That sounds like the name of a soap opera.  As The Coffee Brews…my apologies to As The World Turns.

It is morning in Surf City, NC.

I took this picture a few minutes ago.

Time flies.  It is Thursday already.  I’m not shocked.  It happens every time we come here.  You turn around a couple times and it is time to pack the car to head back.  I’m not complaining.  I am thankful we found this place and come back for a visit when we can.

Though we missed Pastor Duke at Faith Harbor on Sunday, he is in Raleigh now, Pastor Jodi gave a fine Palm Sunday message.  Always nice to worship there.

Yesterday, as the tide was coming in and the light was nice, I told my dear wife, Carrie, I was grabbing my camera (phone these days) and walking down to the pier for some pictures.  It was a wise move.

Under the pier.

The tide coming in.  Brother Tim would probably say all tides roll!

And this is the shot I will sign off with as the coffee is finished and calling my name.  I must say I am delighted with this picture.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Hello group.

It has been a good while since I put on a post.  That 50 posts in 50 days was fun…but…it was not a picnic.  I am delighted that I did it.  If I am smart I will terminate this site around the 11th month after turning age 59.

My dear wife, Carrie, and I are in North Carolina for the week.  I can say this…it has been chilly for sure.  The last two days we have taken advantage of the cooler weather to go out and do some looking to the North of home base and looking to the South of home base.  It has been good fun.  Tomorrow the temperature is to climb high enough to spend the day comfortably on the porch to read.  The next day we will probably be sweating.  If a sun burn is to be had, it will be then.

Our old Buddy Carl is with us.  Here we are climbing a bridge to Cedar Isle where you can put your car on a ferry boat and ride to Ocracoke.  Carrie and I did that many years ago.

This is the bridge we were about to climb.  At the top we stopped and it was so windy I thought my car door was going to come off it’s hinge.  There was no one else around so we stopped and took a few pictures.

As I said, the wind was unreal.

On the way back from this excursion, a 103 mile trip to as far as we could go without continuing by boat, they call it the southern Outer Banks, we stopped by our favorite fish market and did quite well.

The folks at Thomas Seafood never disappoint.  This is a new sign.

We always get flounder and shrimp.

The fifth tub down has the flounder in the bag.  They pull out a fillet and you say  “we’ll take two.”  They are huge.  We get the large shrimp.  Jumbo shrimp is just too oxymoronish for me.  Large shrimp is bad enough.

The fillets are snipped into smaller pieces.  Yes, that was two fillets.  And there is a modest amount of shrimp.  Carrie does not eat them.  But man can she prepare them!

Oh my yes!  With apologizes to Alton Brown, there are good eats!

Just the two of us are here for this stay.  We are in an old missile tower.  Tower 5.  We are in the first two floors of the white structure.  It was used in the 1940s as one of the towers used to observe missile testing off the shores.  You could look it up.  Project Bumblebee is what it was called.  The first guided missile testing in American History was here.  This place changed the history of aviation and warfare.  Solid fuel boosters began here and eventually found their way to the Space Shuttles.

There is one room on the lower floor that acts as living room and kitchen.  Upstairs is the bedroom and nice balcony to look out at the ocean and read a book or write a song.

Today we went to Wilmington.

This is the courthouse that was used for the exterior shot of the courthouse for the TV show Matlock.  I can hear Andy Griffith’s character now as he raises his arms…”And all the time, you knew better.  You knew that….”

Me and Carrie with the Battleship North Carolina behind us.

Camp Lejeune is not far away.  These Ospreys made quite the noise flying overhead in Wilmington and were neat to look at.

The River Walk in Wilmington.

It is cool and cloudy today.  The forecast is better!

Speaking the rights from the North Carolina Shore…

Danny Johnson

Feels odd not making this post 50 years in 50 days…those days are gone.

I just listened to the SET LIST of a LIFETIME….

My dear wife, Carrie, made me a set list of songs by some of the artists we have seen over the years and put them on 2 cds.  She had a little help from her friends.

