Tippin’s CDL is still current and comes in handy when he and his band are on the road. “Buses now have to abide by the same laws as the trucks do, as far as drivin’ hours are concerned. Generally if we have an overdrive somewhere, I drive…so it depends where we’ve got to go. If it’s California, I’ve got a leg in it somewhere.”
But from farm trucks to tour buses, you can bet he’d rather be jamming a set of old gears. “I always loved the old B trucks,” says Tippin. “When I was in excavation, I worked for a guy who had one. It had two shifters…you had to drive this truck. We meet a lot of drivers when we’re on the road, and I guarantee you, if an old B model Mack pulls into a truck stop, every driver there goes and takes a look at it, because…” Tippin pauses, nods his camouflage cap toward his half circle of old rubber and steel, ready to rattle to life and lug a load. “…Because it’s out there still doin’ what it was born to do.”
1996
III. On Tour
Sara Evans
There is a parking lot, somewhere on the outskirts of Nashville, where the big buses show up around midnight. There are no crowds, no bright lights, just the idling diesel and the dull glow of streetlights reflected deep in the polish. Now and then a smaller vehicle will approach, and a figure—often carrying an overnight bag and a guitar case—will open the door and board the bus.
At some point the door closes for the last time, the diesel swells a little, and the bus eases out into traffic, headed for the interstate, a gleaming whale sliding into a river of little fish. Night after night the buses leave Nashville, each one loaded with Nashville’s biggest export: country music.
Before she was old enough to go to school herself, Sara Evans used to stand at the front of the school bus her mom drove, facing backward, singing to the high schoolers. “I would sing ‘Delta Dawn’ and ‘Behind Closed Doors,’ and pretty much anything they would request,” says Evans. “I was three or four, so I thought they were these huge big people.”
These days, the requests she gets are for her own songs. Her most recent album, Born to Fly, went million-sale platinum in July. Fans everywhere want to hear her sing. And so, with her band and crew on one bus and her husband and toddler son on another, she takes her music on the road.
Last May, she invited Road King along for a look at a life many truckers covet. I caught a ride to that dark parking lot, and when the Sara Evans band bus pulled out of town way early Friday morning, I was aboard.
Day One: Detroit
“Ya Want Some Dirt?”
A tour bus is like a second home to the artists and crew. So that first night, rolling out of Nashville in the dark, I was a little uncomfortable sitting in the lounge, surrounded by people who were rummaging around in the fridge for food, chatting and catching up on what they did Monday and Tuesday. In this business, that’s your weekend. The drummer was working on his pool. The guitar player was trying to finish his dining room. The soundman had done some painting. As the conversations spun around me, I felt I had wandered into a family living room.
And so, when the tall man sitting beside me on the long couch leaned over to speak to me, I listened politely. “So—you want some dirt on Sara?” I just stared, not quite sure what to say. He leaned closer, looking at me conspiratorially. “I’m the bass player, and I’ve got the dirt!” I stammered something about this not being one of those stories, and before I could get too twisted up, the tall man grinned. “I’m Sara’s brother.” Matt introduced himself and said he and Sara grew up on a farm and raised some sheep. I did too, so we’ve got some common ground. It helps the conversation move along, and by the time everyone is ready to turn in, I don’t feel quite so uncomfortable.
There are twelve bunks on the crew bus. They are located in the middle of the chassis, two three-high stacks on either side of the aisle. I’m on the topmost bunk in the back stack. Bus bunks are not for the claustrophobic. Coffin dimensions, basically. Can’t sit up. Sara’s brother has to sleep with his knees folded into the aisle. You seal yourself in by pulling closed a heavy accordion curtain. But before long, the diesel gurgle, the gentle pitch and roll and the faint tunka-tunka of the road send you off to dream.
Working from Home
The first morning out, I wake up early. Still searching for my sea legs, I weave down the darkened hallway, trying not to bump knees or step on protruding ankles, and let myself into the front lounge. Out the big windows, the interstate pavement and the sky are the same sort of gray.
