Singer’s Story

By: David Divers
(© 2008-2015 by the author)
Edited by: Madison Cole

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

A note to Billy Ray fans from David Divers….. I would like to apologize to Billy Ray’s fans over my long hiatus in writing new chapters.  I have been busy living my retirement life.  In addition, my life-partner has Alzheimer’s and requires lots of TLC on my part.  

There are a number of other reasons why I have delayed continuing the saga of the singer Billy Ray.  Besides being busy, one of the primary reasons that I haven’t been writing is criticism—both my own criticism of some glaring errors that I have made in the story and criticism by reader’s feedback.

First of all, my own personal criticism—my guilt trip.  If you reviewed the story in its entirety, you would find many glaring errors because the story developed in my brain without an overall plan of where it was going. I even changed Billy’s name from Billy Joe to Billy Ray after a few chapters.  I could go back and rewrite each chapter to satisfy myself but it would be too much work to correct relatively minor discrepancies. I like Billy Ray and I love the story the way it is so I have to live with it.

The main criticism received from my readers was that I am mixing-up chronological eras.  In the early chapters I wrote that the Stone Family and Billy Ray was involved in the early days of Southern Gospel music which would have been sometime in the 1950’s.  Then as the story progressed, I wrote about Cassettes, CDs, cable television shows, video equipment, etc. Obviously those things didn’t exist in the 50’s…..I don’t apologize for those “discrepancies”.    

Looking back, I view the story in much the same way my favorite cartoonist saw his comic strip characters.  The strip was about a 6 year old boy and his stuffed animal friend — his only friend.  (Due to possible copyright issues I will generalize about the strip—you might be able to guess which one it is). 

I am a great fan of those characters and its cartoonist—he had a certain genius in describing his own life and mine as a kid.  I own all of the collected editions of the strip. In one of those collected editions the author made an editorial comment about the primary characters in his strip.  Those comments reflect my own philosophy about Billy Ray Stone and the Stone Family:

The human character – the 6 year old kid:  The cartoonist said that the situations and dialogue in the six-year-old’s life reflect his own adult mental immaturity.  He projected his own adult thoughts and vocabulary through the eyes of a six year old.  In some ways that is how I think of Billy Ray.  He is my alter ego.  In my own life I was a successful freelance consulting engineer (now retired) and I worked all over the world.  I also sang and played music in many different country and southern gospel groups when I was not on an overseas contract.  The one career was financially rewarding while the other was total pleasure.  I never sang a song or played a note of music that was not total enjoyment.  Mixing the two careers allowed me to enjoy the success of one with the pleasure of the other.  Realistically speaking though, I didn’t think I have the distinctive vocal ability which would have set me apart from all of the competition in the music business.  Unfortunately I was good but not great…..

The second Cartoon character — the stuffed animal who “lived” and interacted with the kid.  In viewing the strip, one cartoon reader might think that the animal only existed in the kid’s imagination—it being only a stuffed animal to anybody else when they saw it.  Other viewers might think the opposite--that stuffed animal was a real animal that became a stuffed toy when anyone else was around.  The cartoonist said he chose to never resolve the issue.  The reality did not interest him. 

Looking back on the Singer’s Story, it is the same with the historical accuracy.  The accuracy doesn’t interest me—it is what it is.  I am combining several different eras of the Southern Gospel music entertainment business without regard to the accuracy of its historic context.  Furthermore, my story is not intended to be a Horatio Alger-like “Rags to Riches” tale either.  I know it would be difficult for one person to experience such rapid success in the music business but that is my reality...naive though it may be.

In future chapters I also don’t want to describe endless repetition of the sexual content—there will be sex but I have already included almost all the possible sex acts that most of us have experienced except for the really bizarre stuff.  I believe that much of the bizarre sex acts in some stories rarely take place in real life.  I doubt most readers ever participate in those things.  Sex will occur but it will be discretely…..

With these things in mind, I will continue the narrative where it left off…….

Chapter 21
Homesickness and jealousy rear their ugly heads.

The Tour Continues…

The next night in Hattiesburg we played on the Campus of USM--the University of Southern Mississippi.  Once again, we played to a friendly crowd because Chris had attended USM as an undergraduate—in fact, he had been a one-time fraternity brother of a well-known singer who later became rich and famous for laidback Key West-Caribbean-type music.  They had both lived in the Biloxi area and had occasionally shared rides back and forth to school in Hattiesburg where they had studied history and music.   Chris didn’t graduate from USM because he had early success with the gospel quartet that he sang with in Biloxi.  Touring with them prevented him from continuing to attend college full-time.  But he did attend school there for several years and was recognized as a fellow “Golden Eagle”.  So once again he was advertised and treated as a “homeboy” while we worked out minor glitches in the show.

