The Inspiring Run of Curtis Burch
(Part One)
by Franne J.
Thursday, April 1, 2010 11:05 PM CDT
Any profession or job has the ability to overtake your life. You could be a doctor, a teacher, or an electrician and the demands and challenges to be successful could be monumental, costing you family, friends and irretrievable years. Yet when we think of an artist and their life we rarely examine the reality of any sacrifice or hardship they may have endured, or the sheer volume of work they put out to make it into the limelight. We only envy the glamour, the fame and wealth of their celebrity. Having witnessed that very struggle in so many artists, I could only nod when musician Curtis Burch spoke just above a rasp and said, “The music business will run your life,” he paused and smirked and then added, “If you let it.” I could only emphatically agree as he continued, “I still make music and I love making music, but I did it my way so I kind of run the music in my life”
As one of the founding members of the New Grass Revival, Curtis Burch completely highlights the spirit and heart of this pioneering group of musicians. The ‘unique artistic form’ that the New Grass Revival created has for the most part has always been a beacon of artistic integrity for others to follow.
One of the first things I put forth in my interview with Curtis was that I couldn’t find much of a ‘bio’ on him. Looking perplexed he mentioned his own website http://www.curtisburch.com and a few others, but I just shook my head. “Curtis there just isn’t much out there. I want to know the rest of your story.” He arched his eyebrows and then gave a little turn to his head as if to size me up and he was about to speak when I just started the conversion myself. “Now according to what I could find you where born in Alabama, right?” “Yeah?” he answered a little leery. “And you started playing music with your family around age 10 or so.” He nodded. “Your father taught you how to play the guitar. So how did you go from the guitar to the Dobro?”
“Well there were always string instruments in our home.” Curtis started into his story, “I started with the guitar, went to the banjo, then the mandolin, the fiddle, the bass and then the Dobro. It was just different than anything else. I heard this sound on the radio. I asked my dad what that instrument was making that sound. I could tell they were using a slide. Dad didn’t know, but he said he’d find out. He found out it was a Dobro. It had been Josh Graves with Flatt and Scruggs I had heard. I bought every record I could find of his. I learned all that he played. I did the same with Scott Jackson and Pete Kirby. I went from there to my own ideas.”
From a mutual friend, musician and writer Mitchell Plumlee, I learned that Curtis at first could not find a Dobro to play and finally discovered that the Dopyera Brothers (part of the family responsible for the invention and manufacturing of the Dobro) were making Dobros in California. Soon after this discovery, Curtis’ dad bought him his first Dobro from the Dopyera Brothers. With that Curtis began a correspondence with the brothers and learned that another Dobro playing musician by the name of Robert ‘Tut’ Taylor lived near to him. The Burch family had since moved from Alabama to Georgia. Curtis and his family lived in Brunswick—on the coast—and Tut lived in Milledgeville close to Macon.
“Now during all this time,” Curtis went on, “all over the South there were all these big music festivals. We went to a good many of them and I was absorbing things, you know. I decided around 1971 to move to Nashville to be closer to the industry. I had a high school friend that had moved there already. I knew a few people there.”
Curtis held up his hand and motioned with his index finger. “I’m gonna back up a minute. During one of these music festivals I had seen Sam Bush play. Months before I had decided to move I had seen Sam play with the Bluegrass Alliance at the Boars Nest in Savannah. We had gone back to his hotel room and jammed. I realized that Sam was doing what I wanted to be doing.”
Once in Nashville, Curtis started work at GTR, (George Gruhn, Tut Taylor, and Randy Woods) a well known guitar/banjo shop. It was also during this brief period that prominent musician Norman Blake had started introducing Curtis to the studio scene in Nashville. Curtis tracked down Sam Bush and just prior to Labor Day weekend of 1971 he auditioned for the Bluegrass Alliance to replace Tony Rice who was leaving to work with JD Crowe and the New South. The Bluegrass Alliance was slated to play the Camp Springs Festival that very weekend. “I got it (the audition) because I could sing tenor and harmonize and I could play anything. I would be playing the guitar and the Dobro.”
Taking a long drink of iced tea, he went on, “Now at this time the Bluegrass Alliance was based out of Louisville so I had to up and move having just moved to Nashville, but I didn’t have much so I thought no big deal.”
