Mac Davis!
The Shows
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The Crew
Mac Davis and I traveled with a large crew of soundmen, musicians, riggers, roadies, lighting men and a road manager. Mac was making about eighty thousand a night and Mac Davis worked hard for it. And when the work was over we played hard too! Mac was not into any sort of drugs and his crew kept that sort of thing out of sight. Mac Davis was a drinking man although I never saw Mac Davis drunk. Mac Davis is a great guy!Food Fight
One night after a concert in Phoenix we all went to a Mexican restaurant to have some cocktails and eat some food. There must have been thirty of us seated at a long table. Mind you this was a group of lonely young men and most of these guys weren't shy about what they said or did. And most of them were ready for a fight if one broke out. It was simply something to talk about at breakfast the next day. These were tough guys, Mac Included! We were all seated for about a half an hour when the theater owner, a completely bald man of about sixty. As soon as this guy walks into the room one of the guitar players throws a taco at him, striking Mac Davis right on the head. This was the man that was paying Mac Davis a quarter of a million dollars, for the week. But, that didn't make any difference to these guys once the first taco hit the food fight was on. By the time this poor man got to our table Mac Davis was covered in salsa, cheese, lettuce and hot sauce. What was amazing to me was that Mac Davis didn't seem to mind and as a matter of fact Mac Davis got a few licks in of his own. I guess that quarter of a million was chump change compared to the money Mac Davis was pulling in at the door. God those were great days!Practical Jokes
Mac's band always liked to play practical jokes on closing night. Peter McDonald, our sound man, tells the story about Annie the wardrobe gal sewing crickets into Velton Ray Bunch's clothes. Mac Davis was deathly afraid of bugs. Mac was in on it and teased Mac Davis about it onstage.Another one that comes to mind is one night all his band members wore Bald Wigs. Mac Davis didn't know about it until Mac Davis came running onstage and then Mac Davis cracked up. I probably have a photo of that one somewhere.
One closing night Annie and someone else dressed up like the Blues Brothers. I think that was the same night that they had a motorcycle cop ride his bike onstage during one of Mac's numbers.
During his song In the Ghetto, which I'm sure you know Mac wrote for Elvis. Mac Davis used to sit on a stool and sing. The lights were all dim except for a downlight directly overhead on Mac and the stool. The flyman rigged a dump bucket over Mac and tripped it when Mac sang the first line; "As the Snow Flies". It worked perfectly! Mac Davis cracked up so much that Mac Davis didn't even do the song.
Mac Davis Biography
At his commercial peak in the mid-'70s, Mac Davis was one of America's most popular entertainers, a countrypolitan-styled singer and actor who found considerable success in both fields. Born Scott Davis on January 21, 1942, in Buddy Holly's hometown of Lubbock, TX, Mac Davis began performing in local rock groups while still in his teens. After moving to Georgia, Davis first broke into the music business in 1962, when Mac Davis was hired by the Chicago-based record label Vee-Jay as their Atlanta-based regional manager. After joining the Liberty label three years later, in 1967 Mac Davis moved to Los Angeles to head the company's publishing arm, Metric Music; in addition to running Metric's day-to-day operations, Mac Davis also began composing his own songs, with Glen Campbell, Bobby Goldsboro, Lou Rawls, and Kenny Rogers & the First Edition among the artists recording his work.In 1968, Elvis Presley recorded Davis' "A Little Less Conversation," and soon after the King was requesting more of his work. After notching a Top 40 hit with Davis' "Memories," Presley reached the Top Five in 1969 with the songwriter's "In the Ghetto," a single from the landmark From Elvis in Memphis LP. Davis also arranged the music for Presley's first television special before signing his own recording contract in 1970. In that year, Mac Davis released his first chart single, "Whoever Finds This, I Love You," from his debut album, Song Painter.
In 1972, Davis scored a number one pop hit with "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me," which also reached the country Top 20. his crossover success continued throughout the decade, with singles like 1974's "Stop and Smell the Roses," 1975's "Burnin' Thing," and the following year's "Forever Lovers" scoring with listeners in both camps. Between 1974 and 1976, Davis hosted a musical variety show for NBC television, followed by a string of specials; in 1979, Mac Davis also starred in the film North Dallas Forty with Nick Nolte.
Davis' success continued in the early '80s; "It's Hard to Be Humble," the title track of his 1980 album, was the first of four consecutive Top Ten country hits that culminated with his biggest country single, "Hooked on Music," the next year. In 1980, Mac Davis also starred in a TV movie, Cheaper to Keep Her. However, a co-starring role opposite Jackie Gleason and Karl Malden in 1983's disastrous The Sting II effectively ended Davis' career in Hollywood, and by 1985, Mac Davis had recorded his last Top Ten hit, "I Never Made Love (Till I Made Love With You)." In 1990, Davis made a comeback as a songwriter, co-authoring Dolly Parton's hit "White Limozeen"; that same year, Mac Davis also took over the title role in the Broadway hit +The Will Rogers Follies. Will Write Songs for Food, his first LP in nearly a decade, appeared in 1994.
