March 30, 2025 • 54 mins
https://linktr.ee/DarrenCarter
Tour in bio 🎟⬆️ Oxnard, CA 5/
https://buymeacoffee.com/darrencarter
Cledus T. Judd is an American country music artist known for his parodies of popular country music songs! GREAT EPISODE!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/darren-carter-pocket-party--3090090/support.
Tour in bio 🎟⬆️ Oxnard, CA 5/
https://buymeacoffee.com/darrencarter
Cledus T. Judd is an American country music artist known for his parodies of popular country music songs! GREAT EPISODE!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/darren-carter-pocket-party--3090090/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Pocket Party. Okay, big day here on the Pocket Party podcast.
Clead his Tea jud you got it. By the way,
if you want to help out the podcast, uh, we
signed up for buy me a coffee. You should see
the little link. Go ahead and click that link and uh,
if you feel like donating little uh, you know, buy
(00:21):
me a coffee, you can also the link on the
link tree will take you to a lot of cool places.
And as always, no matter what platform you're listening to,
go to YouTube and leave a comment on this episode
and any others you'd like to. All right, let's get
into it. And if it's your first time, welcome to
the Pocket Party Podcast. Today. It's clean as tea Judd.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yo, Yo, there he is.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We're live.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
How are you, Oh man, I'm doing great. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm good man. It's such an honor to have you
on the Pocket Party Podcast. And uh, I've been a
big fan for years. You're one of those guys I'd
always see a video pop up up and be like, damn,
that guy's funny, and then as time goes by, you
just realize like, oh, this is like a real person,
Like I don't know, you're just to me. You're one
of those guys that was just like a big star
(01:12):
that you're just you just kind of you just see
and you don't really think any further than that. And
then I don't know, man, something hit me. I think
I listened to uh you on a couple of different podcasts.
I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy's amazing and uh
and I said, you know, I got to reach out
to him and just and I very rarely, I don't
know how you are. I don't really just reach out
(01:32):
to like stars and people that I you.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Just do that all the time. I just never respond.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, you know what, man, I just got to say.
It's an honor, dude. I uh uh and I thank you.
And it's funny, I I I heard you on that podcast.
The first one I heard you on, I want to
say it was Tracy Lawrence and yeah yeah, And then
I listened to you on Durall and I'm driving. I
was on a three hour drive and I'm like, I'm
laughing along with you guys. I'm crying along with you guys.
(02:04):
I'm looking like a maniac in my car. And uh,
I said, I gotta I gotta reach out to Cletas
man and just just tell them how much I enjoyed
hearing them on those shows and and your journey that
you've gone through. And uh oh, I want to.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Thank you, thank you very much for for all those compliments.
I I appreciate it. You know, I've had a had
a great run, you know, for a long time. And
uh as as we all know, in our line of work,
it's it's never easy. You know, it's tough, and uh
you know, dealt with some struggles early on. As again,
(02:41):
everybody's got a story. You know. I'm not the only one,
but uh I'm the only one that went through my journey,
you know, and I just uh pat them ups and
downs pretty pretty tough. As a youngster, you know, I
really wanted to be a basketball player. But you know,
after learning that I couldn't jump over for a local
phone book, I figure it out, you know, I ended up.
(03:06):
I did play college basketball for a year, which was
a great accomplishment for me. But uh even that, you
know what wasn't easy for some reason. D you know,
for me, I don't know about other people and about
your your career, but for me, uh man, nothing that
that I can think of off the top of my head.
(03:28):
Nothing nothing ever came easy. Nothing every It just seemed
like everything that I wanted to do was not not simple.
You know, like going down getting a job at the
you know, the the yarn factory, that that's easy. I didn't.
I didn't like any of that, you know. And I
I always knew that I was kind of built differently,
(03:52):
you know, physically and mentally. But as a kids, you know,
it was it was pretty tough along the way to
some degree. And you know, basketball was such a such
a great outlet for me. And you know, everybody said, oh,
you know, you'll never never make it basketball. You're too
fat and too slow. And and for some reason, man,
(04:13):
my mother was such a such a big advocate of
wanting me to play because she played. And there was
times my senior year that I would go to the
library and I would type out letters from different coaches,
you know, across the country, and my girlfriend at the time, LeeAnne,
would mail them to my house and my mom would
(04:35):
open them and you know, she would say, oh, look, Mary,
you know you got a letter from the University of Kentucky.
They're really thinking your I'm thinking now, yeah, Mom, I
don't know if I want to I don't know if
I want to go to Kentucky or not. I'm going
to wait on North Carolina, you know, or maybe U
C l A or something. And by the grace of gods,
you know, right after high school, you know, I had
(04:57):
a pretty good senior year. And after high school, I
was playing and in a competitive league with some guys,
and three consecutive nights in a row, I scored thirty
forty and sixty three four.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Gosh.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There was a guy there that watched that. And I
was playing with or against the all time leading scorer
at Marshall University here at the time, a fello by
the name of Skip Henderson, who I grew up with
my whole life. I was playing against him, and that
the guy that watched me do that. You know, it
was primarily all black guys at the gym we were
(05:30):
playing in. You know, I was just one of the
guys at that time. And he called the college coach
up at Ryan Hart fello by the name of Kyle Smith,
and said, Hey, coach, there's this white kid down here
killing these black dudes. We got to get him to
Ryan Hart. You gotta watch this guy shoot. And they
invited me for a tryout, and it's my luck here again.
(05:52):
Nothing easy. I had a tryout and a couple of
days before the tryout, I got appendicitis and I had
to have my penix taken out. And when the coach called,
Mom said, Kyle, you know he can't he can't come
to the tryout because he's got six stitches in his belly.
And I said, Mom, I'm going. I don't care if
I hemorrhaged to death. I go try This is my shot.
(06:16):
And my mother went and bought me, I'll never forget
it this. She bought me a Georgia Tech sweatshirt and
some Georgia Tech yellow sweatpants. And I went up there
on a Saturday morning and played with a bunch of
guys that were already on scholarship up there, and by
the grace of the Good Lord, I hit five or
six shots in a row and ended up scoring maybe
(06:37):
ten or twelve by halftime, and Coach Smith called a
time out and said, all right, that's it. And I thought, oh,
I didn't score enough, you know. And he called us
to the center of the gym and I said, Coach,
I was just getting warmed up, and he said, buddy,
let me tell you, if anybody can shoot a basketball
like that, bleeding like you are welcome to Ryan Hard.
(06:59):
And I looked down on my leg there and then
my whole right side of my leg and my sweatshirt
where I had been bleeding that whole time, my leg
with the sweatshirts and pants were covered in blood. And
he said, welcome to Ryan Hart. And the the funny
part is the admissions counts where I'll never forget her.
Her name was Joellen Wilson. She was over there and
(07:19):
she said, Kyle, he hadn't even took an s A
T and act his grades aren't any good. And he said,
anybody that can shoot like that with six stitches in
their belly deserves a scholarship to Ryan Hart. And I
ended up playing for a year there. Wow, So I
got to, you know, live out that although it was
(07:41):
a small college, it was still college and I was
I was proud to play there.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's amazing. How tall are you?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Six feet six feet? Yeah? No height, couldn't play defense,
couldn't jump, and I, by the grace of the good
Lord I had, I had a pretty good stroke on
me and I could I could shoot as as well
as anybody. The great Kyle Macy who played at Kentucky
years ago, back in my day. I played in a
(08:10):
pickup game with him one time, and he said, Man,
if you would have been ten inches taller, you could
have really played at the at the at a high
next level. And I thought, man, if I had three
inches more, I could do a lot of things better,
you know. So that still basketball to this day, you know,
(08:30):
for sure?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Do you still kind of play around a little bit
with the basketball, man?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I don't. I you know, thees by this point, you know,
some knee surgeries and and uh, you know, just life
in general kind of kind of catch us up with you.
But I do take a basketball on stage with me
because when I do a show, because it was it's
just a reminder of how hard I worked, you know,
(08:56):
to to get to that point. And I tell the
story of basket ball and you know, getting cut in
the eighth grade and still hanging in there, and there's
there's a lot of life lessons to be learned in
sports like that. My high school coach is the reason
that I'm sitting here talking to you today, you know,
because he he never let me quit, and he instilled
(09:17):
the belief in me that I never had growing up
from a father, you know, And and every time in
my career, just like I'm sure yours too, you know, Man,
when you want to quit, every time I thought, okay,
the hell with it, this is enough. I've been beaten
up enough, I've been told no enough. And every time
I'd get ready to hang it up, I would always
hear Coach Kyle in my ears saying, you ain't a quitter.
(09:40):
You ain't a quitter. And I've never been able to
quit anything except drugs and alcohol. And I'm glad to
quit that.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I know. God bless that. Man.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's uh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
When you start when you so you're a little bit
older than me, but we you know, I remember starting
out because I started out, you know, in high school,
wanting to be a comedian. And excuse me, back then,
uh you know, like hip like rap hadn't really like
it just started kind of catching on and and and
me being this white kid with red hair growing up
in you know, Fresno, California, the predominantly Latino black schools,
(10:16):
and so when I started rapping like just a cappella,
you know, back in the eighties, just for fun, and
it was such a shock to people. They were like,
what because this way before Vanilla ice, this is just
and you know, when I was doing more of the
comedic style of rap, and I didn't know if I
was going to go into rap or radio or comedy.
And then I got on the speech team and that
(10:37):
kind of gave me a lot of direction. And I said, okay,
here's how you formulate a speech. And you and then
I then my you know, then obviously I took off
and started and I got into stand up. But with you,
did you did you know you were going to get
into music or did you want to get into comedy
or radio?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Like not, not not at all. I mean I knew,
like I say, at at an early age that I was,
I was strung up differently than most. You know, I
had a lot of trouble sitting still you know what
would later become you know what they you know, obsessive, compulsive,
(11:13):
and you know all the all the words that they
have for it now you know, And and I just
never wanted to be normal. I guess you could say
I just wanted more. But now you know, growing up,
my my growing up is so different from yours, you know,
I grew up in the in the south and a
(11:33):
real rural part of the of Georgia where there was
you know, when you graduated, you went, you bought a
bunch of khaki pants and some Oxford shirts, and you
went to work at Shaw Industries and you know, you work,
you know, eight to four thirty. You played softball three
days a week until you died, you know. And and
I just never wanted that, you know. And I didn't
(11:56):
know what I wanted. I just knew that I didn't
want that. And when I got out of when I
got out of college, I only stayed a year. I
went to barber College. I went. I thought, well, my
uncle was a barber and I used to help them.
I used to cut hair at at college, you know,
to make some extra money. And so I went to
(12:18):
barber college. And everybody said, well, you know, that's fine,
but that's all you'll ever be is a barber. And
if that's what you want to do, then go do it.
And I thought, no, I want to be more than
a barber. But I had to start somewhere. So I
went to barber school. And I kind of make this
quick because I don't want to bore you but I
went to barber school, got out of barber school, went
(12:41):
to work at a barber shop, cutting a thousand old
men a day, you know, and I knew that I
didn't want to do that. I opened up my own
shop about ten minutes from my hometown in Cartersville, and
it was funny. It was called Berry's Country Cuts, and
I wouldn't take I wouldn't take a point much from
twelve to one point thirty because Days of Our Lives
(13:03):
was on and I didn't want to. I didn't want
to miss my soap opera.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
You know. Back then.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'll never forget I'll never forget it. It was the
day that the unfortunately that the Space Shuttle exploded, and
I think that was an eighty six.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Mistaken yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And I had got an Atlanta Journal Constitution and I
was reading in the classifies and it said, you know,
a salon in downtown Atlanta was hiring for upscale hairdressers
and there's going to be auditions Sunday morning in Atlanta.
