Travis Tritt has joined the group of country stars to weigh in on the Eric Church controversy.
At this point pretty much everybody with a social media account has voiced their opinion on Eric Church canceling his show in San Antonio to see his beloved UNC Tar Heels take on Duke in the Final Four this weekend.
A once in a lifetime game no doubt, the two rivals have never met in an NCAA tournament, let alone in a Final Four matchup, but naturally that sparked a pretty heated debate among fans, artists, people that aren’t fans, Twitter trolls that just like to bitch… I mean, EVERYBODY had a comment.
Eric was trending on Twitter for almost two days with people weighing in, mostly his hardcore fans defending him and random people who probably don’t even listen to country music bashing him for the decision.
Obviously, one of the concerns is that canceling a show to go to a basketball game sets a bad precedent for other artists, who will now see it acceptable to bail on fans when something better comes up.
So it’s been interesting to see other artists weigh in as well.
We heard from Jason Aldean and American Aquarium, Ward Davis, The Cadillac Three and more, but after the game last night (which was one helluva game, don’t get me wrong), ’90s country legend Travis Tritt joined the conversation.
Here’s what he had to say:
“FYI – Over the years I’ve missed friends and family’s weddings, funerals, family reunions and a bunch of other events I would have loved to have attended because I was booked for shows.
I don’t think I could ever get by with canceling a show because I wanted to watch sports.”
Not even for a Georgia Bulldogs National Championship game:
To be fair, Eric has probably missed countless birthdays, weddings, and funerals as well during his career, as has just about every touring musician on planet Earth. Unfortunately, it just comes with the territory.
That being said it was a shitty move, an admittedly selfish move, one that perhaps only folks from North Carolina can understand (can someone ask Luke Combs?), but is it also completely uncharacteristic of Eric, who has gone above and beyond for his fans from the very beginning… it can be both.
Eric refunded the tickets and announced a free makeup show for fans that had tickets to the original show during the game, however Eric may still lose some fans, and I suppose he knew that going into this.
He ultimately made the call (a call that many other artists including Tritt said they wouldn’t do) that this once in a lifetime game with his family was worth the risk of damaging his own reputation and losing some fans.
But after a game like that… he may have been right.
Eric and Travis recently shared the stage however, performing “La Grange” alongside Billy Gibbons and more for a Billy Gibbons tribute concert at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, last year.
Travis Tritt Shares Advice Johnny Cash Gave Him
It’s hard to even imagine what you would ask the legendary Johnny Cash if you ever had the opportunity.
I mean, I could think of at least a dozen questions I have right off my head, but unfortunately, that’s not something we’re able to do anymore since his passing almost 20 years ago in 2003.
But ’90s country legend Travis Tritt did get the change to pick his brain decades back, and it’s a pretty cool story.
He recently recounted the incredible advice the Man in Black gave him early on his career during an interview with Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson on Tucker Carlson Today.
Travis had his bus parked behind the Ryman one day, and that’s when he got a call from his friend, Marty Stuart, telling him Johnny wanted to meet him:
“Marty Stuart called me, and we were parked in our buses behind the Ryman Auditorium. And Marty Stuart called me and said,
‘Hey, Johnny Cash is over on my bus, he wants to meet you… and I go over and I meet him. And I’m sitting there with him, and he was just so nice and so courteous.”
But he knew this was his chance to ask the icon himself about how he was able to make such an incredible career in the music industry, so he worked up the nerve to ask him one question:
“And so we’re talking, and out of the blue, I don’t know what gave me the courage to say it, but I looked at John, and he said ‘Don’t call me John, call me JR. All my friends call me JR.’
And I said ‘Okay, JR’, I said, ‘Let me ask you something.’ I said ‘I saw you do something last night that was absolutely amazing.’
And I told him the story of what I had seen, about how all of these people had just known he was in the room. I said, ‘How do you do that?'”
And Travis is referring to the first time he saw Johnny in person at a county music radio seminar in Nashville back in 1989, where he watched Johnny completely command the room just by walking in, not even saying a word.
Apparently, Johnny would get pretty shy about compliments like that, but Travis pressed him on it:
“And John was the kind of person, if you embarrassed him, he’d get real humble on you, you know?
Head down, you know, if there was a rock on the ground, he’d kick it, you know, that kind of thing. And I said, ‘No, JR, I’m serious.'”
And ya might wanna grab a pen and paper for what Johnny tells him, because especially in this day and age of social media, I think the advice can go for just about anybody.
It also explains everything about what made Johnny such an immortal legend with a presence you usually only read about in books:
“When I said that, his eyes came up and met mine, and he said ‘There’s a little thing in our industry that has been forgotten. It’s called mystique.’
He said, ‘Don’t ever wear out your welcome, don’t ever forget where you came from and always be humble, always be kind to people, but always keep a little something back that you don’t show everybody.'”
Amen to that, Johnny. If there’s anyone who would know a thing or two about that, it’s certainly him.
It’s pretty incredible to hear Travis tell the story himself, though, so make sure you check that out here:
And you have to see Travis playing an acoustic version of Johnny’s absolute classic “Walk The Line” at the Grand Ole Opry back in the day, mullet and all:
