Hey, it's Bob Pickett. We are on our way to the legendary Broken Spoke. Come on, let's get out the truck and head inside. And damn you're proud of it. Come on, it's going side, getting ready for another Tale from the Broken Spoke. Welcome back, and we got some stories for you today. It's Tales from the Broken Spoke. I'm Bob Pickets sending to Willie Nelson Booth and my friend mister Monnie Warden. Money. We
gotta we're gonna have fun. Today is already fun. Yeah. Would you like to introduce the guests and to everybody who we have we have right here on Tales from the Broken Spoke. Mister Leroy Eickler, a drummer, veteran of the Broken Spoke and famed award winning George straight Buster. You get him where he needs to be, that's exactly right. How long where he is today? There? It is? Okay, I don't war about that. But also we need to say that Leroy is an award winner. You just
picked up a big award this year. It'll be January the twelfth in Nashville. And what was that award for being the longest driver for the same artist of anybody in music history. Wow. Okay, and how many years is that? Forty one? So far? Forty one? You've been George Straight's bus driver for forty one years. Next year will be forty two money. That's a lot of mileage right there, isn't it? Huh? God,
I don't even want to think about that. So when George graduated from a van to a bus, you with a bus driver and still are I actually hit him up for a job driving a bus before he even had a bus. Wow. Yeah. He was a good friend of mine from well, everybody knows him, Johnny Lyons and coy Okay, he was playing George is playing the Hall of Fame over in Brian one night, and he knew that I was working the group at that time called Silver Creek, And uh,
Johnny said, I got this guy coming in. I think he's going to be pretty hot. And so he said, y'all are off that night, why don't you come on over? So I did, and I wrote up a little resume on a piece of paper about now, that was just before or after you saw George? You wrote up the resume four or four?
Right? Four? I went to the club to see him maybe you put on a napkin or him say wait a minute, And I wrote that I had played with the guy by the Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters out of Taylor, Texas for five years, which we used to play here at the Broken Spoke. Then I worked. Then I left that band and went to work with the Moods of Country Music for thirteen years, and we had a bus, and and Jimmy Heap had a bus also. Then I went to work with a group called Silver Creek, and that we had a bus.
Well, I go over to see George at Hall of Fame in Brian, Texas. He pulling a trailer with a van, and I had ridden the bands and the buses. You know that I'd driven three different bands, three different buses. I said, I think you're gonna be pretty good. I said, if you ever buy a bus, I'd like a shot at driving it. So he said, I actually had one ordered I said. He said. I said, well that was the day of those four speed Silver
Eagle buses. And he said, I said, well, if this guy can't shift, he's up here grinding gears, I'd like a shot at driving. I'm trying to do the math in my head, which I'm terrible at. So this is about forty one forty two years ago. You did this right, forty one years that would be nine eight one, so unwound would have direcked be a hit. Correct. Yeah? Right? Well, now he hired this driver and he couldn't shift gears. So George called me.
He said, you're still interested in driving that bus for me? I said sure, but I said, well, I got to give at least two weeks notice to this group called Silver Creek that I'm playing with. So I it was one he called me, and I was actually playing with Johnny Lion a pickup gig in Huntsville, Texas with Johnny lyon. The phone rings over there. The club owner comes, get Leroy, you have a phone call. I said, okay. So I didn't know if it was my mother
trying to get a hold of me or what. So I went and got up the phone. He said, hey, this is George straight. I said yes, sir. He said, you still want the job driving the bus? I said sure, so he said kick me and Norma. Norma his wife wanted to go to Houston to a k I k K radio deal. You know, back when they do all that promotion. There was a key I KK radio yeah, and uh, he said, we'll leave. We want to leave Monday. This was Sunday night. I said where do
you live? I said, yeah, I'll do it. I said where do you live? He told me San Marcus. I said, well, duh, we're in St. Marcas. So he said it was Lacey Lacey Lane. I think. I said it's a bus there. He said yes. I said, okay, I'll be there. I said, I'll park my El Camino in front of your bus and you come knock on the window. Okay, then wait a minute, Wait a minute. So you are the bus driver, you've never driven this bus, and you've got the most
important person in the back of the bus, and you're open. You had to be sweating. Well. But also, I've got ken that lives on a lazy lane and it is a one shot suburban. It's a beautiful, beautiful street, but there is no spot to turn around. I don't know how. I don't know where driveway or yard you passed through to do that. But it's your first time to drive that bus correct and you're trying to make an impression. I driven the bus quite a year A few years.
