Hurt

  The Cobbwebs was a band that I was a part of.  I wrote the lyrics to several of the songs.  We billed ourselves as "original 60's rock and roll".  Del and Chris did all of the music.  We were based out of the Irmo, SC area, where they lived.  

 There was a local company that produced a various artists tape called "The Burning of Columbia" in the mid-1990's, and we were picked to be on that tape.  We went into a recording studio to cut our song.  The tape was released, and we got some radio airplay.  

 Things were looking up for us.  A local band was getting some major airplay during this same time.  They were called "Hootie and the Blowfish".  We knew some of the people with that band, or we knew people who knew people with that band.  At any rate, we knew we were good and tried to shop our music around to artists and labels.  We would send them a tape of our music along with the sheet music for the enclosed songs.  The companies would return the tapes but keep the sheet music. We listened to the radio to see if a band would steal our copyrighted songs, and then we would sue them and make millions.  

 Due to a lawsuit many years before regarding George Harrison and "My Sweet Lord", it was determined that a song would have to have eight bars in a row the same in order for the music to be copied.  We heard one rather famous band use our music, but it was only six bars, so there was nothing we could do.

 We were getting a lot of buzz around town for our music, especially on local late-night FM radio.   We were going to be the next Hootie that was going to come out of Columbia.  One Saturday, the three of us went to Augusta, GA for a record convention.  We liked to go there to look for rarities to add to our collection.  As we were going from table to table, I overheard Chris and Del talking to a dealer.  They were telling his about their upcoming move to Nashville, TN to make it big up there.  This was the first I had heard about a move.  They were going to leave Columbia and me.  We had a three-way partnership with The Cobbwebs.  All decisions had to be put to a vote.  I wasn't consulted about their moving to Nashville.  I was shocked and deeply hurt.  Of course, it was a good move for them and the music.  They just never told me they were moving.  I couldn't go with them because of my job.

 The last time we were together, before their move, was at The Rolling Stones concert in Columbia in 1995.  It was a great show.  I had to resign myself in knowing that the music would be better in Nashville.  It was, and we got noticed.  We never achieved "Hootie" status.  We were in the top ten for indie releases in several European countries in 2002.  That was something.