Marshall Tucker Band Keeps the Music Playing
ON THE ROAD: The Marshall Tucker Band and The Outlaws play the State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick on January 25 at 8 p.m.
State Theatre New Jersey presents The Marshall Tucker Band (MTB), with special guests The Outlaws. on Thursday, January 25 at 8 p.m.
The MTB has had an impact on generations of listeners who’ve been “Searchin’ for a Rainbow” and found it perfectly represented by this Southern institution over the decades. “I’ve been in tune with how music can make you feel, right from when I was first in the crib,” said lead vocalist and bandleader Doug Gray, who’s been fronting the MTB since the very beginning.
The band came together as a six-piece outfit in Spartanburg, S.C., in 1972, having duly baptized themselves with the name of a blind piano tuner after they found it inscribed on a key to their original rehearsal space. Their music catalog includes the hits “Heard It in a Love Song,” “Can’t You See,” “Fire on the Mountain,” “Long Hard Ride,” and “Ramblin.’”
Gray sees no end to the road that lies ahead for the MTB. “You know, I think it was Toy Caldwell’s dad who said, ‘There’s more to gray hair than old bones,’ and we still have a lot of stories yet to tell,” he said. “People ask me all the time what I’m gonna do when I turn 80, and I always say, ‘The same thing that we’re continuing to do now.’ We’re road warriors, there’s no doubt about that — and I don’t intend to slow down.”
The Outlaws formed their band in Tampa, Fla., in 1972. After more than 40 years, they have returned with new music, new focus, and an uncompromising new mission to respect its legacy while refusing to be defined by the past. The band’s first three albums The Outlaws, Lady In Waiting, and Hurry Sundown — featuring such rock radio favorites as “There Goes Another Love Song,” “Green Grass & High Tides,” “Knoxville Girl,” and “Freeborn Man” — would become worldwide gold and platinum landmarks of the Southern Rock era.
State Theatre New Jersey is at 15 Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick. Visit stnj.org for tickets, which range from $39 to $99.