Gram’s voice is like a train on the chug with a cargo of coal, no intentions of reloading the cars for the stoker, just going as far as he can make it.
Always searching for the new sound even though his soul was old as a steam engine, he was as fresh as steam. Twenty odd years of stressing his new voice every day kept his style classic. He kept it simple like a thirsty cactus yet deep like a desert canyon. He would stay young forever after capturing the new sound and encapsulating it in tradition. That is the meaning of progression stopped in its tracks. He succeeded in blending persona and talent with legend to be remembered. To be remembered you have to be gone.
Gram’s voice is a river carrying the agony and passion of every cosmic cowboy that ever struggled with no place to rest.
A legend does not get to be a legend without a dark side on this side or that side of life. On this side of life Gram was a wild horse that drank from the river of adversity in a tumultuous section of rapids that led to silencing himself. On that side of life he became a stand of oak trees that generations can climb while progress and ingenuity surrounds him in tribute. The oak trees stand at the banks of the river as his new sound of country becomes tangible to the budding artist.
Grams voice echoes off the canyon like the pedal steel guitar would if the sound were mastered. His voice is the instrument that is missing in the beauty of a woman’s singing.
Francis Erich McElroy 