Larry Sang on Stage.
While I was in college, Larry started building a life for himself in Pittsburgh. He got a job – which I didn’t know about for months, because I didn’t care – and he put together a gigging band, which I cared about instantly.
Larry had been playing country music since I was born. The highlight of his musical career was the night he opened for Hank Williams, Jr. in the ’70s. After my Firm experience, this felt like touching fame again.
Larry Wayne and the Wranglers even made an album of country cover songs. The album’s sleek silver front featured a contemplative Larry standing in cowboy boots with his guitar … and looking like he might have once been my age.
Briefly. A long time ago.
I played that album and stared at that picture and worked hard to fall in love with the man I knew. Larry’s voice was smooth, melodic, professionally mixed. The songs were new to me and classic to the world. I’d listen and choose favorites and memorize lyrics and admire his young voice and wonder why I couldn’t have known him when he opened for Hank Williams, Jr. … when I was 8.
And then 36-year-old Larry would pick up the guitar and sing and magically, he’d become a country star.
So when Larry created a band, I was enraptured. It didn’t matter that country music had once made me so nauseous, I’d begged my dad to pull over so I could vomit. It didn’t matter that I found the music simplistic and crude. It didn’t matter that I loved George Michael, Robert Smith and Boy George – each the antithesis of country music. It didn’t matter that most of the songs Larry sang were written before I was born.
The only thing that mattered is that Larry sang on stage.
All those nights spent staring at polyester dancers were instantly replaced by nights staring at my superstar boyfriend. He knew ten thousand songs, could play anything anyone requested, and had a pretty decent band backing him, too, although for me, the backing band was a tiny bit of a problem.
Even though I insisted on ignoring Larry’s age and imagining him as the guy on the silver album cover, it was hard to ignore the ages of the band members.
Larry’s friend, Leo, who worked with him at whatever job he’d found, was a strong bassist and a decent backup singer, but he had a wife and two kids, a paunch belly, a black mustache that stuck out from under his nose like a giant caterpillar, and caterpillar eyebrows, too.
Larry’s also-paunched drummer, Tom, was called Stogie because he smoked cigars non-stop. These stunk to high heaven and forced me to frequently look at him, ignorantly holding that cigar stub in his mouth. Stogie had no hair at all and, as a modern college student, I hadn’t known anyone who was actually bald until this time.
My favorite of Larry’s band members was Steve, a pedal steel guitar player, mainly because I’d never seen a pedal steel before. Steve showed me in his spare time how the pedals and keys worked, fascinating me. Steve sang one song, She’s About a Mover, which I loved dearly, and I believed Steve had invented it. Steve looked old enough to be my grandfather.
Larry was the clear leader, the frontman and the business man, pulling in $20 a night for every one of the guys. As I watched him bring that old music to life, I found a new way to fall in love.