Remembering The Caldwells
I saw today that April 28th marks the death of 30 year old Tommy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker band, who died from injuries sustained in a jeep accident back in 1980. I remember receiving that horrible news during my college years and I took it pretty hard because they were one of my favorite bands at the time. I had seen them on the campus at Michigan State a couple years earlier, not knowing that it would be the last "Caldwell" performance I would ever be treated to.
One month before Tommy's accident, their 25 year old younger brother Tim died in a similar vehicle crash. No doubt Tommy was still reeling from that tragedy. Fast forward 13 years, and you have the drug-overdose death of Toy Caldwell, and the Caldwell's are gone. Marshall Tucker will never be the same. I tried going to the show they put on at the Isle of Capri casino not long ago, but I'd have been better off not going. I wasn't expecting it to be "great" but I wasn't expecting it to be so bad either. I wish instead that I could have kept the 1978 show as my final memory. It would have been more befitting.