Senior Planet talks to…T. Graham Brown – Senior Planet from AARP

The Grand Ole Opry’s latest member, T. Graham Brown, 69, has been making country music for more than 50 years, a career which includes hit songs Hell and High Water, Don’t Go To Strangers and Darlene. Back on the road again, he tells SENIOR PLANET how helping folks get sober has become just as important to him as his music:

Q: First of all, do we call you T?

T: Pretty much everyone calls me T. Some friends call me “His T-Ness” and my wife Sheila calls me Tony. My first name is Anthony but when I first started out there was already a really famous Tony Brown in Nashville who used to play with Elvis and became very successful producing George Strait and Reba McEntire. He’s a big shot and a nice guy – and a friend of mine now. So, when I moved to town, I decided to change to T. Graham Brown.

Q: What does your induction into the Grand Ole Opry mean to you?

T: It’s the highest honor I’ve had in my 51 year career. I’ve won awards and gotten recognized for other things, but being a member of the Grand Ole Opry is the pinnacle for me.

Q: Talk about some of your career highlights?

T: I started off at the University of Georgia in 1973 singing for the kids. That’s when I started making a living from singing. And I’ve done everything. I’ve met everybody. I loved Kenny Rogers. I did 300 shows with him. He was a great guy. And also Glen Campbell.

I’ve got to work with and become friends with – I call them the one-name people – Willie, Waylon, Merle, George and Tammy, Conway, Loretta, Kenny, Dolly and Reba, all of those folks. And I’ve gotten to do duets with a lot of people and make some fun records.

I’ve got a new record coming out soon called From Memphis to Muscle Shoals. It’s a 1960s soul tribute album and I sing duets with the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Little Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Sam Moore, Tanya Tucker, Wynonna and Bettye LaVette. I got to work with Leon Russell on my last album, and he was one of my best friends and a great guy. I’ve known a lot of people and have had a wonderful career.

Q: And you stumbled on a music career almost by accident?

T: Yes. I’m from Athens, Georgia and my whole family are farmers and went to the University of Georgia. So I went there too and was majoring in personnel management.

I grew up in the 60s and I had a little transistor radio glued to my ear and my mama told me I used to run around the house singing. I also sang in church and I was a pretty good baseball player. I went to the University of Georgia to play baseball until my coach told me I wasn’t good enough so I changed my career path.

Q: You also met your wife Sheila at university?

T: Sheila’s got masters degree in dairy science and nutrition and was going to be a vet. But back then she was doing paper rounds every day at 4am, so the first night we met, she fell asleep while I was playing! But we got to know each other and fell in love. We were living in a little hippie house on the family farm and one day Sheila said: “We need to move to Nashville.”

So we moved to Nashville. She got a job at a department store, waiting tables at night while I went around Music Row all day long singing demos for songwriters. The record companies heard the demo tapes and Capitol Records signed me up;  we cut a few songs and one was a hit. So they threw me out on tour with Kenny Rogers! I went from singing to 50 people at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville to being on tour with Kenny and playing to 20,000 people. I had no experience but I figured it out fast.

Q: What’s the recipe to your 44-year happy marriage?

T: Sheila just loves me through all the good and bad times. I developed a bad drug and alcohol problem.  For years, Sheila was praying that I would be able to overcome that and, thank God Almighty.

I consider it a miracle because I was about to die. I asked God to help me and I’ve never had a craving since then. I went from wondering 24/7 where I was gonna get my next buzz to never thinking about it. But Sheila just hung in there with me. She’s the reason I’m here today. Anything good that’s ever happened to me is because of Sheila. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t even be talking to you. I’d be dead. She’s a rare bird.

Q: How many years have you been sober?

T: I probably got sobered up when I was 54 so it’s been about 15 years. I went for a long time. I’d get on the horse and ride a while and fall off. I just never could stick with it. I went to rehab – that didn’t work. It’s a cliche of a story but I think I finally had my head and my heart right – because you’ve gotta want to get sober. You’ve got to be serious about it.

I woke up one day and looked in the mirror and I looked like death. I was overweight, I was puffy, and my face was white. It was terrible. And I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I actually talked to myself. I said, “Man, what are you doing? You’re about to blow everything. You’re about to lose your job, Sheila, everything that you worked for, you need to straighten up. You’re smarter than this”. And I asked God to help me and I have never had a craving since that moment.

Q: And now you spend your life helping other folk get sober?

T: Sheila and I’s main thing in life is to help people get sobered up and to educate people about mental illness. That’s what we really consider our life’s work, and in all my shows, I talk about alcoholism. I talk about addiction, and I talk about mental illness because it took me a long time before I got diagnosed as bipolar. So I’m able to help people that way.

I wrote this song called Wine Into Water and it’s just a prayer to get sober. And somebody put it on the internet about 12 years ago and it’s had about 8 million views. Alcoholics and addicts have passed that song around and it’s grown worldwide through word of mouth. I even had a film director from Bollywood in India make a movie about Wine Into Water called Grace. And it’s about alcoholics and drug addicts and drug deals going down. A guy shoots himself in the head. It’s really a heavy movie, but it’s about redemption. So if you go onto YouTube and look up Wine Into Water and read some of the comments, people say it’s kept them from committing suicide and it’s saved their life one way or another. It’s just crazy how that song has just spread.

Q: How do you prepare for your current tour?

T: I have a nice bus and a band and Sheila always travels with me. I just go do my job and I entertain people. We mainly play old movie theaters and it’s up close and personal and I sing a song or two and tell them stories about my life and just make them happy. They laugh and cry and they always give me a standing ovation after every show. So it’s fun and I’m still singing good.

Q: Do you work out or have a special diet?

T: I just try to watch my weight. I have a big yard and I’ll go out and push the lawnmower. I love cutting grass. Today I’ve been out shoveling with a wheelbarrow and mixing soil and just little things. I don’t have a specific regimen. Up until about a year ago I used to walk every day but I had a hip replacement last November and I need another hip replacement on the other hip so I’m having trouble walking right now. But I’ll get it fixed and then maybe I’ll get back on the treadmill. And I’m rehabbing a shoulder that’s been bad so I’ll be able to get back out on the golf course soon I hope. I don’t work out weights or anything like that.

Q: What’s your secret to aging with attitude?

T: I’m a positive vibrations guy. I was talking to a guy at the Opry last night about mental health – he’s a big star of today and his head was in a bad space. And then I was talking to his manager who said: I’m so glad you talked to him, because he needed to hear what you said to him. And I looked at his manager. I said: Man, I’m all about putting out positive vibrations, that’s what I do. And I don’t know if that makes me younger or not.

I’m just trying to do what I think God wants me to do. And that’s what I strive to do every day. And that’s always at the forefront of my thinking. Am I doing what God wants me to do? I don’t know what God is thinking. But I try to do what I think God wants me to do. And also you never know what God’s got up his sleeve for you.

NB: Tickets for the I Tell It Like It Used to Be Tour are on sale now at TGrahamBrown.com taking in dates in Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennesse, Minnesota and Mississippi.

Gill Pringle began her career as a rock columnist for popular British newspapers, traveling the world with Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson. Moving to Los Angeles 27 years ago, she interviews film and TV personalities for prestigious UK outlets, The Independent, The i-paper and The Sunday Times – and, of course, Senior Planet. A member of Critics Choice Association, BAFTA and AWFJ, she wrote the screenplay for 2016 Netflix family film, The 3 Tails Movie: A Mermaid Adventure. An award-winning writer, in 2021 she was honored by the Los Angeles Press Club with 1st prize at the NAEJ Awards.