Oh boy!
...as far as singin,’ so that’s all I’ve ever known.
Well, I understand that. Well, who were your musical influences coming up? Well, I always loved… you know I listened to my Mama and listened to a lot of country music. I always loved Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams - I loved him, I especially love his writing. You know they were great influences. Elvis, was always a great influence and the Beatles. I wasn’t really exposed to the blues until years later.
Oh yeah? You know, I wish I’d had been exposed when I was young and you know, just like a sponge, taking everything in. But better late than never!
Well, yeah and also,you’re kind of a double or triple threat anyway, you know. I’ve heard you do country stuff that’s really good too. And you also got to see Elvis once when you were young, right? Well, I went to see him four times.
Four times?! I went and saw him four times. He came to the Macon Coliseum and I had an uncle who always took me to see him and it was just out- standing. In fact, I saw him just a few months before he passed. I could tell at that point he wasn’t feeling good. He looked real puffy and bloated and I noticed that he kind of gave out of steam, like he was just giving out of air. And he let one of his background singers sing a song right, you know, towards the middle of his set and he sat down and I thought, “that’s not like him.” To do something like that and I knew he wasn’t feeling well.
Yeah, I was watching one of the last concerts that they aired on television and he looked like that, he was like just
couldn’t breathe and I was like, “Oh boy. This is not good.” Yeah. I mean, his singing was incredible, his show was great. He just didn’t have the en- ergy that I’d seen when I’d been before.You know, I could just tell something wasn’t right.
Yeah. Well, I think Elvis influenced a lot of us, especially us in the South and I was a big fan ever since he did that “Aloha From Hawaii,” that concert, do you remember that on TV? Yeah, oh yeah.
That was so good. James Burton on guitar. (Pause) Well, what was your first big break as far as you getting known for your music? Well, right after high school, I was fixin’ to start school, start college and got a call to open some shows. got a call to open for Jerry Lee Lewis. I had a little 45 record out in country music, so I worked a show with him and then there were several other country artists, and from that point on, you know, I’ve been doing it all these years. I got into the blues in the mid-90s mid to the late-90s. It was almost like starting over again.
Oh yeah. I mean, you had made some pretty good strides in country. I read that you were on the Nashville Now show, what? Back in ’89 or whatever, right? Yeah. I was on there a few times.
My dad and I used to watch that show all the time. Ralph Emory.
That was his favorite, yeah. The last time I was on there, I did a song that was kind of bluesy and the producer came to me and he said, “EG, you need to quit flirtin’ with them blues.”
Right, right.
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