Just recently, I lost a close friend that I never had the privilege of meeting personally. Here in Los Angeles, where news about anything other than Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and O.J. Simpson travels very slowly, a small item on the obituary page contained the picture of a familiar face and a terse wire services report announcing the death of Hughie Thomasson, at 55, of an apparent heart attack suffered at his home in Brooksville, Florida. As it is my habit to peruse the L.A. Times while my morning oatmeal, it is often the I've been left saddened upon instantly recognizing the face in a photograph detailing the recent demise of some noteworthy figure. Sometimes, the person in question is well known and the news travels at great speed as tributes and memorials pour in by the hundreds of thousands. Really famous people make the front page, often interrupting, however briefly, the latest round of antics attributed to Britney, Lindsey, and "The Juice." Some faces, whose names are previously known to only to their families and casting directors bring a rush of recollections like, "Yeah, I remember that guy. He always played a grouch, or a gangster, or a tough guy..." And then there are some faces, unfamiliar to the vast majority, that are loved and admired by large and small clusters of fans in disparately far reaches of the globe. Into this category you can place the name of Hughie Thomasson.
My first introduction to the Outlaws music came while riding along with my older brother in my mom's 1970 Buick Le Sabre (An ugly green monster with a surprisingly powerful engine that we'd nicknamed, "the boat.") on an errand that had sent us some thirty miles out of Orange County to Pomona to look for camera equipment. Local L.A. disk jockey Joe Benson (who I believe was on either the now defunct 94.7 KMET or 95.5 KLOS) was in the middle of an album sides Sunday (back when they played albums and weren't tied to some evil corporate play list) as we climbed back into the "boat" and headed for home. Benson's deep baritone was just rumbling out that we were about to be entreated to side four of the album Bring It Back Alive. We'd missed the name of the artist and soon were caught up in the opening chord sequence that stopped and started, and tantalized before finally being joined by the sounds emitting from a pair of Les Paul's, a similarly pulsating bass and and a pair of drums punctuated by a shimmering crash of symbols. Out of the speakers came a mournful, half-spoken, half cried, heartfelt vocal lyrics that told of, "...bursts of tambourines...silver stages...golden curtains....castles of stone..." fuzzy psychedelic imagery invoking the images of fallen idols. Kings and queens bowing and playing before an audience of kindred souls. As the odometer on the old Buick added up mile after mile and the clock on the dashboard recorded the passage of time, the Florida Guitar Army soldiered on and on from one progressive sequence to the next adding layer upon layer of frenzied guitars and piston-like drum beats while we traveled the road home. Both of us bopped and along deliriously not wanting the siege to end, but waiting with baited breath to find the source of this magic. We pulled up in front of the house, my brother dashing inside to answer the call made upon his exploding bladder from the long car ride and the twelve pack that we'd drained on the trip to and from the camera shop, as I waited for the fury to end so that Benson could tell us the name of the new church that we'd both be joining. After final stanzas wound down and I heard for the first time the now all too familiar notes being wrung out of Hughie's black Fender Strat, I knew that I'd never be the same.
As fate would have it, a vacation visit to my father's home state of Florida a year later and the combined the impact that the music of The Outlaws, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, the Allman Brothers and seemingly everything about the the south had struck a chord with me and my brother Chuck and I packed up my Volvo and headed 3000 miles across the country to experience "gator country" for ourselves. Being in the backyard of the Florida music scene came with certain privileges. The bands visited the state at least twice a year, the weather and the girls were the source of endless beauty and wonder, and the drinking age was 18! Concerts featuring line-ups like Outlaws, Molly Hatchet and .38 Special kept our ears wringing and heads buzzing while our friends back home were dressing up like she-males and listening to new wave and punk garbage. My brother Chuck, cousin Adlai, and I each saw the Outlaws on several occasions (Eight for me from '79 to '81) and were treated to the likes of Blackfoot, the Rossington-Collins Band, The Henry Paul Band, and ZZTop (back when they were still the "real" ZZTop!) several times. I loved all of these bands, but for me, it was the Outlaws that just screamed "Florida!" The diversity of the three vocalists/guitarists (Hughie, Billy Jones, and Henry Paul) and the union of their combined vocals and instruments made me wonder, many more times than once, why bands of lesser talent became so much bigger, yet probably stood shaking in the wings when at the thought of following them onstage. The first three Outlaws albums are about as pure a representation of Southern-fried musical influence and dexterity of delivery of any group south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Like the Allman Brothers before them, the Outlaws were a special meld of styles that each of it's members added to make a stew far too eclectic to be branded under the ponderously short-sited label of "Southern Rock." In Henry Paul, they had a writer as insightful as Tennessee Williams and a voice as historically accurate as Shelby Foot.(Knoxville Girl, South Carolina, Gunsmoke...) In Billy Jones, they had a soulfully lilting "cry for love" kind of voice (Cry No More, It Follows From The Heart, Prisoner...) and a sometimes jazzy, sometimes bluesy, sometimes bluegrass, and always smoking guitar attack as ferocious as caged badger being prodded with a sharp stick. In Hughie Thomasson, they had it all. Cleverly written, hook-laced songs (There Goes Another Love Song, Lover Boy, Hurry Sundown, Green Grass and High Tides...) strangled, heartfelt vocals, and a guitar wizardry that would have Jimmy Page stroking his chin in amazement. Their collective talents helped to make me introspective and respectful in terms of relationships with people, reverence for tradition and respect for all things human and in nature, got me through many a lonely night. The could make me cry, lift me up, and have me dancing on my chair while singing along with a few thousand collective souls caught up in the shared experience.
The Outlaws represented magic to me. The magic that my cousin Adlai and I (to paraphrase a thought of his in one of the tributes to Hughie) bursting through the doors and running as fast as we could to stake out a spot close to the stage. The magic that got both of us through our separation when he joined the Navy, shipped off to Japan (..."Lonesome and lonely and far from my home....") and the magic that still has us ties together as two descendants from a Florida born man and his Kentucky-born wife. I know that all of us have memories and special people that that help to ground us in our existence, remind us of the links to our past, and define us as people. The Outlaws, and especially Hughie Thomasson, represents many cherished memories for me. I'll miss being able to see him on stage, legs spread wide as if riding an imaginary horse, squeezing out the last few crackling notes of Green Grass and High Tides before and exhausted, outwardly elated audience. His words and music will never leave my consciousness until the minute that my consciousness leaves me.
I raise my glass and toast you as you ride the range with that band of fellow ghost riders. You sang a great many songs that spoke to me.....this song is for you.
A few shows that you may download from my Media Fire files to give you something to raise your own glass to:
Outlaws recorded live in Pittsburgh, November 28, 1981.
