Mickey Fowler CD Features Toy & Tony!

Greenville's Original Outlaw, Mickey Fowler, recently released a CD that spans much of his career.  Mickey was great friends with Toy Caldwell and the late MTB guitarist is a featured guest on 2 of the CD's songs.  They were recorded around 1980 in Greenville, SC.  

Toy, Mickey and Tony

When Toy was home from the road, he would sit in for the whole night or for partial nights with the band and Mickey often sang a song or two with the TCB.   Mickey told MetroBeat that ì[Caldwell] was always good from the first time I ever heard himî. There wasnít nobody like him. I havenít ever heard nobody even get close to his tone. It was unreal. You could stand outside of a club and tell Toy was playing by the tone of it.î

Fowlerís new CD features a lost Caldwell jewel, a song Toy wrote for "Urban Cowboy". The song, entitled ìThe Only Cowboy on Your Mind,î was turned down in favor of Johnny Leeís ìLooking For Love,î and thus almost became lost forever had it not been for a bizarre turn of events.

ìToy and me went up in a studio and did that song in one day,î Fowler recalls. ìWell, when we left there I had to go play. We left in a hurry and we just got one cassette of it. And we went to the club and played a couple of nights and somebody ripped off the tape player I had in the truck seat. Well, it had that song in it. So it was gone. And after the studio where we did it closed down, there was no master or nothing of it.î

Since Fowler and Caldwell had performed the song on stage for only about a week, it hadnít become ingrained in memory and basically ended up completely forgotten. However, as fate would have it, the song was recently uncovered by longtime Fowler friend Dennis OíBryant, who had it on a more than 20-year-old tape of a live performance from that week.

ìI had forgotten about it because we only played it for about a week,î Fowler says. ìBut after he found it, I learned it over again. Itís a good song.î

Tony Heatherly, former Toy Caldwell Band and current MTB bassist, played with Mickey for many years in the 60s, 70s and 80s in The Variation Band and is also a guest musician. Other guests include country star Aaron Tippin, who provides vocals on two tracks, Scotty Hawkins (current Brooks and Dunn drummer), who also played in the Variation Band, and  Alan Pearson, the late Garfeel Ruff drummer. The CD is a mix of fan favorites from the ë70s, including covers of outlaw country classics written by the likes of Wylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver and Tony Joe White. Other highlights include a cover of Johnny Bondís 1942 classic ìI Wonder Where You Are Tonightî along with two Toy Caldwell tunes.  For more info or to purchase the CD visit www.mickeyfowler.com!