Carrie and I have been fortunate enough to witness a great deal of live music over the years.  Folks may think I am only a Moody Blues fan…this will dispel that.  All these songs are important to me.

1. Centerfield…John Fogerty.  We saw John twice in 2016.  He was amazing.  This song was a hit when I was in high school.
2. When You Say Nothing at All…Allison Krauss.  We have seen her a couple of times at the Louisville Palace.  She opens her mouth and magic comes out.
3. Small town…John Mellencamp.  He may not like to sing it…but we like to hear it.  Wish he and Seymour would make nice.
4. A Love as True as Mine…George Strait.  Saw him in Louisville on The Cowboy Rides Away Tour.  Glad we made that one.
5. Drops of Jupiter…Train.  We will see in Train in May in St. Louis.  I cry when they play this tune.  It reminds me of my Granny.
6. My Heart Goes On…Celine Dion.  In 1999 Celine was HOT!  Great show in Cincinnati.  One of the best concerts I have ever been to.
7. One Kind of Love…Brian Wilson.  Doing the 50th anniversary of Pet Sounds.  Brian had Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin with him.  Unreal.  Great song from his latest album.  Greatest love song I have heard in thirty years.  I was a mess listening to this live.
8. And I Love You So…Don McLean.  Heard him sing on the football field at Providence High School.  Talk about a great fund raiser.  He is an American icon and I got his autograph that night.
9. He Went to Paris…Jimmy Buffett.  Saw him at Deer Creek in 1999.  Great fun and great show.
10. Be…Neil Diamond.  Glad we saw Neil last April.  He is no longer touring.  Great song.
11. You Found Me…The Fray.  Saw the Fray at SPAC in Saratoga and at Bridgestone Arena opening for Train.  Great group…great song.
12. Do you Believe In Love…Huey Lewis and The News.  Carrie and I saw Huey in Vegas in 1996 at the old Showroom on our Honeymoon.  I was so glad to see him.  We saw him a couple more times later down the road.
13. Your Song…Elton John.  Listening to Elton was like listening to the soundtrack of a generation.
14. The Wind of Heaven…Justin Hayward.  I heard this last February in Lexington.  I took my dear Carrie and my Mom and Dad to the show.  As usual, Justin did not disappoint.  And I got to see my friend Julie Ragins perform.  She too is awesome.
15. Roll Me Away…Bob Seger.  After never thinking we would ever see Bob Seger, Carrie and I saw him in 2006, 2011, 2013, and last September.  He is an American Treasure that gets treated like a comfortable piece of furniture.  He is the American Rock and Roll.
16. Love is What We Do…Clint Black.  He did a great show at Deer Creek in 1996 with Trace Adkins and The Kinleys.  Beautiful song.
17. New Horizons…The Moody Blues.  I played the Red Rocks Live version of this at a friend’s funeral in 1997.  It was the right thing to do.  A special song made more special.
18. Thinking Out Loud…Ed Sheeran.  I think I am getting a message here.  This is the only artist on the set list we have not seen.  I think Carrie is telling me something.
19. You’re My Home…Billy Joel.  Saw Billy and Elton John on the same stage.  Surreal times.
20. Not sure of the title…Mike Dawes…As soon as I hear the guitar licks, I knew it was Mike Dawes.  That is the important part.  Like Julie Ragins, he plays with Justin Hayward and does an AWESOME job.  Look at Mike Dawes in Youtube.  Hold your jaw before you start watching.
21. This Girl is On Fire…Alicia Keys.  Saw her in Greensboro on the way home after Spring Break a few years ago.  Smartest thing I did that year.  Wow.  My kids at school thought I was much smarter when I told them that.
22. I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends…Pat Monahan (Train) Matt Mathanson, Isaac Slade (The Fray)…Maybe the greatest live performance of one song I have ever witnessed.  They gave it all they had and loved it so much you could tell they did not want to song to end.  This was in Nashville in July 2015.  Wow.
23. Nights in White Satin…The Moody Blues.  My dear wife is smart lady.  She too enjoys The Moodies.  She knows what is important!  This is a timeless classic.
24. Maybe I’m Amazed…Paul McCartney.  I remember the noise she made in 2002 the first time we saw Sir Paul when he played this song.  I thought she was going to faint.  Who could blame her?  We saw Paul four times.  I doubt we see him again.