This new line-up of the Bluegrass Alliance didn’t last long though, personal reasons and legalities soon brought Sam Bush, Curtis Burch, Courtney Johnson and Ebo Walker to the decision to leave BA and start their own band. The name New Grass ironically came from a BA album cover. The cover art showed a packet of grass seeds being poured out and on the packet was written “New Grass”. At the time Credence Clearwater Revival was still on the music charts with its’ own unique sound and the concept of a ‘revival’ was one they all appreciated. All four young men were also fans of CCR, making the new band name an easy agreement, and so the New Grass Revival was another arrival on the revolutionary music scene of the early 1970’s.
Moving back to east Nashville, it wasn’t long before they’d landed their first record deal. Starday Records, out of Beaumont, Texas, owned by Lefty Frizzell's manager, Jack Starnes, and Houston record distributor Harold W. Daily, paid for the studio time at a small studio in Goodlettsville, TN. They provided an engineer and a producer. Neither the engineer nor the producer interfered with the band’s creative process. In an era of formula bands and ‘pop stars’ the four men of New Grass Revival had the miracle of complete artistic control.
Needless to say I was flabbergasted. I said to Curtis, “Are you serious?” He chuckled and replied, “It was because nobody knew what we were doing. We were just starting to break into the college crowds. The hippie crowd had started to get into our music. Our material was all original. It was all acoustic. Nothing was plugged in. We just played into mics. Once the record came out, the records stores didn’t know what bin to put us in. The radio stations didn’t know which rotation to put us in. That was never our intention. We just wrote and played music.”
The B side of the story was that New Grass Revival was shunned by the Bluegrass music community and somewhat by the Country and Western music community. Other genres pigeon-holed NGR as Bluegrass or Country making them excluded from those circles as well.
When bassist Ebo Walker left NGR and was replaced by banjo player Butch Robins, who took up the bass, a drummer was also introduced into their sound. Sometime later after Butch had left and the drummer dropped, it was decided to “plug up” the instruments. The audition to replace Butch would also add yet another dynamic to New Grass Revival.
It was Kentuckian, Ken Smith, aka Kenny Lee, that was asked to fill Butch Robins’ slot. On Kenny’s suggestion the band auditioned then rocker John Cowan. “You’ll find this funny.” snickered Curtis, “We were playing in Louisville and around the corner from where we playing John was playing with a rock band. His girlfriend made the suggestion that during his band’s break that he sneak over and check out this band playing around the corner—us. He did and that was his introduction to us. I remember when he came to the audition and he got out the car, his hair was down to his butt.” I laughed. “Really. Back then Bluegrass bands dressed the same. Had short hair. Wore string ties and the like. We already caught so much grief ‘cuz we had long hair and wore whatever we felt like. Here comes this kid with this long hair…”
John Cowan nailed that audition, but not so much with his bass playing abilities, but with his voice. Curtis, who had been singing tenor all this time, could now return to singing his more preferred baritone. Equipped now with the amazing voice of John Cowan, the band could ‘expand’ its’ vocal strength. “Now to tell the truth John was a fair bass player in the beginning but he pushed himself hard to be a great bass player. The best thing was that on stage he was never afraid to cut loose.” Curtis gave a little shake of his head and his gaze went somewhere past me. Coming back he smiled and then added, “John’s addition allowed us to expand in many directions.”
In modern music history this line-up of Curtis Burch, Sam Bush, Courtney Johnson and John Cowan is referred to as the First Classic New Grass Revival line-up and it would last for nearly ten years.
The Inspiring Run of Curtis Burch (Part two)
by Franne J.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 11:21 AM CDT
He nodded at my guitar and said: "It's a tough life, ain't it?" from “Beat the Devil”, Kris Kristofferson
“Nashville is like crawling on broken glass”, says Curtis Burch as he continued to talk about New Grass Revival and the years he spent touring in what is now called the first classic line-up of NGR. We chatted back and forth about his professional music experience in the Nashville music scene and I, having witnessed so many other musician stories during the time I had lived in Nashville, understood exactly what he had meant by that statement. A line from a Shawn Mullins song rippled through my head as Curtis sipped his iced tea., “Seems like everybody here’s got a plan, kinda like Nashville with a tan”
“You know at the time we lived there it could take you half an hour to go two miles. We came back to Kentucky and we would just commute to Nashville if there was a need.” I laughed and added, “Yeah and that was before 440? Right?” In that moment of laughter and commensuration, Curtis realized he had had his sunglasses on the whole time. I had to chuckle a little at his embarrassment, “I don’t care. It wasn’t botherin’ me.” and I put my hand to mouth to suppress yet another chuckle and wanting to say, “Well you are a Rock Star, and thereby have earned the eccentric right of sitting in an indoor public place wearing shades."