But it is every bus the same just about or no, they're all different. Wow. So anyhow, I said, well, come wake me up. I'll be in sleeping my old Camino. So he come knocking on the window at eight o'clock, I'll crawl in the bus. Forty Virgin Norma went to Houston and I come back and I've been with him ever since. Wow, that's fantastic, man, that's a heck of an AUDITIONE Have I ever heard one? He could have been desperate, I don't know, paid off
well. But also you know, it's like what I know. You know, I don't know George, but I've been around him a few times because he's. One thing everybody knows about George trade is he is so gracious to songwriters that have written hits for him. He knows that's where his songs come from. So he's always treated my family like he's known us one hundred years.
But you know one thing that that I know from the people around him, and it's the exact same thing that I've always heard from the people that worked with Elvis is they said Elvis and they said George, it's they're not real keen on new people and they like their team, and their team's great. And you look at all those people that have been with straight picking with him in the band. Wait, wait, there's more to this, because you're not gonna leave. We've got a lot of people in that band,
right, That's exactly right. And that's my point is is just so just once you get used to somebody being around, and Leroy drives a bus and it works, and you you know, and also every artist I've ever known, myself included, we're a little bit superstitious. And it starts, you know, Lero starts driving for him and he gets more and more famous. Why why would you monkey with that math? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. If it's not broken, I'll fix it. Well.
And also, you know, it's until you go out on the road with a bus, you don't it's not just a bus driver. It's a it's a peacekeeper, it's a it's a navigator, it's a it's a guy who's got his first job is driving George to Houston. And we know what Houston traffic is like. Well, but it's all that, but it's also you know, it is snowstorms, it's hurricanes, it's everything. And you just got it. You have to drive that. You want a bus driver
that just is this even keel? Nothing spooks some tornado warning, that's all right. We'd be just fine. Never had bad weather. We'll driving the bus, my gosh, for years. Come on, tell me what's the worst one. I would probably think. We were in Minnesota and we went from Minnesota to Fargo. First time, this old boy driving as many years I had ever been in with a blind I was blind. You couldn't stop
the bus because you'd get run over. So we just you couldn't see six feet in front of you, so you couldn't stop because sure enough somebody had to run into the back of you. That was a tough one. Uh yeah, it was. It was tough. And I never heard of the thing called meltdown. What's meltdown? Well, anytime I hit the city, we would always stop and my co driver, we'd always stop and fill up the bus for fuel whenever we hit town. Sort of waiting to get out
of town to the show, you know. So we pull up to a Petro truck stop. Sit there, I went in fuel, the bus come back out and the tires are just warm enough to cause a meltdown. For under your tires. So we sit there, put it in gear, and then you said, you just sit there and just you just melt it down so you can't move. So the guy came out and put some sand on the tires, got us going, and then I went straight down to the
shop and had him put chains on the bus. Yeah, it's uh, but I have a theory now I'm never going to chain up a bus. If it's bad enough to chain up, you don't need to be moving. Well, that's good, you don't. You don't. Well, look what happened to Shanaia Twain's bus, I know, just a few weeks ago. It's unbelievable. I mean, you don't put that thing into Earl's ship and
get it out in two weeks. She rolled it on the side. Well, I know one time we were going through Lizardhead Pass there in Colorado and we had to put chains on the bus. And it was you know the thing about when you buy a chain for your bus, they expect you to pay for it in it right then it's expensive and and uh then the guy
said, the guy sold me the change. He said, you know it's gonna ruin your tires, but it's the only way to get through lizard Head passed, and it was, you know, a couple of grand and chains. So anyway, so we did. It was the only way to make the gig, you know. And so uh we got to the filling station. They ride outside to tell you ride and I'm taking the chains off. And the guy said, that old boy at the bottom of the mountain,
tell you got to buy new tires. I said, yes, sir, and he goes, I bet you he's gonna sell them to He goes, Son, you don't have to replace those tires're just fine. I just immediately felt like a jackass. Oh yeah, I guess I come down that hill and he's gonna Thank God. When they started using cables instead of change, yeh yeah, they didn't much of anything up. How many buses had
you gone through driving George? How many? Oooh? I think it was a nineteen seventy two Eagle when I started with George and we were all on one bus, and then eighty four I think it was. We got a Model ten Eagle and then we got a I'm trying to remember this because I've got to have this for their award show in Nashville. Okay, all right. Uh. Then I think we bought a Marathon Praivo back when everything was a forty footer. Then we got a Neil Plan, a double decker nil
Plan, which is they were made in Lamar, Colorado. I love that bus because it handled so that gone good. Double decker Yep, yep it was. It was strange, but it was a cool bus. But he didn't have a slide out, and then the company wasn't gonna When you say double decker, I'm thinking like an old greyhound bus, those old double decker
Greyhound buses that used to have. It's the driving compartment was like if you were this bus was actually forty five foot from tail to the very front windshield, but that was above the driver, like if you were sitting in in a suburban. Okay, got you so, and you had doors on each side just like a suburban for the driver area. Well, I had a coffee maker down there, I had everything I was. You had your own little nook down there. That's kind of nice. It did a lot.