Now you got to understand I probably never had been
to Atlanta at that point, you know, And I thought, well, okay,
(13:46):
let's see, now, how do I pull this off? Because
I knew I couldn't. I was just a barber, you know,
I wasn't a hairdresser or anything. And so I went
down to a buddy of mine's hair salon and I
took a model down there. And his name was Donny Adams,
and I said, man, cut this girl's hair for me
in the coolest haircut you can cut. Leave a little
(14:06):
bit on one side, whatever you're doing, save the hair and
a plastic bag and let me have it. And I
watched him cut her hair. We saved the hair of
the plastic bag the Sunday. That following Sunday, her name
was Faith, She was my model. We drove to Atlanta
and there was about twenty guys and girls in there audition,
and I was a nervous wreck. I mean, I was
(14:29):
scared out of my mind. You know. It was a
culture shock for me. And every time Dawn the company
was called Donshaw Hairdressers. He's a major hairdresser in the
world of hairdressing. Every time he would walk by, I
would snip and cut a little bit fake in it.
And then when he kept walking, I would take hair
out of my pocket and I would throw it on
(14:50):
the floor and then he walked by and go, man,
we're in the world. Did you learn to cut a hair?
Do a haircut like that? And I said, buddy, just palate,
just talent. So I did the haircut, went back home,
and Monday they called and said congratulations, you made it.
Oh wow, And I thought, oh my god, Now what
(15:10):
am I gonna do? Because I didn't know how to
do no upscale hair and women and all that, And
so I went to work, dude, and once again, nothing
came easy. I sat there and watched videotapes of the
greatest hairdressers there was. I went to every class I
could get my hands on. I watched Listen Learn, Watch
Listen Learn. And three years later I was the artistic
(15:34):
director for three of the biggest laws in Atlanta and
was invited to perform at the World Championships of Hairdressing
and dussel Dorf West Germany in nineteen eighty eight. And
it was the biggest crowd that I had ever played
in front of in my entire career. And that's just
another example of Man, it didn't come easy, but I
(15:56):
figured it out. And as I was standing there on
that stage in front of one hundred thousand people in
that auditorium. Man, it was just it was a pretty
big moment for me, you know, to go from all
they said you'll never be nothing but a barber to
standing on the biggest stage and hairdressing in the world.
It was, it was pretty it's pretty big accomplishment for.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Me, that is, man, And there's like no roadmap for that.
It's not like, oh, you do this, you do that,
and then you just you went down a small town
and didn't even cut hair from noon to one thirty.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh no, yeah, lord, Lord never really did you know,
nothing but guy's haircuts, you know. And man, I got
so involved in but that was the demise of the
person you're sitting here talking to as well, because at
that point I started making money, and you know, I
(16:47):
bought a you know, a new Porsche and you know
which I couldn't afford. You know, I was making probably
thirty five forty grand a year, you know, but in
nineteen eighty eight, that was a lot of mone money
for a guy that never had nothing. But I ended
up jumping from salon to salon and I got involved
(17:07):
in uh in drugs, crystal meth and cocaine, and I
ended up going down to point of Vieter Beach, Florida,
working trying to teach classes down there. I'd ended up
losing everything I had, and I perched myself up on
a bridge and point of ter Beach, Florida for six
hours one day because I just felt like at that
(17:28):
point my life wasn't worth living. I was an embarrassment
to my family, you know. Here I had it all,
and I became a full blown drug addict, and you know,
I ended up not having food or clothing or or
you know, no no running vehicle much and so I
just thought, you know what, it's my destiny, you know,
(17:49):
and so off off to the bridge I went to
to to take care of a tough life at self
induced some self induced, of course, but by the grace
of gods, you know, I was up there, back and
forth for several almost six hours, I guess, and they
got me down, you know, and a friend of mine
(18:11):
flew me home, another hairdresser, and and flew me back
home to Georgia. And that's that's when the music business started.
Just a few weeks after that, that attempt of not
feeling like I was worth anything, you know, and that's
when it all started.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Amen. You know your coaches was probably somewhere in the
back of your mind.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
You're not a question, you know, Oh no, no question?
Duty was he was. He was in my head, you know,
and you know it. And when I got home, you know,
I was. I felt like such an embarrassment, of course,
as anybody would. And I was sitting in uh in
my mom's double wide trailer and uh uh in shack
(18:49):
carpet that you could do snow angels in, you know,
it was so thick and uh. Vince Gill had came
on TV and on the Awards Show in nineteen ninety one,
I think, and he won an award for a song
called When I Call Your Name. And I turned around
and my mother was crying, and I said, man, Mom,
what's wrong? She said, God, I would give anything in
(19:10):
my life to meet Vince Gill. I think he's the
most beautiful man I've ever seen. And I said, you
want to meet Vince Gill? And she said, all Sun,
you just don't know. And I said, well, I can
make that happen. And she said, no, you can't. You
can't sing Silent Night. How do you think you're going
to get in the and to meet vince Gil, and
(19:31):
I said, if you want to meet him, I'll figure
it out. And so with those few words, I went
down a few weeks later and did an amateur night
at a country nightclub, and I won fifty dollars for
first place for a funny song that I had written.
And I called my mom collect on a pay phone,
and I said, Mom, I think I did something right
for a change, And about three months later she bought
(19:53):
me an old Toyota pick up truck and gave me
four hundred dollars and off to Nashville. I went to
try to try to make save a life, you know, mine,
and then you know, I went up there, and I struggled.
I was homeless. From time to time, I'd sleep in
the front seat of that truck. I would go to
(20:14):
the YMCA and take showers and take a bath, and
then go to music row and beg and plead and
try to get somebody to listen to me. And it
just wasn't it just wasn't going anywhere. So nineteen ninety four,
a snowstorm, the ice storm, a really bad ice storm,
came through Tennessee and I was driving home in that
old truck from work and I was scraping the windshield
(20:37):
with my left hand out the window with a c
D a jewel case from a CD, and I ended
up getting frostfied on my left hand, and the doctors
thought there was a chance I'd lose a couple of
my fingers. It was so bad. And I called my
mom one Sunday night and I said, Mom, I can't
do it. I have tried and try. I said, I'm hungry,
(21:01):
my clothes are filthy. I can't do it. And I
said you got to come and get me. And my
mom said are you sure? And I said, I've never
been more sure of nothing in my life. And she
asked me one more time there and she said are
you sure? And when she said that, in my right ear,
(21:23):
at a little radio sitting on a table beside me,
I heard a song called Indian Outlaw by Tim McGraw
and I started singing in my head Indian in laws
and I sang, Indian in laws came to visit me
and my squaw been here for a month, y'all about
to lose my mind. And I said, Mom, I got
to call you back, and she said, what do you mean?
(21:47):
I said, I got to call you back, I might
have something here, and I called a couple of buddies.
We wrote it over the phone. I got my hand
healed up. I went in the studio barded one hundred
and twenty five dollars a two hundred and fifty, went
in the studio recorded Indian in Laws and it took
off and got played on almost two hundred radio stations,
(22:08):
and then the career took off well. To make this
come full circle. There was still some obstacles, you know,
that we can talk about another time. But it was
still tough. But about four years later, I had had
secured a record deal. I had sold around seven hundred
thousand records at that point, and I came in off
the road one night and I had a phone call
(22:30):
from a lady at the Academy of Country Music Awards,
and she said, we're having a golf tournament tomorrow. Will
you play in the golf tournament tournament? And I said, well,
by this time, you know, i'd done done, got cocky
and arrogant, you know, and thinking that, you know, my
life mattered. And I said, no, I'm not interested in playing.
I'm tired. I've been on the road. And she said,
(22:51):
if you'll come and do it. Well, we'll secure you
a spot as a presenter at the ACM Awards. How's that?
And I said, okay, I'll do it. So the next
one man, I went to the golf course at Hermitage
Golf Course, I'll never forget it, and I put my
bag out and I was looking for my name up
on the wall and I got down to hold sixteen
A and up on the wall there was five names
(23:13):
on the board I'll never forget on. One of them
was Jeff Gossip, Chris Tate, some other guy didn't know
plead Us, T Judd, and Vince Gilt Whoa. And I thought, okay,
here's my chance. And one of the guys, my buddy, Jeff,
I'm friends with this day, he said, well, I'm gonna
(23:33):
ride with Vince, and I said, the hell you are.
I had been up here, starved to death, went through
frostbite and everything else. I'm riding with Vince today. And
so I hopped on with Vince and I spent the
entire day with him, and I shared with him, you
know my story and how I ended up there for
my mom, And I asked him what he do a
video with me? And he said, buddy, count me in.
(23:56):
And so a few weeks later, on an afternoon, my
mom sent me to Nashville and an old pickup truck,
and four or five years later, whatever the timeframe was,
I brought her to Nashville of her and her friends
in a limousine as long as this garage I'm sitting in.
And they came to the video shoot, and uh, halfway
(24:17):
through the chute, there was a knock on the door
and my video director, John Lloyd Miller, said, mo, why
don't you, Why don't you grab that door right there?
My mom said why why me? And he said, just
grab the door. And everybody at the chute knew what
was about to happen. And Man, I watched my mom
walk across that old rickety hardwood floor and for it.
(24:37):
With every step she took, I thought, Man, of all
the struggle and the heartache and the hard times, and uh,
but I knew that just a matter of few more
steps I will have made something happen. And my mother
opened the door and there stood Vince Gill and I said,
I told you, mamma, you'd meet him one day, and uh,
she she she jumped up in his arms and Vince
(25:00):
loved on her and hugged her, and uh, Vince is
still a close friend of mine to this day. But
that was out of everything I've ever done in my career,
that was that was the biggest, biggest accomplishment, because man,
I I just had a again. Like we said earlier, Man,
you know, it didn't come easy and it wasn't hard,
(25:23):
and I wanted to quit, and Mick Pile, my basketball coach,
wouldn't let me. And I was able to secure my
mama's dream of meeting Vince Gill. And I've done a
lot of things since then, but nothing will ever compare
it to that monumental day and a little rickety house
in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
That is beautiful. Man, that is ma'am. What a what
a treat, what a blessing, And that's amazing that it happened.
