I first met Dan McCoy at a Country Club in Stuttgart in May 1998. He was near the end of his 5-week tour. He did his setup and sound check. At 8 o'clock, he got up on stage, grabbed his guitar, and turned on the PA system, and BOOM…sparks, smoke…!! One of the club members drove home quickly and picked up a replacement PA Head. So, at about 8:45 pm, Dan kicked off his show.
He commenced to dazzle the crowd with some guitar picking we had never seen before. He played for 45 minutes and took a 5-minute break, and then I joined him for three songs. He played the rest of the night without a break. I heard some great Texas songs for the first time, like Blame It On Mexico, Sonora's Death Row, Lone Star State Of Mind, and several Guy Clark songs.
The next day, an inspection of the PA found a SCREWDRIVER inside. Leftover from another repair. The owner admitted the Screwdriver was his. Luckily, Dan was at the end of his tour. But that fateful meeting started a long-term friendship that is a significant highlight of my musical and personal life.
Dan continued to tour Germany at least once a year through 2009. We and a German family became his home base. I spent a lot of time picking his brain and playing music together. I did all I could to help him with promotions. I put together some knockoff CDs to add to his merchandise for sale at his shows, we did a photo shoot and I sold him a guitar to keep in Germany so he didn't have the constant hassle with the airlines.
When it came to flying, Dan was always overweight but managed to pull it off. En route to Germany, he'd bring gifts; on the return trip, he packed like a starving gypsy of all the foods he loves!!
We'd always call him on his birthday and a couple times a year, I'd leave greetings on his answering machine. In 2018, we had a stopover in Dallas on our way back to Germany, so we drove down to visit. We got to play a gig together in New Braunfels and had a beer in Grune Hall. I last talked to Dan on the phone in March 2022, and we discussed the song St. Paul, that he co-wrote with James Nihan in 1995.
Although King George's recordings of two of Dan McCoy's songs put some POWERFUL checks into his bank account, neither song was released as a single. On 12 Mar 1988, Clay Blaker, (his old bandleader) took his cut of Dan's "Honky-Tonk Heart And Hillbilly Soul" to #75 on the Billboard Hot Country Charts.
For friends of Dan McCoy or just good music, I have uploaded to my Google Drive basically everything I have on my bud. When he came over to tour Germany, we spent a lot of time together. So I have a lot of stuff people have never heard unless they were in the room when it happened. I have pretty much his complete catalog of original songs and cuts from live shows in Texas, Germany and Austria. RIP Dan.
Here's a link to my Google Drive, and you can download it (FOR FREE)
https://drive.google.com/.../…...
Barry P. Foley
Helmbrechts Germany
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