In the wake of this month’s Oscar and Grammy Awards, and all of the public flatulence and fanfare that follows, I thought I’d tell you about the greatest award I’ve ever gotten in my musical career which spans five decades. It’s not a Grammy, or a Dove, or a Handy . . . it’s a US Army Service Medal, given to me by a young Black Hawk helicopter pilot named Sgt. Richard G. Tanner.
Throughout my illustrious forty years in the music business, I have cleverly managed to avoid even a nomination for a Grammy, but have received various prestigious awards for talent, songwriting, live performance, and even popularity, all of which I’m very proud of and humbled by (as if it were possible to be proud and humble at the same time!). But what follows is the story of the greatest award that I’ve ever received as a musician, and the one of which I am most proud. And humbled. Proudly humbled. Or humbly proud. Oh mumbly pegs . . . you know what I mean! Now on with the show, Joe!
One night while on leave, the aforementioned Richard Tanner (whom I hadn’t met before) came to one of my shows with some friends, and dressed in civilian street clothes, introduced himself to me simply as “Richard”. He then politely asked my permission to record my set on a little handheld recorder he had. I don’t remember if he said why he wanted to record me – if he had heard me before and was a fan, or if he had heard me speak about our active military and vets onstage before (which I regularly do), or perhaps he had heard about that from someone else. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the military business . . . maybe this fellow just wanted to record the most talented musician in the world to never win a Grammy (wink-wink!).
But the point is, at the time, I didn’t know why he wanted to record me, but assuming he just dug my music, and wanted to take home a little Lightnin’ in a bottle, via a live bootleg, I agreed. Because he was an affable, nice guy, and because he had shown me the courtesy and respect to ask my permission to tape in the first place, I told him I had no problem with him taping the show. And since Richard wasn’t in uniform, and didn’t identify himself to me as a soldier, I didn’t have any reason to alter my set or my show that night for his benefit. I didn’t make a puffed up speech about our military for the sake of his recording . . . it was just another night at the office for me and I went onstage to take care of business as usual. And since business as usual for me often includes a tribute to our vets and military somewhere in the show, it did that night as well.
My usual spoken tribute to Servicemen and Women isn’t anything formal or scripted. It would just consist of me speaking from the heart, briefly thanking them – and their families – for their service and sacrifice. I would usually do this when introducing a patriotic song like “America The Beautiful”, “This Land Is Your Land”, or “An American Trilogy”. This I do regularly because, you see, I feel I owe them for just the opportunity to be onstage, pursuing happiness in freedom, and not singing in German, Japanese, or Arabic. And when I honor our military men and women and their families, I do it out of complete awe and respect and indebtedness, not patting myself on the back, because I myself am not a veteran. I haven’t served. I am a beneficiary of THEIR service and THEIR families’ sacrifice. So this would’ve been the gist of what I said onstage that particular night when Sgt. Tanner (known to me only as “Richard”) recorded my show.
This was the Summer of 2003, and I had just done something that I have only done a handful of times in my career. With the exception of my gobbling up—and learning—everything my musical heroes and mentors the Vaughan Brothers (Jimmie and Stevie Ray) released, I can only think of two times that I heard a new song on the radio, and was so struck by it, that I immediately learned it and added it to my onstage repertoire, to perform in my shows. So besides all the SRV and Fabulous Thunderbirds songs that were my “meat and potatoes” when I was starting out, the only two newly-released songs I have ever covered were “Mary, Did You Know?”, by the Gaither Vocal Band, and “Have You Forgotten?” by Daryl Worley. It’s strange that both songs ask a question, and it’s only now—as I’m writing this—that I’m realizing this twist for the first time!
At Christmastime 2001, I was sitting in my living room watching a Gaither Homecoming program on TV. The wound of 9/11 was still very new and raw to all Americans, and Beth and I were celebrating our second blessed Christmas with our first child Sidney, who had just turned one. With the future very uncertain (which it always is), and a one-year old baby boy in my lap, I heard Mark Lowry and the Gaither Vocal Band sing “Mary, Did You Know?” on my TV. Well it was like the top of my head blew off! I couldn’t believe what a tremendous song this was, and I immediately set out to get the lyrics and the chords down so Beth and I could start doing it at our Christmas shows. That was twenty-two Christmases ago, and we’ve performed “Mary, Did You Know?” every Christmas since.
I don’t recall where I was when I first heard Daryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten?”, but it was on the radio. I don’t know where I was, but I do know where I wasn’t. I wasn’t at home or in my car, because I never listened to contemporary country music radio, not since the 70s that is! So how I heard it, or where I heard it is forgotten, but the impact it had on me was immediate and intense. It was 2003, two years after 9/11, and we had been deploying troops (repeatedly) to Iraq and Afghanistan for two years. There was plenty of body bags coming back to the States, but all the footage of the initial attack had been erased on our TVs, lest it incite Islamaphobia. Yeah. God forbid.
I remember wishing that I had written this song, and how it captured my emotions on the subject of 9/11 and the war, so squarely and so perfectly. So, for the second time in my life, with the aforementioned Vaughan Brothers exception, I learned the words and music to a new song and started performing it in my shows.
This was the song Sgt. Tanner recorded me doing, along with a spoken introduction and tribute to our Servicemen and Women, at my show in Bristol, Virginia, in 2003.
