I have been very lucky to have a lot of great musical influences in my life.
My grandmother for one who bought my first $25 guitar and composed a song because
She was mad at my grandfather at the time. That song went on to be recorded by
Charley Pride and was his first minor hit in the 1960’s. The people I’ve played with through the years who I owe a considerable debt because they put up with my limited formal music training education. I hope the camaraderie and personal drive I added were of some help to them?
But one of my greatest influences was a guy I played beside every night for a lot of years and took for granted that things would always be perfect. That man was Paul Whitaker. A talented but tormented person Paul certainly had his demons as did we all. But the thing I regret was not working with him more closely to write songs and pick his brain about where his musical fortitude came from? On my forthcoming album entitled “A Fifth of DB” i am featuring a song that Paul wrote that I think is a great song. It’s called “Mr. President”. Why we never played it in the band Sherriff is beyond me? I have added a prelude to the beginning of the song and am hoping it doesn’t detract from what he had in mind.
Here it is bud, a song we wrote together that people can listen to for eternity. It should be us recording and jamming this song out. I’ll think of you every time it’s played!!