And though not a rock music star, Curtis Burch has now for over half a century been a professional musician who has stood on stage with numerous music legends—too many to mention—and more than twice that many have asked him to record with them. His ‘status’ as an artist in the music world these days is one of awe and reverence, regardless of the genre.
“We (NGR) signed to Flying Fish Records out of Chicago.” he said, talking about right after John Cowan joined New Grass Revival, “We made five records with that label. We still had full artistic control...” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes to reinforce his own disbelief to me. "They told us we could pick our studio. We just kept on making music like we had before.”
Perhaps I didn’t dig deep enough to find any chart listings for any of those records, but the fact that NGR recorded five albums on Flying Fish is testimony enough. Though as Curtis said, “No one knew where to put us.” So which chart tracked them? A review of Fly Through the Country by James Leary in Folklore Forum dated 1976 states simply that “it is a mixture of solid instrumentation, witty eclecticism, and raw excitement” and that seemed to be the running theme to every review written about their albums on Flying Fish Records.
“We stopped playing at Bluegrass Festivals and did more Americana venues. We started touring all over the United States. We toured the whole country two or three times. You have to play the DC area. Everybody plays DC. It’s just one of those big things to get your name out. I think the Midwest was the hardest for us. Nobody knew who we were. It was the 1973 and 1974 Telluride Festivals that helped get us known there and out West.”
Somewhere in amongst the five records and the tire-eating tour schedule is the beginning of the Leon Russell years. As Curtis tells the story, Leon Russell is an event in his career instead of a legendary musician. In doing basic research, I discovered that quite a bit of material about Leon Russell barely mentions New Grass Revival. One reference does describe NGR as “Leon Russell’s bluegrass band.” Contrary to that is the material on NGR that nearly always mentions touring with Leon Russell. What is undeniable is that one did influence the other.
The relationship between New Grass Revival and Leon Russell began with Butch Robins, a former NGR member. Robins was doing session work with Russell, who at the time was venturing into the Country and Western genre, when Robins planted the seed. Robins mentioned to Leon Russell, that he should look at New Grass Revival. Robins also pointed out to Russell that NGR covered one of Russell’s songs and it was a favorite with NGR fans, that song being “Prince of Peace.”
At the height of his “rock star” fame Leon Russell recorded “Hank Wilson’s Back I” under the name Hank Wilson. In 1973 Chet Flippo of Rolling Stone magazine wrote this about that record:
It's become a stale joke in Nashville that rock singers who come around to cut with Nashville cats are either seeking first aid for an ailing career, or trying to ease over into country careers. Some suspected that Leon Russell may have been brooding on the second possibility when he transformed himself into Hank Wilson earlier this year and cut 36 songs in marathon sessions with some of Nashville's finest. But now that Vol. I is out, it seems clear as spring water that he did it just because he loves the music.
Leon Russell, now catching the occasional swat of condemnation that New Grass Revival had always endured, continued on as well by joining forces with Willie Nelson for Nelson’s first Fourth of July concert bash and he kept doing them. Right along 1979 that seed that Butch Robins had planted started sprouting and Leon Russell called New Grass Revival and asked them to be the opening act on his next tour. Curtis clearly remembers Leon stating, “I like Willie’s boys, but they can’t play my music.” And with that New Grass Revival became two entities—themselves and Leon Russell’s band.
“It was an unbelievable opportunity,” said Curtis reflecting on touring with Leon Russell, “He was huge and here we are opening for him and then playing with him.” But it didn’t take long for things to change. As New Grass Revival started growing in popularity with the fans that flocked to see Leon Russell, the members of NGR noticed their set list, the time that saw just New Grass Revival on stage, was being shortened bit by bit. Eventually the individual presence of NewGrass Revival had all but disappeared.