From there we travelled generally northward for shows in Jackson, Baton Rouge, Memphis, Knoxville, Gatlinburg and venues in between.  In all we did 18 shows in the next 20 days.  The two off-days were not actually off for Chris and me because we spent them traveling ahead of the band in Chris’s SUV.  We had interviews and additional photography sittings for new publicity stills.  That was the only time that we had some privacy to discreetly get some pleasure time.   Meanwhile our entire CD of “Battleground” was climbing both the Southern Gospel and had crossed over onto the Country music charts due to its exposure on national television and our initial preview of it on the Opry.  

The CD was a “concept album” similar to Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger” album.  Like that album, all of the songs were interrelated and centered around the “Battleground” single.    As a result, many radio stations played several of our songs consecutively to maintain the context. Other major stations devoted an entire program to all of the songs on the CD.  So we were getting lots of airplay and CD sales in the stores were going well.  All of that airplay and the Coke-assisted advertising helped to fill the venues where we played. 

We were now headed towards Nashville for our second appearance on the Grand Old Opry with Billy Crowder.  Not only did we have the invitation from Billy personally but we shared the same promoter.  By this time our show had become very polished with only an occasional minor glitch.  None of those glitches now occurred musically but were recurring problems with the staging.  That was due to having to have a new crew at each venue because of union rules.  Now we were heading for Nashvile and we had a full schedule for the entire week prior to our appearance on the Opry—it was the week of the CMA Music Festival Fan Fair.

Fan Fair is a long-established “convention” where country music fans have the opportunity to meet their favorite stars.  It is almost imperative that a rising star be available during that week to meet and greet their audience, as well as established stars for maintaining their audience.  At that point, we did not have a large C&W audience but we had major connections in the business…Bill Crowder and our manager.   They had rented space in the convention hall and had invited us to share it with them.

You would think that with all of the hustle and bustle of being on the road, I would be happy, but despite the relatively short time I had been away from my family, the longer the tour lasted, the more homesick I became. 

My family had been our opening act for two of our shows—one in Memphis and another in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  But, other than that, I only had contact with them by phone—and then only when they were home in the “holler”.  They were out playing their own tour dates and communication was a problem.  At my age, freedom from parental authority also had its drawbacks.  I missed the closeness of the familiar talks, games and even the lessons that Mama taught as part of our home schooling—and most of all, I missed Mama’s “home” cooking. 

The sidemen in Chris Baker band—now the Blood Brothers band--were in it for the money.  In Chris’s coach everything was done on “the cheap” as far as possible.  Not that Chris was personally cheap, but Chris and his band had a strictly business relationship.  Everything centered around money.  They individually scrimped and saved everything they earned on the road in order to feed their families back home.  Most were satisfied to live on sandwiches, junk food and snacks while I was accustomed to full-blown southern home-cooking with grits, biscuits, fried chicken, greens, etc.

With the Blood Brothers band, on those occasions when we did stop for meals, it was only when we refueled and then it was greasy, truck-stop food.  That was ok once in a while—even Mama didn’t cook every meal.  But as I mentioned in a previous chapter, like the lyrics of the Neil Diamond song “I Am I Said”, I was “lost between two shores”.  He also sang, “LA’s fine but it ain’t home no more”.   Well, the Blood Brothers tour was “fine” but it sure wasn’t home no more.

There was also a big difference in ages.  I was still a young man—really a teenaged boy.  I may have been emancipated but I was just a few months over sixteen years old.  Socially I was still wet behind the ears.  On the coach, I felt that the sidemen were uncomfortable around me and I was likewise uneasy around them.   Musically, whenever we sat around jamming, singing, etc. I could more than hold my own.   But in social situations, as soon as I left my small bunk space, conversation would stop.  I had little in common with them.  They were worldly men and I was just a naïve kid.  I was lonesome.  We could make innocuous small talk but soon conversation would come to an end—it would begin again as soon as I got up to do something else.  They played cards, laughed, told jokes and adult tales of life on the road touring with country bands. Most had personal experience with tales of honkytonk heroes, fighting, drinking and one-night stands with women.  So whenever I sat down with them, the easy camaraderie that they had with each other dried up.  Most had kids of their own at home who were older than I was.   And they didn’t really know how to relate to me as a person.  I was a wet blanket and they “respected” my youth and Christianity and were unaware of the secret relationship Chris and I had.  We just didn’t have that anything in common outside of our current tour and music.

