Heard a rumor Marty McCann over at Peavey is going to retire today. Best of luck and enjoy!
Douglas R. Allen
I remember the first time I met Marty...I was living in Meridian and had a band with a few barely 20-somethings, and we were playing at a place called the Enterprise. We had this makeshift PA that was basically built out of parts that had been hijacked from the Peavey factory by well-mening friends. We were having some problems with the sound and a gentleman introduced himself to me and asked if he could help. I said something like, "its probably just this pile of Peavey shit". He didn't flinch and managed to get everything sounding halfway decent. Later on, one of the band guys told me "I can't believe you said that...do you know who that was?" Of course, it was Marty. He came out a few more times when I was still in Meridian, one time bringing a White RTA and 31 band EQ to ring out our monitors (this was in the mid 70's when those type of things barely existed). Then, Marty gave me the prototypes of the first bass and guitar from their new musical instrument venture to check out for a few weeks (he trusted me to take care of them even though I was a broke musician with no permanent address).
Marty has obviously enjoyed a career he loved and deserves the accolades he received here and elsewhere; hope he enjoys his retirement. BTW, the drummer of our group, Dudley Tardo, later became the famed drummer of the HouseRockers, featured in the documentary "Last of the Mississippi Juke Joints".
