When Tugboat Jackson got back from a vacation he took down south, he came back rested and revitalized. He showed up at the studio full of ideas and songs, and what's even better for us at Big And Tall Records, brought us a good load of catfish, enough for a fish fry! We've got the fish securely packed in the freezer until we decide on the date of the fish fry. We plan on making it a real wing-ding and invite as many of our artists that we can. Tug said he'd do the cooking, and he'll bring along his recipe for hush puppies!
He was invited down there by a former customer, a contractor that Tugboat worked with for years supplying some of the hardware needs of the builder. They had a good relationship, even got to be good friends, so when the contractor retired he went south and bought a place on a big lake because he liked to fish, and told Tug to come on down when he could. So he did! Tug's comments:
Yeah, I've known Dan for a lot of years. It got so I couldn't beat the price of the big chain hardware stores, but sometimes I could give better quality and for sure better service. So that's what kept a lot of my customers coming back, despite the higher prices a neighborhood hardware store had to charge. With Dan, there were many times he needed nails, screws, other stuff on the job site, so I'd pack up my van and deliver it. That saved him a trip that took time away from the job. As they say, time is money. And what I did was time well spent. Customer loyalty is essential for a small business, so I tried to go out of my way to take care of the good customers.
It was mighty nice of Dan to invite me down. Always loved to fish, didn't get much chance for years. But I told the Boss (my kid!) what I was gonna do, and he agreed I could use a vacation! The wife told me to go on without her and enjoy myself. kind of hated to go without her, but she didn't think she'd have much to do while two guys go fishing all day! Went out with Dan in his boat, and he had some things to do a couple of days so I went by myself to fish off the bank. Had a lot of time to think, and scraps of songs kept popping into my head!
The first song Tugboat recorded when he got back was Gone Fishin', and he's been going strong ever since. The song Ya'll Got All The Answers is typical in that it gives the listener food for thought, and the music is more hard driving than Tugboat usually writes.
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