Pre-Tour Week in Nashville 1/9 - 1/17

My wife & I hung out for a while at the airport for a while before I left for Nashville. It was kind of a sad moment when I went to get on the plane. I got held up at the security check point at BWI because the bookmark I had in my backpack looked like a knife on the security X-ray machine!! When I landed in Nashville, I saw Linda Thompson, who was a good friend of my brother-in-law, Joe Compito. She works for Southwest Airlines. It was cool running into her.

Joseph Wooten and his two sons, Jesse & Justice, picked me up at the airport. Joseph's got an incredible sense of humor - he's the funny one in the band, so right away we started joking around and being silly. They dropped me off at Victor's house and I spent the rest of the night just chillin' with the Wooten family.

The next day we got the gear together to go down to "Sound Check" to rehearse in one of their big sound stages for 3 days. Derico showed up with 2 dozen donuts! What was he thinkin'?!! Victor wanted me to play on this song that switches time signature 3 times within the tune. It goes from 5/4 to 6/8 to 4/4 and back and forth again! Whew! I was a little uneasy about it at first because I hadn't gotten a chance to hear the song. I also play on a tune that's in 11/8. I grew up mainly with a funk and R&B background so I'm not really used to playing tunes with odd time signatures. Good thing I like a real challenge! All 3 days of rehearsals were great.

After the last night's rehearsal on Sunday, Linda Thompson & her daughter Stephanie Ryman took me out to some of the country bars in Nashville and introduced me to some of their country music friends in town. It was fun hanging out with them and hearing stories about my brother-in-law, Joe Compito, because unfortunately, I never got to meet him before he passed away. Stephanie & Linda are really good singers and they got up to sing a bit. Then they invited me up to play a tune and I did. The country musicians in Nashville are incredibly talented…but there are just too damn many of them!

We had to load our gear on the bus on Monday morning, the 13th so the bus driver could spend a few days driving across the country to Seattle to be there before we flew in on Friday. So since all our gear was gone and nothin' else to do, I got to spend the rest of the week at the Wooten household with Vic, Holly, Kaila and Adam. We spent our days playing with the kids and we spent our nights downstairs in Victor's studio working on his new record. I got to add a bass line to one of the new songs with the 6 string Compito Bass that Joe had built for Victor.

Nashville got hit by a snow storm Thursday morning that they were not ready for. Folks in Nashville are NOT used to getting' snowed in like that! A lot of people got stuck. Fortunately, even though the weather was bad, we had a lot of neighbors show up for Adam's birthday party that night. He turned 2!!

Victor & I got up Friday morning to drive to the airport and his truck wouldn't start because of the cold. After we finally got it started we met up with the rest of the band at the airport and we had a short flight to Dallas and then a VERY long flight to Seattle. The tour bus was waiting for us at the airport when we got there. When we got to the hotel, Jim Matthews from Bass Camp treated Reggie, Derico and I to an incredible dinner at a restaurant called "The 13 Coins".

I'd better get some rest - tomorrow's the first show and there won't be much time for rest for the remainder of the tour!

peace,

anthony