Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
He's stockin' up on TT,
cause it just hit the fan.
Canceling our activities.
Remember no wash of hands.
No school, no shows, no sports, no more.
Basketball.
Reminds him of madness.
We're saddest, Mar-a-till-all.
No elbow bumps, no fist bumps.
Just social distancing.
Sanitizes and face-packed travel bands and quarantine.
No work, no gigs, no tips, no checks, no basketball.
Reminds him of madness.
Saddest, Mar-a-till-all.
It's times like ease, we all just got to come together.
Reach out and stay connected, try to help one another.
So my friend, if you run alone, I can spare a couple roads.
I'll leave that on the front porch, just drive by grab him in the bowl.
A song of the year for musician Robert J.
And Robert J joins me right now.
Thank you, Robert.
Tell me about the song we just heard, the saddest march of all.
That all came about because COVID hit just as, you know,
March madness was gonna happen.
And then I'd like to follow the Badger basketball.
And then they closed the tournament down.
They closed everything down in the country and pretty much.
I just said, well, this is kind of a sad march.
It's a little slice of what happened in our life.
You recently had surgery on your hand.
And of course, you're a guitar player. How's it mending?
It's mending, you know, it's going as good as can be.
I've had to cancel some gigs.
It's all right because I just wanted to heal properly.
Once the middle of May hits, I've got 10 to 15 gigs a month already planned all through the summer.
So I want to be healthy for that.
We are sending healing vibes your way.
We can't wait to see you back out there playing for us.
I want to ask you now about Mama Cares.
Now you are getting ready to lead off this big celebration,
the 10th anniversary.
And that's happening on March 30th.
You are director of Mama Cares.
And for people who don't know, it is part of the Madison Area Music Association.
What pulled you in to get you involved in Mama Cares?
Well, this all started the Christmas of 2014.
My son had a perfect Christmas.
And then between Christmas and New Year's, he got very sick.
And we couldn't figure out what it was.
They hospitalized him.
And they realized he had a golf ball size infection in his left-hand pearl lobe.
And operated immediately using the hospital for 17 days.
And he almost didn't make it.
From that, I missed a lot of work.
My wife missed a lot of work.
And we had head insurance, but at the same time,
there's a lot out of pocket expenses going on.
Good old Rick Toit, the co-founder and leader of the mamas.
And my good friend Chris Wagner from the Moon Gipsy,
threw a benefit for me at the high noon.
And over 350 people showed up.
And from that, I just felt that it was necessary to pay it forward.
So I recommended that we start a program called Mama Cares
to help other musicians in need.
My son's doing great now.
He survived.
We're blessed to be in a city like Madison with world-class health care.
Man, we're lucky to be here.
If we weren't here, he might not have made it.
How did that feel to have all those people come out to help you?
Knowing that then, obviously, you wanted to turn it around
and try to help somebody else.
It was a humbling, humbling experience, you know?
I still get toured, toured up about it.
To have that kind of support.
It's just incredible.
And you share how Mama Cares has helped others.
And I know a good chunk of money has been raised in the past.
We make our money by having these little fundraisers.
So what we've done is raise money.
And every cent we raise, we give away to help fellow musicians in need
or their families if they're in a family crisis of some sort.
We've raised and given out $109,000 so far.
We help as we can.
You know, we can never pay somebody's entire monetary problems.
But we pitch in as we can.
I'm proud that we've been able to help other musicians
because how many times we've all been to events or benefits
for somebody in need, whether it's a musician or not.
And who pitches in the bands?
We've all played for free.
We've all played for the cause.
And now we're asking for the community to come together
and help us raise money so we can help other musicians.
Tell us who you have booked for this event.
Well, we have the incredible Sam Ness,
fantastic singer, songwriter.
He's going to open the show.
And then the beautiful and talented Jim,
chocolate and bottle rockets will be playing.
And then the Jimmy's will do a couple of sets during that time.
We might get a few guest jammers up to, you know,
make it a little bit more festive.
We're still looking for more donations of auction items
or sponsorship.
If somebody wants to kick in a little money to help us with the event.
We're looking for that, but we've got some good ones.
Can I tell you about some of them?
Oh, I would love to hear it.
Well, Greg Ginter from Greg's guitar shop.
I went in there the other day and he goes,
God, I'd like to help.
I'll give you a guitar.
So he gave me a brand new Oscar,
Schmidt, Washburn, acoustic guitar.
We've got other guitars that have been donated to by various people.
We've got artwork.
We've got the best and coolest, I think,
so far is our good friend, but it's big.
He has is donating some signed LPs.
Other coolest part is a one hour mentoring session via Zoom
with Butch to talk everything, music and recording.
I thought that could be invaluable to somebody.
And of course, you know, he's from Verokua and still
anytime he comes back home to Wisconsin,
it seems he's always out and about and trying to help.
Wow, he's ever, ever let go of his roots.
We are talking about this big 10th anniversary party.
March 30th, high noon saloon in Madison.
And you know, people will really like this too,
because it starts at three o'clock in the afternoon.
Yeah, it goes three to eight.
It should be a really nice time.
We've had great fun with the auctions and things in the past.
Well, I wish you the best with Mama Cares.
And one more time, this is Mama Cares.
March 30th, high noon saloon in Madison.
Starts at three, runs through eight,
and reminds us again, Robert J.
Who's playing this particular day?
Okay, that's Sam Mess,
Jen chocolate and bottle rockets,
and the one and only Jimmy's.
If you hear those names I'll put together,
I think it's going to be a packed house.
I think it's going to be a fun, fun time.
Let's fill up the coffers so we can help each other when needed.
Before I let you go, we're going to end with another one
of your award-winning songs.
Tell us about this one, a beautiful blur.
I got that idea just because it seems
like life is going by so fast.
It's like a blur.
We have our ups and downs, we all have.
You know, it's a blur,
and we just got to celebrate that
and enjoy it while we can.
Find the goodness in everything
and try to hold onto that.
Speaking of celebrating,
congratulations on your newest grandbaby.
Oh, thank you.
As we end this here,
he's his gorgeous song,
a beautiful blur.
Thank you, Robert J.
Thank you, Terry Bar.
I'm counting my blessings,
that I've needed this far.
I caught myself confessing,
that the dashboard of my car
in the middle of the road,
in the middle of the road.
I was bound in the road, man.
I'm checking it every time.
Let's tell them to get it out of there,
just a decision.
There's it's a beautiful blur.
It's a beautiful blur.
It's a beautiful blur.
It's a beautiful blur.
It's a beautiful blur.
It's a beautiful blur.
Somewhere there's the top goal.
The race is by the like line.
But he's past it a five o'clock.
