BOOGIE BUCK FELL'S LAST DAYS

By Dalton Roberts
Chattanooga Time Free Press
1-31-03

No matter what your work may be, could you carry on with it almost to the moment of your death if you had cancer of the colon and liver? I mean, with no painkillers except the regular OTC pills?

To carry this one step further, could you smile and laugh and make music and make people smile and laugh and be happy right up to the moment of collapsing from the pain?

That's exactly what Boogie Buck Fell did up until he was rushed to St. Thomas Hospital from his gig at Caesar's Restaurant on White Bridge Road in Nashville the second week in January. Imagine the pain the man experienced the last weeks of his life. He must have been made of steel.

Buck and I had our political differences. He alternated his performing between Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga and when he lived in Chattanooga he regularly fired off long letters to the editor. He was not classifiable in any way in any part of his being but if he had been politically classifiable, I would describe his politics as extremely irascible independent conservatism with frequent forays into populism and a once-in-a-blue-moon splash of liberalism. He was a Buck Fellindelicancrat.

He was equally outspoken on non-political matters. He actually got barred from some Internet opinion boards for his rants on music. I particularly agreed with some of his pummelings of contemporary country music, which may be contemporary but is definitely not country under any historical definition of that word. No matter where he stood on any issue, I found his rants to be interesting, sincere-to-the-bone and worth reading. In one paragraph you'd want to choke him and in another you'd want to hug him.

One thing is for sure: when he sat down at the grand piano, you were going to be royally entertained. You were going to laugh and cry. You were going to remember and reminisce. You were going to hear songs you had never heard in your life, a few from today's charts and dozens you hadn't heard in decades, all stirred up in Jerry Lee Lewis rock, Little Richard roll, Frank Sinatra pop, Hank Williams country soul, and gut bucket Delta blues. There was absolutely no end to his repertoire and he had no problem playing any genre of music. You just had to fasten your seat belt and be ready for whatever came out of those long, skinny, miraculous fingers.

He was homeless the last time I saw him, just weeks before his death. Sleeping in his old gasping Cadillac. Getting up every morning and going to the public library to check his email.  So how in the world did he own a grand piano?

His old car didn't bother his pride but he wasn't about to play any piano but the best. He tailor-made a trailer rig to haul it around and to protect it from the elements. The night we stood and talked for an hour on the Baymont Motel parking lot he talked about setting up his grand the next day at Caesar's.

I was alone there at the Baymont and had an extra bed in my room. I offered it to Buck but he said, patting his rusted-at-the-seams Caddie, "No, thanks a bunch but I'll just stay here in my fine mobile home."

I figured he might need a few bucks but knew better than to offer him anything. He had his pride about such things. So I asked, "Buckaroo, when you gonna have a CD out?" and he said, "I am working on one right now." I gave him $20 and said, "I would be honored to have the first copy." He grinned and said, "You got it, partner."

Unless someone miraculously discovers some master tapes, I will never have that CD. But I've got Boogie Buck. He will forever pound the ivory keys in my mind.