Once in every lifetime a musician plays a gig that is completely overwhelming. Whether is Carnegie Hall or Madison Square Gardens. You rehearse and rehearse and once you think you’ve got it right you rehearse it again. At least that’s the way the pro’s do it.

I’ve been on stage with George Jones and I’ve been on stage with James Brown, and I thought I was in complete control of my particular situation.

The James Brown Show was a lifetime ago before he looked like Al Sharpton.

The George Jones episode came during the disc jockey convention in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a magical evening for a cracker boy like myself. Not only was I sharing the stage with the likes of the ‘Possum’, but the list of big names was so overwhelming that I thought I would wet my pants before it was my time to sing.

First the Oakridge Boys, then Chet Atkins,and Marty Robbins came out and just killed the audience with one hit song after the other. Then followed Little Jimmy Dickens and Porter Wagoner. I was waiting in the wings wondering what in the world was I thinking when I signed on for this. Then I remembered that it was the Sheriff of McIntosh county, Tom Poppell who got me the gig. Sheriff Poppell called a friend of his in Nashville and told him he had a boy that he wanted to put on the Grand Old Opry.

Shot Jackson, who along with Buddy Enmmons, developed the Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar and was a fishing buddy of Tom’s and a proud sponsor of said Opry. " Can the boy sang?" Shot inquired.

"Well," replied the sheriff. "He ain’t no worse than Jr. Samples, and I saw him singing on Hee Haw with you standing behind him playing the dobro. And besides, if you don’t put him on I ain’t gonna take you fishing no more." The deal was done.

The next thing you know I get a phone call from a lady who said she was booking the Opry show for October’s D.J. convention and could I be there. "Can I be there?" I gasped into the phone. "If this heart attack that I’m having right this minute doesn’t kill me I’ll be there." Well I hung up the phone, changed my underwear, and fainted.

The build up to the moment was the exciting part. I was standing in the wings for an hour watching one legend after another slay a packed house. I had been sweating like a guitar player writing a check, and my shirt was soaked through so my armpits were glowing like diamond in a goat’s nose. My time had finally come, I thought, because after all the big stars had wowed the audience into a frenzy the MC stepped up to the microphone and said "Ladies and gentlemen. Let’s please make welcome from down in south Georgia, the very talented ‘Rick Walters.’

My best friend Jack d’Antignac was poised right down front of the stage with camera in hand waiting to capture the moment. When the MC called me by the wrong name, Jack started laughing so hard that all but one of the pictures were out of focus. But that picture hangs on my wall till this day reminding me that even though you’re on the Grand Old Opry, it don’t mean diddly if they get your name wrong.

Well up until today that was my most memorable gig. For today I played a command performance for my granddaughters’s nursery school class. At ten-thirty in the morning I was shaking in my red hightops because I was facing a class room full of three year-olds and they all had guns. Well they didn’t actually have guns but they may as well have, because it was just as scary.

" Hello boy’s and girls. How are you this morning?

"Play a song by the Wiggles."

"What?"

"You look like Clifford The Big Red Dog."

"What?"

"Are you Ronald McDonald?"

"What?"

"You’re scaring us."

"What?"

"I’m telling my mommy. What’s you’re name?"

"RICK WALTERS."