Anyhow. Then we then we bought a Pravo H three, then another Pravo H three, then another Praivo H three, and uh, actually we just ordered a brand new bus. Now, okay you say that, but I just saw when this bus is brand new and that was just about what three years? Yeah, come on, and the way that George and you guys tour. Now. You don't have a lot of miles in this bus, do you? Sixty four thousand miles? That's it and it's time for a new one. It must be time to change the oil or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, what what's why? What's the big thing now with buses? I mean, what's the big difference between this new bus and the bus you have now? Oh? You know he puts what whatever you want you're in a bus nowadays you can get Yeah, I mean like the one we have now has won two, three, four, five, six, seven TV's in it, eight counting the one in the bay down below. But it's it's nothing like the old days where he had all the bunks on
the bus at all, is it. No? This particular bus has the state room in the back and three three bunks you know, for me and a co driver and an extra one. Always hear that when Willie came back home that he would rather sleep out in the bus than sleep in his house, just because it was the bus was home. Hag was the same way. Really yeah. Well, and also it's like it's there, like George does not get a hotel room. Vegas is the only place he ever gets
a hotel room. He had enormous stay on that bus, but why not. Yeah, it's got everything in it a man or a woman would need. And you've got your own. You've got like built in security. Yes on the back are you saying that, leroy security? Yeah, well you're you're the built in security. But also and when God forbid, should something happen, you can just started up and drive. That's right. Oh,
you're not going to be hassled also if you stay on the bus. But I'll say also about you know, the thing been my experience with country fans, there is so little hassle. Really. They want to meet you, they want to shake your hand, they want to tell you what your music means to them, and they really don't want much more than that, you know, have their picture made in an autograph and then they you know, it's really a beautiful relationship that I know that it is unlike any other in
other genres. It's like a big family. Let's get back to the to the the Pure Country Days. Are you in that movie? Yes, sir, I was driving the first lead bus and those we had two eagles on that shut that deal. Shoot, I was in the front bus and you guys film that mainly up and Fort Worth, right, Yeah, because I remember getting the call to come up there and watch you guys. But back then it was live radio and we couldn't really get off the air and go
up there and see it. Wow, that's so cool change. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a cool experience. Yeah. My father in law, Brandy's dad, he's past now, but he wrote the second song in that movie. He wrote baby Your Baby. Really, yeah, my father in law did. And when Brooks, that the boy our son you met when he was little, he was tiny. His grandpa wrote a hit for George, and his daddy wrote a hit for George, and he just one day he asked my mother, He said, what did what did you
write for George? Straight? He just thought everybody wrote songs for George. Wow. Yeah, wow, you wrote a pretty good one. You and Bruce wrote a pretty good one. Yeah. But you know, baby your Baby. I always always thought that was I'd had a great beat. Yeah, saw it, and I still think that that's a better soundtrack than Urban
Cowboy. Oh yeah, absolutely no. Well yeah, and that was the first Tony Brown record, and that one that kind of I mean, George was already George, you know, but Pure Country took him to that stratus fere. Oh yeah, you know, it took him to stadiums, and not that he wouldn't have gotten there, but that's what put him there. Leroy, And you said you played here at this spoke. What year was that? I started in sixty four? Yeah, the year they opened.
