Never Look at the Empty Seats

by Charlie Daniels

  Who do you think will get the promotion? The pay raise? Who will move up and continue to be given more and more responsibility and therefore more and more reward? Such people are needed. There’s never enough of them.

  It all comes down to, if you want to make something out of yourself, make yourself valuable to somebody. Your rewards will be in direct proportion to your value.

  Let me give you a practical example.

  We have four full-time drivers who drive two buses and a truck.

  Now, it’s fairly easy to find somebody to just operate the vehicles, to get from point A to point B safely and on time, as long as there’s no breakdowns or mechanical problems.

  But you can tell the real mettle of a driver by how he reacts when you’re sitting beside the road at three o’clock in the morning, broken down, and the next show is still three hundred miles down the highway.

  If he calls a wrecker and folds his hands, you’ve got a dud. If the first thing he does is look to see if he can determine the problem, immediately gets on his cellphone to one of his contacts, describes the symptoms of the breakdown, and finds out the closest shop capable of fixing the problem, you know you’ve got a winner.

  It’s the same situation with a road manager.

  If a vehicle breaks down in the middle of the night, it is not the fault of the promoter or the folks who bought the tickets. It is his responsibility to get the band and equipment there on time, and it’s his responsibility to find a way to make that happen.

  If the vehicle can be repaired and rolling in a timely fashion, then all is well and good.

  If not, it’s the road manager’s responsibility to move heaven and earth to make sure the show goes on, on time. It could be getting a replacement bus or truck, renting cars, chartering airplanes, calling limousine services, or whatever.

  The show goes on, the band gets paid, and the driver and road manager have proven themselves to be valuable.

  If you want to get ahead, make yourself valuable to your employer.

  And if you’re not rewarded at the place you’re employed, there will always be somebody who will recognize your extra effort. There are always companies looking for employees who have a good attitude and are competent enough to take on responsibility.

  It’s out there for you. You may have to look for it for a while, but it’s there for those diligent enough to seek it out and stick it out.

  When you develop an attitude of “I’m going to accomplish what I want even if I have to work twice as hard as anybody else,” you’re going to get there.

  CHAPTER 57

  AND THE LONESOME BOY FROM DIXIE MADE IT HOME

  On January 11, 2011, Hazel and me were vacationing in Colorado when I got a call that Tommy Crain had suddenly passed away during the night.

  It was hard to believe. Tommy was one of the most “alive” people I had ever known. He was always bubbling over with energy and putting a vigor into everything he did, whether he was carrying on a conversation or playing his guitar.

  Tommy spent fourteen years in the CDB and had a lasting impression on the style and the sound of the band. His playing onstage had motivated me to reach a little higher than I ever did before. Together we climbed the musical heights night after night, spurring each other on and on until some nights it seemed almost as if our side of the stage would catch on fire.

  Tommy had left the band in 1989, but we parted friends and stayed that way, still finding the opportunity to jam together from time to time. I loved Tommy like a brother.

  Hazel was suffering with a pain in her back that would soon require surgery and was unable to take a flight back to Nashville for the funeral services. I couldn’t leave her alone and had nobody to stay with her, so I was unable to attend.

  I called Tommy’s wife, Melissa, and his brother Billy. I wanted them to know that although I couldn’t be there in person, I wanted to participate in the service in some way.

  Billy wanted a prayer to be said. It was arranged; at the beginning of the service, which was a memorial jam, there would be a telephone hookup. The prayer I said would be piped over the sound system so all the people in attendance could hear it.

  He was the first CDB musician, past or present, I had ever lost. I felt that my world and music’s world had been reduced by a very significant factor.

  I don’t think the world ever realized the extent of Tommy’s talent. He wrote earthy songs in everyday language like “Cumberland Mountain Number Nine” and “Franklin Limestone.” I know for a fact that the best of his guitar playing never got recorded. It happened late at night on stages around the world when the rhythm section was honking and Tommy was gritting his teeth and sweating and the notes poured out of his guitar in blazing profusion. If you didn’t hear it the first time, it was gone forever because he would never play it exactly the same way a second time.

  There were times early on when I wondered if the most important thing I’d done in the music business was to introduce the world to Tommy Crain, to give him a platform whereby the world could hear him.

  If I were to pick five guitar players I admire the most in my lifetime, Tommy Crain would be on the list.

  Our vacation that year was marred by Hazel’s back problem. Although she tried to put a brave face on it, when I saw her hobble downstairs one morning in obvious pain, I said, “I’m taking you home so we can get something done about your back.”

  We drove back to Tennessee, where the doctors diagnosed a problem that would require surgery, which was done at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville. After a few weeks of recuperation, my gal was right back on her feet and ready to attack the touring schedule with me.

  CHAPTER 58

  THE WAY I SEE IT

  Although I love every aspect and facet of my career, the writing, recording, and even doing publicity interviews, the part of the business that keeps me going are the live performances.

  I love getting onstage with my band and entertaining a crowd of people.