Musically unhappy and discontented with the hard life of constant touring that included stops in Europe, Japan and Australia let alone a grueling schedule in the United States, something withered inside NGR. Desperately wanting to end the hardship it put on their families, both Curtis Burch and Courtney Johnson made the decision to leave New Grass Revival. Curtis returned to western Kentucky and took up the trade of an electrician.
Right away musicians, producers and even friends started calling asking him to play on projects and albums. Before he knew it he was headed back down the road of touring constantly again. He did his best to limit his time away from his family, but as the years rolled on Curtis realized he was working and playing more than he had with New Grass Revival. Yet the love Curtis had for making music was continually pushing him on to the next new project.
In 1993 old friends Tut Taylor and Jerry Douglas asked Curtis to contribute to a project they were calling The Great Dobro Sessions. The starting idea was to have a collective of world renowned Dobro players record different tracks. Each player was to bring two original tunes to the record. Regardless of how the album started, ideas shifted and the result was the 1995 Grammy Award winner for Best Bluegrass Album. I asked about a story I’d heard from Mitchell Plumlee that involved a water heater and that Grammy. Curtis rolled his eyes and coughed it up with a sigh, like a favorite uncle reluctant to recount his glory days. He went on to talk about Jerry Douglas. Curtis said, “Just being nominated is a big deal and is enough for a lot of people…me included. Jerry has won, I don’t know maybe thirty Grammys alone, not to mention all the other awards.” And he tapped the table hard to make his point, “Now that’s tall cotton.”
I have to agree, but Jerry Douglas is only one of a great many outstanding musicians that seek out Curtis Burch to record or perform live with them. Another life-long friend, Norman Blake, recruited Curtis for the soundtrack of O Brother Where Art Thou. And while those two head-lining achievements are of course the ones that are more commonly known to the general populace, it is really the multitude of his other work that heralds Curtis Burch as a master of his craft - a dobro player. Even the creators of the instrument –the Dopyera Family—have awarded Curtis with the John Dopyera Award for Achievement and Excellence in the Art of Dobro Playing.
After reading through all the names listed on his website and all the others mentioned here and there in pages of cross referenced material, I realized that the last few years weren’t recorded anywhere and so I e-mailed Curtis to ask if he wouldn’t mind bringing me current. Once again I had to shake my head at his response. Trying to comprehend just how much the hand of Curtis Burch has shaped the ever changing landscape of American music, I thought about the colors and images in any Edward Hopper painting. There in a composition of an every day scene is the simple beauty of an artist’s love for what he does.
A few of the artists that have recently wanted the essence of Curtis Burch to be heard in their music are Larry Keel, David Via, and Larry Weiss, never mind all the others that are simple reoccurring request or his bounty of friends. Like the Robert Frost line, ‘miles to go before I sleep’, Curtis’ journey through that landscape seems to be far from over. As with any true master, Curtis started teaching and has since 1986. To pass to the next generation his gift and passion he’s taken it to a new level at the suggestion of yet another music legend, Bobby Osborne, at the Kentucky School of Bluegrass and Traditional Music in Hayden, KY.
Years ago, in a moment of spontaneity on stage that would become tradition and yet morphed again into an ironic prediction, Sam Bush asked a concert crowd if they knew ‘what time it was?’ Sam answered the crowd that night by saying it was ‘Dobro Time’. That act of guffaw between friends was truncated to ‘Dr Time’ and then transformed itself again into ‘Dr. Dobro Time’. Now and forever known as Dr. Dobro, Curtis Burch continues to share his love of music, life, family, and even Kentucky with humanity.
In my own moment of impulse as Curtis and I left that little sandwich shop on Russellville Road, I asked electrician, teacher, Doctor Dobro and artist Curtis Burch, “What one place in Kentucky inspires you the most?” He smiled big and said, “Home. Home does.” He waved and slipped his sunglasses back on and said, “Gotta run now. See ya.”
I was still shaking my head. It’s just not every day that you get to sip iced tea with a living legend.
