The Steel Guitar Forum

Posted: **18 Apr 2006 7:22 pm**

A couple of years ago I was playing a local gig and the night was winding down when a gentleman walked up to me and said "can you play Last Date? I would like to scoot across the floor one more time". I thought he meant he wanted to dance once more before the night was over. I said I did know it and I asked the guys to play it, and so we did. I watched him grab a nice little lady and he grinned and danced the entire song. When it was over he promptly went to his seat and told the people he was with he did not feel so good, at which time he fell out of his chair and was dead of a heart attack.
I swore I would never play that song again. Well, a few weeks ago I guess I was not thinking when I got another request for the song. I played it as the last song of the night. The next night I was careflighted to Dallas with my own heart attack. I survived and am back to playing but I promise I will never play Last Date again....because it might be my last date.....[This message was edited by George Plemons on 18 April 2006 at 08:43 PM.]

Posted: **18 Apr 2006 7:24 pm**

I think I hear the theme song from The Twilight Zone in the background... (nah na-na-na, nah na-na-na, nah na-na-na...)

Posted: **18 Apr 2006 9:30 pm**

Well, look at it from the positive side:
He danced with a lady, on music that he liked with a smile on his face. That's the way I want to go, better than a hospital bed.
You just made the last minutes of his life great.

Hope you will be OK!

------------------
Steelin' Greetings
Marco Schouten
Sho-Bud LLG; Guyatone 6 string lap steel; John Pearse bar; Emmons bar; Evans SE200 amp

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 4:46 am**

If you could get this to work repeatably I could see how you could get VERY rich...

In the science fiction story "Suzie's Reality", if Suzie the primate was looking at you, and she covered her eyes with her hands, you ceased to exist...[This message was edited by Ray Minich on 19 April 2006 at 07:01 AM.]

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 5:19 am**

I knew my playing was bad but I think I have given a whole new meaning to the words knocking em dead.

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 6:06 am**

George...maybe you should re-name it; "Last Song"?...or maybe not.

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 6:44 am**

I play Last Date frequently and never notice any negative(*) results, so I'm guessing your experience is a random statistical fluctuation without significance. However, I'm an amateur steel player, not a pro; but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express once...

(*)I did wake up in Cleveland with no idea how I got there once, but discounting that, no bad results.[This message was edited by Chas Friedman on 19 April 2006 at 08:11 AM.]

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 11:22 am**

Buddy, Paul, Tommy, and those kind of guys can knock you out with their playing, but can they flat out kill you? The bar has been raised significantly!!

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 12:18 pm**

I dont have a cursed song exactly.
however, one song, a classical song will forever be linked to a tragic event.

one night near Christmas I was driving to my hometown along a river road.
the road was narrow and full of bends.
it was 10PM and I was listening to the classical radio; the only thing that came in.

I turned a bend and came upon a head on collison between a TransAm and a pickup truck.
the front end of the Trans was gone; pushed up into the driver's seat.
there was screaming coming from the truck. freaked me out so I went over to the car.
just then another car pulled up. we checked out the driver, pulling him off the broken steering column. the gaping hole told us he was probably a goner.
in the truck was a lone teenage girl. she was remarkably unscathed, except for a bloody nose.
we treated her for shock and waited for the ambulance.
did I say it was fifteen degrees below zero?
we took turns warming in the cars and attending to things.
while sitting in my car that song was playing on the radio. the whole area was in a fog from the half frozen mist hanging in the air from broken radiators and car exhaust.
very eerie.

the girl was fine. the guy did die.

whenever I hear that song now I am transported back to that accident.

Ive learned the song was Pacobel's Canon. too bad. such a strange association. so in a way that song is cursed now.

ps: at the time I was employed as an orderly in a hospital. glad I had some stomach and wherewithall for first aid.[This message was edited by Randy Reeves on 19 April 2006 at 01:20 PM.]

Posted: **19 Apr 2006 5:32 pm**

Randy, it sounds like the right person was in the right place at the right time.

You did good.

And I will always think of your incident when I hear that song.