Did it actually happened. It was like, Mama, I'm gonna
do this and somehow, some way, I think you said
four years later it actually happened.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, I kind of get lost along the way on
the timeline. It might have been a maybe yes, So
whatever the whatever, I just ow the eye storms in
nineteen ninety four and it was several years after that,
so but you know, man, I went on to have
a great career and did more than I ever thought
I would ever get to do. You know, I've met
(26:22):
so many amazing people, you know, that I never thought
I would be friends with. And I was on tour
with Brooks and Dunn one year with Kicks and Ronnie
and Toby Keith and kum Urban and Montgomery Gentry, and
I was sitting on the bus. We were going down
the road going to just playing old night club somewhere
after one of the big tours. And I'll never forget, man,
(26:42):
And you'll remember the song that Toby always loved alone
again naturally.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Oh that song.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, And man, everybody was singing it and Tobe was
singing it, and I had my head down in my hands,
thinking how in the hell that I Oh wow, how
did I pull this all?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Log?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Oh my god, it was. It was a surreal moment,
you know. And all those guys of course been friends
of mine. Toby of course, like Toby Keith was a
dear friend of mine for many many years. And it's uh,
it was something, it sure was.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I was, Yeah, man, I'm a huge Toby Keith and
my wife major Toby Keith in like she saw him
back when he first came out. And you know, and
of course my wife and I've been married twenty seven
years and I'll get this. Our son, Austin aka Austin
Birse Boss, he was born. He was born to my
wife in the delivery room. You know, you could play music,
(27:43):
so we we played all Toby Keith. It was all
Toby Keith for the entire time she was in labor.
My wife goes the only song, she goes, Darren, don't
skip any songs. But if you do, the only song
I don't want our son to be born too is uh,
I'm gonna get drunk and be somebody. She's like, I
want him being born to that song.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
But other than that, you know, so, man, that's awesome.
Toby was a wonderful human being. Uh. What you saw
is what you got with Toby. You know, he was
he was, He was one hundred percent, one hundred percent.
What you say is what you get. He was a
dear friend of me for many many years. I mean
(28:23):
we basically, man, we were as close as two thieves.
You know. I stayed at his house, he come to mine.
We traveled some together. I was in the Beer for
My Horses movie with him, you know, and UH, sad
day when you know, we kind of lost touch there
last few years. Of course you can understand wise he
battled what he was going through. But and he is. Uh,
(28:46):
he was a dear friend and is and will always
be missed, for sure. I'll always appreciate my time with him.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Man, That's that's an honor. We we'd see him, you know,
every time he come to the West coast, either we'd
see him as a family or my wife and son
would see him. I was on the road, and I
got to know a couple of his bandmates. Uh when
one time he performed at the Jimmy Kimmel Show. And
and I, you know, I one of my big breaks
was I believe it or not. I was on B
E T. I was on I was on Comic View.
(29:13):
So here's this white boy on Comic View. And I would,
you know, do my Bill Clinton that's right on back, hello,
you know whatever. So and they would play me on
the Best of the White Guys or the impersonators or whatever.
So I did it like seven or eight years. And
so his the horn section, some of the the Willie
and another guy. Oh yeah, man, like Willie and Geka.
They bright, They're like, you're a comedian. And then so
(29:35):
we kind of hit it off. And every time they'd
come to town, we'd you know, one of his guitar players, Joey,
Joey Floyd, Yes, Joey Floyd. You know he you know
I sometimes he didn't have a ride when they'd come to town.
You know, I'll pick you up at the hotel and
I take him to the comedy match a club or
the comedy store laugh at.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And that's awesome. Man. I knew Joe Lord Man, I
knew Joy forever. You know, another sad loss there of course,
bass player. You know, I asked the way several years ago.
But Joy, man, he was a he was a he
was a character. I'll tell you, man a quick story
for him. I know you don't want to get off
here in a minute. But I was out on that tour,
uh in two thousand and one, the brooks Ha Duney
(30:13):
on circus tour and uh, my mother, we were in Bakersfield, California.
And now Bakersfield is as far away from Georgia as
you can get. You can't get no further, and my
mother had suffered a heart attack. And Toby knew that
I didn't like to fly. I had a real I
had a real bad incident on the air airplane. One time.
(30:34):
We'll we'll talk about another time. But told man, I
was on the bus, I'm thinking, oh my god, my
mother's at home. She suffered a heart attack. I was
in my bunk balling my eyes out, and and Toby
Keith literally jumped up in my bunk, crawled in my
bunk with me and said, look here, hass I know
that you don't like to fly. I know your mom.
(30:55):
He called her big mo is is is she had
a heart attack. But he said, I went ahead and
got you. I bought you plane vouchers. As you make
your trick back across the country in this bus. If
your mom gets worse, you'll be able to stop in Phoenix,
if she gets bad in Las Vegas, get on a plane.
If you make it to Dallas, get on a plane.
(31:16):
If you get the Smith, Arkansas, Little Rock. So if
something would have happened to Mom that whole trip back home,
I would have had. I had a bunch of plane
vouchers that Toby gave me in case I needed to
fly home, and Mom, of course made it. And the
next weekend was the last weekend of the tour that
(31:36):
I had to miss, and it was a Sunday afternoon.
They were playing If I'm Not Mistaken Pittsburgh was the
last night of the tour, and I had thought Alan
Jackson's Yellow Corvette and a couple of weeks prior to
that from the road, and I rode around that entire
sunday with all those Guys CDs playing in my CD player.
(31:58):
I've listened to Toby and Jickson, Ronnie and Troy and
Eddie and man, I was just really depressed, you know,
thinking that I couldn't be there on the last night
of the greatest four months of my life, you know.
And about six thirty that evening, Man, the phone ring,
my cell phone ring, and it was Joey Boy, and
(32:19):
I thought, man, Joey's supposed to be on stage right now.
I don't know what's going So I answered it, and man,
it was loud, and I said, joy, Man, what's going on?
He said, just shut up and listen. Shut up and listen.
And I heard Toby in the background, and Toby was
behind the microphone and he said, Hey, guys, everybody here
(32:40):
in Pittsburgh just wanted to let y'all know that the
guy that hosted this tour all summer with us was
not able to be here tonight and his mother had
gotten sick and wasn't able to be here, and he
was such a big part of this tour, and I
just wanted y'all Pittsburgh to let Cletus t Judd know
that we're missing right now. And the next thing you knew,
(33:02):
twenty thousand people were chanting Cletus, cled us, clead us
over a sell long and Toby got on the phone said,
love you pal, see you when I get home.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh, oh gosh, why.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
One of the one of the most He didn't have
to do that, you know, he didn't have to do that,
he he Uh, he didn't have to take time out
of his out of his set to do that. And uh,
one of the one of the most special things anybody
had ever done for me, you know, And I've always
been appreciative of that.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Wow, God bless Toby and his family and and uh
do you ever look back at moments like that and
you're like, did that really happen? Oh? My gosh, I mean,
it's kind of feel like a movie, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah, it is, it is. I I'm sure we all do. Yeah,
no matter the the statues, the status, you know, uh,
you know, no matter what level, you know, it's there's
times that you know, I'm in this in this uh
garage that I've turned into a little podcast studio that
I'm gonna start doing that you and I'll jump on
(34:07):
one together. But I look around this room and man,
I see a big, huge poster that Kicks and Ronnie
gave me with all me and Keith and Toby on it.
And there's another one there of George Jones and me
on it, and and uh uh Rascal Flats, you know
my buddies from Rascal Flats and Kid Rock and Pamelaander. Yeah,
(34:28):
it's it's yeah, it ain't normal. It's not. But I
tell you, man, what I'm struggling with. And I'm gonna
get off here so you can get on with.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Your by the way, that we have a little bit
more time, so no rush, no rush, we can keep going.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
The thing that I struggle with. And I don't know
if you saw my post this morning that I that
I posted on Facebook, If you didn't tell you can
take a look at it, but man, it's like, you know,
I had such a great run and did more, you know,
did more than I ever thought. And it was a surreal.
A surreal can get, you know, thirty thirty five videos
(35:06):
on CMT and Celebrity Fit Club out in LA when
I lived out there, and you know, just one thing
after the next, after the next, and then you know,
in two thousand and five and six, I could kind
of feel the demise, you know, the career is kind
of going down. And I moved to Florida and started
doing morning radio, and I was away from my daughter
(35:26):
who was just born. And long story short, I ended
up moving to Kentucky to be close to my kid
because I knew that although I was making a lot
of money, I realized at an older age that you know,
once the memories passed, you know, you can't buy it back.
There's no amount of money. I used to lay in
bed and go, God, look, I got three hundred and
(35:48):
fifty thousand dollars in a savings account. I'll give it
to the homeless shelter if you promised me. I don't
have to miss my daddy daughter dance this coming weekend.
But I got shows to do, so you know, there
was no way to buy those things back. And so
I finally said, okay, I'm going home. If I got
to sell cars, I'll sell cars for a living. And
and I kind of walked away from it for a
(36:08):
long time, you know, about eight years, six years from here,
and be a dad to my daughter and and take
her to school and pick her up. And and then
about four years ago, man, they Race Stevens, you know,
the great Race Deveens, one of my idols. They had called,
and Caitlin and my family been after me to get
(36:29):
back and do it again. They could see the herd
in my heart. You know that I missed it. And
Race Stevens some some folks from Race Stevens company, and
Ray asked me to come and do a show with
him in renfro Valley, Kentucky. And I said, man, I can't, Ray,
I and I'm I'm I'm old, has been, I'm done.
I can't do that. And and but when your I'll
(36:51):
ask you to do it, you go do it. You know,
if you got to fake it, lip sink it, Milli Vanillia,
whatever you've got to do. I went down to that THEAH,
and I talked to Ray and I went out on
stage and I did forty minutes and I got it.
There's about five thousand people there, and I got a
standing ovation and I came off the stage and Ray said, now,
why was it that you said you were you wanted
(37:13):
to stay retired. And I said, Ray, I just didn't
feel like I was relevant anymore. And he said, five
thousand people just thought you were relevant. And he said,
you know, there are not many of us that do
this musical thing, so I think it's time for you
to come on back, buddy good see you. I got
to go on stage, and I came back and did
it again. Here we go again, Here we go again.
(37:35):
Money out of savings account paid for my own videos.
You know, CMT took them back. The show started picking up,
picking up, and of course that I did do some
shows where they all came in the same car. You know.
It wasn't it wasn't always always great, but uh but
somehow man again, you know, just just I don't know why. Hell,
(37:58):
I don't know why. One day have to end, or
I'll the Good Lord will take me out of here.
I may have just come to the end of the
road where I can say okay, and I'm not quitting. Yes,
it's time to walk away, but I'm not to that
point yet. You know, I've got a lot of life
left in me. I love what I do. I love people.
(38:21):
I love to tell my story and hopes that it
inspires somebody else and to do bigger and better things
than even I done. And uh, at the end of
the day, Man, if I can do that, then if
I do make it to heaven, I'm not gonna get
right in. I probably had to sit somewhere, a bench
somewhere and wait my turn. But I hope he says, hey, man,
(38:44):
come on in. You did you? So that's what I'm hoping.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
By the way I listened this morning, I was like,
can you know what? Let me and I listened to
your the first big song, the Indian Outlaw, The Indian
in Law. Yeah, there's a man. That was a great
song to come out right out the gate like Bam,
this is here, I am, I'm cletesty, judge, this is
my song.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
That was.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
It was funny, it sounded great. It was, man, what
a great song like your debut.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Man, it was and you know here again I did
that with the late Bruce Birch, who was a phenomenal
songwriter and another friend of mine, Jody Jackson. But even then,
you know, I ended up getting a small record deal
out of la a guy named by the name of
Mitch Coha, and he signed me to this little small
record label, and we did a couple of videos and
(39:31):
sent them to CMT and they passed on me, said
no no, And so I ended up signing with a
company called Razor and Tie out of New York, and
they gave me a budget and I went in and
cut an album for seventy five hundred dollars and the
first song off that album was If Shannai was Mine
(39:54):
and we shot the video. And the way that CMT
worked back in nineteen ninety six or seven, I think
it was ninety six that came out. They would take
all the new submissions on a Friday, and the entire
staff would come into a conference room and they would
watch the submissions and then they would go, yep, put
(40:15):
it on note not gonna happen. Put it on not
gonna happen. So I waited at my little apartment for
I was trying to get the call. And I'll never forget.