That is the set list of a lifetime.  Thank you, Carrie.  I was shocked to find this collection.  I Love You!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

This is it.  March 18th is my birthday and this is the final post in a 50 day series of a post a day leading up to now.

We had a great party this evening.

I knew something was up.  I always do.  But I must admit the guest list was larger and unexpected.  I was so glad to see so many old friends show up.

Me and my dear wife, Carrie, with our boys Jarrett and Cody and her brother, Stevarino.

This photo is classic Danny Johnson and Dan Goins in the same room.  Wish the time we see each other was not so far and few and in between.  When we went to church together and played music together we were in each others ears and faces two or three days a week.  I miss that.

I can’t begin to tell you how great it was to have Carolyn McAdams in house.  She is the mother of my friend Corner King Lincoln.  I wish he could have been here too.

My Dad with Danners and Barry and Tammy Hall.  They drove down from Jackson County to join the fun.  It was so good to see them all.  Getting Dad and Barry, one of his old football players, together is always a treat.

Steve Hanger, Tim and Michelle Petty, and Mike and Alice Combs joined the fray.  Always a treat when we can get them all together.  I appreciate them taking the time to visit with us.  Thanks also to my sister, Lynn and her daughter Katie.  Danners’ wife, Mellers.  My Mother.  Sarah, Zoe, and Hunter.  We had a great time.

I have been asked how it feels to turn 50.  What else can I say?  It feels pretty good if you can get a crew like this together.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson, age 50.

I just said so long to some of my cronies that came over today for a visit.

Carrie made fine vittles and we had a great time.  How nine hours can fly that fast is beyond my comprehension.

I am just going to sit back and revisit our time and enjoy it.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I love the NCAA Tournament.  Know that I don’t watch much college basketball during the regular season.  I do, however get fired up when it is time for March Madness that 64 team college basketball-palooza that eventually decides the National Champ.  This is fun.

There is always hope that a Cinderella team gets into the Elite 8….or dare I say the Final Four.

One reason I don’t watch much college basketball is that by the end of football season on television I am suffering from severe eye strain.  I give it a rest.

Now, when the daily paper out of Louisville was still worth its weight, as there is not much to it anymore in either content or quality, I could keep up with the National college basketball scene to a decent degree.  I knew which teams were good and which teams might have a chance.  Back then my brackets were better than they are these days.  My affinity for a North Carolina team not wearing blue making a run cost me today.  NC State was my team to make a sneaky stride.  Not to be.

During spring break my dear wife, Carrie, and I go from one basketball nation to another…Indiana to North Carolina.  It is a good time.  The newspapers are fun to read in North Carolina.  That is why my Mother gives me a pot of quarters to gather them up and bring them back home to her after I read them.

I still have memories of particular tourney games.  The day Bryce Drew hit a three in 1998 to beat Ole Miss comes to mind.  The miracle shot by U.S. Reed of Arkansas that beat Louisville in 1981…a half court shot at the buzzer.

The 1979-80 Louisville Cardinal team coached by Denny Crum was fun to watch.  Darrell Griffith was special.  That whole team was.  Indiana’s 1987 win over Syracuse in Superdome was great.  Steve Alford always looked good in red…I think he still would.

I remember watching Indiana State playing against Michigan State in 1979.  Larry Bird v. Magic Johnson was a portent of things to come in the NBA.

Watching Brad Stevens’ Butler teams make it to the finals was great.

Enough of this.  I got basketball to watch.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

Sitting here listening to The Moody Blues’ 1971 album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

From The Moody Blues, I would say we have gotten our share of favour.