G

Posted: **20 Apr 2006 4:46 am**

thanks. for years I always felt I didnt do enough.

update: at my nephew's wedding ,over the weekend, Pacobel's Canon was played.

now I am reminded there are two sides to everything.
an amazing world we live in.

Posted: **20 Apr 2006 6:11 am**

do you have a cursed song?

Yes. Barnacle Bill The Sailor. Lotsa' cursing in that song. Goes over well in sports bars.....

[This message was edited by HowardR on 20 April 2006 at 07:13 AM.]

Posted: **20 Apr 2006 7:26 am**

George, that is just an awful coincidence. I did PubMed search and could not find a relationship between Last Date and acute coronary syndromes.

I trust that you have made a good recovery, and it is great that you can talk about it.

After pondering this for several hours, I have to conclude that it might be your tuning. Was it ET or JI?

Posted: **20 Apr 2006 7:38 am**

I remember once long ago, a place in north Baltimore called "Carl's Club 33". We were playing the last song of the midnight set, "John Henry", and a fight broke out at the bar. Seems a man had a disagreement with a woman (his wife, I found out later), and then cold-cocked her, knocking her off the barstool. A young man came to her aid, a fight ensued, and then her hubby took out a box cutter and slit the poor guy's throat. Thankfully, the young man lived, and hubby was sentenced to 5-7 years for ADW and other numerous charges. I was amazed that most of the crowd stayed, and we played another set.

I rarely hear that old bluegrass song these days, but whenever I do, it takes me back again to that night in 1968.

Posted: **20 Apr 2006 9:16 am**

Jon, am I supposed to find out now after all these years that you have to tune these things!!
BTW Jon, one of my daughters will be coming down Austin way in September. She is going to go to Texas State. Good to know a good steel player will be down there to look out for her...
Its is amazing at how the music can seem to take one to a particular event and time. The memory and the music seem to be on the same track.
GP[This message was edited by George Plemons on 20 April 2006 at 10:17 AM.]

Posted: **21 Apr 2006 2:38 pm**

A few years ago I was playing outside on a hot Texas summer night for a group of Shriners and we lost one on the "Cotton Eyed Joe" He went out dancing. What more could you ask for?

Posted: **22 Apr 2006 8:57 am**

The question comes to mind...Do you have a "blessed" song? Several come to mind for me: "More Precious than Silver," "I'll Fly Away," "Surely the Presence (of the Lord Is in This Place") to name a few. My apologies if this is "hijacking!!" fc

Posted: **22 Apr 2006 9:16 am**

A fellow steel player here in town was doing a gig a couple of years ago, broke a string on his Emmons, bent over to get a new one from his pac-a-seat and that was it. Never made it to the hospital and never found out what song they were doing....

Posted: **22 Apr 2006 9:56 pm**

Years ago when I lived in Los Angeles I went to the Hollywood Bowl one summer night for some classical music. They played Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony. It is one of the saddest pieces of music ever written, and has the apt nickname "La Pathetique," French for "the sad one." After a long slow denoument, it ends on the minor tonic played very low by the basses. The audience was deathly quiet, and slow to break into applause. As the last note ended, a woman a few rows in front of me jumped up and shrieked. Her husband was dead of a heart attack. In a way it is horrible. But wow - what a way to go.

Posted: **22 Apr 2006 11:22 pm**

Remember the 50's r&b singer Jackie Wilson? As i heard the story about 15 years ago, I think, he was doing a show and singing "Lonely Teardrops." When he got to "my heart is crying, crying lonely teardrops," he dropped from a heart attack and was incapacitated for evermore.

Posted: **23 Apr 2006 1:16 am**

Our newest song, with me, and intended for the next album is
"Rusty Chain". Well Rick has yet to perform it live without breaking a string.

Not so fast or hard, but too much emotion I guess.

But we haven't slayed anybody yet... least not during my tenure.
Last Date, does seem a bit touchy for you though.
Still you DID send him out happy.

The last date etched on your stone...
not for me please, I don't wanna know!
[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 23 April 2006 at 02:20 AM.]