About a year later, this same Sergeant, having returned home safely from yet another tour in Afghanistan, showed up at my gig at the same venue as the time before. During a break, Sgt. Tanner came up to me and introduced himself again (this time in uniform), and asked me if I remembered him taping me that night about a year prior. I said that I did. He said he was home from a second or third deployment to the Middle East, and that he was a helicopter pilot, and said he wanted to come see me. See me? He continued, saying (to a very confused saloon singer), “I wanted you to know that I’ve been playing that song of yours ‘Have You Forgotten?’ over the loudspeakers of my Black Hawk helicopter for a year!” I said something like, “That’s amazing…but you mean you played the Daryl Worley record, right?” “No” he said, “I’m talking about that live recording of you singing it. I’ve been blasting you out onto the battlefield, in Afghanistan and Iraq!” What????!!! I was dumbfounded. Was he telling me he had been playing a live recording of me singing “Have You Forgotten?”, along with my spoken introduction, from loudspeakers onboard his Black Hawk helicopter, on flight missions, over the enemy and out onto the field below, while at war in Afghanistan and Iraq? I was dumbfounded.
Richard then asked if he could join me onstage during my next set, because he would like to say a few words and that he “had a little something” he wanted to give me. Stunned and speechless, I agreed.
My next set is a bit blurry in my memory, except for when I introduced Sgt. Richard Tanner of the US Army. He came up and told the audience who he was, where he’d been, and about recording my show in that same room a year ago. He told of how he played that recording of “Have You Forgotten?”, along with my spoken tribute, very loudly onto the desert battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Then he held up a small, hinged, blue box, with “US Army” embossed in gold on it, and proceeded to tell the audience (and I) that this was a US Army Service Award medal that was awarded to soldiers who go beyond orders, duty, and honor. He then took out a letter that he had handwritten on a restaurant guest check from inside the club, and read it aloud to a hushed crowd. And this is what he read . . .
“This is an award given to those that go beyond orders, duty, and honor. It’s not much, but my buddies and I wanted you to have it. They said, “You have lifted our spirits when they couldn’t get any lower.
You have helped us keep fighting when we wanted to quit. And you have brought to many what we couldn’t find here . . . a feeling of home!!
Charlie, I just wanted you to know what a blessing you are to my friends, my comrades, and I.
— Sgt. Tanner, Richard G.”
Sergeant Tanner presented me with the letter and the US Army Service Award medal, which he had earned, and the crowd burst into loud and long cheers. I shook his hand and tried my best, through tears, on the mic to thank him. But of course I fell way short. I’ve never felt more humbled in my life, and I still get choked up just talking about it.
Incredibly, since then, I’ve been given other service medals and military awards from Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines. In spite of my protests of not having earned them, they have insisted. These all came as a result of Servicemen in the audience hearing me talk onstage of our vets, our active military, and their families, and being moved to present these to me as a token of their appreciation. Once I was given a pair of silver jump wings by a Paratrooper in the Marine Corps. Man, did I argue long and strong with him over accepting those. But as is always the case, the Marines won another fight that night, and I very humbly, and very reluctantly, and again very tearfully, accepted them, and they’re worn proudly (but humbly!) on one of my guitar straps today.
There is something about Grace. Divine gratuity. Something so mysterious and marvelous. I wrote a song, explaining grace with the acronym “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”. If you have ever been the recipient of something so huge—something you have not earned nor even deserve—something greater than gold—and the cost of that gift is so enormous, that it even requires someone else to die, then you should know what I’m talking about.
If you are reading this, and you are blessed with the freedoms and liberties we enjoy as Americans, given and preserved by the blood of so many patriots, then you need to know what I’m talking about. And if you know my Savior, the One who died for a wretch like me, then you surely know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, I beg you to accept this Greatest Gift Ever Given. Jesus says in the Book of John, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” And “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” There are many American veterans and their families that have this kind of sacrifice in common with the Lord Jesus Christ. And my family and I are the recipients of their sacrifice. How is it possible to say thank you for a Gift such as life? How does one properly say thank you for an award such as freedom?
Beth and I were recently asked to sing “America the Beautiful” as a tribute to Gold Star Families (Gold Star Families are folks that have lost a family member in combat) at the July 4th Fireworks Celebration at Freedom Hall in Johnson City, in front of tens of thousands of people, which was another terrific honor. That night, I introduced “America The Beautiful”, with Gold Star Family members standing onstage with us, by reading Sgt. Richard Tanner’s letter, and proudly showing the medal—the Greatest Award I have ever received as a musician—to the huge crowd as a tribute to all active Servicemen and Women, to all our veterans, and especially to those families who have given all.
To be recognized for what I do is certainly gratifying for me, and I am sure that it is wonderful for most Grammy recipients and nominees, to be recognized by their peers in the industry. But for me to be recognized, and appreciated for what I do (which is simply singin’ and slingin’ songs), by the bravest and best is beyond description for me, and to consider the source, coming from those who give ALL (them) to someone who gives little or NOTHING (me), these awards are the most undeserved, unmerited, unbelievable things—along with God’s Grace—I’ve ever received in my forty years as a professional musician. I wouldn’t trade one for a stack of Grammy Awards, and these shall remain my proudest and most humbling achievements in music.
God bless all you American Servicemen and Women and your families, and God bless you Sgt. Tanner, Richard G.
With Sgt. Tanner’s US Army Service Medal, and reading his note
Beth and I performing “America The Beautiful” with Gold Star Families, July 4, 2015 Freedom Hall Johnson City, TN. (That’s Sgt. Tanner’s medal in her hand)
CLICK PIC TO HEAR LC’S “AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL” FROM TRUST IN GOD – FAMILY ALBUM VOL. ONE
