When you wake up and want to put a smile on your face, you think of the
songs that always manage to reach down and touch your soul the moment
you hear the first note. The Marshall Tucker Band is one such group that
continues to have a profound level of impact on successive generations of
listeners who’ve been "Searchin’ for a Rainbow" and found it perfectly
represented by this tried-and-true Southern institution over the decades.
“I’ve been in tune with how music can make you feel, right from when I was
first in the crib,” explains lead vocalist and bandleader Doug Gray, who’s
been fronting the MTB since the very beginning. “I was born with that. And I
realized it early on, back when I was a little kid and my mom and dad
encouraged me to get up there and sing whatever song came on the
jukebox. It got to the point where people were listening to me more than
what was on the jukebox! There’s a certain gift I found I could share,
whether I was in front of five people or 20,000 people. I was blessed with
that ability and I’m thankful I can share with others."
The Marshall Tucker Band came together as a young, hungry, and quite
driven six-piece outfit in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1972, having duly
baptized themselves with the name of a blind piano tuner after they found it
inscribed on a key to their original rehearsal space — and they’ve been in
tune with tearing it up on live stages both big and small all across the globe
ever since. Plus, the band’s mighty music catalog, consisting of more than
20 studio albums and a score of live releases, has racked up multi-platinum
album sales many times over. A typically rich MTB setlist is bubbling over
with a healthy dose of hits like the heartfelt singalong “Heard It in a Love
Song,” the insistent pleading of “Can’t You See” (the signature tune of
MTB’s late co-founding lead guitarist and then-principal songwriter Toy
Caldwell), the testifying “Fire on the Mountain,” the wanderlust gallop of
“Long Hard Ride,” and the explosive testimony of “Ramblin,’” to name but a
few.
Indeed, the secret ingredient to the ongoing success of The Marshall
Tucker Band’s influence can be seen and felt far and wide throughout many
mainstream digital outlets (Netflix, Amazon, etc.). In essence, it’s this
inimitable down-home sonic style that helped make the MTB the first truly
progressive Southern band to grace this nation’s airwaves — the proof of
which can be found within the grooves and ever-shifting gears of “Take the
Highway,” the first song on their self-titled April 1973 debut album on
Capricorn Records, The Marshall Tucker Band. “We had the commonality
of having all grown up together in Spartanburg,” explains Gray about his
original MTB bandmates, guitar wizard Toy Caldwell and his brother,
bassist Tommy Caldwell, alongside rhythm guitarist George McCorkle,
drummer Paul T. Riddle, and flautist/saxophonist Jerry Eubanks. “The
framework for Marshall Tucker’s music is more like a spaceship than a
house,” Gray continues, “because you can look out of a lot of windows and
see a variety of things that show where we’ve been and what we’ve done,
and how we’ve travelled through time to bring those experiences out in all
of our songs.”
The Marshall Tucker Band’s influence can be felt far and wide through
many respected contemporaries and the artists who’ve followed the path
forged by their collective footsteps and footstomps. “MTB helped originate
and personify what was to become known as Southern rock, and I was
privileged to watch it all come together in the ’70s, night after night,” said
the legendary late Charlie Daniels. “In fact, The Charlie Daniels Band has
played more dates with The Marshall Tucker Band over the past years than
any other band we’ve ever worked with. Even after all these years — after
the tragedies, the miles, the personnel changes, and the many
developments in the music business.” Daniels added that he never got tired
of seeing his MTB brothers on the road: “Whenever Doug Gray walks into
my dressing room with that big ol’ smile of his and then we hug each other
and sit and talk for a while, the evening is complete.”
“I remember seeing Marshall Tucker and The Outlaws play together in
Jacksonville many years ago, when I was just a kid,” recalls Lynyrd
Skynyrd lead singer Johnny Van Zant. “And I heard them all over the radio
back then too. They were just so cool and so unique that I fell in love with
the band, and I also fell in love with the music. Having them open for us on
all those dates was like a dream come true, and they’re still as good as I’ve
ever seen them. It brought back a lot of memories for me, because I really
looked up to those guys when I was first starting out.”
Ed Roland, the lead vocalist and chief songwriter for Collective Soul, adds
“The Marshall Tucker Band had a big influence on me and they still do.”
Roland, who’s lived the majority of his life in and around Atlanta, also
proudly points out that his band’s biggest hit, “Shine,” owes a clear debt to
the musical structure of “Can’t You See,” and he’ll often start off by singing
the opening line to that song — “I’m gonna take a freight train” — whenever
Collective Soul performs “Shine” live. “We don’t want to stray from what we
grew up listening to,” Roland continues. “I think that’s something important
for people to hear. It’s just who we are, and I don’t think we should run from
it. Hopefully, people see that southern connection to the bands we love like
Marshall Tucker in our music.”
Doug Gray sees no end to the road that lies ahead for The Marshall Tucker
Band, whose legacy is being carried forward by the man himself and his
current bandmates, drummer B.B. Borden (Mother’s Finest, The Outlaws),
bassist/vocalist Ryan Ware, keyboardist/saxophonist/flautist/vocalist
Marcus James Henderson, guitarist/vocalist Chris Hicks, and guitarist/
vocalist Rick Willis. “You know, I think it was Toy Caldwell’s dad who said,
‘There’s more to gray hair than old bones,’ and we still have a lot of stories
yet to tell,” Gray concludes. “People ask me all the time what I’m gonna do
when I turn 80, and I always say, ‘The same thing that we’re continuing to
do now.’ We’re road warriors, there’s no doubt about that — and I don’t
intend to slow down.” May the MTB wagon train continue running like the
wind on a long hard ride for many more years to come. One thing we
absolutely know for sure: If you heard it in a Marshall Tucker Band song, it
certainly can’t be wrong.
—Mike Mettler, this ol’ MTB chronologist