“You know, our goal at first for Confederate Railroad was to go gold, which would have been half a million albums and we’re well up to two million now,” said Danny Shirley frontman for the iconic band.
Confederate Railroad has been serving up outlaw country to its fans for more than 35 years and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Shirley stated, “fortunately we keep getting offers and when you’ve been doing it for this long, well it is hard to say no.”
Among those upcoming performances is a show in Poplar Bluff at the historic downtown Rodgers Theatre. Doors open at 6 p.m. Friday, May 20, with the show to start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $35 and $50. They can be purchased at the door, online at www.itickets.com or by calling 800-965-9324.
Confederate Railroad got their start as many musicians do, playing in bars and honky tonks in and around Atlanta, Georgia, in the late 80s. They eventually came to serve as a road band for country musicians David Allan Coe and Johnny Paycheck.
The group finally got their break in the early 90s, signing with Atlantic Records and releasing their first single, “She Took It Like A Man” on their self-titled debut album. The single would soon climb to 26 on the charts, paving the way for many future hits like, “Trashy Women,” “Queen Of Memphis” and “When you leave That Way You Can Never Go Back.”
During an interview with Shirley, he stated his grandfather, the late Lola Hickson was a great musical influence in his life and was the one who taught him to play guitar.
“I guess we started playing together when I was about 10 years old,” stated Shirley.
The teachings of his grandfather inspired a true passion for music and because of this, he would later honor his memory in the music video for the song, “Daddy Never Was The Cadillac Kind.” That video would eventually climb to number one on the country music charts.
Shirley said, “Grandpa was a coal miner and all the workers in that video were the workers in the mines, many of them were my grandfather’s friends.”
Now that businesses and the music scene are opening back up, the band has hit the ground running. Shirley says they now have more than 100 shows booked for this year, “things finally got back to normal around June of last year,” he stated, in regards to touring and COVID restrictions.
Shirley said some of the many places they will be performing this year are Missouri, Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina; they have a full schedule of shows for the upcoming year.
When asked if he would ever retire from music Shirley replied, “Somebody asked Charlie Daniels one time are you ever going to retire? He said, ‘Well I play music and I play golf, which one do you want me to give up?’ I think once you’ve done it as long as I have, it would be hard to just totally walk away from it.”