Is this place changed any Not much air conditioning, That's what every picker says. In the day, buddy, those those walls opened up out there and you did not have a c here. But back then, this was the outskirts of Austris was actually in the country. Back then, that side of town. I've passed by this, saying going to the drum shop before and didn't even realize that I was already passed it. Oh because now because hidden, Yeah, it's hidden behind the big buildings all the time. Being a
picker, I mean I call all players picks. He's a drummer, well he's he picked drums. It's like, you know, I got a musician. I'm a drummer, That's what they said. Picker. When did you uh you know, because like for us, you know, on up, it was always like, you know, if the bass player on the PA, you're gonna fire him or the or if the guitar player on the van you were going. So when did you get your bus license? And did you do that for stability in bands or did you do that to supplement your
income? Otherwise I did it for the income. Yeah, And I'm still playing music now though. Oh yeah, tell the band now that you're with the I remember with a group called the B Side Boys. We put over in Granger, Texas at the Cotton Country Club the second fourth Sunday every month, where they get the name the B Side Boys. I think you know, David call I think, yeah, David, I think is the one that came up with that name. He can come up with some weird stuffs,
man. Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, well it isn't you know, as a songwriter, particularly back in the days of forty fives, if you wrote the B side, B side pays the same as the A side. That's right. If you buy a forty five, it's the same. Nickel whether you wrote the hit or the B side. So thank god Vinyl is coming back. It Fay's pretty good to be one of the B side boys. You know, been there a couple of seconds. It's a great group. Okay, Now we've had members of Ace and the whole
band here, Tommy's been here. But you actually helped. Well, you were a member of the organization before some of the members of the Ace and the whole band. You brought some people in, didn't you. I brought Rick McCrae, the guitar player they call him the legend is a legend, he is, he's pretty good. He's How did you know Rick, Rick and I were in that band, the Jim Heap and the Melody Masters that played here. Yeah, then he was. He and I were also in
the band called Silver Creek, and uh. I knew that George was going to change the guitar players, and so he called me to the back of the bus. He said, you know any pickers. I said yeah. He said, I'm gonna be hiring a different guitar player. I said, I know the man. It's perfect, Rick, I said, Rick McCrae. He said, where's he from? I told him? So we actually, and I'm gonna probably get this wrong, but we were doing a radio show in Connecticut or some way up somewhere, way up north, and Rick
didn't know these guys. They didn't know Rick. George hired him on my word, my recommendation, and on the way to I think it's Connecticut, Rix listened to cassettes of George's on the way to the gig. In fact, at the gig and I've got it on the what do you call the ascetate copy? Yeah, on stage George introduces and on guitar Gary McCrae. Rick is so smooth, he's one of the best. I told him, I said, Man, if I could just see you move your hand once,
it would make me feel so much bad, just effortless. He's incredible. And I'd say, anybody that's listening today, Uh, if you go to Rick McCrae's YouTube channel or Facebook page, he just picks a lot and explains how he picks it. And I still don't understand what he's doing. And I'm a musician. It's it is so informative, and it's he's so inviting, and he's such a gifted guitar player, and he's also you know, he can play anything, but it's also it's the notes he doesn't play
that make him so great. But he can be he can do all he can do, all that show boat stuff, but he plays what's supposed to be playing. Amen. There is not one superfluous note he's ever picked. And he's just uh he is incredible and and and an even better person of course, but yeah, just a just a phenomenal picker. And I encourage people to go check out those two channels online because who else did you bring to the band? Uh? Let's see uh Gene Elders, the fiddle players.
That all. Okay, okay, now wait, do you ever need somebody for a band member? I think you know who you're going to ask right here. Okay, Actually the steel player. Whenever I was playing with Silver Creek, he and I were roommates in Austin at the time, and I knew that we were going to change, or George was going to change fiddle players. So this guy's name is good good buddy man lives in Nashville right now Tony Paletta's I said, Ben, you know they fiddle players?
He said yeah, So he told me and I called Jean and uh, And Geen came over. He had been painting houses, you know, and painters close. He brings this a little cassette. I take it to George. The rest is history. There boy dang okay, and the other member there was our dear dear, my dear dear friend, everybody's friend. Uh, Mike Kennedy, the late Mike Kennedy, late Mike Kennedy, great drummer.
I was, Uh, I was Ricky. Skaggs called me and wanted me to meet the bus because his driver needed off for his waiting for his driver's son's waiting. So my wife took me to San anton and I picked got on the bus with Gags and san Antone. We went to Houston, played the show, somewhere in Oklahoma played the show, went to Santa Anna, California, played the show, and Kennedy was playing drums with Skags and
Skaggs had the most kick butt band in the world. Right, Oh yeah, tight band always had scary good anyhow, so I call, I told Kennedy, I said, dude, I said, George, is I want to try out new drummers? I said, George, your name of the hat? He said, well, hell yeah. So George did it right. There was about five guys I think that tried out for the gig, and whenever they did that old tune, their stands of Glass and they all got to play the same song, which a very way to do it.
They didn't there stands of Glass, I said, and it is our next cat man. Okay, what is it? Since you've been on the road this long, you really haven't seen the crowd change that much. It's the same people that go to all the concerts all the time. Age makes no difference. Yeah, it's all ages. I made five year four or five years old of one hundred and five, you know, been like that.
