★ Music
The other career
“If I could do everything over, would I be a rock and roll star or a network sportscaster? Oh, after knowing what I know now, music.”
★ Five decades of bands
The kids wanted us. The parents did not.
Charlie's first band started his freshman year at Ole Miss as the Master Beats. They had to change the name, because the kids wanted them and the parents did not. So they became the Ole Miss Wanted, and they played spring break in Panama City, Florida, at a place called the Old Dutch.
In the summer of 1964 the Ole Miss Wanted played six nights a week at a resort in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Then came the Delta Blues Revue at Delta State, the Madras Men, and Mississippi Magic. After a heart attack with one hundred percent blockage on one side, he got fixed up, named the band CMac and the Heart Attacks, and went back to playing.
“Music is therapy for me. It can bring you out of the dumps, it can pep you up, it can make you want to dance. It is a lifesaver.”
Charlie Mac, More Than a Game
★ Now playing
The CMac Blues Band
The band is still together. At full strength it is eight players, a tremendous horn section, all Nashville musicians, with Mississippi Delta man Jim Michie on keys. Rhythm and blues, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Eric Clapton, and the good stuff that has not been worn out on an oldies station.
Let's celebrate something. We'll celebrate anything.
In Nashville, Charlie joined the Country Music Association and recorded two singles in the studio where the group Alabama began recording. One of them, Chain of Memories, charted locally. The best night he ever had on a stage was singing lead with the Tams in Clarksdale, Mississippi. His grandson Hank has sat in on drums.
★ On stage
Still rolling
★ In the book
The number one song that got away
Songwriter Rory Bourke let Charlie cut a demo of a song called A Little Good News and told him, “If nobody picks it up, you got it.” Charlie pitched it to the Gatlins, the Oak Ridge Boys, and Lee Greenwood. Then Anne Murray heard it, and it went to number one.
It all started on the town square in Holly Springs, where he bought his first record: Little Richard, Long Tall Sally, with Slippin' and Slidin' on the B side. The rest of the music story is in More Than a Game.
★ The memoir, now taking preorders
More Than a GameA Life in Sports
Stories & Second Chances
“I've been a lot of places. Can't hit a moving target.” From Holly Springs to the SEC booth, the games, the legends, the fear that drove him, and the second chances that kept him going, told the way only Charlie tells it.
eBook $9 · Softcover $25 · Hardcover $35