The Inspiring Run of Curtis Burch (Part two)
by Franne J.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 11:21 AM CDT
He nodded at my guitar and said: "It's a tough life, ain't it?" from “Beat the Devil”, Kris Kristofferson
“Nashville is like crawling on broken glass”, says Curtis Burch as he continued to talk about New Grass Revival and the years he spent touring in what is now called the first classic line-up of NGR. We chatted back and forth about his professional music experience in the Nashville music scene and I, having witnessed so many other musician stories during the time I had lived in Nashville, understood exactly what he had meant by that statement. A line from a Shawn Mullins song rippled through my head as Curtis sipped his iced tea., “Seems like everybody here’s got a plan, kinda like Nashville with a tan”
“You know at the time we lived there it could take you half an hour to go two miles. We came back to Kentucky and we would just commute to Nashville if there was a need.” I laughed and added, “Yeah and that was before 440? Right?” In that moment of laughter and commensuration, Curtis realized he had had his sunglasses on the whole time. I had to chuckle a little at his embarrassment, “I don’t care. It wasn’t botherin’ me.” and I put my hand to mouth to suppress yet another chuckle and wanting to say, “Well you are a Rock Star, and thereby have earned the eccentric right of sitting in an indoor public place wearing shades."
And though not a rock music star, Curtis Burch has now for over half a century been a professional musician who has stood on stage with numerous music legends—too many to mention—and more than twice that many have asked him to record with them. His ‘status’ as an artist in the music world these days is one of awe and reverence, regardless of the genre.
“We (NGR) signed to Flying Fish Records out of Chicago.” he said, talking about right after John Cowan joined New Grass Revival, “We made five records with that label. We still had full artistic control...” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes to reinforce his own disbelief to me. "They told us we could pick our studio. We just kept on making music like we had before.”
Perhaps I didn’t dig deep enough to find any chart listings for any of those records, but the fact that NGR recorded five albums on Flying Fish is testimony enough. Though as Curtis said, “No one knew where to put us.” So which chart tracked them? A review of Fly Through the Country by James Leary in Folklore Forum dated 1976 states simply that “it is a mixture of solid instrumentation, witty eclecticism, and raw excitement” and that seemed to be the running theme to every review written about their albums on Flying Fish Records.
“We stopped playing at Bluegrass Festivals and did more Americana venues. We started touring all over the United States. We toured the whole country two or three times. You have to play the DC area. Everybody plays DC. It’s just one of those big things to get your name out. I think the Midwest was the hardest for us. Nobody knew who we were. It was the 1973 and 1974 Telluride Festivals that helped get us known there and out West.”
Somewhere in amongst the five records and the tire-eating tour schedule is the beginning of the Leon Russell years. As Curtis tells the story, Leon Russell is an event in his career instead of a legendary musician. In doing basic research, I discovered that quite a bit of material about Leon Russell barely mentions New Grass Revival. One reference does describe NGR as “Leon Russell’s bluegrass band.” Contrary to that is the material on NGR that nearly always mentions touring with Leon Russell. What is undeniable is that one did influence the other.
The relationship between New Grass Revival and Leon Russell began with Butch Robins, a former NGR member. Robins was doing session work with Russell, who at the time was venturing into the Country and Western genre, when Robins planted the seed. Robins mentioned to Leon Russell, that he should look at New Grass Revival. Robins also pointed out to Russell that NGR covered one of Russell’s songs and it was a favorite with NGR fans, that song being “Prince of Peace.”
At the height of his “rock star” fame Leon Russell recorded “Hank Wilson’s Back I” under the name Hank Wilson. In 1973 Chet Flippo of Rolling Stone magazine wrote this about that record:
It's become a stale joke in Nashville that rock singers who come around to cut with Nashville cats are either seeking first aid for an ailing career, or trying to ease over into country careers. Some suspected that Leon Russell may have been brooding on the second possibility when he transformed himself into Hank Wilson earlier this year and cut 36 songs in marathon sessions with some of Nashville's finest. But now that Vol. I is out, it seems clear as spring water that he did it just because he loves the music.
Leon Russell, now catching the occasional swat of condemnation that New Grass Revival had always endured, continued on as well by joining forces with Willie Nelson for Nelson’s first Fourth of July concert bash and he kept doing them. Right along 1979 that seed that Butch Robins had planted started sprouting and Leon Russell called New Grass Revival and asked them to be the opening act on his next tour. Curtis clearly remembers Leon stating, “I like Willie’s boys, but they can’t play my music.” And with that New Grass Revival became two entities—themselves and Leon Russell’s band.
