By DAN ARMONAITIS
In 2011, the website UltimateClassicRock.com produced a list of the “Top 10 Southern Rock Songs” of all-time. At No. 1 was “Can’t You See” by the Marshall Tucker Band.
The song appears as the second track on the band’s eponymous 1973 debut album, which kicked off with another southern rock classic, “Take the Highway.”
The Marshall Tucker Band, which will perform Friday, Jan. 17 and Saturday, Jan. 18 at the Walhalla Performing Arts Center, made prominent use of flute on both those songs and the instrument wound up becoming a signature aspect of the group’s distinctive sound.
The original lineup for the Spartanburg-born band featured Doug Gray on lead vocals, Toy Caldwell on lead guitar and vocals, Tommy Caldwell on bass, George McCorkle on rhythm guitar, Paul T. Riddle on drums and Jerry Eubanks on keyboards, saxophone and flute.
“When we were starting and Toy was writing songs like ‘Can’t You See’ and ‘Take the Highway,’ we wanted to be a step away from the plain horn band with the saxophone guys,” said Gray, the last remaining original member of the group, which continues to soldier forward nearly 50 years after its inception.
“If you were to have imagined the way it would sound with a saxophone playing that opening lick to ‘Can’t You See,’ you probably would’ve said, ‘I don’t like this song because I’m so used to saxophones being played.’ So, we wanted something different.
“Well, Jerry played flute in high school, so he said, ‘I’ve got a flute at home, I’ll see if I can work something out. Also, Jerry and I went to see Jethro Tull (led by flutist) Ian Anderson in Charlotte at Park Center (since renamed the Grady Cole Center), and I remember us saying, ‘man, that would be a perfect thing.’
“It wasn’t intentionally done. We just wanted to be different than the normal band that was out there at the time. We weren’t looking for a golden hat to wear or any of that stuff, we were just looking for something that made sense with the songs that we were creating.”
These days, Eubanks’ former duties are done by Marcus James Henderson, and the current Marshall Tucker Band lineup is rounded out by Rick Willis on lead guitar, Chris Hicks on rhythm guitar, B.B. Borden on drums and Ryan Ware on bass.
Gray said the latter joined the band only weeks ago and is the son of Ronnie “Stump” Ware, who worked as an MTB roadie in the 1970s. The younger Ware has spent the past quarter-century living in Nashville, where he’s played with several prominent artists, including country music superstar Reba McEntire.
“I used to hold this boy when he was a baby,” Gray said with a laugh. “And now he’s up there playing Tommy Caldwell licks. He’s not imitating, but he’s as close to being Tommy as anybody.”
Recently, the Marshall Tucker Band was profiled by veteran journalist Dan Rather on his national television show, “The Big Interview with Dan Rather.” During the hour-long program, which aired on AXS-TV in December, Gray sat down for an exclusive in-depth conversation in which he and Rather discussed the band’s nearly five-decade career and the history of Southern rock.
“I was opening my heart up about growing up in Spartanburg,” Gray said of the interview.
In addition to this weekend’s performances in Walhalla, the Marshall Tucker Band, whose catalog also includes such classics as “Fire on the Mountain,” “This Ol’ Cowboy,” “Searchin’ for a Rainbow” and “Heard It in a Love Song,” has a busy slate of concerts scheduled throughout the U.S. in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down.
Among this year’s highlights is a 21-city trek in which the Marshall Tucker Band will hit the road with the Charlie Daniels Band for a series of shows nationwide billed as the Fire on the Mountain Tour.
“I look at all these guys up on stage with me, and I think, ‘this is fun,'” Gray said.