My Travis story

I get a call from CJ Watson, himself a really talented singer/songwriter who ran a little writers night at Cocktail’s…a writer bar underneath a “strip joint” off of Charlotte back in ‘05. He gives me a date like a month away, saying that I really needed to see this guy Travis Meadows. He’d never called me before about anyone. I put it in my calendar and on the “week of” he calls again to remind me (a little odd). This is from a guy who has nothing to do with Travis. I told him that I still had it in my calendar. I showed up and as usual there were only a few songwriters/people there (which are all that usually go to those things anyways…it’s not like “The Bluebird” or on TV). In my memory it was a cold night…but really it was just a dead night in September with nothing going on …anywhere. I sit down at the bar and order a burger. I’d done this a thousand times….CJ brings over this little dried up fella and introduces us. I don’t like meeting writers really. Seeing as 99.9999999999 percent of the time, I don’t get it and have to figure out a tactful way (which as hard as I’ve tried, I still suck at it) to say just that… so neither of us has to waste our time by calling or NOT calling each other back. It sucks and it’s judgmental…but it comes with the job. Once when a pissed off songwriter asked me what “qualifications” do I have to give my opinion, I said that I get paid to do it. That’s all. Anyways, after I eat my generic burger and dry fries, this skinny little fella gets up there on the non-stage, past the pool tables and starts asking who’s hit his car in the parking lot. Seriously, somebody had hit his car (later in the night, his wife also got hit in the head by an errant pool ball). Anyways, he finally gets to singing . First words “I Was Born Like Rain On The 4th Of July. Another Lost Name In My Family Line. Kicked Out of My House When I Was two, Me and a Brother That I Never Knew”. I was stunned. I have never in my life been stunned by an artist like that. It’s not like you see on TV. This never happens…or had never happened on my hundreds of nights out “looking and listening”. I immediately pulled my phone out and started putting song titles in my phone: My Life 101, Lonely Like This, The Lucky One, (Coffee) Black and a couple more. Stunned. After he finished, I tried not to look stunned or shocked. I asked him, where DID these songs come from??!! I remember it as clear as day… He said that these were just some things (not songs) that “I needed to get off my chest”. I don’t mean to cuss….but FUCK. I really couldn’t believe it. A week later (after work) he came in and we went to the little downstairs studio at Universal and I recorded every one of those songs. It was just me and him and these amazing pieces of honest art sang by this brilliant artist. I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We walked outside and before he got in his beat up car, I hugged him. I’m not a hugger and kinda think it’s bullshit (unless it’s family or longtime friends) but he seemed incredibly down and I hugged him anyways. Standing there at that moment with him, it was THE one time in my life when I just knew that I could make at least a little difference in someone’s life who seemed to need it. It was pretty emotional for me but I hid that from him…and I would have felt like an idiot anyways. I think that little moment from that night has been my favorite moment from my years in this business. That’s my Travis story…and here is that recording from September 2005. My Life 101