A Large Detroit American Automobile
7. A Large Detroit American Automobile:
Sometimes you just got to be in the right place at the right time.
That’s what happened to me circa 1991, when I went to the Circle H in Clays Ferry, KY to see the late great Earl Watkins.
We always saw other friends and musicians when we went to the Circle H and this night was no different. Another friend of ours, noted blues player Nick ‘Stump’ Stamper, drove up in a big car. Someone made a comment about his ride, to which he replied: “Yeah, that’s a large Detroit American automobile.”
I went home and wrote the comment down. When I was back in Nashville, I told the idea to… who else?...Shell. I was leasing office space from him back then so we saw each other almost every day. Larry liked the idea, but we could never seem to get farther than the chorus. That part came fairly easy but we just couldn’t seem to find our way into the verses. Once again it sat in our ‘we like it’ file for many years. Finally—3 or 4 years ago—we figured out something we liked for the verses and were able, after maybe 20 years of talking about it, to finish the song.
Oh for those days again when gasoline was about .42 cents a gallon and big V-8s ruled the roadway. What I wouldn’t give to take a spin in my ‘ol red’ "66 389 tri-power GTO or my ’68 396 Camaro once again. …..wishful thinking…