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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: DECEMBER 21, 2002
TEXAS MUSICIANS ENTERTAIN TROOPS IN GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA
Jay Boy Adams, Rob Roy Parnell, Seth James &
Dime A Dozen have just returned from a five-day tour, sponsored by
Armed Forces Entertainment, to entertain the troops defending freedom
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
When Jay Boy Adams returned from a tour to Cuba
with Cory Morrow in September, he asked Dime A Dozen (Greg Forest,
Cindy Terry and Ron
Leatherman) if they would be interested in making the trip in the
future. In mid November
the offer came to join a Texas Music Goes To Cuba Tour with Jay Boy,
Rob Roy Parnell and Seth James. Long
time road
veterans Jeff Colvin, Paul Culver and Philip Tom joined as the band's
rhythm section.
With only one rehearsal with the entire entourage
before leaving, the tour jumped on the bus in Comfort the morning of
December 9th, spent the night in Jacksonville, Florida that night and
arrived at Guantanamo Bay the afternoon of the 10th.
"It was pretty funny when we got to the San
Antonio airport. The
baggage handler at the curb asked us if we had any check-on
luggage." recalls Forest, "He was somewhat surprised
that we had 46 pieces of check-on luggage weighing over two tons.
We had every baggage cart in the airport hauling our
equipment."
One piece of baggage weighing in at over 225 lbs was refused
for check-on by the airlines and after tearing
the equipment rack apart in the San Antonio airport, the group was able
to get the the package down to only 167 lbs.
The airline still refused to check it and arrangements had to
be made to ship another similar piece of equipment overnight to meet the
group in Florida.
The duty of arranging the logistics for a troop of
thirteen musicians
and support personnel in less than a month fell on the shoulders of
Blake Olson of 823 Management. The entire tour went perfectly because
of his hard work both in advance and on the tour when logistical
problems arose. Olson
states, " My hat goes off to Mr. John Field at Armed Forces
Entertainment, Craig Basel, who is in charge of all the
entertainment in GTMO, and all the musicians and support personnel
that took time out of their touring schedule to be a part of this show
for our soldiers deployed in Cuba. Thank You."
Greeted at the Guantanamo Airbase by SGT Rhett
Boren & SGT Chris
Stadler, Marine Corps reservists from Texas currently deployed to
GTMO,
the group had trusty native guides.
The group spent the first day troubleshooting
equipment and setting up
the stage at the Windjammer club, a large venue on the base. Over
all things went very smoothly as the military supplied the troupe with a
seasoned and professional staging support team lead by two Jamaicans by
the name of Tony & Shorty. On Wednesday night the group brought their
brand of Texas music to the troops.
In a three-hour non-stop show,
Texans To Cuba, rocked the house with a mixture of country, rock and
blues.
"It was a great honor to entertain our troops
in Cuba. I went to bestow
the gift of Texas music for our troops , but I think I received a
greater gift of patriotism from our armed forces there in Cuba. It was
an event to remember for the rest of my life." says Rob Roy
Parnell.
Dime A Dozen opened the show with 45-minutes of
their "eclectic, obscure
and original" material. Cindy Terry had the audience eating from her hands with an
unscheduled rendition of Patsy Cline's "Crazy." Before
Dime A Dozen had gotten off the stage, Texas blues rocker Seth James
ignited the stage with a searing set of red hot Texas guitar slinging
that left jaws dropping.
After Seth's set, Jay Boy Adams toned the show
down for a few songs by performing a short acoustic set including a
song he had written especially for the troops in Cuba.
Needless to say it
brought down the house.
Before the audience had time to catch their breath, Rob Roy
Parnell, master of Texas Roadhouse Blues, took the stage and left the
audience gasping with his set.
Rob Roy's set had so much energy, that the crowd got out of
their seats and dancing about the
entire club. Add a set of Jay Boy Adams' Texas rock to top it off and
a very enthusiastic audience went home with a strong dose of Texas's
best.