My manager, Miles Bell at the time, called me and
he said, well, I got some news. I was laying
on a couch that my mom had bought me and
he said they passed on it, and man, I rolled
(40:36):
off the couch. I literally rolled off the couch into
the floor and just started bawling because I knew I
wasn't gonna get another shot. That is it. You know,
the money up being spent. That was it. And I'm
gonna tell you this is what will gets you. It
got me that afternoon. Her name was Tracy Rogers. She
was ahead of programming at CMT at the time. She
(40:59):
took that video that was on a VHS tape back
to her office and watched it about ten times. Called
a staff meeting on a Friday afternoon at four o'clock
before everybody went home. Everybody came back in that conference
room and she said, guys, I'm gonna overrule you on
(41:20):
this one. I'm putting this on. I'm putting this on
the network starting next Saturday, and if I lose my
job over it, I'll take the heat. Y'all have a
great weekend. And she's put that video in rotation the
next weekend. And it was the longest run and one
of the longest running videos that CMT ever done. And
the next thing was thirty five more after that, and
(41:43):
my life changed. You know, that's when it really that's
when it really changed, you know, because it had Tracy
Rogers not took that took that VHS tape on a
Friday afternoon when everybody was ready to get the hell
out there, and called another meeting and said, I'm gonna
overrule you. I see something in this old boy that
(42:06):
maybe y'all on seat and I'd be down there again.
Never easy, never easy. It never never came easy, but
somehow it it. It just worked.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, you know, that's incredible. And what I was thinking
is like nowadays, I don't know what what the plan
is or what's going to happen. But I feel like
back then, like you said, it was CMT or that's it,
how you were not seeing you're probably not going to
see a video anywhere. But now we have like the
social media platforms and YouTube, and there's other ways to
(42:39):
get get your your you know what I mean, there's
are the ways to get your stuff out there.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
There there is and I and I do you know,
I just shallow video this morning down at the BUCkies. Uh,
down in left and uh hopefully it'll it'll turn out good,
you know. There, I've got just a few things left
that I wanna wanna pomplish and and you know, then
I can then I can start thinking about Okay, you know,
(43:07):
when's it time. But I had written a one man
show that I'll have to send you sometime when you're bored,
I'll send it to you. I wrote it with an
l a actor out there, a guy by the name
of Mike Panouski who's been on everything you could imagine. Uh,
just a brilliant actor, law and order, uh, you name it.
He's been in it. And he had saw my story
(43:29):
about me and my mom and what I went through
with Alzheimer's with her, and I documented all of it.
And he called me one day and he said, man,
we got to write that. It's too powerful not to write.
So for about a year and a half we wrote
a one man's show called one Mo Moment, which was
my mom's name Mo and uh and it was I've
(43:50):
got it finished, and uh that that that's that's the
next thing that I want to accomplish. If I have
to cash in my retirement or whatever I gotta do.
I want to. I want to put that on tape
for the world to see, so they can see the journey,
see the story of me from start to finish, and
how how I ended up, you know, becoming an actor.
(44:14):
Not on film and television, but in an old folks
home with my mom as she went through Alzheimer's because
she didn't know me anymore. She didn't know my name,
she didn't know who I was, but she knew me
as other people, her husband, her her girlfriend, her aunt,
my best friend Brent Matthison. I thought, you know what,
(44:35):
damn it. If she don't know me and I can't
communicate with her, I'll just play all the parts of
the people she thinks I am, and man for the
For for six months, I sat in there and I
played every part. I acted it out. I put on
the hats, I wore the glasses, whatever I had to
do to to communicate with her, you know. And I uh.
(44:59):
And in one one Sunday, I was getting ready to
leave and I was over there washing my hands at
the Saint and Mom was coming more nonverbal by this point,
you know, and I knocked my glasses off my forehead
and they fell in the sink, and I thought, oh no.
I was bawling my eyes out, as I did every
time I left there, you know, And I thought, oh no,
(45:20):
I've woke Mama up. And sure enough I looked over
and when my glasses hit the sink, Mom raised her
head up and dude, I'm telling you, dare and she
looked right at me, and there was a brief moment
of silence, and I didn't know what to say. And
she looked at me and she said, well, well, God
(45:41):
is that you? And I said, okay, I played the
part of her husband, her aunt, her uncle, but how
do I play the part of God? And right then
and there, man, I felt a nice, cool presence come
over me, and I felt like the Good Lord said
(46:02):
I've at it, hoss have at it. And I said, yes, ma'am,
miss Rutlish, it's me God. And she said, so I
made it, didn't I? And I said, yes, ma'am, you
you made it. And my mother never spoke to me again, oh,
never spoke to me again till the till the night
(46:24):
she died. I had went down there, I'd go that
nursing home. Man. For the next four or five months,
and I was pissed off, you know, and cussing God.
And you know, I did everything for my mother and
I never missed a birthday, and you know, you took
her away from me, you know, all the feelings that
you would have as a kid, you know, going through that.
And and I went home on a Monday and I
(46:49):
sat in that nursing home with her Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
She never spoke a word. And Thursday night, around midnight,
I went over there and flicked the light on. I said, Mom,
I know you can't hear me, and I know it's
getting close, but I said, I got to run over
here and take a shower, get some ivy of profing.
My back's killing me. And I said I'll be back
in just a minute. And I said, don't you dare
(47:11):
think about dying till I get back. And I said,
I love you, Mama, And she looked at me and said, well,
I love you too, son, just as plain as I'm
sitting here talking to you Darren Carter on this telephone.
It's plain. And I looked around that room and said,
(47:31):
anybody hear that. My mother just acknowledged me for the
first time in months with the most clearest. It wasn't
a week. I love you too, son. It was like
I was an idiot for not thinking that she hurt me.
It was like, well, I love you too, son. And
(47:53):
I think at that very moment that was God said, Hey,
for all you've done, for all the years of true
for all the years of being there, for for the arguments,
for the the cars, for the houses, for the money,
for the love, for the companionship, I gave you this
(48:13):
gift just to show you how powerful I am. Because
tomorrow she's coming home to be with me. And she
died the next day. But what a great gift, What
a gift. I don't know that I would have made it,
could have made it through life as well as I
have had I not got that. I love you too, son.
(48:33):
That was life changing for me.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
You know, that's life changing, man. The way you tell
your stories. I love it. And uh man, that was
just I've gotten goosebumps a few times during this episode
to you. Oh no, I love it, and I and
I hope you would, uh you know, be a regular
on the podcast. Maybe you have you pop in from
time to time because you have so much to say
(48:57):
and and Uh, you're a great communitator. You know. I
knew you as a you know, from the music videos
and the funny songs. But I'm getting to know you more. Man,
you like like the One Man Show. That's you know, yeah,
I could see why you're so successful, because you're not.
You could do so many different things, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Well, you know, man, sometimes I've all that's that's a
blessing and a damn curse. I'm gonna tell you it
really truly is, and then we'll close it with this.
What I've all. I've always told my agents, you know,
and I've been with William Morris and I mean, you know,
them all never had the optionny to be at a
c AA or anything, but I was at a PA
(49:39):
Him Godsdale out there in LA. You know, was a
great friend, you know, back when I was on their roster.
And I always said, look, you can put me in
a church on Thursday, a comedy club on Friday, at
Alzheimer's convention on Saturday, and uh, you know, an AA
meeting on Sunday and and and I'll be fine. The
(49:59):
problem with that, that is, it's always been hard for
me to focus on something, you know, I I I
bounce off the walls. I do this, I can do that,
and guess what, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna do this. Uh.
And it gets tiring, you know, it gets it gets tiring.
And that's really why I reached out to you several
(50:19):
months ago about management. I've had great managers. I've had
some that you know sucked, as we all have along
the way. But I'm hoping that at some point someone
will will hear the story and go, you know what,
let's do this. Let's let's do this because I believe
in it wholeheartedly, and I believe it it's for the
(50:42):
right reasons to touch people and to give them hope
and and and I hope the next manager that I
may have a chance to talk to, well, we'll say
I got you. You know I got you because at
this point in my life, hell, I'm just trying not
to file out. That's it. I'm trying to get to
the finish line. And that is my that is my
(51:04):
swan song. If I could ever put that to fruish
and So I got a couple of quick fingers cross
I will, we will.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
I got a couple of quick questions before before we
go do you still are you still working on like
original songs? Do you still do parodies? Are you still?
Are there new songs?
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Mostly parodies? And then I write other songs for it,
you know, to try to get others cut. You know.
I had a Brandley Gilbert cut and a Rascal Flats
cut and a couple of other things. But mostly it's
what I'm known for, you know, is is the parody thing.
So yeah, that's mostly it.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Like, you know who I'm really digging now is Zach
top I love the way he's the best. He's the best,
right yeah, I mean his voice, he kind of has
that Naneties throwback, and.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, he'll save country music right now. I'm telling you, yep,
yep he will.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
And then uh oh oh, okay, I got to say
this real quick. I heard you and George Jones. That
is a great song to me. That wasn't even really
a parody. It was you know, I was country before
country was pop or something. Yeah, help yeah, And I
listened to that again this morning, and I'm like, man
and in George Jones' I mean, he's a legend and
you guys.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
And you know, I had a chance to I did
forty forty eight or forty nine shows with George. Oh
my gosh, became became close friends with him and Nancy
and Bobby his road manager, and all the guys. And
George was really good to me. I mean, I love George.
That's one. That's another time when you got your head
(52:31):
down your hands going, what the hell? What? What the hell?
Are you kidding me? But I'll tell you this in closing. Yeah,
it may sound great to you, but it was the
hardest gig I had ever done because them people had
come to see George, didn't come to see Cletus. I'm
gonna tell you, they came to see the legend Apossum.
(52:54):
And I got booed more at that thing. Oh it
is every night, you know, about three or four people
breathing on their own out there.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
You know they're so old.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
But but George was a wonderful human being. Man. And
again that's one of those things where you go, how
do I pull this off? But man, I'm gonna let
you get on with you Friday, Let's watch some basketball.
And uh, if you ever need me for anything, I'm
always here for you.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Man.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Best of luck to you, and and we'll do this again.
And uh, if you. If you find one their big
high falut and la manager, send them my way.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
Will Hey, have a great weekend and we'll catch you soon.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Thank you, buddy, you too, man, thanks a lot, Dave.
I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
Look at you.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
You made it all the way through. It wasn't that great.
That was a great episode. You guys, thank you so much.
Please do me a favorite, check out, buy me a coffee.
Look at that link. If you want to help the
podcast go and he keeps the flashlight batteries fresh. Go
to link tree, Go to YouTube and leave some comments.
Help that algorithm. Let the world know. Man, there's a fun,
(53:56):
positive podcast that's out there ready for your entertainment. And
I want to thank Kletis again for doing the show.
He's great and uh I wish him the best and
hopefully we'll get him back. He's a busy guy and
a great guy. And you guys are great for listening.
