Country Fever

Our roots run deep. From our beginning in 1981 we have strived to make good music and to
entertain. A lot of country and a little bit of fever, that's what we do. Yes, we have had a lot of
fun doing it. Many musicians have picked with us through the years. I won't try to list them all
for fear of missing someone. I will mention a few of them as I go through this remembrance.
Gene and I started in 1965 with our neighbor Larry Shepard. We called ourselves the Jet Set. We
added Tommy Shepard on tambourine then Glenn Belson on Bass guitar. Eventually we asked
Pete Hicks to play lead guitar with us and that is the way we rocked through the 60's. Between
the Army and Marine Corps we went our own ways until we got together again in 1980 with the
Rail Splitters, a local country band.

I began writing songs in 1965 and we recorded two of them. "Super Sport" and "If You Only
Loved Me" were recorded at Jimmy Guthrie's studio in Warner Robins but I have not committed
them to the web yet, maybe someday. If you ever heard one and would like to have a copy, see
me, I've got 10,000 copies of them outside in the trunk of my car. I also have indian blankets,
beads, jams and jellies (not really lol). When we first got together we felt like we needed a
theme song so I wrote Country Fever. A primative mess but it got us through for a while.
Remember this was 1981. Then came, "I Can See You In My Memories" (I haven't uploaded a
copy of this one yet, either) then Heartaches and Barrooms. Reflections of Love was written
when a divorce cost us a bass player. We got the better end of that deal, we got to keep the
singer.

We recorded many of the sound bytes on this page on a small hand held tape recorder so please
forgive the quality. We also recorded in studios in Macon and Warner Robins and I even recorded
in Nashville (that tidbit and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee just about anywhere).

The Heart of Country Fever is and always has been Joyce Griffin and Waunell Benton. They go
together as you can tell from their rendition of Daddy's Home, Apartment #9, If I Had Any Pride
Left At All, Patsy Cline Medley, Together Again and Why Haven't I Heard From You. I hope you
enjoy listening to the girls as much as I do.

Some old favorites I perform at our gigs are Another Bridge to Burn, a Little Jimmy Dickens
favorite, and The Trilogy.

Gene does several older country standards, like Shackles and Chains and some of the later stuff
from the 80's and 90's like Tennessee Whiskey and No One Will Ever Know. Some of his
requested songs are The Twist and Lost in the 50's by Ronnie Milsap.

For a while our stage was graced by Horace Whidby. Horace played out of Nashville with some
of the greats like Jean Shepard. Horaces version of There Goes My Everything and his comedic
prose at the beginning of Wine Me Up by Faron Young are sparkles from our past.

Larry Smith performed with us for a while and I felt obliged to include his version of ZZ Top's She
Don't Love Me She Loves My Automobile which I "borrowed" from him and still do it today.

Last but certainly not least, 'Frank' Franklin Roosevelt Crawley, steel player extraordinaire. Not
only a great steeler but my mentor, he started teaching me the steel guitar about 1990. I
recorded the many times that Frank was at the house and I still listen to them today. Frank was
capable of singing high harmony. We often called him the "other sister" and the three part
harmony they created was out of this world. Frank was capable of doing serious songs like
Frauline as well as comedy ventures like Souix City Sue. Frank passed away in 2005 but we'll
remember him all of the rest of our days.

Hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane as much as I have.

Chuck