Jackson Free Press

South Carolina's Marshall Tucker Band has plenty to sing about. The band has released more than 40 albums including reissues and live recordings since its debut in 1973, with four records hitting platinum and five earning gold status. For Doug Gray, Marshall Tucker's vocalist and only original member, that's not even the best part.

"The best part about Marshall Tucker Band is that we're still around 43 years later," he says. "I'm the sole survivor, which is a phrase that's been overused by a lot of things. But I'm the sole original guy, and have been for around 23 years."

Gray, Drummer B.B. Borden, guitarists Rick Willis and Chris Hicks, bassist Pat Elwood and keyboardist Marcus James Henderson, who also plays flute and saxophone, make up the current lineup for the Marshall Tucker Band.

On the morning we spoke, Gray, who was surprisingly cheerful, had already completed three phone interviews by 8 a.m., responding to dozens of inquiries about the band's history. It's a line of questioning he's answered so many times that he's turned Marshall Tucker's early days into a one-sentence explanation.

"We started out, went touring, got back from Vietnam, and we kicked butt for eight more years," he says. "Tommy (Caldwell, bassist) died in a car accident, and that changed everything for us." As Gray puts it, "The historical things are pretty well written." The future, on the other hand, is not.

In addition to a full touring schedule for 2014, the Marshall Tucker Band shared the stage with Kid Rock and the Zac Brown Band, performed for the televised CMA Music Festival and was invited to play at the Grand Ole Opry. Gray says that technology and the evolving music industry have made being a band less taxing on the artist.

"It's getting weird because the last 30 years, after the big surge of playing 300-something shows a year, it's actually less of a process now," he says. "It makes it easy with cell phones and email. I was up at 4:30 or 5 a.m., reading and making schedules. And you've got 15 or 20 people working to make it easier for you."

Gray recognizes the band owes a lot to its original line-up, the musical family he grew up with. In fact, Marshall Tucker's newest release, "Live from Englishtown," which hits stores on Oct. 14, is a direct result of the band's early performances. The recordings come from a concert in—you guessed it—Englishtown, N.J., at Raceway Park on Sept. 3, 1977. The tracks on the album have seen little polishing, and that's the way Gray wanted it.

"When I'm listening to it, the engineer's looking at me because we had four months to get it the way we wanted it. I decided we're not going to cut anything out," he says. "There were people standing on the stage and screaming, probably as many as there were band members and crew."

Choosing to release "Live from Englishtown" was about serving the longtime listeners and giving new fans something they haven't heard before. For Gray, being in the Marshall Tucker Band is just as exhilarating as it's always been.

"People have asked me, 'Are you sure you want to be doing 10 interviews a day?' But this is Doug Gray at 66 years old, still getting excited about shows!" he says. "I can say one thing: We created so many fans, close friends and secondary families. Those people have taken the time to share our music with their friends and families, and now we have three or four different generations of families coming to a Marshall Tucker concert. And that's pretty overwhelming."

The Marshall Tucker Band performs at 7:30 p.m. tonight (Oct. 7) at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds (1207 Mississippi St.) in the Budweiser Pavilion. The concert is free with fair admission. For more information, visit the Mississippi Department of Agriculture & Commerce website.