Yeah, boys, it saying about the legivity when you've got and I'm not poking fun, but you've got somebody and that age group still out there performing and he's selling out the younger cats. To me, that makes me feel great because that is country music. That is pure comfort. You know fun intended with the movie. Well, and George, you know, he's pulling bigger numbers now than he ever has. He has big his biggest gates have been in the last five months than anything he was doing in the early two
thousands. And I tell you what it is. It's country music. And also it's George Strait respects his audience. He loves those people, they love him. And what is so maddening to me just as a fan, not as a songwriter. I'm not talking about getting cuts. I'm as a fan. I'm a music fan. That's why I started picking the guitar, because music speaks to me. You know. Is how dismissive, Uh, the
industry has become to the fans. It's like, if George Strait can pull eighty he and Chris Tableten can pull one hundred thousand people at the drop of a hat part in the pun, maybe those people would like to buy those records still and have new records to buy. And uh, And I think it is just so odd that somebody played George Strait's breaking attendance records that were set by George Straight before and and yet he's not considered a viable radio act
anymore. Well by whom these people would love to hear a new George Straight hit? I would who? Now when you played that here? What are some of the other bands that you have actually seen out here on stage? Leroy and the Spoke, Yeah, oh god, Country Ji groove you used to play here, which Benny MacArthur who plays sight some old photos of Benning back there in the Tourist Trap museum, giant ees, the new notes and God, you can look on this wall a out here. Please come to
the spoke and look around. This is like a museum. Have you ever had a chicken fried steak out here? Do I you ever had a chicken fried steak out here? Is a pope Catholic? Yes? And you know what, I wish they would the kitchen was open right now. I would love to have one. We'll be here a couple of days, but it'll be fine. We have got a uh, a pretty important benefit coming up
that we want everybody to attend. And I'm gonna let you tell the date and uh so we can get a crowd out of talk about the auction and everything. Uh, it'll be We'll be at the Cotton Country Club and Grader which school place great? Uh and it's December the third. Gonna be a lot of music, gonna have a lot of great auction items, one of them being God, I've already got stupid money for it. And thank God for that a guitar that George and Willie Nelson sign Now that right there,
George Straight and Willie Nelson. You're not going to find that now you're saying stupid money. How much of the bid right now? For It's ten thousand and five d right now. Yeah, and that's before it even goes on auction. H that's priceless right there right And there will be another one that George and Chris Stapleton and Little Big Town signed on it, and a lot
of George memorabilia. And there's gonna be some great music group, a very hot Texas group called the Debonairs. They're playing this playing with us that night. You talk about taking me back when I first moved Offston, the Devanaires Man Kick Yeah, oh god. And the band that I'm in, the B Side Boys, Kenny Ortz who plays here at the Spot Boys, Kenny's here, I think Friday, I'm not coming up pretty quick. I think,
yeah, great guy, he's a great guy, big heart. And uh Rick McCray is coming to play some guitar, and uh Benny mack arthur is coming. I said, bring your fiddle, yeah, And I told Rick because Rick g loves to play fiddle too. We're gonna have Twin Texas fiddles out there. Oh heck yeah, I hate to I don't want to leave out any names. There was a hot, hot group around here called Texas Pride and then they changed the name of a Chance years later. Mickey
Boris the drummer, he's going to be there. I think a guy that I used to play with with the Moods. I think David Roski will be there. Wow, you haven't heard that name in a while while. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And David Latimer, who was with Silver Creek. He's known David for a long time. Yeah, he's down still living down there at Lockhart. Oh boy. So this again is set for the fifth December the fifth, and uh, please tell us the re
and for the benefits. Okay, yes, my wife had she went to see her mother in Arkansas and she had to have a murder to see pacemaker put in, and she had some prior health issues. So health insurance for me is stupid, stupid money. So this is the kind of help pay down on the hospital bill because it's in fact, I think she's going to go see your doctor. I hope so, because he's amazing. Doctor z Leroy Parnell's son in law, Rob Roy called us. Yeah, okay,
that Ron got me hooked up with him. This guy's amazing. Yeah, she has an apartment with him Friday, well, South Austin, and you're gonna feel much better. Guy. The guy's amazing. That's what Rob Roy said. Yeah, yeah, the boy Rob is Rob Really, doctor Z I think really saved my life. You know about the past history, Yeah, of course, Rob. We were shocked to hear you had a heart. There's a lot of people, but Rob Roy Parnell is the one that kept telling me for you, no, you gotta go see this. He's
married to my niece and thank god I went. And let me tell you, Shannon's gonna be in good hands. That's what Rob preached to us that night. He called us last week and he said, I'm gonna get this set up for you good. So he did, and she's going Friday right here to see your doctor. It makes I tell you what, he's amazing. Yeah right, well not NDS And also, I mean, you know,
