In late January I set out on a twenty-five day tour sponsored by American Songwriter Magazine –hence the name.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect given that 1) I've been playing with the band for the last two years and haven't played most of these songs solo acoustic in a long time – some of them never – and 2) I didn't know any of the people I was going on tour with.  I knew their music but not them personally.  The others were Stephen Simmons and Adam & Shannon Wright (The Wrights) – all from Nashville.  Stephen and I decided to ride together in a rented car which could have been a horrible mistake if we did not get along. 

So on January 28 I picked up the rental car and drove to Nashville.  I met everybody for the first time at our show at The Mercy Lounge.  We exchanged the usual first meeting pleasantries and then I took the stage first since I was the one from out of town.  After I was finished I tried to stay around for everyone's set but I really started to feel like I couldn't stand up anymore.  I figured I was still pretty tired from the drive so I left the show early and turned in for the night.  The next morning I felt like I was dying.  I drove the car to Stephen's house and within tens of minutes we were on our way.  The further we got the worse I felt.  When we finally got to Knoxville I couldn't take it anymore.  I broke down and went to a doctor.  Within minutes of my arrival the doctor told me that I had the flu and that I needed to stay home from work and to stay in bed for the next few days.  I told him that wasn't possible and asked if there was some magic shot he could give me to just make it go away.  There wasn't.  I had to do something I have never done before.  I had to cancel my part of the show.  I went straight to the hotel room in Knoxville and slept for thirteen straight hours.  The next day wasn't any better and by now I could see the terror in Stephen's eyes as we drove down the highway because we both knew that it was inevitable that he was going to eventually catch what I had.  That night I missed the next show in Atlanta – two in a row. 

Sure enough the next morning Stephen and Adam were both sick.  I had managed to give three fourths of our tour the flu.  I'm not quite sure what they thought of me at this point.  We had never met, we had been on the road for three days and I had virtually disappeared, and now I had gotten them all sick.  So that was the beginning of what Adam termed "Lalafluenza".  For the next week we all struggled through shows throughout South Carolina.  We would play the show and then all meet up at the CVS to discuss who had anything remaining on their Tamiflu prescription and comparing the benefits of different pain relievers and sleep aids.  Not quite the rock star life I had once imagined.   After the first weekend we had three days off.  Our next show would be in Winston-Salem so we drove straight there, each got our own room and basically hibernated for the next three days.  That did the trick and pretty much ends the saga of the flu.  Now the tour was ready to begin.  Here's how it went from there:

We emerged from the depths for our show in Winston-Salem and all seemed to start singing and playing for real again.  In Greenville, SC and Raleigh, NC we played to our lightest crowds of the tour.  I'm not quite sure what happened in Raleigh.  We have all had great turnouts there before.  Maybe there's something about February.  Or maybe word of our flu train got their before we did.

Our DC show was great.  Great room, great crowd, great food.  My only disappointment in DC was that the Library of Congress closes on Sundays.  I was really looking forward to that - but what can you do?  I guess nobody called ahead to tell them I was coming. 

On to Baltimore.  We played at a cool little record shop downtown.  There's not enough of those left anymore.  Completely unplugged and intimate.  We even got a nice little serenade of our own after the show.  We left Baltimore and started making our way down the ten hour drive we had in front of us to get to our next show.  **Important thing to know:  Gas stations in Maryland are all at least three miles off of the interstate, close sometime after midnight, and leave all of the lights on so you think they are open but find out otherwise when the pumps don't work and the doors are locked.**  After turning off the heat (in 18 degree weather), cursing the Maryland fuel industry and praying for forgiveness for whatever wrong we had committed that was going to leave us stranded in the middle of the "Old Line State" we finally found one station that had intentionally or unintentionally left their pumps on.  We all celebrated by huddling in the car and turning the heat back on. 

The next day we finished the drive through the Appalachian mountains, across Ohio, and ended up in Cincinnati just as a snow and ice storm was approaching.  We barely beat it, checked into the room, and stayed in the room the entire next day because the roads were too icy to go anywhere.  I spent the day watching in amazement as our illustrious congress used our nation's leadership's time and energy to fight what is obviously our most important fight in this otherwise peaceful and perfect world that we live in – steroids in baseball. 

The next four days took us through shows in Cincinnati, St Louis, Omaha, and Kansas City.  All great venues.  We never saw temperatures above 30 degrees the entire time we were in the Midwest.  During all of this time we were finally all getting to know each other much better.  I was finally able to settle into the fact that I had gotten extremely lucky.  Not only were they all great songwriters – and I mean that – but they are all wonderful people.  Sometimes when you are getting to know people you slowly start to see chinks in their armor as the shields come down.  This seemed to be exactly the reverse.  The more I got to know them the more I liked and respected them.  That's pretty uncommon.

Now we were on to Texas.  Home sweet home.  Houston, Austin, New Braunfels, Dallas, and Fort Worth.  We traded our overcoats for t-shirts, thawed out, and drove around the Lone Star State with our windows down.  By this time we were doing our shows in a round, as opposed to the one person at a time thing we started out doing.  I personally like this approach much better.  I always like the energy of a good round.  "Good" being the key word there.  A bad round can be hell.  We learned each other's songs and played like it was our last week together.  I really had a blast. 

On Sunday we woke up in Fort Worth and said our goodbyes as we all headed back to reality.  The day to day can sometimes take over and make me forget why I started doing this in the first place.  To connect.  To connect with listeners, other musicians, and with the songs themselves.  I was reminded.