  I have devoted many years of my life to learning how to entertain. I don’t mean just standing on a stage playing an instrument and singing. I mean entertaining, exciting people, touching people, making people happy, and always giving them their money’s worth plus a little extra.

  There is an art to entertaining a crowd. If you’ve got a bevy of hit songs, you can entertain by simply playing them one after another.

  If you’re a knockout in size 28 jeans who can take away the breath of the females in the audience by simply walking on the stage, you’re entertaining.

  But since I have never fallen into either category, I have had to rely on other attributes.

  One of the most important things any artist can do is to learn how to pace a set of music.

  The way you come on, what you start with, what you end with, and the emotional ups and downs of your set are of paramount importance. The dynamics of a show, the ebb and flow, the streaming of energy from quiet emotion to fever pitch and back again, from start to finish.

  No white space or empty spots. Something should be holding the crowd’s attention all the time, whether it’s dialogue, music, or some unique piece of showmanship. There should be a seamless presentation from the opening song until the last note.

  Another highly important thing is dancing with the one who brung you. Play the songs folks are familiar with, the ones they’ve heard on the radio. No matter how old, no matter how different from what you are currently doing, people come to see you for the music they’ve heard, not the music they haven’t heard.

  Doing a medley of your better-known songs and spending the rest of the show trying to sell the crowd your new album is self-indulgent and unfair to the folks who bought the tickets.

  Every great entertainer you will ever see knows how to communicate with the crowd.

  You don’t have to tell jokes or tap dance, but being able to talk to the people and establishing a rapport with them is a very important element of a truly entertaining show.

  S
ometimes people ask me if I get nervous when I go onstage. Actually, it’s one of the few times I feel like I know what I’m doing. I’ve spent more than sixty years of my life learning what to do onstage, and if I don’t know what I’m doing by now, I’ll never learn.

  Once the show starts, barring a power failure or a meteor shower, it should not be interrupted. Once you lose the momentum, it’s extremely hard to get it back.

  Plow through. If your favorite guitar is on the blitz, grab another one. If the sound system and monitors suck, make the best of it. It’s not the crowd’s fault, and they shouldn’t even be aware of it if it can be helped.

  Did you have an argument with your girlfriend? Did one of your musicians give you notice before you walked onstage? Was the plane late and you didn’t get much sleep last night? Did the bus break down on the way to town? Did the record lose its bullet? Did the hotel have bed bugs? Did your dog die?

  When you walk onstage, you have to leave it all in the wings. Keep it to yourself. The people paid for a show, and it’s your duty to give them the best one you’ve got, sans frowns and sets cut short because of petulance.

  If you claim to be a professional, act like one. Or just stay home and play the local lounges on the weekends and work a daytime job. Because if you ain’t got the temperament to do an entertaining show in the face of adversity, you’re not going to last very long in the competitive world.

  Because if you’re not up to it, there are a thousand kids from Des Moines and Fresno and Valdosta and from all across this country just chomping at the bit to knock you off your pedestal and take your place. They’re always there, nipping at your heels. If you can’t hold your spot, they’ll gladly take it.

  I know everybody is not as passionate about this business as I am. But whether you are or not, I can tell you this.

  If you don’t have a fire in your belly and a heart so full of desire that you can’t imagine your life without a career in music, don’t even put your foot on the path because you’re going to get your heart broken.

  The music-slash-entertainment business is a slippery, fickle lady that can love you one day and push you off a cliff the next. It’s during those times that you’ve got to cowboy up and look for a new record deal, find another band, sign with another booking agency, and beat down all the doors you have to until you get back on track.

  So many young artists get the impression that bigger is always better when it comes to record companies, booking agencies, and managers. This is true only to the degree that they believe in you, only when you have at least one important person that goes to bat for you every day.

  One of the problems with any music business entity is that there is always an internal game of musical chairs going on. There is a very good possibility that the person or persons that believe in you will be fired or move on to greener pastures, leaving you to the mercy of those who are not so impressed with you.

  I’ve had that happen to me a couple of times. It can really take the wind out of your sails for a while. But you just have to batten down the hatches and deal with it. More than likely if the new regime doesn’t believe in you, it’ll be willing to suspend any contracts and let you go anyway. If you’re in it for the long run, just pick up the pieces and move along.

  So, at least from my perspective of stability and longevity, what you’re looking for in representation, labels, agencies, or record producers is people who believe in you, and sometimes the smaller entities are where you’ll find them.

  Of course, nobody will believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself. Now, I’m not talking about arrogance or snobbery. It’s just knowing that the foundation you’ve built under yourself is solid and you have what it takes to take your talent to the world and convince them that you’ve got something special.

  To watch a confident, master entertainer work is a unique experience. Little Jimmy Dickens was a prime example.

  I saw him over a span of sixty years. Even in his nineties, he always walked onstage confident, capable, and loving what he was doing. He radiated entertainment with the songs he sang, the jokes he told, but most of all that glowing personality.

  One of my heroes.

  CHAPTER 59

  ANOTHER BLIP ON THE SCREEN

  During the summer of 2012, I started noticing that my usual high level of energy was dipping somewhat, and it was resulting in a sort of weakness and affecting my performances onstage.