but that's what the whole deal is about. You know. It's going to be lots of music, lots of great items for for the auction Silent and live auction. One are the hours you told us today. Doors that day are going to be open at I think three o'clock. Music's gonna start at four, and who knows when they're to end ten or later. That's great. But there's a lot of music, a lot of great a lot of great friends of mine and Shannon's and the we're heck, heck, you
know we're all family out here. Yeah, we really are. We really are. I mean, all these guys said, oh yeah, I want to be a part of this. I want to be a part of this, and he calls it, I want to be a part of this. So that's what's It's just it's gonna be great. It's gonna be fun. So I hope that everybody listening to us will show up and it's going to go to a great cause. The third and Granger text. My grandmother was born in Granger, Texas. Really, my great grandfather is buried in Granger
textas well. Have you ever met anybody from dime Box Texas? I had met a couple actually at a couple of people. Okay, we're sitting right here with a guy from dyn Box Texas, Leroy. The pride of dime Box text is there something named after you in Diying Box. No still, I left there in fifty nine. But actually I go back and I have played that SPJST Hall too, Yeah, several more times. The new owners they came in and redid that whole club and it's a great hall. So
remember the SPGST Hall in Round Rock. Oh yes, of course that was my introduction to country music when I first moved to Austin. Back to the Devon Dairs. Y yeah, would overflow that well, I think, you know, I think it's when the Devon Airs won the the Tally contest and they got the record label with MGM Records. Not MGM but Mary Tyler Moores,
Yeah MTMTM. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my goodness, that sounds that sounds rather the very uh. But I will say the first time I saw the shots and the Chicken dance, it scared the heck out of me because we didn't have that in West Sexas man, I was looking for the nearest exit. I thought that the devil was going to spring up and grab
somebody I know telling what was going on. We showed up for soundcheck at that joint in Round Rock and I'm I don't know, I'm nineteen, you know, and I got the wagon ears just four piece band, you know, no, no, just kind of more of a you know, the rock and thing. And old lady came out and she said, y'all sound real good. And I said, thank you, ma'am. And she said, uh, we're gonna need y'all to do the Cotton Eye Joe about ten. And I said, well, uh, ma'am, we don't. We
don't do the Cottonae Joel. We don't have a fiddle player. She said, well, we're gonna need you to do that at ten. I said, well, man, we don't. We don't do that song. She said, well you have till ten to learn it. Let me tell you. Did your wagoneers did the Cotnaighte Joe and let me and she was right. They it was Saturday night. It's the place is back. It's crazy. They were expecting the Cotton Eye Joe at ten o'clock. And by gum, you know, our guitar player, Goda Love Brent Wilson. He said,
Ward, and I can pick that on the guitar. We'll be all right, you know, the the guitar, the guitar, yeah, yeah, yeh leroy. When it comes to Uh. I mean, you've probably been more concerts than anybody. Did you sit on the side of the stage. Do you watch all the shows all the time, especially with the younger accident are opening? Uh? Uh. I'll go in very little to see George, because god, I've been here forty one years. Yeah, but a lot of times I walk in and like, I want to see Stapleton,
which I had never seen. Staple was amazing, isn't it amazing? It's like going to church and you know, the last show was George, Willie h Kerry Underwood and Little Big Town and I've got I've seen them all. Yeah. I went out with Kenny Chesney for about five months one year back when Georgia took a little break. How was that? I can't talk about that one, Okay, okay, A little different atmosphere. No, No, Kenny is great. It was a great camp. Great, took
great four months or so. But yeah, you didn't take George's bus on that with you, No, Kenny's personal bus. Yeah, my goodness. This guy knows the stars. Well, he's driven for the stars. He's getting an award. Now. Did you you remember when the Kenny and Tim McGraw thing up in Where was Buffalo? Oh? Yeah, were you there for that? I witnessed Wait a minute, okay, is it okay to get the real story? Can you tell us what happened so all we know about it? Is it one of them took a deputy's horse, right,
Kenny? Okay, Well, I'm gonna let you tell the complete story. This is cool. I mean, well, these deputies are out their horseback and there and Kenny, you know, being Kenny, he walked out there and for you know it, she invited, but you want to ride this horse? So he crawls up on it. Well, I think it was her. I could be wrong, but I think it was her dad. This was one of the deputies. Also, Kenny rides off from the horse, and boy, they chased him and it was he has no idea.
Huh no, No, there was a post thing. And I'm standing in the front of of Tim McGraw's bus talking to the driver, and we witnessed every bit of this. Why did the press blow it up and make it a big deal because he denied that the sure deputy, I mean denied that that that he was invited to ride it. He he just thought Kenny grabbed the horse and took off, which was totally wrong. Oh yeah, McGraw.
