Peter Case is a buddy. We’ve worked together in Nashville, Memphis, Lexington, KY, Decatur, GA, and – I kid you not – Sesto Callende, Italy.

He’s a true hardcore troubadour who has lived it to his toenails out of a suitcase for decades, playing his guitar and weaving stories with his words, wearing a rumpled suit, with an old hat, looking like a man who took a train into town.

Peter had open heart surgery earlier this year. A benefit gig was at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in California back in May. Dave Alvin played, T-Bone Burnett, others.They did it because yet another exorbitant medical fix-it bill affected yet another life that has value.

There were benefits for Duane Jarvis and Tim Krekel too, before the hammers fell. Perry Baggs of the Scorchers was a beneficiary of a big two-night one here in town two years ago. A few years back, Government Cheese reunited to help an old friend deal with her bills.

There was even a posthumous benefit once when Jack Emerson passed away suddenly, leaving a mountain of bills.

So it goes.

When my manager then, Kim Webber, was diagnosed with MS in 2000, I and John Bruton organized Kimfest: 4 nights at 12th & Porter.

We had an unbelievable line-up.

As (a drunk) master of ceremonies, the people I introduced included: Peter Case (coincidentally), Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Tift Merritt, Buddy & Julie Miller with Emmylou Harris, Ryan Adams with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Robbie Fulks, Mike Ireland & Holler, (a very young) Justin Townes Earle, Jason Ringenberg, Webb Wilder, Scott Miller, and many others.

One of the nights, who showed up but Donnie “Ralph Malph” Most??!!! We met and talked and he was nice as nice can be. I was walking on air the rest of the night – I’d met Ralph Malph!

We raised eight grand.

The cynics and the uninformed scoff at benefit gigs. What’s $8000 in the face of a six-figure bill? What good does it do?

Well here it is.

Benefit posters only say “TO HELP PAY THE MEDICAL BILLS OF SO-AND-SO!” because “TO HELP KEEP THE LIGHTS TURNED ON AND THE WATER RUNNING AND THE RENT PAID WHILE OUR FRIEND IS TOO SICK TO FIGURE OUT YET WHAT HIS OR HER NEXT MOVE IS GOING TO BE, ASSUMING HE OR SHE EVEN HAS ONE!” takes too long to write out.

We accomplished that exactly with Kimfest, keeping her house rented and bills paid for three months while she got herself together enough to get her Social Security benefits set up. (Thank God she’d worked a straight job for twenty years and had paid in.)

I’ve played a lot of benefits in my time, and I’m afraid I’m going to play plenty more.

But not in England.

I wouldn’t say I took a survey of the English population but I did converse with many about the health care debate in America. Everyone had one thing in common. No one had any complaints about their own system. They seemed pretty happy with it.

Peter the pub owner in Burton-On-Trent, told me – and I quote - the English health care system is “excellent.” His word, not mine. “Excellent.” And he’s an old guy too, saying that.

I pray people don’t give in to fear in these crucial times when we have a chance to try and fix a system that saves your life and ruins it at the same time.

I’m sick of playing benefits.

We shouldn’t have to.

God bless,

Tommy

What a season of loss we’ve endured. Duane Jarvis, Tim Krekel, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Karl Malden, Steve McNair, Jim Dickinson, and… seems like there was somebody else, let me think… OH YEAH, Michael Jackson. That’s the one.

What a tragedy and loss of talent. What a flaming emblem of why children should never be in show business.

Nathan likes the Disney Channel now, so we watch “I Carly” and “Hannah Montana” and “The Sweet Life of Zach & Cody” together.

I look at those child actors wondering who’s going to survive being performing monkeys at a time in their lives when they should be outside on their bikes or something, and who won’t.

For every Jodie Foster, there are a hundred Dana Platos.

You can’t replace a lost childhood no matter how hard you try, and Michael Jackson’s story is bitter evidence of it.

Here’s where I am with Michael.

I grew up with him too. He was only four years older than me. I still have his single of “Got To Be There” which is an amazing performance. At the age of nine he sang “Who’s Loving You” better than Smokey Robinson’s original. No small feat.

I see that old television footage of him with his brothers and I think the same thing everybody thinks: No WAY is this a little kid! No WAY a ten-year old can dance and sing like that!

But he could, and did, because (a) he was touched by God, and (b) he had a horse’s patoot of a father whopping his backside saying “get yer black ass on the stage!”

However, I never did drink the kool-aid on his monstrously successful output later on. His stratospheric success as a solo artist is, to me, an indicator of why I myself HAVEN’T had such success. I’ve just been hanging around the wrong people.