There was also no comparison between the makeup of the Stone Family Band and the Blood Brothers group.  As a family we had no sidemen.  But in the Blood Brothers band the only thing permanent were Chris and I.  The rest were sidemen.  “Fame” and “fortune” rarely trickles down to the sideman level.  Sidemen were accustomed to changing bands as often as necessary—they were always looking to move up and guarded against being supplanted when the next “hot” picker came along.  Moving up in the business meant changing to bands that paid better.  There was little loyalty to the band or to each other.  You can bet that due to Chris’s success he had a list of musicians and their phone numbers on speed dial who would love to move into his band.  

Although playing in bands on the road was “exotic” when musicians first start out, after a few years on the road and a few failed marriages, that life begins to pale.  If sidemen were also family men, they would ultimately love to settle down in Nashville and become session musicians like the ones described on the Opry.   Top Nashville session players made big money and most of their travel was from one local studio to another—sometimes several times a day. 

Other factors figured into my homesickness.  On the Stone Family tours there were strict rules you followed or else.  We had an almost rigid routine.  In Mama’s “house” you didn’t let dirty underwear and other used clothes accumulate nor did you neglect daily bathing and other personal hygiene.

As described in previous chapters, when we started out touring back in the day, we used regular sedans and station wagons.  Over the years we graduated to bigger and bigger vehicles until we worked our way up to full-blown coaches.  But the rules established in those early, “close quarters” days carried over to the coach and even our home back in the hollow.  Everything was organized into a routine.

From the start, the Stone family life was just like a military organization or travelling circus.  In Mama’s “house” everything was orderly--every item we owned had its place and nothing was left just lying around or left unsecured where it could fall, spill, or get broken or tripped over.  If something was used for the show, it had to be carefully taken care of because our livelihood depended on it.  When Daddy was in the Army he learned that a good soldier never “came up short”—a soldier was never missing the articles of equipment he needed to defend himself or his country.  We had to be conscious at all times of the value of our musical instruments, clothes and other property that we needed to put the best “Stone Family” foot forward to the public.  It wouldn’t do to be short of something needed for the show through carelessness or accident.  It may have been only “puttin’ up a front” to the world outside the coach, but it was more than just our “Image” that was at stake.  We returned to many of the same venues year after year and developed long-term followings.  We expected to keep that image alive, even to future generations of the Stone Family.

Furthermore, us “younguns” behaved.  Before we hired a driver, Daddy did the driving while Mama would be cooking or teaching or otherwise engaged.  All of us kids would be studying or playing quietly when the coach was in motion.  You didn’t argue and fight or bicker with each other.  We lived in too close contact with each other for that, and for safety reasons you didn’t do anything to distract Daddy while he was driving. 

Whether we were at home in the hollow or on the road we all had daily chores.  Somehow the coach had to be cleaned and maintained inside and out. We all had our assigned responsibilities and took turns doing all of the things that had to be done it keep the coach clean and comfortable.  In the Stone family, there was no such thing as “women’s work”.   Someone had to help Mama in the cooking preparation duties and in washing-up afterwards.  Someone had to vacuum or scrub the floors and clean the bathroom.  And, we all had to keep our personal spaces neat and clean.  When we were parked at a venue we also had chores to wash and polish the outside of the coach and that also took co-operation and teamwork.—none of that took place on a regular basis on the Blood Brothers tour coach.  Chris practiced crisis management and waited until the coach reeked before he took any action.

Another thing affecting my pleasure with the tour was that Chris was turning out to be a very jealous person—not in our secret relationship but professionally.  Maybe I was allowing minor irritations to affect my mood but Chris would get very jealous at any personal attention I was getting from the media and the fans during interviews and media events.  He would interrupt any conversation that I had and steer the attention back to himself.  I quickly learned to carefully redirect many questions to Chris because he expected to be our spokesperson.  In public I was expected to confine any comments that I made to the rehearsed answers that the manager had provided.  Meanwhile he would pontificate on any subject that came up. 

He tended to get very huffy if I became the center of attention in any gathering.  This was not an irreconcilable situation, but it was not something that could be easily discussed or settled on the road. So I just had to grin and bear it until the tour was over.  But, I was beginning to have my doubts about a long-term partnership with him—professionally or otherwise.

We arrived in Nashville for a five-day break from the road.  I would have liked to have gone home for a few days of R&R but the manager had a full schedule laid out for us despite the time off from the road.   We would do the Fan Fair and record several syndicated TV shows prior to playing at the “Opry”……

To be continued... 

More chapters in the next few weeks and additional jealousy rears its ugly head…… 

Best regards to Billy’s fans, David

As usual, many thanks to Madison Cole for his assistance in editing my stories.

Posted: 06/05/15