Look at that man, you made it all the way through.
All right, Now get out there, don't hurt nobody. Be careful.
(54:18):
Everybody listening to Darren Carter. We all know he's the
party starter. So it you want to listen to a
podcast for free and listen to the Pocket Party
Pocket Party. Okay, big day here on the Pocket Party podcast.
Clead his Tea jud you got it. By the way,
if you want to help out the podcast, uh, we
signed up for buy me a coffee. You should see
the little link. Go ahead and click that link and uh,
if you feel like donating little uh, you know, buy
(00:21):
me a coffee, you can also the link on the
link tree will take you to a lot of cool places.
And as always, no matter what platform you're listening to,
go to YouTube and leave a comment on this episode
and any others you'd like to. All right, let's get
into it. And if it's your first time, welcome to
the Pocket Party Podcast. Today. It's clean as tea Judd.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yo, Yo, there he is.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We're live.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
How are you, Oh man, I'm doing great. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm good man. It's such an honor to have you
on the Pocket Party Podcast. And uh, I've been a
big fan for years. You're one of those guys I'd
always see a video pop up up and be like, damn,
that guy's funny, and then as time goes by, you
just realize like, oh, this is like a real person,
Like I don't know, you're just to me. You're one
of those guys that was just like a big star
(01:12):
that you're just you just kind of you just see
and you don't really think any further than that. And
then I don't know, man, something hit me. I think
I listened to uh you on a couple of different podcasts.
I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy's amazing and uh
and I said, you know, I got to reach out
to him and just and I very rarely, I don't
know how you are. I don't really just reach out
(01:32):
to like stars and people that I you.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Just do that all the time. I just never respond.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, you know what, man, I just got to say.
It's an honor, dude. I uh uh and I thank you.
And it's funny, I I I heard you on that podcast.
The first one I heard you on, I want to
say it was Tracy Lawrence and yeah yeah, And then
I listened to you on Durall and I'm driving. I
was on a three hour drive and I'm like, I'm
laughing along with you guys. I'm crying along with you guys.
(02:04):
I'm looking like a maniac in my car. And uh,
I said, I gotta I gotta reach out to Cletas
man and just just tell them how much I enjoyed
hearing them on those shows and and your journey that
you've gone through. And uh oh, I want to.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Thank you, thank you very much for for all those compliments.
I I appreciate it. You know, I've had a had
a great run, you know, for a long time. And
uh as as we all know, in our line of work,
it's it's never easy. You know, it's tough, and uh
you know, dealt with some struggles early on. As again,
(02:41):
everybody's got a story. You know. I'm not the only one,
but uh I'm the only one that went through my journey,
you know, and I just uh pat them ups and
downs pretty pretty tough. As a youngster, you know, I
really wanted to be a basketball player. But you know,
after learning that I couldn't jump over for a local
phone book, I figure it out, you know, I ended up.
(03:06):
I did play college basketball for a year, which was
a great accomplishment for me. But uh even that, you
know what wasn't easy for some reason. D you know,
for me, I don't know about other people and about
your your career, but for me, uh man, nothing that
that I can think of off the top of my head.
(03:28):
Nothing nothing ever came easy. Nothing every It just seemed
like everything that I wanted to do was not not simple.
You know, like going down getting a job at the
you know, the the yarn factory, that that's easy. I didn't.
I didn't like any of that, you know. And I
I always knew that I was kind of built differently,
(03:52):
you know, physically and mentally. But as a kids, you know,
it was it was pretty tough along the way to
some degree. And you know, basketball was such a such
a great outlet for me. And you know, everybody said, oh,
you know, you'll never never make it basketball. You're too
fat and too slow. And and for some reason, man,
(04:13):
my mother was such a such a big advocate of
wanting me to play because she played. And there was
times my senior year that I would go to the
library and I would type out letters from different coaches,
you know, across the country, and my girlfriend at the time, LeeAnne,
would mail them to my house and my mom would
(04:35):
open them and you know, she would say, oh, look, Mary,
you know you got a letter from the University of Kentucky.
They're really thinking your I'm thinking now, yeah, Mom, I
don't know if I want to I don't know if
I want to go to Kentucky or not. I'm going
to wait on North Carolina, you know, or maybe U
C l A or something. And by the grace of gods,
you know, right after high school, you know, I had
(04:57):
a pretty good senior year. And after high school, I
was playing and in a competitive league with some guys,
and three consecutive nights in a row, I scored thirty
forty and sixty three four.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Gosh.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There was a guy there that watched that. And I
was playing with or against the all time leading scorer
at Marshall University here at the time, a fello by
the name of Skip Henderson, who I grew up with
my whole life. I was playing against him, and that
the guy that watched me do that. You know, it
was primarily all black guys at the gym we were
(05:30):
playing in. You know, I was just one of the
guys at that time. And he called the college coach
up at Ryan Hart fello by the name of Kyle Smith,
and said, Hey, coach, there's this white kid down here
killing these black dudes. We got to get him to
Ryan Hart. You gotta watch this guy shoot. And they
invited me for a tryout, and it's my luck here again.
(05:52):
Nothing easy. I had a tryout and a couple of
days before the tryout, I got appendicitis and I had
to have my penix taken out. And when the coach called,
Mom said, Kyle, you know he can't he can't come
to the tryout because he's got six stitches in his belly.
And I said, Mom, I'm going. I don't care if
I hemorrhaged to death. I go try This is my shot.
(06:16):
And my mother went and bought me, I'll never forget
it this. She bought me a Georgia Tech sweatshirt and
some Georgia Tech yellow sweatpants. And I went up there
on a Saturday morning and played with a bunch of
guys that were already on scholarship up there, and by
the grace of the Good Lord, I hit five or
six shots in a row and ended up scoring maybe
(06:37):
ten or twelve by halftime, and Coach Smith called a
time out and said, all right, that's it. And I thought, oh,
I didn't score enough, you know. And he called us
to the center of the gym and I said, Coach,
I was just getting warmed up, and he said, buddy,
let me tell you, if anybody can shoot a basketball
like that, bleeding like you are welcome to Ryan Hard.
(06:59):
And I looked down on my leg there and then
my whole right side of my leg and my sweatshirt
where I had been bleeding that whole time, my leg
with the sweatshirts and pants were covered in blood. And
he said, welcome to Ryan Hart. And the the funny
part is the admissions counts where I'll never forget her.
Her name was Joellen Wilson. She was over there and
(07:19):
she said, Kyle, he hadn't even took an s A
T and act his grades aren't any good. And he said,
anybody that can shoot like that with six stitches in
their belly deserves a scholarship to Ryan Hart. And I
ended up playing for a year there. Wow, So I
got to, you know, live out that although it was
(07:41):
a small college, it was still college and I was
I was proud to play there.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's amazing. How tall are you?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Six feet six feet? Yeah? No height, couldn't play defense,
couldn't jump, and I, by the grace of the good
Lord I had, I had a pretty good stroke on
me and I could I could shoot as as well
as anybody. The great Kyle Macy who played at Kentucky
years ago, back in my day. I played in a
(08:10):
pickup game with him one time, and he said, Man,
if you would have been ten inches taller, you could
have really played at the at the at a high
next level. And I thought, man, if I had three
inches more, I could do a lot of things better,
you know. So that still basketball to this day, you know,
(08:30):
for sure?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Do you still kind of play around a little bit
with the basketball, man?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I don't. I you know, thees by this point, you know,
some knee surgeries and and uh, you know, just life
in general kind of kind of catch us up with you.
But I do take a basketball on stage with me
because when I do a show, because it was it's
just a reminder of how hard I worked, you know,
(08:56):
to to get to that point. And I tell the
story of basket ball and you know, getting cut in
the eighth grade and still hanging in there, and there's
there's a lot of life lessons to be learned in
sports like that. My high school coach is the reason
that I'm sitting here talking to you today, you know,
because he he never let me quit, and he instilled
(09:17):
the belief in me that I never had growing up
from a father, you know, And and every time in
my career, just like I'm sure yours too, you know, Man,
when you want to quit, every time I thought, okay,
the hell with it, this is enough. I've been beaten
up enough, I've been told no enough. And every time
I'd get ready to hang it up, I would always
hear Coach Kyle in my ears saying, you ain't a quitter.
(09:40):
You ain't a quitter. And I've never been able to
quit anything except drugs and alcohol. And I'm glad to
quit that.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I know. God bless that. Man.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's uh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
When you start when you so you're a little bit
older than me, but we you know, I remember starting
out because I started out, you know, in high school,
wanting to be a comedian. And excuse me, back then,
uh you know, like hip like rap hadn't really like
it just started kind of catching on and and and
me being this white kid with red hair growing up
in you know, Fresno, California, the predominantly Latino black schools,
(10:16):
and so when I started rapping like just a cappella,
you know, back in the eighties, just for fun, and
it was such a shock to people. They were like,
what because this way before Vanilla ice, this is just
and you know, when I was doing more of the
comedic style of rap, and I didn't know if I
was going to go into rap or radio or comedy.
And then I got on the speech team and that
(10:37):
kind of gave me a lot of direction. And I said, okay,
here's how you formulate a speech. And you and then
I then my you know, then obviously I took off
and started and I got into stand up. But with you,
did you did you know you were going to get
into music or did you want to get into comedy
or radio?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Like not, not not at all. I mean I knew,
like I say, at at an early age that I was,
I was strung up differently than most. You know, I
had a lot of trouble sitting still you know what
would later become you know what they you know, obsessive, compulsive,
(11:13):
and you know all the all the words that they
have for it now you know, And and I just
never wanted to be normal. I guess you could say
I just wanted more. But now you know, growing up,
my my growing up is so different from yours, you know,
I grew up in the in the south and a
(11:33):
real rural part of the of Georgia where there was
you know, when you graduated, you went, you bought a
bunch of khaki pants and some Oxford shirts, and you
went to work at Shaw Industries and you know, you work,
you know, eight to four thirty. You played softball three
days a week until you died, you know. And and
I just never wanted that, you know. And I didn't
(11:56):
know what I wanted. I just knew that I didn't
want that. And when I got out of when I
got out of college, I only stayed a year. I
went to barber College. I went. I thought, well, my
uncle was a barber and I used to help them.
I used to cut hair at at college, you know,
to make some extra money. And so I went to
(12:18):
barber college. And everybody said, well, you know, that's fine,
but that's all you'll ever be is a barber. And
if that's what you want to do, then go do it.
And I thought, no, I want to be more than
a barber. But I had to start somewhere. So I
went to barber school. And I kind of make this
quick because I don't want to bore you but I
went to barber school, got out of barber school, went
(12:41):
to work at a barber shop, cutting a thousand old
men a day, you know, and I knew that I
didn't want to do that. I opened up my own
shop about ten minutes from my hometown in Cartersville, and
it was funny. It was called Berry's Country Cuts, and
I wouldn't take I wouldn't take a point much from
twelve to one point thirty because Days of Our Lives
(13:03):
was on and I didn't want to. I didn't want
to miss my soap opera.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
You know. Back then.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'll never forget I'll never forget it. It was the
day that the unfortunately that the Space Shuttle exploded, and
I think that was an eighty six.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Mistaken yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And I had got an Atlanta Journal Constitution and I
was reading in the classifies and it said, you know,
a salon in downtown Atlanta was hiring for upscale hairdressers
and there's going to be auditions Sunday morning in Atlanta.