I’ve been doing this music thing for 25 years. I’ve come to know tons of musicians and listeners. And in all that time, I haven’t met a single “Thriller” fan.

Not one!

He was where the money was at; and I’ve wandered in the wilderness with the other lost souls who just don’t get it.

One time, only once, was I ever blown away by the grownup Michael.

I was in a hospital bed in ’93 after falling off my bike and rupturing my spleen. I was on – coincidentally enough – Demerol.

I got a dose of it every two hours and believe you me, every two hours on the dot, I was hitting that call button for the nurse to come bring me my treat. If you’ve never had Demerol, don’t ever take it. Everything else in life pales.

So here I was, wrapped up in my warm pharmaceutical cocoon, and for some reason the TV (Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight or some garbage like that) was running footage of Michael giving testimony in a deposition regarding an allegation that he stole “The Girl Is Mine” from some other writer.

I’m really surprised this footage hasn’t surfaced lately. (It must be suppressed or something.)

Here was a static, one-camera shot of Michael, giving deposition testimony, and he was FUCKED up!

His eyes were barely open, he was slurring his words, and speaking slowly. Very slowly

Until he was asked how he composes his music.

“Well, I… I… usually start… with a…. a rhythm… a beat.” He managed to say.

“Can you show me how you do that” asked a lawyerly voice from off-camera.

What next came out of Michael’s mouth was jaw-dropping.

He started scatting “bop a loo bop ti bop” sort of stuff, making whooshing, booming and clicking noises with his mouth and tongue, and he just went on and on doing it.

It was rhythmically perfect, musically astounding, and utterly amazing.

Then the minute he stopped doing it, he went back to slurring his words and being barely conscious.

It was like his genius rose to the surface for a shining moment and then submerged again. That was 16 years ago. He had more sinking to do.

I have no idea what he really did with those kids, but I can tell you what my gut tells me.

I remember guys in the grade school restroom who would wave their wee-wees at each other. Little kids get naked and hop in bathtubs together all the time. Little kids share beds.

To call Michael Jackson a child molester is to imply that he was an adult, and I don’t think he was one. Not completely anyway.

I think he was a child with grown-up hormones and urges he didn’t know how to deal with. And I think maybe some bath time/bedtime horseplay got out of hand and that was it.

We’ll see what those kids say when they grow up. I hope the first question they have to answer is “Where the hell were your parents??!!”

Oh well, enough about him. God rest his soul. He was monstrously talented. I hope he comes back as a mild-mannered Swiss kid who’s good at math and never has to sing for his supper. Ever.

God bless,

Tommy

Well, I’m still alive. You can credit (in chronological order) Peter Barbour, Rob Ellen, Paul Needham, Dawson & Annie Smith, and the whole Dawson & the Dissenters band for that. And you can even give me a little credit for that. I did make all my flights and trains on time, after all.

The Tartan Heart Festival in Belladrum, Scotland was fantastic. I had a good set. I was joined by Gypsy Dave Smith on dobro and he added just the right touch, and very off the cuffly too. I played a jam session with Phil Lee, Tom Mason and Gypsy Dave, along with a nice chap named Isaac on bass and God Knows Who That Was on drums.

And then I saw Glenn Tilbrook and the Fluffers. Oh my God, what a show. I’ve never gotten to see Squeeze, so this was my introduction to what a powerhouse he is. I was crying. He hit the stage with “Tempted” and it was, for the first time to my ears, not just an agreeable pop song, but a rock anthem, as was “Pulling Mussels From The Shell” and “Take Me, I’m Yours” which the audience was singing louder than the band practically.

I slept in Rob Ellen’s van. He promised to get me up by seven so I could make my way to the airport (somehow) and make my 11:30 flight. He was true to his word, and as I came up to the EasyJet check-in at Inverness Airport, who is front of me? Glenn Tilbrook and the Fluffers! They were all very nice and seemed to know who I am, or gave the impression that they did. I was right chuffed, as they’d say over here.

Another intriguing thing. They eat something in Scotland called haggis, with neaps and tatties. Haggis, I’m told, tastes like a rich goose liver pate’, which is all I need to know – I’ll happily go to my grave having never eaten that. (I’ve had two bites of liver in my life and that was two too many.) I am intrigued about neaps and tatties, though. It sounds vaguely risqué. (Oooh, baby, I love your neaps and tatties!!!)

