Author's Note: Many thanks to Madison Cole for his assistance in editing my stories. Further thanks to Chuck, our Webmaster, and Tickie Story readers for their patience in waiting for the further career adventures of Billy Ray. The delay has been due to professional commitments and not a personal lack of interest in the story. This chapter is not “hot,” but hotter days on the road are coming soon! As they used to say in the old western stories on the radio … “Meanwhile, back at the ranch …” – D.D.

The show in San Diego was to be held in a big civic auditorium.  In addition to Chris and my family, the show featured several well-known country singers who also had gospel albums. The promoter had scheduled Chris and we Stones for interviews on several of the local gospel stations and the country stars were scheduled to do the major country stations. They had been advertising the show for several weeks, and it was expected to be a sellout.

We arrived at about noon and, since the promoter supplied a master sound system for all of us to share, there was little for us to set up. However, we had to do an extensive sound check because Mamma was normally in control from the soundboard that we usually set up beside her keyboards. A sound engineer would be controlling the master board so he had to program in our six microphone settings and instrument sound levels. In addition, Chris’s band would fill in as our backup to give us a fuller sound, so their sound levels had to be programmed as well. After that all took place we were all set.

At two in the afternoon, Chris and my family were provided with a limo to take us to the radio stations to give interviews and talk to the call-in fans. We hit two different stations and the response was great. Then we went back to the stadium to unwind until show time. The show was scheduled to start at 6:30 in the evening. So, we all ate the catered food provided by the promoter and relaxed.

 One of the country stars opened the show with 30 minutes of his stuff, then Chris did his show, and at the end of his set, I joined him to do our duets. Then the rest of the family joined us and we did the Stone Family set.  Afterwards, the final country star sang and then, in a grand finale, we all joined him for a few old gospel standards. It was a big show. The promoter provided people to sell everyone’s merchandise and CDs before, during, and after the show.  Our bus driver’s extra duties included overseeing our sales.

You never trust a local promoter. That includes getting paid for our performance. Every group gets paid in cash before it sets foot on stage. That was one of the first rules that we learned from our label when we started out.  Most promoters are hustlers and are well known for disappearing with the “gate.” So, our label’s booking agency demanded half of our money up front before we left on a tour. The balance was payable in cash before the show. Our coach had a safe built into the chassis because of the large amount of cash we travelled with.

Everything went as planned.  The fans of the country singers turned out and so did Chris’s. Since we had never played live on the west coast we did not have a big following there at that time, but we did have good national CD sales and naturally, since we had songs on the charts, they had probably heard us on the radio.  They may have expected just another gospel quartet, but they were in for a surprise when they heard our six-part harmony and the duets that Chris and I sang. By the time the show was over, we received the same kind of response from the crowd as they gave their favorites and we signed just as many autographs as the better known acts.

One hallmark of a country or gospel show is that most of the stars are accessible to their fans. Even many of the biggest names will stay long after a show and meet their fans, sign autographs, and chat as long as there are people lined up.  Chris and I had a few minor bad experiences early on with the screaming girls trying to get to us, but the promoter had set aside an area in the lobby with a hallway leading backstage. We all congregated in that area and met the fans and signed programs and chatted. We made many friends for the Stone Family and for Chris and me as well. In addition, we made good contacts with the two country acts and in the future we played many other shows with them.

After San Diego, the show split up to do other bookings, but we were scheduled to get back together in Sacramento. As we worked our way northward through south and central California, we did shows and revivals in Santa Ana, Bakersfield, Fresno and Modesto. We tried the youth rally idea in Bakersfield during a three-night revival. The rally started out slow the first night, but the following nights went great. It being California, the kids were not really too aware of Southern Gospel music.  However, after the first night, the church’s core group of kids brought their friends and in the end it was successful. However, it was obvious to Daddy that future youth rallies needed more advanced preparation to promote both the rally and the music.  Anyway, it was good practice for the four of us kids to perform and witness to young people while Mamma and Daddy preached to the adults. But Daddy decided to put the idea on hold until we were back in the South.

The same California promoter that had organized the San Diego show repeated the same basic show in Sacramento except that Chris and his band were not with us. He was previously booked on a southwestern tour by himself. So the promoter substituted a big name gospel quartet for him. Daddy and I sang the duets that Chris and I had been doing and they were well received.  The show went great in the state capital, and then we went on to do additional shows in Oregon and Washington with local promoters as well as other bookings in those states.  As we went north and then eastward toward home, we did several revivals in Idaho, Montana, and then south to Arkansas and finally back home to the Hollow.

We had been gone for two months not counting our vacation week, and we had performed 48 shows or revivals during that tour. The rest was mostly travel time. During the first two weeks back home, I didn’t do anything but prepare for the tour with Chris—and one other thing … I took the test for my Tennessee driver’s license and passed.

