That's Us. live at the Baxter Crossroads bar. A few minutes after this photo was taken a very pretty, very drunk young woman came onstage right in the middle of "Bad Moon rising", and proceeded to sit in my lap. There I was trying to play the drums, and this woman trying to talk to me, and kissing me, and all manner of indecent things..I looked up just in time to see this huge bear of a redneck draw back, and hurl one of those metal napkin dispensers, at my head, and call me a son of a bitch. It hit right to the left of that Papst Blue Ribbon sign, and imbedded itself in the plywood panneled wall. He was hustled out to the parking lot, and assulted by our "entourage", and rescued by the woman, who had jumped off my lap, and ran after the throng, screeching. "leave him alone you son of a bitches!" A typical night in the world of bar bands.
But I loved it, and miss it dearly now. well the performing part anyway. When you are playing a song, and really nailing it, and you know it, you look at your bandmates & see they know it, and you look at the croud & see that they know it too, that's a rush like nothing else I've ever experienced. Ahh. Goodtimes man, goodtimes. Making music, cold long necked beers, and hot women. Or i'm, told there were women.
We were just a cover band we didn't do any origonal material. We played top40 country mixed with southern rock, and C.C.R. (WITH A FEW CLASSIC ROCK SONGS THROWN IN FOR GOOD MEASURE). I think we did more Creedence, and Alabama than anything else. We never got famous, beyound a loyal following in Jackson county, and in Smithville tenn, and we didn't stay together all that long. There were several line up changes, but this one was my favorite (probably because I was in this one.) It was Ray Wilson lead vocals,rythum guitar,Ronnie Sulivan lead & backing vocals, and lead guitar, Tom howard bass, and backing vocals, and me on drums.
I had one of those crawl under the table, embarrassing moments one night in Smithville. We were doing a song by John Anderson called "Swingin'" As we finnished, and filed offstage for a break,This tall lanky cowboy started telling me about how the drums were supposed to go in the song. Well I told him I thought I had done them just fine, thankyou very much. Where upon the barmaid said. " You fool. That's john Anderson's drummer, and I think he knows more about that song than you do." I'd forgotten That John Anderson was from Smithville, and that this bar was one of the places his band was prone to be seen in. He just grinned, and went his way though, and I went outside to escape my bandmates laughter.
It was so funny.. We used to do "If your Going To Play In Texas You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band" We loved that song, and it was really fun to play. We didn't have a fiddle player though. But then we never played in Texas either.