Now you got to understand I probably never had been
to Atlanta at that point, you know, And I thought, well, okay,
(13:46):
let's see, now, how do I pull this off? Because
I knew I couldn't. I was just a barber, you know,
I wasn't a hairdresser or anything. And so I went
down to a buddy of mine's hair salon and I
took a model down there. And his name was Donny Adams,
and I said, man, cut this girl's hair for me
in the coolest haircut you can cut. Leave a little
(14:06):
bit on one side, whatever you're doing, save the hair and
a plastic bag and let me have it. And I
watched him cut her hair. We saved the hair of
the plastic bag the Sunday. That following Sunday, her name
was Faith, She was my model. We drove to Atlanta
and there was about twenty guys and girls in there audition,
and I was a nervous wreck. I mean, I was
(14:29):
scared out of my mind. You know. It was a
culture shock for me. And every time Dawn the company
was called Donshaw Hairdressers. He's a major hairdresser in the
world of hairdressing. Every time he would walk by, I
would snip and cut a little bit fake in it.
And then when he kept walking, I would take hair
out of my pocket and I would throw it on
(14:50):
the floor and then he walked by and go, man,
we're in the world. Did you learn to cut a hair?
Do a haircut like that? And I said, buddy, just palate,
just talent. So I did the haircut, went back home,
and Monday they called and said congratulations, you made it.
Oh wow, And I thought, oh my god, Now what
(15:10):
am I gonna do? Because I didn't know how to
do no upscale hair and women and all that, And
so I went to work, dude, and once again, nothing
came easy. I sat there and watched videotapes of the
greatest hairdressers there was. I went to every class I
could get my hands on. I watched Listen Learn, Watch
Listen Learn. And three years later I was the artistic
(15:34):
director for three of the biggest laws in Atlanta and
was invited to perform at the World Championships of Hairdressing
and dussel Dorf West Germany in nineteen eighty eight. And
it was the biggest crowd that I had ever played
in front of in my entire career. And that's just
another example of Man, it didn't come easy, but I
(15:56):
figured it out. And as I was standing there on
that stage in front of one hundred thousand people in
that auditorium. Man, it was just it was a pretty
big moment for me, you know, to go from all
they said you'll never be nothing but a barber to
standing on the biggest stage and hairdressing in the world.
It was, it was pretty it's pretty big accomplishment for.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Me, that is, man, And there's like no roadmap for that.
It's not like, oh, you do this, you do that,
and then you just you went down a small town
and didn't even cut hair from noon to one thirty.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh no, yeah, lord, Lord never really did you know,
nothing but guy's haircuts, you know. And man, I got
so involved in but that was the demise of the
person you're sitting here talking to as well, because at
that point I started making money, and you know, I
(16:47):
bought a you know, a new Porsche and you know
which I couldn't afford. You know, I was making probably
thirty five forty grand a year, you know, but in
nineteen eighty eight, that was a lot of mone money
for a guy that never had nothing. But I ended
up jumping from salon to salon and I got involved
(17:07):
in uh in drugs, crystal meth and cocaine, and I
ended up going down to point of Vieter Beach, Florida,
working trying to teach classes down there. I'd ended up
losing everything I had, and I perched myself up on
a bridge and point of ter Beach, Florida for six
hours one day because I just felt like at that
(17:28):
point my life wasn't worth living. I was an embarrassment
to my family, you know. Here I had it all,
and I became a full blown drug addict, and you know,
I ended up not having food or clothing or or
you know, no no running vehicle much and so I
just thought, you know what, it's my destiny, you know,
(17:49):
and so off off to the bridge I went to
to to take care of a tough life at self
induced some self induced, of course, but by the grace
of gods, you know, I was up there, back and
forth for several almost six hours, I guess, and they
got me down, you know, and a friend of mine
(18:11):
flew me home, another hairdresser, and and flew me back
home to Georgia. And that's that's when the music business started.
Just a few weeks after that, that attempt of not
feeling like I was worth anything, you know, and that's
when it all started.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Amen. You know your coaches was probably somewhere in the
back of your mind.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
You're not a question, you know, Oh no, no question?
Duty was he was. He was in my head, you know,
and you know it. And when I got home, you know,
I was. I felt like such an embarrassment, of course,
as anybody would. And I was sitting in uh in
my mom's double wide trailer and uh uh in shack
(18:49):
carpet that you could do snow angels in, you know,
it was so thick and uh. Vince Gill had came
on TV and on the Awards Show in nineteen ninety one,
I think, and he won an award for a song
called When I Call Your Name. And I turned around
and my mother was crying, and I said, man, Mom,
what's wrong? She said, God, I would give anything in
(19:10):
my life to meet Vince Gill. I think he's the
most beautiful man I've ever seen. And I said, you
want to meet Vince Gill? And she said, all Sun,
you just don't know. And I said, well, I can
make that happen. And she said, no, you can't. You
can't sing Silent Night. How do you think you're going
to get in the and to meet vince Gil, and
(19:31):
I said, if you want to meet him, I'll figure
it out. And so with those few words, I went
down a few weeks later and did an amateur night
at a country nightclub, and I won fifty dollars for
first place for a funny song that I had written.
And I called my mom collect on a pay phone,
and I said, Mom, I think I did something right
for a change, And about three months later she bought
(19:53):
me an old Toyota pick up truck and gave me
four hundred dollars and off to Nashville. I went to
try to try to make save a life, you know, mine,
and then you know, I went up there, and I struggled.
I was homeless. From time to time, I'd sleep in
the front seat of that truck. I would go to
(20:14):
the YMCA and take showers and take a bath, and
then go to music row and beg and plead and
try to get somebody to listen to me. And it
just wasn't it just wasn't going anywhere. So nineteen ninety four,
a snowstorm, the ice storm, a really bad ice storm,
came through Tennessee and I was driving home in that
old truck from work and I was scraping the windshield
(20:37):
with my left hand out the window with a c
D a jewel case from a CD, and I ended
up getting frostfied on my left hand, and the doctors
thought there was a chance I'd lose a couple of
my fingers. It was so bad. And I called my
mom one Sunday night and I said, Mom, I can't
do it. I have tried and try. I said, I'm hungry,
(21:01):
my clothes are filthy. I can't do it. And I
said you got to come and get me. And my
mom said are you sure? And I said, I've never
been more sure of nothing in my life. And she
asked me one more time there and she said are
you sure? And when she said that, in my right ear,
(21:23):
at a little radio sitting on a table beside me,
I heard a song called Indian Outlaw by Tim McGraw
and I started singing in my head Indian in laws
and I sang, Indian in laws came to visit me
and my squaw been here for a month, y'all about
to lose my mind. And I said, Mom, I got
to call you back, and she said, what do you mean?
(21:47):
I said, I got to call you back, I might
have something here, and I called a couple of buddies.
We wrote it over the phone. I got my hand
healed up. I went in the studio barded one hundred
and twenty five dollars a two hundred and fifty, went
in the studio recorded Indian in Laws and it took
off and got played on almost two hundred radio stations,
(22:08):
and then the career took off well. To make this
come full circle. There was still some obstacles, you know,
that we can talk about another time. But it was
still tough. But about four years later, I had had
secured a record deal. I had sold around seven hundred
thousand records at that point, and I came in off
the road one night and I had a phone call
(22:30):
from a lady at the Academy of Country Music Awards,
and she said, we're having a golf tournament tomorrow. Will
you play in the golf tournament tournament? And I said, well,
by this time, you know, i'd done done, got cocky
and arrogant, you know, and thinking that, you know, my
life mattered. And I said, no, I'm not interested in playing.
I'm tired. I've been on the road. And she said,
(22:51):
if you'll come and do it. Well, we'll secure you
a spot as a presenter at the ACM Awards. How's that?
And I said, okay, I'll do it. So the next
one man, I went to the golf course at Hermitage
Golf Course, I'll never forget it, and I put my
bag out and I was looking for my name up
on the wall and I got down to hold sixteen
A and up on the wall there was five names
(23:13):
on the board I'll never forget on. One of them
was Jeff Gossip, Chris Tate, some other guy didn't know
plead Us, T Judd, and Vince Gilt Whoa. And I thought, okay,
here's my chance. And one of the guys, my buddy, Jeff,
I'm friends with this day, he said, well, I'm gonna
(23:33):
ride with Vince, and I said, the hell you are.
I had been up here, starved to death, went through
frostbite and everything else. I'm riding with Vince today. And
so I hopped on with Vince and I spent the
entire day with him, and I shared with him, you
know my story and how I ended up there for
my mom, And I asked him what he do a
video with me? And he said, buddy, count me in.
(23:56):
And so a few weeks later, on an afternoon, my
mom sent me to Nashville and an old pickup truck,
and four or five years later, whatever the timeframe was,
I brought her to Nashville of her and her friends
in a limousine as long as this garage I'm sitting in.
And they came to the video shoot, and uh, halfway
(24:17):
through the chute, there was a knock on the door
and my video director, John Lloyd Miller, said, mo, why
don't you, Why don't you grab that door right there?
My mom said why why me? And he said, just
grab the door. And everybody at the chute knew what
was about to happen. And Man, I watched my mom
walk across that old rickety hardwood floor and for it.
(24:37):
With every step she took, I thought, Man, of all
the struggle and the heartache and the hard times, and uh,
but I knew that just a matter of few more
steps I will have made something happen. And my mother
opened the door and there stood Vince Gill and I said,
I told you, mamma, you'd meet him one day, and uh,
she she she jumped up in his arms and Vince
(25:00):
loved on her and hugged her, and uh, Vince is
still a close friend of mine to this day. But
that was out of everything I've ever done in my career,
that was that was the biggest, biggest accomplishment, because man,
I I just had a again. Like we said earlier, Man,
you know, it didn't come easy and it wasn't hard,
(25:23):
and I wanted to quit, and Mick Pile, my basketball coach,
wouldn't let me. And I was able to secure my
mama's dream of meeting Vince Gill. And I've done a
lot of things since then, but nothing will ever compare
it to that monumental day and a little rickety house
in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
That is beautiful. Man, that is ma'am. What a what
a treat, what a blessing, And that's amazing that it happened.
Did it actually happened. It was like, Mama, I'm gonna
do this and somehow, some way, I think you said
four years later it actually happened.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, I kind of get lost along the way on
the timeline. It might have been a maybe yes, So
whatever the whatever, I just ow the eye storms in
nineteen ninety four and it was several years after that,
so but you know, man, I went on to have
a great career and did more than I ever thought
I would ever get to do. You know, I've met
(26:22):
so many amazing people, you know, that I never thought
I would be friends with. And I was on tour
with Brooks and Dunn one year with Kicks and Ronnie
and Toby Keith and kum Urban and Montgomery Gentry, and
I was sitting on the bus. We were going down
the road going to just playing old night club somewhere
after one of the big tours. And I'll never forget, man,
(26:42):
And you'll remember the song that Toby always loved alone
again naturally.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Oh that song.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, And man, everybody was singing it and Tobe was
singing it, and I had my head down in my hands,
thinking how in the hell that I Oh wow, how
did I pull this all?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Log?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Oh my god, it was. It was a surreal moment,
you know. And all those guys of course been friends
of mine. Toby of course, like Toby Keith was a
dear friend of mine for many many years. And it's uh,
it was something, it sure was.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I was, Yeah, man, I'm a huge Toby Keith and
my wife major Toby Keith in like she saw him
back when he first came out. And you know, and
of course my wife and I've been married twenty seven
years and I'll get this. Our son, Austin aka Austin
Birse Boss, he was born. He was born to my
wife in the delivery room. You know, you could play music,
(27:43):
so we we played all Toby Keith. It was all
Toby Keith for the entire time she was in labor.