Sitting alone in the front lounge, I take in the details. Video, CD and DVD players. Satellite television, with a blue screen blinking “Video 1.” As in any living room, there are remote controls scattered everywhere. A leather couch runs the length of either side of the front lounge, back to a little breakfast nook on one side, and a sink and coffeemaker on the other. A bathroom, a microwave and a refrigerator are wedged between the lounge and the bunks. I have no idea where we are. I know tonight’s concert is in Detroit. Engineer Joe Keiser appears and starts some coffee. He had the bunk below me. He says my bunk is usually empty, but last night it chattered and squeaked at every bump, apparently because of my added weight. He says he spent half the night jamming envelopes between the bunk frame and the wall, and trying to reposition the bunk with his knees. He apologizes.
I tell him I slept through the whole thing. He grins and unsnaps the heavy curtain separating driver Gary Lumpkin from the lounge. “Are we there yet?” Joe jokes, then offers Gary a cup of fresh coffee. We slow down and pull off the interstate to get fuel. At the end of the off-ramp, a plastic placard is stapled to the stop sign. “Work From Home,” it says, with a phone number. I smell the coffee, watch the rest of the band and crew emerge, stretching and scavenging for cereal and muffins, and think, well, there’s more than one way to work from home.
Canadian Serenade
From my hotel room in Detroit, I can see clear across the river into Canada. Twenty stories down, people in cowboy hats and Harley gear are making their way toward the open-air amphitheater across the street, where Sara Evans will perform this evening. There will be country music in the big city tonight.
Everything starts hours before, when Keiser and soundman Lee Beverly start hauling tubs and crates from the bays beneath the bus. They wheel them down the sidewalk, past security and into the backstage area and unpack the whole works. Everything is labeled with bright green gaffer’s tape: SARA EVANS—DRUM RISER. SARA EVANS—KEYBOARDS. SARA EVANS—JUNCTION BOXES. Everything, from drums to the smallest microphone, comes packed neatly in a case. Like LEGO, Tinkertoys and macrame all in one, the whole mess has to be snapped, twisted, woven and plugged into place before the show can begin—and undone when it’s over.
The band and crew work steadily. The crowd gathers in the amphitheater below. Hours later, in the dark, when the lights come up on Sara, that crowd roars. And, when she tips her head back and reaches for the big notes in “Born to Fly,” her voice rings out over the people, up and up, until it hits the looming glass towers of the Renaissance Center, and the echoes bounce over the city and into the night, some of them coming back to earth over there in Canada.
Day Two: Milwaukee
“How Do I Get Your Job?”
You have a hotel room in each town, but it’s mostly so you can grab a shower. As soon as the show ends and the gear is stowed, we’re on the road again, headed for Milwaukee. The hotel is a convenience. The bus is home.
I ride shotgun out of Detroit in a big recliner that looks out through the passenger-side windshield. I feel like I’m right out on the front bumper as Gary negotiates tangled traffic and monstrous potholes, driving smoothly through the mess until we finally clear the metro and hit our stride on the super slab.
I stay up late, talking to Gary, and by the time I bid him good night, the rest of the band and crew have gone to bed. Before I head back, I ask if he ever thinks about all that precious cargo back in those bunks. He says yes, but then he points at his chest. “Sometimes I think about what’s
sittin’ here,” he says. “I’ve got a wife and three kids at home.”
Sara is performing in Milwaukee as part of the touring George Strait Country Music Festival. The next morning, the parking lot behind the stadium is wall-to-wall with beautiful buses. Everything is shine, shine, shine. Gary has his polish kit out, working on the wheels. Gary and Sara’s driver, Noel McFarland, are constantly asked how to get a job like theirs. Like many drivers, Gary was a musician first, playing with a number of Nashville acts. “I started driving bus when I realized I could make as much money in half the time,” he says.
Noel was a trucker for twenty years, and most recently was a driver for country star John Michael Montgomery. Grinning, he explains that he took the job with Sara Evans when “John Michael cut back on his touring, but my wife wouldn’t let me take a pay cut!” They love their jobs, but are quick to point out that it isn’t what you might think. “A lot of truckers tell me they want this job because they love country music, and they think it would be cool to see all the shows,” says Noel, “but the last thing Sara wants to do during a show is look out and see me in the front row. My job is to be back at the hotel, sleeping and planning the route to the next city. I’ve seen drivers who spend their spare time hanging out backstage. They don’t last.” When Gary finishes with his buffing rag, a runner drives him back to the hotel.