I was picked up at London Luton Airport by Dawson & The Dissenters and Paul Needham (who’s official title is ‘Tour Gimp’, which means he does everything that needs doing right this very moment) and we went straight to the Wheatsheaf in Leighton Buzzard. I had a nap upstairs, and I only later found out from a friend back home that this pub was in a TV show about haunted houses. I didn’t get visited by a ghost, but then again I may have been so sleepy that I rolled up off the couch, kicked the ghost in the gut and went back to sleep again.

Two shows later, Paul took (gimped?) me down to London to appear on Barry Everett’s House of Mercy radio show. (Sorry I don’t have a web link for it. Google ‘House of Mercy’.) and we hung around Camden Town a little after that, gorging on all-you-can-eat Thai buffet.

Tuesday, I appeared live on the radio. Here’s the link to my interview with Chris Baxter on BBC Radio Leicester. It’s for the entire show. I’m on in the second hour. The show will remain online for another six days. Chris compared me to Ozzy Osbourne. I’m not quite sure what to think about that. But hey, he knew my record and knew a lot about me. It’s nice when you get an informed interviewer like that, even if he does think you favour Ozzy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003yw5m#synopsis

So now it’s Thursday. Tonight we play in Tamworth, then Loftborough, then Coventry, then the Leicester Summer Sundae festival, then I come home to the bosom of my family. Thirty days cigarette-free, all the world’s in love with me.

God bless,

Tommy

Sunday Night, August 2nd, 2009, 11:02 PM CDT

I leave for Scotland in three days. I fly out of Nashville Wednesday and I haven’t the faintest clue when exactly I fly out or on what airline or anything to do with it at all. (It’s in an email somewhere. I’ll find it.) I know I change planes in Amsterdam, then fly to London, then change planes for Glasgow, then take a train to Inverness and there I’m supposed to call somebody from the Tartan Heart Belladrum Festival to come get me, which will be complicated what with me not having a phone. But it’ll work out, or you’ll never hear from me again, one of the two, I suppose.

I haven’t begun to pack yet. I left my acoustic guitar (the one guitar I’m taking with me) at the Family Wash last night. I’m kicking ass and taking names, I tell ya. In the good column, at least I know where my passport is! That wasn’t true at this point the last trip over, last year. Wondering where your passport is three days before an overseas trip ranks right behind slamming a brick in your teeth on the list of fun things to do.

Tomorrow I’ll start to get things together, make a list, find flight information emails and work permits and print ‘em out, maybe drag the suitcase out from under the bed and start trying to calculate how to fit the records and clothes all in there with my shaving kit and what not, get the carry-on backpack out and see what I need to fit in that, go get my GUITAR (!!!), bond with my son, surfeit myself with the pleasures of home and hearth on a mellow Monday evening – and then Tuesday, I’ll go insane.

It’ll hit me. OH SHIT I’M LEAVING THE COUNTRY! ALL ALONE! I have to change planes and trains HOW many times?!! Good God in Heaven, I have so many opportunities to fuck this up that the mind reels! DON’T SEND ME OUT THERE ALONE GENERAL!!! What have I forgotten to pack?! Where are the fucking batteries I bought?! Did I remember the capo?! Did I pack the good pants??!!! Where’s the goddam capo!!! I’m a terrible person who deserves to die! Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy! I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay! I sleep all night and I work all day! Okay, everybody! WHERE’S THE CAPO!!!

******

Daddy is #1 on the Euro Americana chart. That’s cool. Very cool actually. And thank you European listeners and record buyers. Thank you, thank you!

It’s our hope to bring Daddy, the full band, over to Europe in 2010. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers for that notion to become reality.

It’s mine and Will’s fervent wish to return across the pond and play next year NOT as an acoustic duo, but with the telecasters and amps and the whole Daddy rock and roll shebang. Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing since pockets? It’s not a done deal yet but I’d say being #1 on the European Americana chart would make such an eventuality certainly not LESS of a possibility, and even maybe much MORE of one. That’s how I’m reading the tea leaves anyway.

My aforementioned Daddy partner, Will Kimbrough’s just back from England himself. He actually went twice in July, a lightning raid with Jimmy Buffett and then last week with Rodney Crowell. (He’s incredible, I tell ya. He is the Alien.)

We’re already talking about the third Daddy record. We’re thinking acoustic thoughts but with the band, perhaps our Led Zeppelin III by way of the Mississippi delta. And we’re also enthusiastic to start writing for it as soon as we can. I’m grateful to have that to look forward to.

******

It’s now 12:39 AM Monday morning. I had to step away because I just had a fantastic, wonderful experience.

