Golden, and you can check out Circling
the Drain too. Tell them,
absolutely, we're also.net that would be Circling the drain.net
and of course, all the social media platforms, the video
platforms on social media, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Twitter,
you can find us there, and of course, you can also find us on
all of the audio platforms, Apple Podcasts, etc.
Thank you, Brother Jay.
Yes, sir.
Brother Jim, well, I'll be back again. Join us here for Circling
the Drain.