Excerpt from my upcoming book
It was 1975 and I had to get
out of Dallas, Carnival in New Orleans was in full swing that week, and what better place to get over a broken heart I figured, that to lose myself in a crowd, with a mask and a different name. “The Louisiana Chicken Man” was my official Mardi Gras name, and in my mind, Chicken Man had finally flown the coup. (here is some of my New Orleans inspired music that I recorded over the years)
I slammed the door on my funky apartment, infested with cockroaches, drafty windows, no insulation, and headed to the freeway, as the sun was coming up towards the Louisiana State line, with my tenor sax, and two wadded up dollars in my pocket, no credit cards, no cell phones.
I had a 1972 Chevy Impala, but not enough gas to get to New Orleans.
We had a couple of low paying gigs booked that week in some juke joint in the black part
of Dallas, but for me it was a dead end. The Fats Domino song popped into my head,
clear as a bell, “I’m walkin’ to New Orleans”, well it was 521 miles, and there was no
way I was walking.
I just wanted to get lost in that parade of madness and debauchery that would numb the pain.
.
We got a Convoy
I walked to the nearest on-ramp of Interstate-20, the highway that had sliced through almost every city I had ever lived in at this point, from the Carolinas all way a to
Birmingham, Jackson, Mississippi, through Dallas and way down to South Texas.
I had only hitched a ride maybe once in my life, but back then the interstates were full of
hippies traveling in every direction of the country. Hippie VW Vans had bumper stickers
that read “Gas, Grass or Ass, nobody rides for Free”, and I wasn’t afraid of some Bubba
out to harm me.
I mean, how hard could it be, I zipped up my coat, pulled down my hat,
and stuck out my right thumb, headed east, my wheels were greased, going back to
Louisiana. I heard the air brakes of A big Eighteen wheeler and got a whiff of a load full
of cattle, as I climbed way up into the cab.
I got a Texas Howdy from a real cowboy from Amarillo, with a big straw hat, and a tin
full of skoals tobacco . He had an eight track tape system cranked to ten, and a CB radio
and rode us all the way to the Louisiana State line, just outside of Shreveport, where I had
to head south to New Orleans.
In 1975, CB radios songs were all the rage in Country music, and I heard every one of ‘em
on that trip. He grabbed the mic on the CB, “Ten-four there good buddy, mercy sakes
alive, this here’s pigpen, I think we’re clear all the way to the Louisiana State Line, not a
smokey in sight, you copy?, “that’s a 10-4, I got the Louisiana Chicken Man ridin’
shotgun on my seat covers, headin to Fat City, gonna toot his horn down thar in one’a
them parades, Any’a yall headin’ southbound when we hit Sport City?, he could use a ride
down thar. ”
Sport City was CB talk for Shreveport. “That’s a 10-4, what’s yer twenty?
“I’m 10 miles east of Big D, and I’m gonna put the hammer down” “Negatory Chicken
Man, I’m eastbound and down, headin’ over to B Town, sorry can’t hep ya.”
I was hoping to get the Shreveport before dark, The weather was getting bad, and I didn’t want to be hitchin’ a ride in the dark much less a thunder storm. I knew Shreveport pretty well. It was home of Ledbelly, and the Louisiana Hayride, where Elvis got his start, after the Grand Ole Opry turned him down. James Burton, the rockabilly guitarist, and
bandleader from Elvis’ TCB band was from Shreveport, and had me as a special guest at
his club there in 2001.
Every song he played in the cab of that18-wheeeler was sadder than the next. That Eight
Track tape must have been labeled “The Greatest Cheating and heartbreak songs of all
time”, guaranteed to put a man over the edge of a breakdown. George Jones sang “He
Stopped Loving her today” and “She thinks I still Care”, Hank Williams sang “I’m so
lonesome I could cry”. Those Nashville pedal steel guitar players on those songs knew
exactly to bend them strings to squeeze out the darkest emotions I ever felt in my life.
By the time I got out of that truck, my heart was sinking like a rock in the deep blue sea.
I was cold, hungry, night was falling, and that $2.00 wouldn’t last too long. I said a
prayer, and before I could say amen, I saw the tail lights of a 1976 Jet black tricked out
Lincoln Continental on the shoulder in front of me, backing up slowly.
I jumped into the comfortable Corinthian Leather seats, into that toasty warm car, and
sped off into the night heading south down I-49, as the windshield wipers pounded out a
rhythm.
The Driver looked like a late night TV Preacher, was a 70-something old man
with wavy snow white hair, an educated South Texas accent, a fifth of gin, and a Holiday
Inn motel glass between his legs, He asked if I wanted a drink, and if it had been anything
but gin, I would have finished it off, but me and Gin never hit it off like tequila, vodka and
California Chardonnay from Napa Valley.
Below the dashboard, was a CB radio, and a car phone, with a rotary dial, right out of James Bond. This was 1976, and car phones were only in the movies, as far as I knew. I
kept my story brief, “Well Sir, I came home a little early last night, ……….and you know the rest of the story.
He reminded me of “Jet Rink” except much older, a character out of my favorite Texas
movie, “Giant” Played by James Dean, along with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor,
about a Texas oil tycoon, and a rancher on a massive scale.
This man put out oil rig fires all over the world for a living, and I though it might have
been Red Adair, but it wasn’t. The OPEC oil embargo had just begun a few years earlier,
and the era a cheap gas in America had ended. I didn’t understand the concept of peak oil in those times, when it was cheap to get out of the ground. The Texas oil boom had come to an end, with new money, and billionaires. Now we were at the mercy of Arab Oil Sheiks, and the start of the decline of the American Empire.
He explained the situation to me, as he downed another swallow of gin “The Arab oil
countries won’t ship oil to countries who support Israel, and the USA is their biggest
supporter. But that’s not the whole story. Remember in ’74, when you couldn’t get gas,
and there were lines around the block? Well the ships were loaded in the Gulf, right
outside of New Orleans, and Houston, waiting for the price to rise to a certain price per
barrel, then they’d come into port” I remember it well, because I couldn’t get home to
Louisiana from Texas for Easter 1974 to visit my parents, there was no gas to be had.
That was the first time I saw lines around the block to get gas. Well Detroit didn’t get the
message, and that was the end of the American Auto empire, and the end of cheap gas.
The old man told me stories of his many lives, playing Jazz clubs in Paris in the 1940s
with Django Reinhardt, a Gypsy French guitarist who revolutionized the guitar. I was
fascinated by the stories of this guy, he had a law degree, a M.D. and had toured with Bob
Wills and The Texas Playboys, the greatest western swing band that ever was, the
musicians who put the “W” in Country and Western.
He must have known I was broke,
and bought me a ham and cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola. He dropped me off in Baton
Rouge, an hour outside of New Orleans, where I got a ride the rest of the way from some
old friends who were ready to party, and didn’t want to hear about my love-sick blues.
They were well into the Carnival spirit, and expected me to be too.
Mardi Gras was in full swing, but I wasn’t in the spirit of the times. I had my saxophone,
but was out of money.
I began playing on the streets in the French Quarter of New Orleans, And the folks at Carnivale, begin shoving ten and 20 dollar bills into the bell Of my Tenor saxophone, And within a few hours, my pockets and backpack were hundreds of dollars richer And put a smile on my face, and I thanked God I was protected on my journey to the city that has given me so much inspiration and history.
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