Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Down Home Band with Eddie Middleton was glad to be back in Panama City at the Sheraton on the Beach. It was our fourth time returning to the lively nightclub on the beautiful Gulf Coast of Florida. Tuesday afternoon found the band—myself on rhythm guitar, Joe Shear

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. After The Beatles' commanding debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, throwing a band together in American neighborhoods was about as common as learning how to crawl underneath your school desk during a Civil Defense nuclear drill. Ten years later, Billy

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. From the time I was a little boy staring up at that blonde, acoustic guitar laying on the top of a chifferobe in Grandma and Granddaddy Carter's Hoboken, Georgia, farmhouse bedroom, I should have known that music was going to be a force in my life. Not a whole lot

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven A time to be born, a time to die -Pete Seeger, Adapted from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 Verse 1-8 They say bad things come in threes. If I was to trust

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Clothes make the man...naked people have little or no influence on society. —Mark Twain, quoted in More Maxims of Mark. Johnson, 1927 I've heard the opposite—clothes don't make the man; though, it seems, growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I was exposed to music

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. From the time I can remember, I have loved everything having to do with Walt Disney. At the age of three, I was a devoted, t-shirt wearing fan of TV's The Mickey Mouse Club. I memorized the immortal words to the Davy Crockett theme song and wore the coonskin cap

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Merry Christmas to all who chance to read this—Tail of the Weak 3.51—just one of the many holiday memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin. And as my disclaimer says, “It might not be very merry; but, it is a vivid memory”. I've owned a lot of vehicles since cr

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. His career was much like the songs he wrote—no flash...maybe a little understated...but deep with an abiding soul. Tony Joe White—the Master of Swamp Rock—was born on July 23, 1943, the seventh of seven children raised in a shotgun shack on a 40-acre cotton farm in

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Throughout my musical years, people have constantly reminded me who I remind them of. Back in the 70s, it was Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees—I'll take that. In 1976, I strolled into Hoagie's Bistro, across from Valdosta State College; and the owner, Mickey Gilbert,

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. From the time I was old enough to utter the word, Hank—I was listening to the haunting sounds of the King of Country on my daddy's record player. Daddy had a varied collection—Vic Damone, Guy Lombardo, Patti Page—but it was his country music records that still reso

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. James Cocke sat in Waycross, Georgia's Hickory Wind Music Store, smiling at all the friends, family, and curiosity seekers who had come to hear a story or buy an autographed copy of his self-published book, Cocke Tales: Memoirs of a Redneck Hippy. I was reminded of

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Way back in 1976, I spent a great deal of time in a motel room on the third floor of the King of the Road Motor Inn over in Valdosta, Georgia, playing music with Eddie Middleton and the Down Home band. My daily ritual was crawl out of bed after noon, ease downstairs

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Like I said, when I found myself unemployed as a musician, the down time didn't last for long. Sweetbriar, my first band, went from mid-1974 until early 1975, when we morphed into Homegrown, then joined up with Eddie Middleton for a three-year run as Down Home Band

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. Upon his graduation with a degree in music from Valdosta State College, Bill Smith, big brother of Down Home Band's drummer, John Randall Smith, was on the musical market again. This didn't bode well for the DHB because, even though we were band brothers unto ourse

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. After doin' a bang-up job for Herbert Gilstrap, manager of the Man O' War in Augusta, we were booked to play the “Grand Opening” of a second Man O' War in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during the winter months of 1977. The huge supper club, formerly called Pajamas, had a

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. After a week at the underground Checkmate club, the Down Home with Eddie Middleton entourage pulled out of Little Rock, Arkansas late Sunday afternoon with our Bumble Bee shades strategically placed as we headed east to Music City USA and the Cockpit Lounge. We didn

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. From the first time I set foot on stage at the Steak House Lounge in Waycross, Georgia, I opened myself to performing the music of my idols and set into motion an informal education that would carry me through life. The names of the clubs themselves—The Red Room, So

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the best time to catch Mother Nature's colorful fall foliage on display is mid to late-October. Most folks living in south Georgia simply don't have the time or the money to motor up the country just to see the pretty leaves. Of course

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. The summer of 1977 was in full swing. Eddie Middleton, Down Home Band's front man and booking agent, was keeping us moving up and down the state of Georgia—Columbus's Callaway Gardens, Bananas in Macon, and the Man O' War Lounge in Augusta. Augusta, Georgia, a city

Tail of the Weak is a series of insights and musical memories from the mind of Uncle Dave Griffin, singer/songwriter and founder of the Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and Tribute Festival, from Waycross, Georgia. There are musicians who are star headliners, the mere mention of their name evoking tears and hysteria. There are musicians who are excellent session players, cream-of-the-crop studio sidemen who make star headliner's records come to life. There are musicians who