Meeting Larry Gatlin, and a nice surprise.

So a couple of months ago I got a call from the Honeywell Center to do an interview with Larry Gatlin. He was set to do a show. Now let me start by saying I grew up hearing my mom sing Gatlin Brother songs. All the Gold in California, Broken Lady, Midnight Choir...So many great songs. Needless to say I was a little nervous.

So I am in the studio will all my prep, and questions set for his call into the studio. Now I pre-record these things so I can go back and put the songs in afterwards. It makes it go a little faster and makes it better for the artist.

Right on time the phone rings...
Me: WCJC, this is John, can I help you.
Larry: Big John...Big John, Big Bad John (singing the Jimmy Dean Song)
Me: I have to admit, I am a little nervous to talk to ya...
Larry: Well ya should be, I'm pretty famous. Then he started laughing!

So we talk about how I want to do the interview. And we get started.

Let me just say he was a joy to interview. We talked about some his biggest hits. We talked about new music. We talked about the upcoming concert. But what happened near the end of the interview really surprised me.

We were in the break between interview segments, where I was going to later insert the song. He then asked me about the song he was singing to start the interview. Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean. What I didn't know was that Larry got his start working with Jimmy in Las Vegas. He was telling me all this, and then he tells me how he goes and sees Jimmy a couple times a year. He asked me if we could talk about that a little bit and play the song.

Now this came as a shock to me. The reason being, this interview was suppose to be about Larry and his concert, but he goes on to tell me that Jimmy lives up in his cabin in West Virgina, and Larry said that he feels like everyone forgot him. So I go along, and Larry and I start talking about Jimmy and that great song that I grew up listening to. So we play the song, and Larry is so excited. He tells me that he needs a copy of the interview so he can take it to Jimmy this spring. It was amazing how he wasn't thinking of himself, but instead of an old friend. He told me that I just made an old man's day!

He then asked me if I was coming to the show. I thought wow that would be great! He wanted to meet me and get the CD of the interview. So I tell him that I could use a pair of tickets, with meet and greet passes. I am so excited. I get home and my wife, with not a lot of enthusiasm says..."ohhh, great." I can tell she really didn't want to go. So I call my mom, if will remember from the beginning use to sing the Gatlin's all the time when I was a kid. So I invite her for the show. We had a wonderful time, and as you can see, we got to meet the Gatlins, which my mom thought was really cool. But for me, it was just another day of my "Life in Headphones."