Uh, he flew me first class from Austin to New York. I think it was somewhere in New York to be a witness to that trial. Well I went to trial. I didn't know it went to trial. Well I got up there. McGraw rented this cool little hotel. It's a real small, what do you call it, boutique hotel. And he never even called me. So he fooled me back first class back home, but they never even called me as a witness. I never knew that you were up
there when that happened. Oh yeah, You've seen a lot of histories back to the little driving little Very few people know that I put the George W. Bush bus tour together. That I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, I was. Uh, of course. We were releasing buses from Hemphill Bus Company up in Nashville at the time, and and I know how all
this campaign stuff works. Everybody always has a bus, you know, for several bus So I was up there one day and they were talking about the something they at least a bus to some NBC or something like that, and I said, well, let me see what I do here. So I actually took once again back in my El Camino days. I drove to South aust where George W. Bush's headquarters were for the campaign, yeah, in two thousand and So I went in there like I knew what the hell I
was doing, and I didn't you convinced him. I walked in. The girls said, could help you. I said, yeah, I'm here to talk to somebody about a bus that mister Bush is gonna need for this tour. Had worked with another George, you know what's going to work for this one. I got the first name, right, Yes, So she told me to go down this hallway, third door of the left or whatever and go and talk to that guy. So I did. I said, he said, have a seat. I said, y'all need buses for a presidential
tour, you know. So I said, I'll make this happen. So he said, I said, get me two days. Because he realized then that they do need that, So I said, give me two days. So I called him pill. I said, how would y'all like to have the Georgia of You bus tour? And asked, and then I wound up driving. I'm going to ask if you were the driver. I drove his bus. Yes, sir, he was a cool She was so sweet. Missus Bush was and every day he would drink olduls, you know, and
of course you got to have a co driver. I'm following highway patrol and everybody driving eighty seventy five eighty miles an hour. And we stopped one night and I think it was in Columbia somewhere, and I said, mister Bush, I said this, I don't like to drive this way. He said, leroy, you're doing fine. Just drive. Just follow that car in front of you. You don't even know look in your mirror. You don't need to look because that guy sitting in that jumps he's going to tell you
one right that made you to move lane. One move to the right or two to the left. Whatever he tells you. You don't even need to look at that mirra. He said, we got you covered, just like two stepping man. You gotta have to us with your partner. But he never got out of the bus. Every night that we stayed at the hotel, and she would grab my neck and give me a hug LERO. You
did really great. Then one day we were riding along and mister Bush said, lero, let that co driver, Let that up guy drive come back here. So I did. I pulled over and he's the other guy started driving. He said, so you don't drive for anybody. Listen. Her name is George, right, But that was a cool part of my life that nobody and I had no idea until a few minutes ago. You remember the name Jessica Lynch. I think Yea Lynch was Yeah, the girl,
that first female. I think they got blown up in the war. Yeah, good buddy. My of ours actually had bought one of Georgia's buses Livesten Spencer, West Virginia, which she lives in some holler up there on Spencer, West, Virginia. So this guy that bought our bus, which I have remained friends with forever, he said, man, let me fly to Charleston. Then we needed Jessica Liz needs to go to Walter Reed. So he said, if I fly you here, can we put her in my
bus and you take her to Walter Reed. I said sure, so I did, and that was pretty cool too, to be able to do that. Any O, the stories you can share with us, this is neat we're getting education. I mean I've just remained in fact this Friday night. But Dickie's Arena. That guy that I became friends with after buying George's bus, and you know, he's one of the guys giving because George gives away
home every night at the show for the vets for the bench. Yes, sir, And so this guy that did this decades ago and that I've remained friends with for decades, he's one of the sponsors on the giveaway home. They had to be a guy from West Virginia and that's what they're Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. You don't spend a lot of time on the road anymore like he used to. Do You miss it? Uh? Some time? I do? Actually, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get you
don't like being home too long, do you. Well? I stay busy, I mean, playing playing my music and being on a bulldozer and yeah I do that too. Yeah, I mean, I ain'd fred to work. Never has been well. And y'all are I mean, I mean y'all's in Georgia's organization. Uh, y'all still picked quite quite a bit, you know, I mean, not like in the old days, but a lot of I don't know how you went for to all the time. There was too much touring all the time for you. I don't know how you were
doing. They in the early days, Yeah, my god, we were well over two hundred dates a year. They don't know what. They couldn't handle it nowadays, right, two hundred plus days out on the like this. You don't even know where you are when you wake up in the morning. No, you know. Well, but that's the whole I mean, you know. And back when I first started with them, I was the only driver, and that we were all on one bus. I was the only driver, and I drive till everybody got a little. See, I
couldn't. I couldn't be crammed on a bus with that many people. I don't get along with a lot of people. You guys, I love a lot of drinking. You can sleep anywhere. But I guess that was it there, Maybe that was it. But I just but also it's so insular and you and you you very quickly you get with a good bunch of cats, you know, yea, and very quickly you have your own language, you have your own jokes, you got your own buck. And I just
stay in my book just that that people know. You tell you tell stories that crack everybody up. But if you go to tell somebody outside your your world, outside the corral, it's not funny to them. They don't get it. It's its own thing where where it. Until you do it, you haven't done it. And what I what's so weird about tour and particularly when you when you're touring, you know, one hundred and fifty two hundred
dates a year. That's the thing about about really doing it as a musician is most of the people with the talent to do it can't handle it. So you got to have the talent and then you just got to have that weird deal of waking up in a different town sounds normal to you. Ah, man, I couldn't do you ever get lost? Ever gotten lost before? Oh? Yeah I have. He just doesn't tell them for they're lost. No, I can't remember what now, I'm gonna get this wrong.