My wife goes the only song, she goes, Darren, don't
skip any songs. But if you do, the only song
I don't want our son to be born too is uh,
I'm gonna get drunk and be somebody. She's like, I
want him being born to that song.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
But other than that, you know, so, man, that's awesome.
Toby was a wonderful human being. Uh. What you saw
is what you got with Toby. You know, he was
he was, He was one hundred percent, one hundred percent.
What you say is what you get. He was a
dear friend of me for many many years. I mean
(28:23):
we basically, man, we were as close as two thieves.
You know. I stayed at his house, he come to mine.
We traveled some together. I was in the Beer for
My Horses movie with him, you know, and UH, sad
day when you know, we kind of lost touch there
last few years. Of course you can understand wise he
battled what he was going through. But and he is. Uh,
(28:46):
he was a dear friend and is and will always
be missed, for sure. I'll always appreciate my time with him.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Man, That's that's an honor. We we'd see him, you know,
every time he come to the West coast, either we'd
see him as a family or my wife and son
would see him. I was on the road, and I
got to know a couple of his bandmates. Uh when
one time he performed at the Jimmy Kimmel Show. And
and I, you know, I one of my big breaks
was I believe it or not. I was on B
E T. I was on I was on Comic View.
(29:13):
So here's this white boy on Comic View. And I would,
you know, do my Bill Clinton that's right on back, hello,
you know whatever. So and they would play me on
the Best of the White Guys or the impersonators or whatever.
So I did it like seven or eight years. And
so his the horn section, some of the the Willie
and another guy. Oh yeah, man, like Willie and Geka.
They bright, They're like, you're a comedian. And then so
(29:35):
we kind of hit it off. And every time they'd
come to town, we'd you know, one of his guitar players, Joey,
Joey Floyd, Yes, Joey Floyd. You know he you know
I sometimes he didn't have a ride when they'd come to town.
You know, I'll pick you up at the hotel and
I take him to the comedy match a club or
the comedy store laugh at.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And that's awesome. Man. I knew Joe Lord Man, I
knew Joy forever. You know, another sad loss there of course,
bass player. You know, I asked the way several years ago.
But Joy, man, he was a he was a he
was a character. I'll tell you, man a quick story
for him. I know you don't want to get off
here in a minute. But I was out on that tour,
uh in two thousand and one, the brooks Ha Duney
(30:13):
on circus tour and uh, my mother, we were in Bakersfield, California.
And now Bakersfield is as far away from Georgia as
you can get. You can't get no further, and my
mother had suffered a heart attack. And Toby knew that
I didn't like to fly. I had a real I
had a real bad incident on the air airplane. One time.
(30:34):
We'll we'll talk about another time. But told man, I
was on the bus, I'm thinking, oh my god, my
mother's at home. She suffered a heart attack. I was
in my bunk balling my eyes out, and and Toby
Keith literally jumped up in my bunk, crawled in my
bunk with me and said, look here, hass I know
that you don't like to fly. I know your mom.
(30:55):
He called her big mo is is is she had
a heart attack. But he said, I went ahead and
got you. I bought you plane vouchers. As you make
your trick back across the country in this bus. If
your mom gets worse, you'll be able to stop in Phoenix,
if she gets bad in Las Vegas, get on a plane.
If you make it to Dallas, get on a plane.
(31:16):
If you get the Smith, Arkansas, Little Rock. So if
something would have happened to Mom that whole trip back home,
I would have had. I had a bunch of plane
vouchers that Toby gave me in case I needed to
fly home, and Mom, of course made it. And the
next weekend was the last weekend of the tour that
(31:36):
I had to miss, and it was a Sunday afternoon.
They were playing If I'm Not Mistaken Pittsburgh was the
last night of the tour, and I had thought Alan
Jackson's Yellow Corvette and a couple of weeks prior to
that from the road, and I rode around that entire
sunday with all those Guys CDs playing in my CD player.
(31:58):
I've listened to Toby and Jickson, Ronnie and Troy and
Eddie and man, I was just really depressed, you know,
thinking that I couldn't be there on the last night
of the greatest four months of my life, you know.
And about six thirty that evening, Man, the phone ring,
my cell phone ring, and it was Joey Boy, and
(32:19):
I thought, man, Joey's supposed to be on stage right now.
I don't know what's going So I answered it, and man,
it was loud, and I said, joy, Man, what's going on?
He said, just shut up and listen. Shut up and listen.
And I heard Toby in the background, and Toby was
behind the microphone and he said, Hey, guys, everybody here
(32:40):
in Pittsburgh just wanted to let y'all know that the
guy that hosted this tour all summer with us was
not able to be here tonight and his mother had
gotten sick and wasn't able to be here, and he
was such a big part of this tour, and I
just wanted y'all Pittsburgh to let Cletus t Judd know
that we're missing right now. And the next thing you knew,
(33:02):
twenty thousand people were chanting Cletus, cled us, clead us
over a sell long and Toby got on the phone said,
love you pal, see you when I get home.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh, oh gosh, why.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
One of the one of the most He didn't have
to do that, you know, he didn't have to do that,
he he Uh, he didn't have to take time out
of his out of his set to do that. And uh,
one of the one of the most special things anybody
had ever done for me, you know, And I've always
been appreciative of that.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Wow, God bless Toby and his family and and uh
do you ever look back at moments like that and
you're like, did that really happen? Oh? My gosh, I mean,
it's kind of feel like a movie, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah, it is, it is. I I'm sure we all do. Yeah,
no matter the the statues, the status, you know, uh,
you know, no matter what level, you know, it's there's
times that you know, I'm in this in this uh
garage that I've turned into a little podcast studio that
I'm gonna start doing that you and I'll jump on
(34:07):
one together. But I look around this room and man,
I see a big, huge poster that Kicks and Ronnie
gave me with all me and Keith and Toby on it.
And there's another one there of George Jones and me
on it, and and uh uh Rascal Flats, you know
my buddies from Rascal Flats and Kid Rock and Pamelaander. Yeah,
(34:28):
it's it's yeah, it ain't normal. It's not. But I
tell you, man, what I'm struggling with. And I'm gonna
get off here so you can get on with.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Your by the way, that we have a little bit
more time, so no rush, no rush, we can keep going.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
The thing that I struggle with. And I don't know
if you saw my post this morning that I that
I posted on Facebook, If you didn't tell you can
take a look at it, but man, it's like, you know,
I had such a great run and did more, you know,
did more than I ever thought. And it was a surreal.
A surreal can get, you know, thirty thirty five videos
(35:06):
on CMT and Celebrity Fit Club out in LA when
I lived out there, and you know, just one thing
after the next, after the next, and then you know,
in two thousand and five and six, I could kind
of feel the demise, you know, the career is kind
of going down. And I moved to Florida and started
doing morning radio, and I was away from my daughter
(35:26):
who was just born. And long story short, I ended
up moving to Kentucky to be close to my kid
because I knew that although I was making a lot
of money, I realized at an older age that you know,
once the memories passed, you know, you can't buy it back.
There's no amount of money. I used to lay in
bed and go, God, look, I got three hundred and
(35:48):
fifty thousand dollars in a savings account. I'll give it
to the homeless shelter if you promised me. I don't
have to miss my daddy daughter dance this coming weekend.
But I got shows to do, so you know, there
was no way to buy those things back. And so
I finally said, okay, I'm going home. If I got
to sell cars, I'll sell cars for a living. And
and I kind of walked away from it for a
(36:08):
long time, you know, about eight years, six years from here,
and be a dad to my daughter and and take
her to school and pick her up. And and then
about four years ago, man, they Race Stevens, you know,
the great Race Deveens, one of my idols. They had called,
and Caitlin and my family been after me to get
(36:29):
back and do it again. They could see the herd
in my heart. You know that I missed it. And
Race Stevens some some folks from Race Stevens company, and
Ray asked me to come and do a show with
him in renfro Valley, Kentucky. And I said, man, I can't, Ray,
I and I'm I'm I'm old, has been, I'm done.
I can't do that. And and but when your I'll
(36:51):
ask you to do it, you go do it. You know,
if you got to fake it, lip sink it, Milli Vanillia,
whatever you've got to do. I went down to that THEAH,
and I talked to Ray and I went out on
stage and I did forty minutes and I got it.
There's about five thousand people there, and I got a
standing ovation and I came off the stage and Ray said, now,
why was it that you said you were you wanted
(37:13):
to stay retired. And I said, Ray, I just didn't
feel like I was relevant anymore. And he said, five
thousand people just thought you were relevant. And he said,
you know, there are not many of us that do
this musical thing, so I think it's time for you
to come on back, buddy good see you. I got
to go on stage, and I came back and did
it again. Here we go again, Here we go again.
(37:35):
Money out of savings account paid for my own videos.
You know, CMT took them back. The show started picking up,
picking up, and of course that I did do some
shows where they all came in the same car. You know.
It wasn't it wasn't always always great, but uh but
somehow man again, you know, just just I don't know why. Hell,
(37:58):
I don't know why. One day have to end, or
I'll the Good Lord will take me out of here.
I may have just come to the end of the
road where I can say okay, and I'm not quitting. Yes,
it's time to walk away, but I'm not to that
point yet. You know, I've got a lot of life
left in me. I love what I do. I love people.
(38:21):
I love to tell my story and hopes that it
inspires somebody else and to do bigger and better things
than even I done. And uh, at the end of
the day, Man, if I can do that, then if
I do make it to heaven, I'm not gonna get
right in. I probably had to sit somewhere, a bench
somewhere and wait my turn. But I hope he says, hey, man,
(38:44):
come on in. You did you? So that's what I'm hoping.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
By the way I listened this morning, I was like,
can you know what? Let me and I listened to
your the first big song, the Indian Outlaw, The Indian
in Law. Yeah, there's a man. That was a great
song to come out right out the gate like Bam,
this is here, I am, I'm cletesty, judge, this is
my song.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
That was.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
It was funny, it sounded great. It was, man, what
a great song like your debut.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Man, it was and you know here again I did
that with the late Bruce Birch, who was a phenomenal
songwriter and another friend of mine, Jody Jackson. But even then,
you know, I ended up getting a small record deal
out of la a guy named by the name of
Mitch Coha, and he signed me to this little small
record label, and we did a couple of videos and
(39:31):
sent them to CMT and they passed on me, said
no no, And so I ended up signing with a
company called Razor and Tie out of New York, and
they gave me a budget and I went in and
cut an album for seventy five hundred dollars and the
first song off that album was If Shannai was Mine
(39:54):
and we shot the video. And the way that CMT
worked back in nineteen ninety six or seven, I think
it was ninety six that came out. They would take
all the new submissions on a Friday, and the entire
staff would come into a conference room and they would
watch the submissions and then they would go, yep, put
(40:15):
it on note not gonna happen. Put it on not
gonna happen. So I waited at my little apartment for
I was trying to get the call. And I'll never forget.