“It was an unbelievable opportunity,” said Curtis reflecting on touring with Leon Russell, “He was huge and here we are opening for him and then playing with him.” But it didn’t take long for things to change. As New Grass Revival started growing in popularity with the fans that flocked to see Leon Russell, the members of NGR noticed their set list, the time that saw just New Grass Revival on stage, was being shortened bit by bit. Eventually the individual presence of NewGrass Revival had all but disappeared.
Musically unhappy and discontented with the hard life of constant touring that included stops in Europe, Japan and Australia let alone a grueling schedule in the United States, something withered inside NGR. Desperately wanting to end the hardship it put on their families, both Curtis Burch and Courtney Johnson made the decision to leave New Grass Revival. Curtis returned to western Kentucky and took up the trade of an electrician.
Right away musicians, producers and even friends started calling asking him to play on projects and albums. Before he knew it he was headed back down the road of touring constantly again. He did his best to limit his time away from his family, but as the years rolled on Curtis realized he was working and playing more than he had with New Grass Revival. Yet the love Curtis had for making music was continually pushing him on to the next new project.
In 1993 old friends Tut Taylor and Jerry Douglas asked Curtis to contribute to a project they were calling The Great Dobro Sessions. The starting idea was to have a collective of world renowned Dobro players record different tracks. Each player was to bring two original tunes to the record. Regardless of how the album started, ideas shifted and the result was the 1995 Grammy Award winner for Best Bluegrass Album. I asked about a story I’d heard from Mitchell Plumlee that involved a water heater and that Grammy. Curtis rolled his eyes and coughed it up with a sigh, like a favorite uncle reluctant to recount his glory days. He went on to talk about Jerry Douglas. Curtis said, “Just being nominated is a big deal and is enough for a lot of people…me included. Jerry has won, I don’t know maybe thirty Grammys alone, not to mention all the other awards.” And he tapped the table hard to make his point, “Now that’s tall cotton.”
I have to agree, but Jerry Douglas is only one of a great many outstanding musicians that seek out Curtis Burch to record or perform live with them. Another life-long friend, Norman Blake, recruited Curtis for the soundtrack of O Brother Where Art Thou. And while those two head-lining achievements are of course the ones that are more commonly known to the general populace, it is really the multitude of his other work that heralds Curtis Burch as a master of his craft - a dobro player. Even the creators of the instrument –the Dopyera Family—have awarded Curtis with the John Dopyera Award for Achievement and Excellence in the Art of Dobro Playing.
After reading through all the names listed on his website and all the others mentioned here and there in pages of cross referenced material, I realized that the last few years weren’t recorded anywhere and so I e-mailed Curtis to ask if he wouldn’t mind bringing me current. Once again I had to shake my head at his response. Trying to comprehend just how much the hand of Curtis Burch has shaped the ever changing landscape of American music, I thought about the colors and images in any Edward Hopper painting. There in a composition of an every day scene is the simple beauty of an artist’s love for what he does.
A few of the artists that have recently wanted the essence of Curtis Burch to be heard in their music are Larry Keel, David Via, and Larry Weiss, never mind all the others that are simple reoccurring request or his bounty of friends. Like the Robert Frost line, ‘miles to go before I sleep’, Curtis’ journey through that landscape seems to be far from over. As with any true master, Curtis started teaching and has since 1986. To pass to the next generation his gift and passion he’s taken it to a new level at the suggestion of yet another music legend, Bobby Osborne, at the Kentucky School of Bluegrass and Traditional Music in Hayden, KY.
Years ago, in a moment of spontaneity on stage that would become tradition and yet morphed again into an ironic prediction, Sam Bush asked a concert crowd if they knew ‘what time it was?’ Sam answered the crowd that night by saying it was ‘Dobro Time’. That act of guffaw between friends was truncated to ‘Dr Time’ and then transformed itself again into ‘Dr. Dobro Time’. Now and forever known as Dr. Dobro, Curtis Burch continues to share his love of music, life, family, and even Kentucky with humanity.
In my own moment of impulse as Curtis and I left that little sandwich shop on Russellville Road, I asked electrician, teacher, Doctor Dobro and artist Curtis Burch, “What one place in Kentucky inspires you the most?” He smiled big and said, “Home. Home does.” He waved and slipped his sunglasses back on and said, “Gotta run now. See ya.”
I was still shaking my head. It’s just not every day that you get to sip iced tea with a living legend.
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