it will sound even better.” We learned a lot from Steve. All of the sudden we had twin lead guitars, and my bass was doing different things and the vocal harmony was added. Steve exposed us to things we didn’t know we could do.


The band’s first promo photo on the Forrest Street bridge, 1981. (Photo by Michael B. Smith)


guitar.” We disagreed. We asked if he could sing, and he could, but in a folk singer kind of way, like Cat Stevens, but that’s wasn’t what we were looking for. We had another guy who was a good singer. He actually did a show or two with us, but I cannot remember his name for anything. But the auditions were fun, meeting and hearing all these different people. But we ended up with Barry Moore on vocals. Then he went into the service and we had another set of auditions, but nothing ever happened. Then we got Barry’s brother, Steve Moore as singer. A bit later, we added Steve Harvey to the


band. He had heard us, and he was a very es- tablished musician in Spartanburg. He and Stuart Swanlund were like peas and carrots. They played in the band Dallas Alice, with Pat Elwood, Mindy Harvey and Terry Collins, that became a local favorite band. They had a distinctive Little Feat style- it wasn’t a copy of Little Feat, but the influence was there. Steve said he’d like to play with Silver Travis. He was in his early 30’s and we were in our early 20’s. He came over and blew our minds. He’d say “this sounds good, but do it this way and


Yes. Same here. When I met him, I got super inspired with my songwriting. He would just write music, play and hum the melody line on tape, and give it to me to put words to. I really had no idea I’d end up writing songs. I mean, I had written a few simple tunes back in High School, but working with Steve, I felt like a real, honest to God song- writer. I learned a great deal on guitar from Steve too. When he joined the band, it really kicked it up several notches. Yeah, we really had to step our game up musi- cally. And with the songwriting, it was just an amazing transition for us. And it was because of him that we recorded our first single, “Baby it’s True.”


He had so many songs he had written or co-written before we met him. And then when you guys were set to play the Buck a Cup Benefit at Spartanburg Me- morial Auditorium and needed original music, he and I hunkered down and wrote about six songs in three days. (Laughs) And you guys got right on them and learned ‘em all in time for the show. That was pretty amazing on your part. Some of the things you and he, or him by himself or you by yourself wrote were really ahead of their time. Some of the songs Steve brought in just didn’t seem to fit at the time, but looking back, they were amazing songs, just ahead of their time.


55


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