Tony, in the mid 70's, I had a job at the Sportsman in Lexington. I started playing 1 to 4 in the morning for the folks coming out of clubs. The upstairs week-end band was run by an acquaintence who had played with a guy named Little Enis. His wife, "Butts (guess why?) played B-3 poorly, but, true to her nickname, nobody cared, including me. One week-end he asked me to play bass for a guy who was under the weather. Two years later, the joke wss, he was coming back any day (never did). This was before country was big around here. The upstairs patrons wanted me featured on more songs, so I got a Porlter Waggoner shirt and big foam cowboy hat. I reasoned that there was a Johnnie Paycheck, Johnnie Dollar and Johnnie Cash. I became Johnnie VISA, and covered my Telecaster in VISA and Mastercard stickers. On my debut night, I came from way off stage and did the Chuck Berry duckwalk yelling "CHARGE". I thought that was really funny, but it took me a month or so to patch up some hurt feelings. Several patons thought I was making fun of country music, when I did a country version of Misty. Imagine that. Funny thing is, about three months later, Ray Stevens released his version, which was GREAT.

Ah, another shot at stardom up in smoke.

Oh Well,

"Redneck" Russ