Country kids learn to drive young on the farm. Back in the days when Daddy had a home church and we just played revivals part-time, Daddy had to farm the Hollow in order to make ends meet. So, as a part-time farm boy, I had driven old jalopies around the farm since I was about ten or eleven years old. The cars had been cut down into what we called “whoopee” tractors. They were old junkers with most of the body and fenders cut away and a big rear axle from a truck so that they could mount large wheels in the rear. They were make-do, but it was all we could afford and they did the job. Anyway, I knew the basics of driving from that and I had gotten a learner’s permit when I had turned fifteen. So, when we got home off the road, Daddy took me to the Highway Patrol station and I took my Tennessee driver’s test and passed. Just like any teenager, it was another milestone in my life and I was really excited. At that point I had no use for a car of my own, but it was nice that I was now legal to use the family car to run errands for Daddy and to be able to take the kids where they needed to go.

Chris and I had both talked to the label and to the attorney who represented us both about the country music producer who had approached us when we had appeared on the Opry. After several discussions and meetings between them, they were convinced that he could do what he told us. All believed that they had a gold mine in us if we were properly exploited. At that point in our careers we had everything going for us: a potential hit CD with great songs; two young, talented, good looking guys; both of us having had #1 hit Southern Gospel songs; and both of us had recently received Best New Male Southern Gospel Singer awards (not to mention that the girls found us sexy!).  So, they negotiated a deal with him to produce the show for us. He would have total production control of our appearances while we retained artistic control. He could do anything as far as promotion went except spoil our images as young Christians. In return, he insisted in a clause in the contract that we would likewise do nothing to damage that image—in other words, we had to be totally discrete in everything we chose to do.

They decided that the CD needed a name other than “Battleground,” because there were a lot of other great songs on it besides that one song. Many names were proposed and collectively we decided to name both the CD and the tour “Blood-Brothers.”  That name fit with the sound we were going for, and it also had much deeper meaning in the Christian sense of the term.  The cities where we would be touring would be bombarded with advertisements using that name.  

Up to then in the Southern Gospel music business, most shows were barebones local productions performed on a stripped stage—they used whatever backdrop or curtain there was, and the sum total of the “show” was the singing. Most of the groups used pre-recorded backup music, and there were very few live musicians at all unless the group themselves played. The “Blood-Brothers” tour would be different—it would be a fully staged production.

The only real drudgery that I had during those two weeks back in the Hollow was autographing pictures and CDs. While ticket sales are great, a big percentage of the revenue on a tour is from the sale of CDs, tee shirts, pictures, and other merchandise.  Before I even got settled down good at the Hollow, there was a lot of autographing to be done. The label sent full cases of CDs that Chris had already signed. After I autographed them, they had to be quickly sent back to the label to be shrink-wrapped. So there was a rush to get all of that done. Then there were tee shirts, pictures, and some life-sized cardboard cutouts of Chris and I singing that had to be autographed. I was also taking cases of Stone Family CDs and other family merchandise. The producer’s tour manager would have an entire semi-trailer load of merchandise as well as another trailer load of leased stage, sound, video and lighting plus technicians to run the equipment.  

The producer already had the entire show blocked out using the songs on the new CD and Chris and my individual hits. We could include additional songs that we thought fit the basic show, but the central format of the show would essentially focus on our close vocal harmony. We would still sing the solos from our original hits, but we had to also incorporate the “Blood-Brothers” harmonies into them. Additionally, the producer had selected some faster rock-gospel songs to provide variety, and a few Tennessee bluegrass gospel songs to take advantage of my roots in our early Stone Family hits. We would practice and arrange the music at the barn in the Hollow. Then we would travel to Biloxi for two days of intensive rehearsals of the actual show.

Chris rolled into the Hollow in his coach and towing his SUV right on schedule on the 28^th of June.  We set up his band’s equipment in the barn and that afternoon we began practicing all of the music that was scheduled for the show. Ordinarily, his band was four pieces with a piano player, drums, bass guitar and steel guitar with Chris playing rhythm. Chris had made a lot of hits with that combination. They never had a lead guitar player, so I would play lead as well as other string instruments.

As professionals, most of us could double on more than one instrument. I personally could play lead electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, and mandolin, and I could also hold my own on the country fiddle. While my family roots were in bluegrass-type instruments, our singing had followed Daddy’s song writing to become more mainstream-progressive. Our more recent hits had been pure Southern Gospel with standard instrumentation. During my many hours of spare time on the road, I had learned to imitate the country licks and the southern rock I heard on the radio.

Although there were no bluegrass parts on our new CD, traditional old-time gospel is full of songs that can be played in bluegrass style and we needed some to fill out our sets. So we worked out arrangements for several of those traditional songs. That gave me a chance to show off a little on bluegrass picking … and, at that age, I tended to show off more than I should have. Naturally they had to harness my ego some so that everyone could get a chance to “take a ride”—a slang term for playing a lead part.

After two days of arranging and refining a wide variety of songs, I loaded most of my stuff in one of the cabins on Chris’s coach and some in the basement storage bins. Besides my street clothes and four snow-white western cut suits and other stage outfits, I was taking a variety of the best guitars and my antique mandolin and my banjo. I owned several Martin acoustic guitars and a custom Les Paul and two Fender Stratocasters.  

There was no private time because of the family and the other band members. But the anticipation of our two months together was enough to give me a continuous hard on. It would be sweet.

To be continued …