Happy Campers
Back at Miller Park, the crowd is huge and colorful. From the stage, it looks like someone dropped a blanket of confetti over all the seats. The monstrous green roof girders are retracted, and the sun spills in.
Sara and the band are charged by the crowd, and the show rocks and soars. Just offstage, Lee bobs and weaves over his sound board, his fingers dancing across the thicket of slim knobs like a man playing a high-speed game of Battleship! The crowd is out of the seats, dancing and singing choruses, and Sara leaves the stage to a huge roar of appreciation. Somewhere back in the Milwaukee Hilton, Gary and Noel are sound asleep. They are still asleep while Sara is doing interviews and meeting fans, and they are still asleep when the band and crew and I play h-o-r-s-e at a basketball hoop set up back by the porta-potties. We are joined by one of the guys from BR5-49, and then one of the guys from Lonestar. Lee Ann Womack tools by in a golf cart. She smiles and waves. It’s like a party.
Eventually Noel and Gary reappear, and we are on our way to Pittsburgh. The guitarist, Shawn Pennington, and Joe Keiser are in the back lounge, engaged in their never-ending video football games. They keep the door shut, but every now and then you can hear the cries of anguish. Everyone else climbs in their bunks, but it has been a good day, and it takes everyone a while to settle. I look down from my bunk and see most of the curtains still open. People are chatting across, and up, and down, and I think tonight this bus feels like a night at camp. Up front, isolated by his heavy curtain, Gary has the hammer down. He’ll be up there at it long after the happy campers drift off.
Day Three: Pittsburgh
Some Fans Go a Little Far
In Pittsburgh, I visit on the bus with Sara, husband Craig, and their two-year-old son, Avery. Sara talks about the benefits of having leased her own bus for this tour.
“The band is my family on the road, and I depend on them,” she says. “I have to spend time with them, to feel like we are a band and not just ‘Me the Artist.’ I love to be with everybody, but Avery needs his space, so the main thing we try to do is make the bus a home.” She is tired, both from her nonstop schedule and from the fact that, unbeknownst to the fans she is singing for, she has just had four wisdom teeth pulled. “I always thought I wanted to be a singer, but I never wanted to be a career woman. But that is exactly what you are in this business. There’s just so much that goes along with this besides that thirty minutes or hour onstage.”
In Milwaukee, I had followed Sara as she signed autographs for hours, was hustled to radio appearances and fan events by security crews, met with record label representatives, sat for television interviews, and was stopped every ten feet for autographs. She is deeply grateful for her fans and her success, but sometimes when you’re watching from the other side, you realize why stars become withdrawn and cautious. Greeting fan club members in a small room, Sara is pressed by a fan who refuses to move through the line after he gets his autograph. “Remember me?” he says. “I was in the front row in 1998, I was the one that kept asking you to play ‘True Lies’ but you wouldn’t.” “I’m sorry,” says Sara. “I don’t remember.” The fan leans in. “Even after all of my e-mails?”
Family by Blood and Music
Pittsburgh is another good venue. Before the show, Sara and the band join hands in a circle backstage. Little Avery joins the circle, watching from his daddy’s shoulders. During the show, he sits with a nanny over by the soundboard. Three songs from the end of the show, Sara launches into another of her hits, “I Could Not Ask for More.” She moves stage left, and as she sings the chorus, she catches Avery’s eye and smiles. And with the sun in the sky, the crowd singing every word, and her family—blood and music—all around her, she doesn’t seem to have to stretch to find the right emotion.
Gary and Noel put us safely back in Nashville just after 1 a.m. Monday. The big shiny buses stopped in the dark parking lot, everyone filed off, and we set off for our homes. The two drivers had been the first to report to work, and they were the last to sign off. But they could sleep well. They took the music on the road and they brought the music home. One more Monday–Tuesday weekend, and they’d do it all again.
2001
The Osmotic Elvis
The first thing I remember about Elvis is that he was dead. The news was postdated, and obtained in oblique fashion, but that, as it turns out, is precisely the point where Elvis and I are concerned. The Elvis I know has almost nothing to do with albums or films and almost everything to do with saturation and assimilation. I never went looking for him, never bought his music, never watched his movies. He filtered down and found me. In all his mutable states—the thin Elvis, the fat Elvis; the army Elvis, the Vegas Elvis; the hero, the has-been—to many of my generation he is simply the osmotic Elvis.