My manager, Miles Bell at the time, called me and
he said, well, I got some news. I was laying
on a couch that my mom had bought me and
he said they passed on it, and man, I rolled
(40:36):
off the couch. I literally rolled off the couch into
the floor and just started bawling because I knew I
wasn't gonna get another shot. That is it. You know,
the money up being spent. That was it. And I'm
gonna tell you this is what will gets you. It
got me that afternoon. Her name was Tracy Rogers. She
was ahead of programming at CMT at the time. She
(40:59):
took that video that was on a VHS tape back
to her office and watched it about ten times. Called
a staff meeting on a Friday afternoon at four o'clock
before everybody went home. Everybody came back in that conference
room and she said, guys, I'm gonna overrule you on
(41:20):
this one. I'm putting this on. I'm putting this on
the network starting next Saturday, and if I lose my
job over it, I'll take the heat. Y'all have a
great weekend. And she's put that video in rotation the
next weekend. And it was the longest run and one
of the longest running videos that CMT ever done. And
the next thing was thirty five more after that, and
(41:43):
my life changed. You know, that's when it really that's
when it really changed, you know, because it had Tracy
Rogers not took that took that VHS tape on a
Friday afternoon when everybody was ready to get the hell
out there, and called another meeting and said, I'm gonna
overrule you. I see something in this old boy that
(42:06):
maybe y'all on seat and I'd be down there again.
Never easy, never easy. It never never came easy, but
somehow it it. It just worked.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, you know, that's incredible. And what I was thinking
is like nowadays, I don't know what what the plan
is or what's going to happen. But I feel like
back then, like you said, it was CMT or that's it,
how you were not seeing you're probably not going to
see a video anywhere. But now we have like the
social media platforms and YouTube, and there's other ways to
(42:39):
get get your your you know what I mean, there's
are the ways to get your stuff out there.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
There there is and I and I do you know,
I just shallow video this morning down at the BUCkies. Uh,
down in left and uh hopefully it'll it'll turn out good,
you know. There, I've got just a few things left
that I wanna wanna pomplish and and you know, then
I can then I can start thinking about Okay, you know,
(43:07):
when's it time. But I had written a one man
show that I'll have to send you sometime when you're bored,
I'll send it to you. I wrote it with an
l a actor out there, a guy by the name
of Mike Panouski who's been on everything you could imagine. Uh,
just a brilliant actor, law and order, uh, you name it.
He's been in it. And he had saw my story
(43:29):
about me and my mom and what I went through
with Alzheimer's with her, and I documented all of it.
And he called me one day and he said, man,
we got to write that. It's too powerful not to write.
So for about a year and a half we wrote
a one man's show called one Mo Moment, which was
my mom's name Mo and uh and it was I've
(43:50):
got it finished, and uh that that that's that's the
next thing that I want to accomplish. If I have
to cash in my retirement or whatever I gotta do.
I want to. I want to put that on tape
for the world to see, so they can see the journey,
see the story of me from start to finish, and
how how I ended up, you know, becoming an actor.
(44:14):
Not on film and television, but in an old folks
home with my mom as she went through Alzheimer's because
she didn't know me anymore. She didn't know my name,
she didn't know who I was, but she knew me
as other people, her husband, her her girlfriend, her aunt,
my best friend Brent Matthison. I thought, you know what,
(44:35):
damn it. If she don't know me and I can't
communicate with her, I'll just play all the parts of
the people she thinks I am, and man for the
For for six months, I sat in there and I
played every part. I acted it out. I put on
the hats, I wore the glasses, whatever I had to
do to to communicate with her, you know. And I uh.
(44:59):
And in one one Sunday, I was getting ready to
leave and I was over there washing my hands at
the Saint and Mom was coming more nonverbal by this point,
you know, and I knocked my glasses off my forehead
and they fell in the sink, and I thought, oh no.
I was bawling my eyes out, as I did every
time I left there, you know, And I thought, oh no,
(45:20):
I've woke Mama up. And sure enough I looked over
and when my glasses hit the sink, Mom raised her
head up and dude, I'm telling you, dare and she
looked right at me, and there was a brief moment
of silence, and I didn't know what to say. And
she looked at me and she said, well, well, God
(45:41):
is that you? And I said, okay, I played the
part of her husband, her aunt, her uncle, but how
do I play the part of God? And right then
and there, man, I felt a nice, cool presence come
over me, and I felt like the Good Lord said
(46:02):
I've at it, hoss have at it. And I said, yes, ma'am,
miss Rutlish, it's me God. And she said, so I
made it, didn't I? And I said, yes, ma'am, you
you made it. And my mother never spoke to me again, oh,
never spoke to me again till the till the night
(46:24):
she died. I had went down there, I'd go that
nursing home. Man. For the next four or five months,
and I was pissed off, you know, and cussing God.
And you know, I did everything for my mother and
I never missed a birthday, and you know, you took
her away from me, you know, all the feelings that
you would have as a kid, you know, going through that.
And and I went home on a Monday and I
(46:49):
sat in that nursing home with her Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
She never spoke a word. And Thursday night, around midnight,
I went over there and flicked the light on. I said, Mom,
I know you can't hear me, and I know it's
getting close, but I said, I got to run over
here and take a shower, get some ivy of profing.
My back's killing me. And I said I'll be back
in just a minute. And I said, don't you dare
(47:11):
think about dying till I get back. And I said,
I love you, Mama, And she looked at me and said, well,
I love you too, son, just as plain as I'm
sitting here talking to you Darren Carter on this telephone.
It's plain. And I looked around that room and said,
(47:31):
anybody hear that. My mother just acknowledged me for the
first time in months with the most clearest. It wasn't
a week. I love you too, son. It was like
I was an idiot for not thinking that she hurt me.
It was like, well, I love you too, son. And
(47:53):
I think at that very moment that was God said, Hey,
for all you've done, for all the years of true
for all the years of being there, for for the arguments,
for the the cars, for the houses, for the money,
for the love, for the companionship, I gave you this
(48:13):
gift just to show you how powerful I am. Because
tomorrow she's coming home to be with me. And she
died the next day. But what a great gift, What
a gift. I don't know that I would have made it,
could have made it through life as well as I
have had I not got that. I love you too, son.
(48:33):
That was life changing for me.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
You know, that's life changing, man. The way you tell
your stories. I love it. And uh man, that was
just I've gotten goosebumps a few times during this episode
to you. Oh no, I love it, and I and
I hope you would, uh you know, be a regular
on the podcast. Maybe you have you pop in from
time to time because you have so much to say
(48:57):
and and Uh, you're a great communitator. You know. I
knew you as a you know, from the music videos
and the funny songs. But I'm getting to know you more. Man,
you like like the One Man Show. That's you know, yeah,
I could see why you're so successful, because you're not.
You could do so many different things, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Well, you know, man, sometimes I've all that's that's a
blessing and a damn curse. I'm gonna tell you it
really truly is, and then we'll close it with this.
What I've all. I've always told my agents, you know,
and I've been with William Morris and I mean, you know,
them all never had the optionny to be at a
c AA or anything, but I was at a PA
(49:39):
Him Godsdale out there in LA. You know, was a
great friend, you know, back when I was on their roster.
And I always said, look, you can put me in
a church on Thursday, a comedy club on Friday, at
Alzheimer's convention on Saturday, and uh, you know, an AA
meeting on Sunday and and and I'll be fine. The
(49:59):
problem with that, that is, it's always been hard for
me to focus on something, you know, I I I
bounce off the walls. I do this, I can do that,
and guess what, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna do this. Uh.
And it gets tiring, you know, it gets it gets tiring.
And that's really why I reached out to you several
(50:19):
months ago about management. I've had great managers. I've had
some that you know sucked, as we all have along
the way. But I'm hoping that at some point someone
will will hear the story and go, you know what,
let's do this. Let's let's do this because I believe
in it wholeheartedly, and I believe it it's for the
(50:42):
right reasons to touch people and to give them hope
and and and I hope the next manager that I
may have a chance to talk to, well, we'll say
I got you. You know I got you because at
this point in my life, hell, I'm just trying not
to file out. That's it. I'm trying to get to
the finish line. And that is my that is my
(51:04):
swan song. If I could ever put that to fruish
and So I got a couple of quick fingers cross
I will, we will.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
I got a couple of quick questions before before we
go do you still are you still working on like
original songs? Do you still do parodies? Are you still?
Are there new songs?
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Mostly parodies? And then I write other songs for it,
you know, to try to get others cut. You know.
I had a Brandley Gilbert cut and a Rascal Flats
cut and a couple of other things. But mostly it's
what I'm known for, you know, is is the parody thing.
So yeah, that's mostly it.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Like, you know who I'm really digging now is Zach
top I love the way he's the best. He's the best,
right yeah, I mean his voice, he kind of has
that Naneties throwback, and.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, he'll save country music right now. I'm telling you, yep,
yep he will.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
And then uh oh oh, okay, I got to say
this real quick. I heard you and George Jones. That
is a great song to me. That wasn't even really
a parody. It was you know, I was country before
country was pop or something. Yeah, help yeah, And I
listened to that again this morning, and I'm like, man
and in George Jones' I mean, he's a legend and
you guys.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
And you know, I had a chance to I did
forty forty eight or forty nine shows with George. Oh
my gosh, became became close friends with him and Nancy
and Bobby his road manager, and all the guys. And
George was really good to me. I mean, I love George.
That's one. That's another time when you got your head
(52:31):
down your hands going, what the hell? What? What the hell?
Are you kidding me? But I'll tell you this in closing. Yeah,
it may sound great to you, but it was the
hardest gig I had ever done because them people had
come to see George, didn't come to see Cletus. I'm
gonna tell you, they came to see the legend Apossum.
(52:54):
And I got booed more at that thing. Oh it
is every night, you know, about three or four people
breathing on their own out there.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
You know they're so old.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
But but George was a wonderful human being. Man. And
again that's one of those things where you go, how
do I pull this off? But man, I'm gonna let
you get on with you Friday, Let's watch some basketball.
And uh, if you ever need me for anything, I'm
always here for you.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Man.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Best of luck to you, and and we'll do this again.
And uh, if you. If you find one their big
high falut and la manager, send them my way.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
Will Hey, have a great weekend and we'll catch you soon.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Thank you, buddy, you too, man, thanks a lot, Dave.
I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
Look at you.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
You made it all the way through. It wasn't that great.
That was a great episode. You guys, thank you so much.
Please do me a favorite, check out, buy me a coffee.
Look at that link. If you want to help the
podcast go and he keeps the flashlight batteries fresh. Go
to link tree, Go to YouTube and leave some comments.
Help that algorithm. Let the world know. Man, there's a fun,
(53:56):
positive podcast that's out there ready for your entertainment. And
I want to thank Kletis again for doing the show.
He's great and uh I wish him the best and
hopefully we'll get him back. He's a busy guy and
a great guy. And you guys are great for listening.
Look at that man, you made it all the way through.
All right, Now get out there, don't hurt nobody. Be careful.
(54:18):
Everybody listening to Darren Carter. We all know he's the
party starter. So it you want to listen to a
podcast for free and listen to the Pocket Party
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!