Chapter 25

I showered, grabbed my stuff, and headed out towards the front porch where Willie normally sat when he wasn’t on stage. Sure enough, he was in his favorite chair, relaxing, when I came out.

Sitting next to him, however, was a guy I hadn’t seen before.

“There he is. Charlie, this here’s my nephew Keenan,” Willie said, getting up and gesturing towards the guy who’d been sitting next to him.

Looking closer, there was somewhat of a family resemblance, although the age difference was pretty extreme. Willie was well into his seventies and this guy had to be in his mid-twenties somewhere, which would have made Willie’s sibling decades younger.

“Technically I’m his great-nephew, or whatever you call it. My granddad was Willie’s brother,” the younger man said by way of explanation.

“Ohh.”

“Keenan works in Raleigh, but he comes down sometimes when I go on tour and drives me around. Saves me from havin’ to hire someone.”

“Ohh, I thought...”

“That I was drivin’? Son, I haven’t driven a car in twenty years.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said to Keenan.

“Hey, I get to travel around, get into some pretty historic bars and clubs for free, and hear great music. Works out well for everyone. Besides, I don’t get to see Uncle Willie as much as I’d like, so it gives us a chance to catch up.”

“Well, I appreciate you giving me a ride too then.”

“Sure thing. Uncle Willie said you would need a ride home afterward?”

“Yea. I don’t have my own car so I have to bum a lot of rides.”

“I totally get it. Wasn’t that long ago I was a broke college student.”

“High School, actually.”

“Really?” he said, looking at his uncle.

“Trust me, you’ll understand when Charlie starts to play.”

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing, I’m just surprised. Uncle Willie hasn’t taken very many people under his wing, which is saying something considering how long he’s been doing this.”

“Ohh,” I said, looking back at Willie.

“Let’s get going,” Keenan said.

Keenan was carrying Willie’s guitar, putting it in the trunk of a small, compact sedan. As we got going, I sat quietly, thinking. I hadn’t actually considered Willie’s role in all this before. Everything had just seemed to happen organically and I hadn’t questioned it, let alone thought about whether Willie had trained people before me. It shouldn’t have been surprising, considering how long he’d been in the business. I couldn’t help but think about what happened to the other people he’d mentored. Chef had made it sound like it was unusual that I’d gotten my own stage time during music nights, so had none of the others gotten that opportunity?

Chef had said Willie’d been playing at the Blue Ridge for decades, so had it been that long since the last time Willie’d mentored anyone? Or had he done it at other places while touring? More important than any of those questions was what had happened to these other people? Had they made it, were they still playing in bars, or had they dropped out entirely?

It brought up a lot of questions, none of which I was sure I could ask Willie. The last thing I wanted to do was offend Willie by questioning why he’d decided to take me on or make it sound like I was just using him as a stepping stone.

“So, Uncle Willie said you were talented,” Keenan said, breaking into my thoughts.

“I do okay.”

“He’s bein’ modest,” Willie said. “Charlie can wail.”

“Have you been playing for a while?”

“Yea. My dad was a musician and when I was younger my mom and I lived on the road with him. He taught me to play.”

“That’s cool. Do you still get to go with him when he has gigs?”

“No. He’s not around anymore.”

“Ohh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Before working with Willie, I hadn’t actually played in front of people. It’d just been lessons with my dad and other musicians while I waited for him while he was on stage. None of it compares to what I’ve learned in just the last few months.”

The conversation switched and we just chatted while we drove south. It turns out Keenan worked as a software engineer and was the first person in their family to go to college. It was clear from the way Willie talked about him that he was incredibly proud of his nephew.

The bar we were playing at was on the north side of Asheville, so it only took a little over an hour to get there. I’d been pretty calm the whole drive, distracted with learning about Kennan and Willie’s relationship and more about Willie’s family, which kept me from thinking about playing in front of a new, and apparently larger audience.

Once we pulled into the parking lot, though, my stomach started doing flips. For one, this was clearly a larger venue than the Blue Ridge. It had a large sign up announcing Willie was playing tonight, and the parking lot was already full of cars. Keenan had clearly been here with his uncle before, since he found a spot with no problem on the backside of the bar.

“You’ll do fine,” Willie said as we got out.

“Huh?”

“I remember my first gig on the road. I got so nervous I spent the first five minutes with my head in a trash can emptyin’ my stomach. Once you get on stage though, you’ll be fine. You’re a natural at this. It doesn’t matter what buildin’ it’s in, your home’s on that stage. Once you get up there, looking out at the people with your guitar in your hand, it’ll feel right.”

“I hope so, ‘cause I’m not too far from looking for that trash can.”

Willie just laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. We went in through an unmarked entrance, where an older man in a cowboy hat met us.

