and through him I was able to get my life straightened out. It’s been a long time, over 20 years. That was just a rough part of my life that’s fortunately long in the past. But those things do affect your life the rest of your life. And I’ve been told by many people I’m one of the few that made it out alive. I definitely saw a lot of the people I did drugs with die along the way. Lots of close friends, actually, it’s very sad but we all make those choices. I made those choices and fortu- nately God brought me out of it.
How did you come to know the guys in Blackberry Smoke? Smyrna, Georgia. Going back to my childhood once again, I attribute it to that small town and sports. When I was 10 my best friend at the time, the preacher’s son in my church, he played soc- cer. I tried every sport but soccer. I didn’t know much about soccer. It wasn’t big in the south in the 70s. So, he talked me into it. He said hey man you’ll be on my team. I played that year of soccer, which I ended up despising. It was the one sport I never played another season. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t understand the game back then as a 10- year-old. The one good thing was I met Richard Turner on that team. I got to know him as well as 10-year olds do and as well as becoming friends. I probably knew he had a younger brother at the time, but I don’t think I met Brit then. And be- cause I was in private school at the time, I wasn’t going to school with them like if I had been in public school with them. Richard and I are the same age, so when I went my senior year in pub- lic school I was in school with Richard and Brit. Richard and I graduated together and, of course, we were all partying like teenagers did back then. Richard and I ran in some of the same crowds. He was a musician then and I was too, so we had a lot in common. We didn’t hang out a whole lot, but we were in a lot of the same places and got to know each other a little better then. I remember that was when I met Brit when I was a senior he was in 10th grade. Once we got out of high school, we all went our own separate musical ways, but we reconnected once they had just started Black- berry Smoke in the 2000s and we reconnected. It was not really happenstance and through social media I discovered that was their band and we’ve been buddies ever since, very cool.
Tell us about the first show you ever played with BBS? New Year’s Eve, I believe 2010 or 2011. Brit called me one afternoon and asked if I wanted to sit in. So, I borrowed a pair of congas and that was at the Peachtree Tavern in Atlanta. That was my first sit in playing with them.
Is it ok to now call you a full time member of the band? I don’t think so. I think I’m more considered a touring musician. They take me out with them to play and I do my best to add the little sounds they are looking for. It’s been a great ride and I’ll keep going as long as they will have me.
I was so grateful when you took the time to share the photos and videos from last year’s Wheel of Soul Tour. Talk about that experience with us and how it felt. The Wheels of Soul tour last summer was a hell of an experience. It was actually kind of in the works that I was going to go with them a year before. When Brit called me to do a sit in at the 2018 Holiday Homecoming show which ended up being the latest DVD project. That was when Brit talked to me about the Wheels of Soul tour the following summer. Everything worked out for me and it was the experience of a lifetime. it was my first big time Charlie tour. Other than local tour- ing with the Grapes I had never done anything on that large of a scale. At my age to be able to do something like that was quite an experience. Being around all the guys in The Tedeschi Trucks Band. They are so awesome we had a blast for 5 weeks and made friends that hopefully I’ll have for the rest of my life. They are just great people and we had a blast. I got to play venues that are a lot of peoples dream venues. A couple were cer- tainly my dream venues. I got to play The Fox Theater here in Atlanta. I’ve been going to the fox theater since I was a kid and my parents have been going there since they were kids. It has a deep history in my family and being able to play The Fox was pretty amazing. I also got to play some venues that either I had seen the Grateful Dead play at or I knew they had played at so that was a special thing for
me.One of those being of course Red Rocks. Those two Red Rocks shows
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