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This here's the story of Dayton Waters - abridged for your protection.As many of you know, he entered this world under a different name; but
we don't speak of that name on this site. Not a big hang-up thing, it's just
that name belongs to another musician (who is a little more famous than
our guy) and we don't want any confusion.Now that that's cleared up, we can move on. The youngest of four kids,
he knew from earliest memory that he wanted to play guitar. He didn't
actually start until he was seven years old. Mom bought him a small
acoustic 6-string at a garage sale for two bucks and he played that thing
for two years! (She still has it to this day!) Dayton took about two weeks'
worth of lessons only to learn that he didn't have the patience to learn
music - he wanted to make music. So mom showed him the chords she
knew and he began learning the old country standards she always sang.
She nagged him about patting his foot and almost had to force him to
sing. She told him he'd never make it as just a guitar player - he had to
sing, too! Begrudgingly, he gave in. In a voice that sounded like a little
girl's, he started belting out sounds that only a mother could love. You
could have never convinced him then that someday people would love to
hear him sing, but it became so. His work wasn't without progress,
though, for by the time he was nine he had an electric guitar and an amp.
He played his first live performance in the auditorium of Tina-Avalon
High School (K-12 consolidated school) in northern Missouri at age nine.
He did 2 songs; John Denver's Country Roads and Willie Nelson's Blue
Eyes Crying In the Rain. Even then he had a little flock of girls singing
back-up and together they were called Dude and the Dudettes. This was
1977. Not only was he terrified, but he says it was a fear that he still
feels today, 28 years later, before every gig. And the fear is addictive.Desire became passion when he was turned on to the acoustic rock
scene just a year or so later by his would-be mentor and cousin David
Woodall. David was a rockin' 12-stringer whose deep, melodic voice and
effortless guitar poured out of the portable cassette recorder that Dayton
used to record him in Grandma's backyard in Alexandria, Louisiana while
on a visit there. The next time he would see David, two years later when
he and mom moved to Louisiana, (his brother and two sisters were grown
by then), he was proud to show David that he knew every word and every
chord to every song on the 90-minute tape. He was playing chords that
he had no idea what they were called. David commented to others that
he was amazed Dayton even learned his mistakes! It would still be three
more years before he got his first 12-string. At 14, he began developing
the hand strength an callouses that 12-stringin brings and before he
knew it, he had a gig. Playing for tips at Booger Holler Restaurant and
Amusement Park in Kolin, Louisiana, Dayton sang red-faced as his
pubescent voice squeaked like an old clarinet through country and
classic rock tunes for crowds of as many as ten people sometimes. But
he had a gig! He was in front of people he didn't know, overcoming that
fear every week. Facing some medical problems related to the rough
and tumble life of a 14 year-old boy, Dayton found himself under a
doctor's care in New Orleans. He also found the French Quarter. There
he played and sang for strangers from all over and he found that he
could use their energy as his own. The trademark foot stomp began and
he began not to care what his faced looked like when he sang or how
bad his changing voice crackled. Music replaced blood in his veins and
the transformation began in the way that only The Big Easy can bring. A
performer was emerging from a player. Over the next few years, he
found himself in the Quarter as a street musician as often as he could.
Each time he was a little better, a little more aggressive, and a lot more
addicted to the game.At 16, he auditioned for Star Search; but he will tell you that he wasn't
ready. Not by far. He played on live radio shows, talent shows and
anywhere and everywhere that would let him take the mic. Folks came
from 2 or 3 miles away to see this kid who played both parts of Duelin
Banjos on the 12-string guitar. By 18, he had won the high school talent
show two years straight and his classmates at Pineville High School voted
him "Most Talented."He had a second love though. He wanted to be an infantryman in the US
Army. He knew down deep that at 14 or 15, he was pretty good; but
there were 18 year-olds out there that he couldn't hold a candle to. It
was somewhere around this time that young Zack Wylde got a gig touring
with Ozzy Ozbourne. This put Dayton's talent well into perspective. He
was okay, but contrary to what those who loved him thought, he wasn't
great. So, a young man in search of a career, Dayton joined the National
Guard a week after his 17th birthday, went to college after high school so
he could become a Lieutenant in the infantry. Over the next 18 years,
Dayton would become a paratrooper, a ranger, a jumpmaster and an
all-around excellent soldier. He also became a husband to his college
sweetheart and a father of two beautiful girls. Though he would travel
the world in the Army, he always had a guitar. And he always had gigs
when the mission would allow time for it.Before Dayton left the Army in January 2003, he recorded an album of all
original music entitled Leather and Gasoline: Ruffcut and Unrefined. It
seems our warrior poet had developed an affinity for Harley-Davidson
motorcycles. In January of 2002, he went on a "mini tour" in Scotland to
promote the new cd. All travel and promotional costs were out of pocket,
but he made a little money and a lot of friends while in the land of William
Wallace. Around 2001, he met Grant Pierson, co-conspiritor of The
Pierson-Waters Project. Not since David Woodall has Dayton been so
impressed with not only the quality of music the man makes, but also the
quality of man that makes the music.