“Just on time, it’s good to see you again, Willie,” the man said in a thick southern accent that sounded more like Georgia than the North Carolina.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You remember my nephew?”

“Willie, you ask me that every time you come down here,” he said, laughing and shaking Keenan’s hand.

“Just bein’ polite. This here’s Charlie, the boy I told you about.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Eugene Russell. Welcome to the Wild Cat. I’ve heard good things about you.”

“Willie’s biased,” I said with a laugh.

“I’m sure he is, but we get some of the same people that go up to Chef Tang’s place. All of em’ have been talking about some new wonder kid he and Willie found.”

“Well, I hope everyone enjoys it,” I said.

It still struck me as wild that there were people who liked my music enough to actually mention it to others. It wasn’t like I was playing my own songs or anything, I was just doing covers. I guess if I was being honest with myself, I’d admit that I was pretty good, but Willie and the rest of the guys had been playing for longer than I’d been alive. Hell, there was his name on the sign outside, announcing that he was playing tonight. It felt weird to get that kind of attention when I’d only just started playing in front of people.

I’d met a lot of people over the years at clubs. Some of them were cool and treated everyone the same and others thought they were God’s gift to music, acting like a bar that could barely fit a hundred people was selling out Madison Square Garden. I heard how other musicians talked about those people behind their backs, no matter how good they were. Even if I did get really good one day, I didn’t want to become one of those people.

This place was a lot different from the Blue Ridge. There, the stage was off in one corner, near the kitchen. While it didn’t seem out of place, it was clearly something added later, basically built in what was just restaurant seating at one point. They had to shut down half the restaurant and rearrange chairs to make room for people to listen. Backstage was just a supply room and you had to walk out the same door servers brought food through to get to the stage.

This place was clearly built with the music in mind and reminded me a lot more of the places Dad played while I was growing up. For one, it had an actual backstage. I could smell food cooking, so they must have had a kitchen somewhere, but the area we were taken to was a small room with a couple of couches and chairs, and a door that led out to the stage. Peeking through the door, I saw the stage had a big curtain across it, blocking the view from the patrons.

This is what I had in my head when I thought of clubs and bars to play at, again based on what I’d seen as a kid. What it did mean, was that we could set up without people watching us.

Willie introduced me to the other musicians setting up. Apparently, he’d played with them before because they all knew each other by name. Most of them played there regularly, backing up musicians who traveled without a full band. They were all nice enough as we set up, everyone talking in low tones, although I noticed several side-eyes. I imagined I looked young to all of them, as most of them were my dad’s age. Musicians who’d passed their chance for a big break and were now scratching out a living playing in places like this. It wasn’t glamorous but at least they were making a living doing what they loved.

I also knew that this was the life Mom really wanted me to avoid. This was where Dad was headed, before he headed to prison, as his days of getting gigs fell behind him and the only offers he got were playing as part of a house band and maybe the occasional session work.

“You okay?” Willie asked as I tuned my guitar.

“Yeah, just nervous.”

“Like I said, once the music starts, you’ll be good. Just focus on the music. Look at the floor at first if you want to. There’ll be more people out in the audience than you’re used to, so it can be a bit much. Close your eyes, listen to the cues, and play. You know the setlist; you know what you’re doing. Just let the music take the lead.”

Ever since he asked me to come with him, he’d been getting me ready for this gig, probably because it was my first one and he didn’t want me to mess up. It was one of the reasons we’d decided to keep my sets at the Blue Ridge the same for the nights I played without Willie.

Willie checked on everyone one last time and then the curtain opened. I wasn’t ready for what I saw. I noticed the building was two stories from the outside, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the center was open, allowing people sitting at tables on the second floor to look down on the stage while they drank.

The room was packed, faces staring down at me as Willie pulled his stool up to the microphone and sat down, one foot on the floor and one foot propped on the stool itself.

“It’s good to see so many faces out tonight. It’s been some time since I’ve been here, so I appreciate you folks makin’ it out here. If you’ve been with me before, you know I’m not one much for talkin’, so sit back and enjoy a little trip through the holler’s.”

Willie looked back at the drummer, who began the count. This first song was one that we did at the Blue Ridge every weekend. While it hadn’t been that long, I’d played enough sets and practiced the song enough it felt natural when I came in with the first riff.

Unlike at the Blue Ridge, where we sifted through a wide range of songs to keep things from getting stale, Willie pretty much had the same grouping of setlists for each place he played at on his tour. Instead of just a random scattering of songs, these sets all had themes. As he’d said before we started, the first one was based around the culture of Appalachia, specifically the various sheltered valleys the locals called hollers. Each song was either about a holler or written by a musician that came from the area.