I got it today.  I received my obligatory email alerting me to the latest ticket pre-sale opportunity for The Moody Blues next scheduled, as of now, concerts.  They are in Las Vegas at the end of September and early October.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I will not be there.  We saw our last Moody Blues concert in Nashville on July 22nd last year at The Ryman Auditorium on a very hot day and night.

This is not about anyone getting any older.  Not me, not The Moody Blues.  It is about perfect symmetry.

I have told the story many times.  I was injured in a weight lifting mishap when I was a freshman in high school.  Ironically, it was my 15th birthday the day I picked up the Days of Future Passed cassette stopping at a store with my mother after a doctor appointment for my back.  I took the cassette with me to see The Moodies play Days of Future Passed live at The Fraze Pavillion near Dayton on July 1st last summer.  My sister, Lynn, finally acquiesced and I took her to see The Moodies.  She, among others, have given me a bit of a ribbing over the years about my appreciation of this group.  Guess what?  My sister was humming Moodies songs every time I saw her afterward for at least three weeks.

Justin Hayward and John Lodge with Julie Ragins in the background that evening.

I really did take it with me.

I did not take it to Nashville 3 weeks later.

A great photo from the balcony of The Ryman.   Walking out that night, I knew it was our last Moodies concert.  Folks are laughing right now.  But, it’s true.  That is how I want it to end it.  From picking that cassette up in 1983 to seeing the album performed live 34 years later in The Ryman for goodness sake.  That is where it needs to end.  It is as good an ending as I can think of.

The Moody Blues have not failed us.  Carrie and I have seen them every year since 2003 after I took a concert hiatus to concentrate on my own music after I saw them in 1999. My first Moodies show was in 1986 on the heels of the album The Other Side of Life and the top ten hit Your Wildest Dreams.   I was 18.  I got 57 Moodies shows in over the course of 31 years with a storybook ending.  I know that plenty of folks would have liked to have been in The Ryman last summer to see that show.  I was fortunate enough to be there.

I met up with Julie Ragins before the show.  She and I have been complimentary of each other’s music and she is just flat a great person.  She and her husband Curtis Brengle are quite the Pear Duo.  In fact, you can find them at pearduo.com.  I wrote some nice words she shared on one of her blogs.  In addition to being a great person, Julie is a gifted musician and vocalist.  I recommend her work highly.  The Moodies are not fools.  Julie is proof of that, having played with them since 2010.

When I was 16 I would slap a pair of headphones on and listen to an entire  Moodies’ album just like I have been doing as I write this post.  It has been fun.

The Moody Blues are to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in April so to me the place finally is legit.  Never was too high on those places.  Folks are shocked when they find out of all the places I have been I have never been to The Pro Football Hall of Fame.  It just never drew me there.  I don’t plan on stopping by Cleveland as we head to the Northeast for a summer visit any time soon.

A Moody Blues concert on the calendar has been a fixture.  It has been something to look forward to.  It has been an island that I know I can get to and find some great memories while listening to music that I get and means something special to me.  No, when I started recording I did not try to sound like anyone else but me.  I write my songs and record them the way I need to.  The Moodies learned that from Buddy Holly and guess what…they passed it on.  Will I be a famous recording star?  I doubt it.  I make music for two reasons… because I love it and because I can.  Most folks don’t get that chance.  I know that.

Waving goodbye at The Ryman in 2014.

So a last big thank you to The Moody Blues.  Justin, John, Graeme, Ray (we miss him), and Mike (though I never got see him). All the best to you and yours! I still be listening.  The shelf is rather full.  But I will keep on making music anyway.

And I will keep speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Day 46 of the journey.  I suppose I need to turn Neil Diamond off and play something with a little more fire in it.

We started this trek in January.  A post a day for fifty days leading to my 50th birthday.  I think I will pick some random photos and comment on them.  Hope that is okay.

Carrie and me at a very special place on a very windy day!

I enjoy having these on my window everyday.  And to think, a Brownstown guy, my dear friend Jerry Brown, made these for me.  I don’t think I was supposed to tell that.