Birmingham. I think we were Birmingham, Alabama. And I can't remember the two deck the states I had the same name, but they're next to each other, North and South Dakota. No, no, no, no, it was uh that part of the world. Because I asked a bar turn to how to get up out of this town. And actually we stopped at the mall after driving for hours. We stopped up there to eat, and Terry Hale, our bass player, he kept got looking at the license plates on there. He said, he found me, he said, buddy,
or we're right city, Kansas City. I was actually stopped at the wrong to eat at the in the wrong city with the same name. So we had to scramble every go through this little mall and get everybody together, get them back and kick their butts back on the bus. And I drove like a maniac and we it was back when he was doing like little county fair stuff, yeah, you know. And we got there. We did the show Lee Roight, what is it about? Used to in the old days
when I was growing up, and probably when Money was growing up. We would see the name of the artists written on the bus. You don't see that anymore, do you know. Oh, you can't do that unless you're Claire Walker. You can't do that. Don't even do you know Klay Walker's ex bus driver. No, but you're you were You're asking to be rotten. I used to always see living in sweet Water, Nat Stuckey's bus go down. I twenty all the time. And well Alvin Crow had it when
I was a kid, I remember, like eight nine years old. Is that insurance? Is that just keep privacy where people don't fall out? I think it's privacy now. Yeah. I know Alabama in like eighty six or something, they went off someone old country road and they encountered, uh, you know, an armed posse, armed guys really that they're that that trapped them, got got them in a little box canyon and robbed them. I never heard that story. Well, no, that's wasn't a real famous story
because that gives a lot of bad guys ideas. But everybody over at RCA that's all they could talk about for Yeah, but you just never see that anymore. And that was the last time Alabama ever had their name on a bus on the side of their bus. Yeah yeah, man, Yeah, we got pretty good security now. And also it's like, why would you think you could rob a country band? Stupid move there, very stupid. Pretty okay. So the benefit December third, yes, sir, Granger,
yes, sir. And if Cotton Club if they want to know more about it, is there a website that you can go to? I mean, hell, I'll have it on my website, my Facebook page and everything. But is there a certain website they need to check out Cotton Country Club dot com. Yep, okay, so we expect you to be there, behave yourself to be a big deal right now, raise line money for Shannon, and Shannon is going to the best heart doctor in the world. I can tell. And those auction items, let me ask you this, uh,
because I might want to bet on some of those things. Is there going to be a list of things auction on the website this week? There will be wonderful, wonderful. We're still gathering things because God air bits. They're expecting a big, big bunch of folks. Will there'll be refreshments and food. Oh, it's a dance hall in Texas. What do you think? Golly, I'll be there. Will there be the chicken dance this shot. We're gonna have a couple of fiddles. It'll be okay. MONI has blended
again, Leroy Eckler, right now, join us. Tales and Broken Spoke. You promised to come back, and this is the stories because when you walk away from the mike, you're gonna think, wait a minute, there's more stories that I should have told you spoke more than I should. I'm not a good talker. To the beginning of that, you told me when we sit down, you said, I don't know what to say. I
don't like to talk. But I think you know we've had a couple of ye here and you go, oh, you've played with Elvis for ten years. Yep, you're not a yes or no person. You got the scoops there. We appreciate you taking Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me, appreciate it. Thanks for the friendship after all these years. Wait,
most one more question for you. For some reason, back here in Austin, back behind Capital Plaza, was that a place to park Georgie's bus in the early days, back in the eighties, because we used to always get calls to the radio station. Hey George Strait's back behind. I saw his bus behind Capital Plaza. No, okay, I can tell you. No, okay, nothing at all like that. Okay, we'll see there. After all these years. Somebody lied to me when they called me show business,
that's what. But maybe they just want me to talk about on the air because I did. Anyway. Teals Broken Spoke continues next week. The Broken Spoke Amen, thank you. Tales from the Broken Spoke is recorded live at The Broken Spoke in Austin, Texas, hosted by Country Radio Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Pickett and Monty Warden, recorded mixed down he produced by Mike rivera