To end the show each night the entire entourage took to the stage for
a rousing grand finale performing "The Weight".
Jay Boy and Seth traded
guitar licks back and forth during the finale, almost in a rookie vs.
veteran play, creating a smile on Jay Boy's face when Seth would bend
guitar strings in ways that no-one thought was possible. On
Thursday
night during the finale many of the members of the audience climbed
onto the crowded onstage with the band for the last song.
"It was insane, the entire band onstage and
half the audience. Seth
James had wrapped a guitar around one GI and was playing it over his
shoulder. I put a guitar
pick in one soldier's hand then grabbed his hand and started playing
his guitar with it - the place went completely
bonkers," Forest recalls.
In the band's off time they were given a tour of
the base including the
Northeast Gate into Cuba where a few holdover employees from the Cuban
Missile Crisis still enter from Cuba each morning to work on the
base. Many members of the troupe got a sightseeing tour by water
on a Coast Guard patrol gunboat that took them around the entire bay. The
island's most visible residents are the hundreds of iguanas that seem
to be everywhere. There
are even road signs for iguana crossings.
Wildlife
enthusiast Seth James did a bit of "banana rat" hunting
Wednesday night in a futile attempt to capture one of the nutria-like
creatures to put in Jay Boy Adams' bed.
During this trip, something unexpected happened.
The group was asked
to play a show in the field at Camp America - for the soldiers
responsible for guarding the detainees.
The security check to get into that area of the base was
justifiably intensive and it took the group an hour just to get beyond
the checkpoint.
Tearing down a few tons of
equipment, moving it across the island and setting it up in time for
the
next night's show is no easy task and kudos have to go out to Chris
Salomone, the cast's sound engineer & Bob Macy, Texas Tech Alumni
& long-time running buddy of Jay Boy, for making it happen in
time.
The Friday show was delivered under the stars in an
outdoor theater at
Camp America.
This was the first time that any entertainers had been allowed
to perform for these sequestered troops. "The show at Camp
America was one of the most incredible shows I've had the honor to
play in my lifetime. The soldiers at Camp America live and
work in extremely rough conditions. The fact that we got a chance to
bring this show to them in a field, under the stars was incredible. It
is also where the 142nd Infantry from Lubbock, Tx was stationed. I
am glad I got a chance to play for some of our "home-town"
boys deployed down there. At
the end of the day I feel like I really did something
important and the self-fulfillment is simply indescribable"
recalls Jay Boy Adams.
While the equipment was being broken down and
loaded into a truck for the next morning departure the stage was swamped
by GIs wanting a CD, photo or just to say "hi" and
"thanks." The
group was delighted to see fellow Texans in the crowd from as close as
Kerrville and Junction and the commanding general of the base was a
Texan from Menard. The goal
of the tour was to show the troops that Texas was behind them all the
way and in that succeeded.
After Friday night's show the entire stage was
disassembled and moved to
the dock for transfer across the bay to the airbase the following
morning. On the morning of
departure the musicians were able to share
one last handshake and hug with the troops that were cycling back to the
US. In only five days life
long friendships were born and a bond between the unlikely pairing of
musicians and soldiers was cemented in
the hearts and minds of both the entertainers and the troops. Special
thanks to Compadre Record's Brad Turcotte & Billy Joe Shaver for
sending
approximately 1,000 Billy Joe Shaver CDs with us to give out to the
troops stationed in Cuba.
After 14 hours of traveling the group landed at
Fort Hood, Texas and got
on the bus for the ride home. Each musician in the troop brought their own special brand of
music to the endeavor and was changed by the experience. Plans are in
the works for more dates of the Cuban Road Tour and possibly a return
tour to Cuba in 2003.
Tour
Photography by Jim Dirden
For more information contact:
823 Management
Email: blake@823management.com
830-995-4900
Fax: 830-995-4999
Artist Websites:
Jay
Boy
Adams
Rob
Roy Parnell
Seth James
Dime
A Dozen
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