Frankie Ballard’s Truck Stop Show

Frankie Ballard has played a lot of unusual places in his musical career.  But one that he’ll never forget is an Arkansas truck stop he played at 3 AM, thanks to John Rich.  Frankie told the story to Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton:

“John Rich called me up, and said, ‘Let’s write some songs this weekend.’  So we were out, I was riding his bus, and we were in the Ozarks somewhere, and everybody on the bus was hungry, it was 3 AM, and we stopped at a truck stop that had a Denny’s in it.  We get off the bus, and he says, ‘Bring that guitar with you.’  So I bring his guitar, and he walks into the Denny’s, and says, ‘OK, excuse me everyone,’ and tells everyone in the Denny’s that I’m the next big thing, and how I’m a great guitar player, and says, ‘If I could just get five minutes of your time,’ and he has me play Helluva Life on his guitar in the Denny’s, and then he goes, ‘Thank you for listening,’ and he buys everybody breakfast.  And I was wondering, why was he doing this for me?  It was a really cool moment.  It’s very John Rich to do that, and he was doing it for ME!  I’ve always loved him, and Big Kenny too, incredible people, and I don’t know what I’ve done to earn their friendship, but I’m very thankful for it.”

Any songs come from that trip? “The next day, Big Kenny came over to the bus, and we wrote a song called ‘I Came To Git Down,’ which is a rockin’ tune that I open my shows every night with, and it’s on their album Gravity, so we got a cut out of it!”

Tags: frankie ballard

Category: Audio