Re: My Years With Sam -- Sam Neely Forum

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Date Posted: 04:03:47 02/26/16 Fri
Author: Laurie Lowthorp Roussel (Nostalgic)
Subject: Re: My Years With Sam
In reply to: Don Butler 's message, "My Years With Sam" on 17:01:45 02/10/07 Sat

>I played guitar for/with Sam from the start of 1982
>until mid `85. It was a real thrill to have been asked
>to join his band. I had know Sammy since 1975 when I
>moved to Corpus. Those were some really fun times and
>some aggravating ones as well, especially the time our
>tour bus broke down in Lubbock. We were on our way to
>play in Amarillo for a few days. It had been snowing
>and the fuel line ( a $10.00 part) split and dumped 75
>gallons of fuel on the highway. Our driver, Randy
>pulled into a truck stop in the middle of the night
>and I woke up freezing about 8:30 in the morning
>(couldn't heat the bus unless it was running..). The
>parts place didn't open until 9 am. Once Randy fixed
>the fuel line we were on our way. Seemed like that
>damn bus was always breaking down. It was nice to read
>the story about our gigs at Billy Bob's. I remember
>the drink "incident" real well. We all went looking
>for a waitress while Sammy was yelling "My career's
>going to end tonight if I don't get a couple of
>f___ing Jack & Cokes before we go on."
>In-spite of the way Sammy could be at times, I still
>loved every second of it. In March of 2005 my wife and
>I flew to San Antonio for a few days. We drove down to
>Corpus just to see Sam for a day. I glad we did that
>as it was great to see him again after 18 years of
>living in L.A. (even though it seems like I'm on tour
>alot over the last 7 years. I'm the guy in the bus
>photo on the far left. the club owner mooning us still
>kills me. I never knew until Walt gave me a copy of
>the photo. Walt.. where are you?
>I learned alot about music, guitar playing, songs and
>work ethics from the thousands of hours I spent with
>Sam. I think about him often and even more so when my
>band plays places that we went to all those years ago.
>I also wonder what's happened to all the friends and
>bandmates we had back then. I seem to only hear about
>the ones that pass onto the next world..
>One last though here.. I recall about 2 months after I
>had started playing with Sam at his club (Neely's)
>that one night when he was introducing the band, he
>said "And here's Don Butler on guitar. This is his
>last week as he's joining the Coast Guard." About two
>weeks later some poor woman came up to me and said "I
>thought you were leaving to join the Coast Guard?" No
>mam, that's just Sammy's sense of humour. He was just
>havin' one over on all of us. The ultimate
>prankster....
>Thanks for reading! It's great to see how many people
>Sam touched with his music and his life.
>Don Butler

Dang, Don...since my dad & brother had been in the Coast Guard, I was beginning to think there was hope for YOU! LOL VERY NICE ARTICLE. Life has thrown us some curve balls, but I'm truly happy you were able to hit yours out of the park (so to speak). My life would have been so dull without you guys. You were very cool and discerning with your tales. That picture Walt took of y'all in front of the bus is on Taliesyn, on Sam's page under STORIES. See you on facebook ♡

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