WYKER AND ME
by Michael Buffalo Smith The very first time I met Johnny Wyker
was in Huntsville Alabama at a Christmas charities concert back in XX. In fact, the en- tire reason I met him can be traced back to my friend and fellow traveler Mitch Lopate. Mitch had gone on a vision quest of sorts heading down from his home in New Jersey into the land of southern soul with a specific purpose – to meet some of the Muscle Shoals contingent whom he had befriended via email and telephone - not the least of which was one Bobby Whitlock, formerly of Derek and the Dominos. Bobby was living in Mississippi at the time so Mitch decided that while he was in the neighborhood he would visit his- toric Muscle Shoals as well as Huntsville Ala- bama. There he would meet the guys in the band called The Crawlers (including the late great Ray Brand) a band that would go alone to play a major role in my own musical his- tory- along with many of the other movers and shakers of the Shoals, including one John D Wyker. Back to the Christmas charities concert. It
was a beautiful outdoor afternoon and the area around the stage was buzzing with ex- citement. All sorts of people that I had ad- mired via my album collection back in the 70s were mulling about including Jimmy Hall from Wet Willie; Pete Carr, who was the gui- tarist on all of Bob Seger's big hits; Scott Boyer from Cowboy; and Billy C Farlow from Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Air- men. The place was crawling with top-flight musicians including guitar smoker Ray Brand; drummer Billy Teichmiller; bassist Owen Brown, guitarist John Huber, and harp player Thad Usry. There was the super tal- ented keyboard/guitar/finger Stephen Foster
and guitar player extraordinaire Microwave Dave Gallaher, and singers Amanda Quarles and Sharon “Litlwing” Witten. You’ve got to forgive me if I miss any names; the old mem- ory is not what it used to be. So we’re standing around there and I'm
meeting people left and right when up drives this SUV right up to the side of the stage. Be- hind the wheel is one Margaret Wyker and in the passenger seat sits her husband Johnny. He and I had been talking a lot on the phone so we were really looking forward to meeting. I walked over and introduced myself before he was even out of the car. I had my Sailcat album cover in tow so I decided to go ahead and get him to sign it and then put it back into my car. What impressed me was the amount of time he took to boldly sign my album and how artistic his handwriting was. Later on I would discover that Wyker was an “all around” artist and a painter too. The en- tire time he was signing he was also talking. Of course, I'd already learned that Johnny was a talker. On the phone he would talk vir- tually nonstop in his slow, drawling the southern accent. That was the beginning of a long friendship
that lasted until his passing in December. The second time I saw John in person was in the recording studio. I was recording a new album at the mill kids studio in Huntsville and was being produced by Billy Stephen Fos- ter. I had just published my first print issue of Gritz magazine and I brought copies in for everyone to see. I was standing around talk- ing to Tommy Crain and some of the other musicians when I turned and saw John sitting in a desk here with his knees together and our the first magazine with Dickey Betts on the cover lying in his lap. He had poured a bag of weed onto the magazine and was using it to
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80