THE MARSHALL TUCKER BAND

Doug Gray,vocalist and founding member of The Marshall Tucker Band,experienced a definitive moment recently which really surprised him.

“I was backstage at a show in Huntsville,Alabama,”he said during a recent interview. “And there were about 500 to 600 people waiting in line to meet us. There was a kid,I mean a five year old girl,and she said to me,’My mom turned me on to you guys and I’ve already seen you twice in the last year. And she’s five years old! Then she said to me,’My grandpa is over there and he turned my mom on to you guys music.’ Now you tell me,what do you say to that? What keeps them coming back? I mean we had three generations of family there waiting in line to meet us.”

What keeps the Marshall Tucker fans coming back is a blend of country & western,and Appalachian folk music,set to a good ole rock ‘n’ roll backbeat.

Listening to the groups excellent box set,”The Best Of The Marshall Tucker Band”,The Capricorn Years”,it becomes evident early into the 29 songs featured on the two CD set,that Marshall Tucker’s music encompasses not only C&W; and folk,but elements of jazz,R&B; and Gospel as well. Today,some twenty-five years after the phrase Southern Rock was coined,The Marshall Tucker Band along with other originators of the genre,The Allman Brothers Band,Lynyrd Skynyrd,Charlie Daniels and Hank Williams Jr. are perhaps more popular then ever. While The Marshall Tucker Band has gone through numerous personnel changes throughout since it’s inception in 1970. The current lineup featuring Rusty Milner (guitar),Tim Lawter(bass),Gary Guzzardo(drums),Stewart Swanlund(guitar) and David Muse(flute, saxophone) along with original member Gray, have been together recording and touring for twelve years. “When we played in Huntsville the other night,”Gray said,”we went out on-stage and played songs like the “Heard It In A Love Song”,”This Ol’ Cowboy” and ended the set with “Can’t You See”.

Now that crowd was wild over our music. And they liked it because we go out there and belt it out like it’s our first time on-stage.” Among the more avid Marshall Tucker fans is country singer Travis Tritt. During interviews whenever Tritt is queried on his musical influences, The Marshall Tucker Band inevitably comes up in his reply. “We were in an airport not to long ago,”Gray said,”and of all people Travis came up to me and hugged me. He told me,’I love it because you guys are still out there and you’re still rockin’ out and I know that you sound good. How do you to it?’,he asked me.” Tritt’s question at first may seem like a casual remark,unless one realizes what Doug gray has survived in his 49 years on this earth. Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina on May 22,1948,Gray has lived a modern day Huck Finn adventure. His first band The New Generation,was founded during the height of the first British Invasion in 1964.

The group recorded a single on Sonic records in 1965 called,”Because Of Love,It’s All Over”,written by Gray and Tommy Caldwell,who later went on to be Marshall Tucker’s guitarist.

Drafted by the Army to serve a tour of duty in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968,Gray earned the rank of Sergeant and returned to Spartanburg to eventually form The Marshall Tucker Band with guitarist Caldwell and his brother Toy. In their Spring Street a rehearsal space in Spartanburg the band chose the name. “Marshall Tucker was a blind piano player who had previously owned a record shop or something in Spartanburg in this place were we were practicing,”Gray said. “We found a key with a tag on it in that old building and the name Marshall Tucker was on the tag. When Tommy found the key, he said,’Let’s just call the band Marshall Tucker.’ That’s how it all started.”

For the next two and a half decades,The Marshall Tucker Band went on to become one of the most influential and popular bands of the Southern Rock genre.

The groups singles,”Can’t You See”,”Heard It In A Love Song” and “Take The Highway”,are featured on FM radio more prominently today,then when the band first recorded the material some twenty years ago. “Southern bands,”Gray said,”and I hate to put them in one little packet,but most of those Southern bands were trying to make the best music we could and get out there and have a good time. Money was always on the back burner. It was like,We’ve got to get up there on-stage and show people how good we are.’ You know,Gladys Knight was from Atlanta and she had to go to Pittsburgh to get started by playing a live show there in order to have people know her music. You know what I mean? I believe that God has put me on this earth for a purpose and that’s to make my music and ,make people happy.”