There are field trips and there are field trips…but there is only one place where you can kiss a yard of bricks…Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The place is beautiful.

Never get tired of seeing this picture.  Adam Disque, a Great American.

Carl, the possum, gets around.  East coast and…

West coast.

I could never forget Bonnie Hunsucker and Turkey Lurkey…

Walden Pond is as sweet as you can imagine.

My mother will always be the 4th of July Queen.

Words for that?

I was caught writing a song.

Young Justin Hayward behind not quite as young Justin.

The Rose Bowl November 2016.

My Dad and Barry Hall having a good time before they tore the old Blevins Stadium down.

Carrie by Lake Erie.

Me looking out at Lake Ontario.  It was something.

My Aunt’s back yard in Mississippi.  Just as wonderful to me.

The Art Institute in Chicago.

A lovely sight.

Me and Brother Tim at Bama v. UT 2016.  Guess who won?

Mike Hunsucker getting us there and back safely.  I miss Mike so much.

I don’t know why I have been blessed in so many ways.  I have an adventurous streak, I think.  There is always another thing to accomplish and another road to  go down.   That is just the way I live.  I don’t know what else to do.  It is only in times when I look back at my speaktherights.com photo library that I think, man, you have been a great many places.  That was then and this is now.  There is much to see and do.  There are more songs to write and more folks to help out.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

I spoke with my mother on the phone after school today.  I normally try to do that every day.  When I was driving 54 miles one way to Medora for a decade and a half it was easy to do.  There was plenty of time to get caught up while I drove home.

The subject had to come up.  In a few days I will turn 50.  My mother says she can’t believe it.  I tend to agree.  My back argues with that, though.  Just one of those things.

When I was born at the Bartholomew County Hospital in Columbus, Indiana on March 18th there was some concern.  Something about my lungs not cooperating when I got here.  Imagine that.  All I can say is that I have made up for it.  A day or two after I was born a six inch snow fell, according to reports.  It was like the one we had last night.  It was gone the next day.

Today a student at school, they caught wind of my birthday being on the way.  The student told me fifty years is a long time.  Gee thanks kid.  But the student was right.

Honestly, I am proud to say I have made it this far.  This is a crazy world we live in.  I could sit and talk to you about folks I have lost over the years and what they meant to me and how their passing has affected me and we could be at it for a while.

Not far from where I type these words is a picture of me and Todd “Corner King” Lincoln, Sr on my wedding day.  We are looking off in the distance in slightly different directions.  I thought the photo was way too cool soon after we got the gagillion pictures developed that were taken by the great Bryan Moss.  Talk about a nice wedding present.  Thank you, Bryan.

There we are.  Me and the Corner King.  Standing beside North Road in front of Hancock Chapel Church where I was about to be married.  That was February 10, 1996.

Todd was 30 in 1997.  I was 29.  We lost him on August 26th of that year.  We had so much fun.  The last time I talked to him I was using a telephone that hung on the wall and had a long chord on it.  He died suddenly due to illness the next day.  His last words to me were,  “Later on, Brother!”  Later on indeed.

I sit and wonder some times what things would be like between us now.  I doubt it would be much different.  He was a kind soul.  As tall as he was, he was that gentle and caring for others.  I think of him often.  I write songs and sing them cos I had to after he died to help me make sense of things and stuff.  I thank him and Carrie, she told me to find a guitar a month and a half after Todd died.  That has translated into a gift I can give others and enjoy a great deal myself.

Next week I will be holding forth on music and songwriting with some junior English students and they will hear the song “Don’t Miss the Last Dance”.  I wrote it for Corner King.  He deserves to be part of the speaks.  He was there.  He still is.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

This post will be brief.  Why?  We live in the country.  If I am going to do what I am doing here, I must rely on costly, lousy, satellite internet service.

Twenty minutes ago I had to clean off the satellite dish for this thing because there was too much snow on it.  And it is coming down now!

The picture I was going to share is not loading!

Here it is…

So be it.

Speaking the Rights…(while I can).

Danny Johnson