When I learned Elvis was dead, I didn’t get the news from the news. I got it from a television commercial. I was visiting a friend, and as we passed through his living room—two thirteen-year-olds headed out for another game of h-o-r-s-e—an announcer was promoting an Elvis tribute show to be held on a local radio station. An image of a man with a microphone appeared on the screen in silhouette. As the spot concluded, the image faded, and the announcer’s voice, tremulous with a touch of reverb, called the name three times: “Elvis?…Elvis?…Elvis?” I remember I thought the spot overwrought. And I remember we went about our basketball untroubled that the King was dead. But the osmosis was under way.
In 1991, profoundly recalcitrant country artist Steve Earle recorded the live album Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator. Earle was on a grungy downhill slide at the time, the heroin in his veins approaching a lazy terminal velocity. He would shortly be homeless, then incarcerated. He sang like a man forcing up crushed glass. After several encores, the audience whistled for more, but the show was over. As the audio fades, an announcer intones, “Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Earle has left the building.” At first listen, I recognized it immediately for what it was: a postmodern invocation drawn on the departed King of Rock ’n’ Roll.
Just lately, I’ve realized something else: I’ve never heard that quote in its original context. I am familiar with the lexicon, hip to the meaning, but only in a secondhand sense. But that’s the thing about the King: You didn’t have to be there to “get” Elvis. He gets you.
In June of 1988, Kalamazoo housewife Louise Welling told Pete Cooke of the Weekly World News that she saw Elvis in the Burger King. “I’m not an Elvis fan,” she said. “I don’t have any Elvis records or Elvis books. I’m not into Elvis.” But she knew Elvis when she saw him.
I know how she feels. I’m not into Elvis either. Don’t have his records, don�
��t have his books. But as the philosophomorical songwriter Mojo Nixon once sang, “Elvis is everywhere.” You can’t ignore Elvis. He saturates the periphery of our existence. I’ve never seen the ’68 comeback special, but I’ve seen the commercial for the video, and I’ve seen the slick magazine ad for the commemorative plate. I know it’s hip to respond to the mention of a “velvet Elvis” with an arch grin, but I’m not sure why. When it comes to Elvis, I feel like a man who knows all the punch lines, but never really got the joke.
And therein lies a defining Elvis dilemma: Why does a man who evokes jokiness continue to reign supreme in American cultural lore? If he is such a clown, why is he still King? If a guy like me knows so little about Elvis, why do I have such a sense of Elvis? Elvis died debauched, dissolute, and in a humiliating posture. Where dying is a means to mystique, he died poorly, compared, say, to Marilyn Monroe, perhaps his closest iconic equivalent. Elvis did some decaying long before they put him in his grave, and everyone had a chance to watch. But all the ugly details—the grocery list of drugs, the cheese-burgers, the tumble from the toilet—did nothing to stop the spread of Elvis. Mythologizing was outpaced only by merchandising. Both continue apace. The King is dead, but the King still sells, and so, long lives the King. It’s difficult to focus a search for the source of this perpetuity. There are, as one Web site currently puts it, A Thousand Points of Elvis.
He wasn’t the first rock star. Some say that was Bill Haley, and Little Richard would have something to say about that. No, rock ’n’ roll was ready and waiting for Elvis. He rode it like the ride it was, but it was moving when he got on, and it moved even faster when he got off. Shoot, some say the rock ’n’ roll went out of Elvis as far back as ’58, the day his hair hit the floor of an army barbershop. It’s an important point: We call Elvis the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, but that title alone fails to explain his perennial pervasiveness. In “The Academic Elvis,” Simon Frith writes, “his fame was dependent on the new mass media of television, Top 40 radio, the teen magazine, the LP….” It is a valid point, but requires expansion. I was the first born grandchild on both sides of the family. My baby scrapbook bulges with stacks of film and copious notations documenting my precocious aptitudes. My brother followed in two years. His scrapbook is well stocked but comparatively slim. A second brother arrived three years later. A few pages into the scrapbook, it is as if he stopped developing. The rest of the pages are empty. Today’s latter-born celebrities can command media saturation Colonel Parker could only dream of, but our interest is diluted. Elvis was our mass-media first-born, and we have never kept such a scrapbook since.
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