Nathan came into the office where I was typing and just started talking about drums and drumming. When your kid actually wants to have a conversation, it’s best to seize the moment, and I did. We got to talking about this Jonas Brothers song he was playing drums to with his iPod ear buds in his ears. (He was doing that all the time I was mowing the front yard earlier.)

I love it when my kid really, really wants to talk. Our conversation ranged from double-kick pedals (and how they’re expensive and no he doesn’t need one!) and ranged into talking about old records, and specifically the vinyl records in the back music room where the turntable is.

I started rhapsodizing about the superior sound quality of vinyl to CDs or mp3s, and he was curious to hear the difference, so off to the music room we went and – for the first time with my son – we listened to “Exile On Main Street” by the Stones, not all of it but a lot of it. He was amazed, he was entranced, air-drumming to everything Charlie Watts (or Jimmy Miller) was playing. I played him “Happy” and he was shell-shocked that that was really Keith Richards’ voice and that yes, he could sing that well at one time.

I just love him. Nathan, I mean. And Keith too.

Yeah yeah, I let my kid stay up late. I know. But school starts soon. Let’s party like it’s 1999 while we can.

******

Nathan’s in bed reading Harry Potter now and, yes, he should be told to go right to sleep but you can’t fault the kid for reading. At least it’s not the goddam Wii or the Nintendo DS brain-suck machine. It’s a book, with words and plot and everything. And he doesn’t have to wake up anytime tomorrow. The later he sleeps, the less time he has to spend alone until I come home from work.

******

One last task for me before I go to bed – clean Sheba’s piss off the living room floor. That damn dog! She’s cute and all but she treats the whole house like a toilet. (Victoria Stillwell, hear my plea! Come save us!)

What really gets me more than the pee is that she likes to poop in the music room. I take that personally.

She’s my best friend when I have a Beggin’ Strip in my hand, but then she shits in my music room. I know what she’s telling me, and I don’t like my music being dissed by my own damn dog! It’s disrespectful and damn discouraging.

******

Did I mention I haven’t smoked a cigarette in 22 days? It’s true. Not one drag, not one puff! I’m starting – just starting - to feel like something other than dog shit for the first time in years. If I make it through Tuesday and Wednesday without lighting up, I’ll be really happy.

******

I bid you adieu. It’s 12:58. I’m going to bed. Later I’ll get up and have a nice Monday before Tuesday comes and I go out of my tiny little mind. I hope you have a good Monday too.

And to all my English and Scottish and Irish friends, I hope to see you soon, as opposed to winding up in Denmark crying on the doorsteps of some hostel with a broken guitar and no luggage.

My therapist says I engage in all-or-nothing thinking. I think she’s either terribly right or really, really wrong. Can’t decide. Oh well…

God bless,

Tommy

Aug 7 2009 5:00P
TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL Belladrum near Inverness, Scotland
Aug 8 2009 8:00P
The Wheatsheaf Leighton Buzzard, Midlands
Aug 9 2009 2:00P
The Wetmore Whistle Burton On Trent, Midlands
Aug 11 2009 8:00P
The Musician - Leicester, Midlands
Aug 12 2009 8:00P
The Lion - Nottingham, Midlands
Aug 13 2009 8:00P
The Tavern - Tamworth, Midlands
Aug 14 2009 8:00P
The 3 Nuns - Loughborough, Midlands
Aug 15 2009 8:00P
The Beer Engine - Coventry, Midlands
Aug 16 2009 3:00P
SUMMER SUNDAE FESTIVAL - with Dawson & The Dissenters! Leicester, Midlands
Sep 10 2009 8:00P
The Silver Dollar - w/ The Tom Cook Band! Butte, Montana
Sep 11 2009 8:00P
The Filling Station - w/ The Tom Cook Band! Bozeman, Montana
Sep 18 2009 8:00P
10th Annual Americana Music Festival & Conference - DADDY (Band) Showcase! Nashville, Tennessee
Sep 22 2009 12:00P
Java City in Helm Library Bowling Green, Kentucky
Sep 26 2009 8:00P
“Almost Austin” House Concerts Pasadena, Texas
Sep 27 2009 5:00P
Millbend Coffee House The Woodlands, Texas
Oct 23 2009 8:00P
The 13th Annual MagnoliaFest - DADDY (Full Band)!! Live Oak, Florida
Oct 24 2009 8:00P
The 13th Annual MagnoliaFest - DADDY (Full Band)!! Live Oak, Florida
Nov 21 2009 8:00P
Charles & Myrtles Coffeehouse @ Christ Unity Church Chattanooga, Tennessee
Dec 5 2009 8:00P
Hoogland Center for The Arts - w/ Paul Burch! Springfield, Illinois