  It got to the point that on the last date on one leg of a tour, I had to sit on a stool to play the set.

  I didn’t know what it was, but I knew something was wrong. I took a flight back to Nashville and went to the emergency room at Vanderbilt Hospital. Dr. Anderson Spickard met me and kept me overnight for some extensive tests, after which he decided to make some adjustments to the medicine I took to control my blood pressure, which was probably making my heart beat too slow.

  These adjustments worked well for a while. But a little later, when the condition resurfaced, I had some more tests, including an EKG. It was discovered that, although my heart muscle was healthy, the timing mechanism was misfiring, resulting in a condition known as atrial fibrillation or A-fib.

  This means that your heartbeat is uneven and beats too fast or too slow. In my case it was too slow, and the remedy for this condition is the installation of a pacemaker.

  They checked me into Vanderbilt that day. I was put under the care of Dr. Chris Ellis, a brilliant young heart specialist, and we began the process.

  First of all, they put you to sleep and shock your heart back into rhythm just to make sure you definitely need the pacemaker. If you do, your heart will go back out of rhythm, which mine did. We started scheduling a pacemaker procedure.

  I had my trusty iPad with me, which had our concert itinerary in it. Bebe came by the hospital, and we worked out a schedule that would only mean cancelling or rescheduling a few dates. I told Dr. Ellis we were ready to go.

  The procedure itself is simple. You’re put to sleep. The device is implanted, and your heart is shocked into its proper rhythm. If your heart starts to drag, the pacemaker goes to work, and it gets back into line.

  After a couple of days of tests, I was released from the hospital. With a few adjustments in the device and some changes in medicine, we’ve been ticking along ever since.

  I believe in medicine and have been blessed with great doctors. Vanderbilt University Hospital is one of the finest in the world—state of the art, efficient, and brilliantly staffed and equipped.

  Doctors are His tools. They do the treatment, then God takes over and administers the healing.

  Over the years I’ve had cancer, a stroke, and some heart trouble. My heavenly Father has healed me and given me health.

  CHAPTER 60

  THERE ARE SOME THINGS IN THIS WORLD YOU JUST CAN’T EXPLAIN

  In 2011 a gut-wrenching tragedy was to rock my world almost to the tipping point.

  On the night of October 12, the Twin Pines Rambler, with Dean Tubb, my driver, and me aboard, pulled out about 9:00 p.m. for Marietta, Georgia. We would be doing a concert the next night, and the Lady LaRue pulled out about midnight with the band and crew aboard.

  We had reached our destination and were parked in a motel parking lot when Dean called me on the intercom. He told me that David Corlew was trying to reach me.

  I knew it was bad news for David to be calling me at four o’clock in the morning. But the magnitude of what he told me when I called him back had not even crossed my mind.

  Taz had left his home in Burns, Tennessee, to meet the band bus to leave for the gig. He was headed in toward Nashville on Interstate 40, lost control of his car, and plowed into a tree. He had been killed instantly.

  What David was saying seemed surreal. The words were just floating across the phone, words that just couldn’t be true. Taz had been with me for forty years. He had been there from the get-go, through all the ups and downs and sideways we had gone through in the past four decades.

  Thi
s just couldn’t be. But I knew that it could be, and it was true. I had to face the fact that William Joel DiGregorio (Taz), friend, sidekick, somebody who had had my back musically for forty years, who had been there across the mountaintops and through the valleys and rough spots, would never again be sitting at the keyboards, stage right of me, playing the music we had created together.

  Jimmy Burton, thinking that since Taz hadn’t shown up to catch the bus, he had decided to drive the short distance to Georgia, left without him and was about an hour out.

  Dean and I just sat and waited for the band and crew to get in so I could break the news to them.

  When they got in, I had Jimmy Burton get everybody on the bus so I could tell them all at one time. When they gathered in the front of the bus, I broke the news, and we headed back to Nashville to bury my friend.

  When something like this happens to any of our CDB people, the family can plan on getting all the help they need from our employees, who are extremely capable at sorting out details and making arrangements.

  Taz’s wife, Danielle, came out to the office and sat with the staff. Bebe got on her computer and helped Danielle with all the arrangements, including a venue for the funeral. They found a beautiful burial plot in a cemetery overlooking a highway, which seemed an appropriate resting place for a traveling musician.

  I dread funerals. I guess it’s just the nature of finality and closure when you finally have to admit that a person you really loved is gone forever. It’s a sobering situation.

  Taz’s mother, sisters, and children were all there, as were many of his friends and of course the CDB people. The funeral home was packed, with standing room only.

  Roger Campbell, David Corlew, and myself were scheduled to say a few words at the service. Since Taz had been in the army, there would be a military graveside ceremony.

  After that, a venue had been secured and instruments set up to do a memorial jam with whoever wanted to play. CDB took the stage first, and Taz’s son Joel came up and filled in on his dad’s organ as we jammed out our goodbye to our friend.