Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes?
Who indeed….Sunny Sweeney is rapidly on her way to me asking the younger artists if THEY ARE READY to fill HER shoes? I am in no way calling her old. On the contrary, right now she is on an amazing pinnacle of her career. I have a plethora of stories and testimonies I attribute to her music and her attitude toward Country Music as a whole. I’m going to share them all here. I’m going to share why she deserves to be an Opry member, and she deserves to be a future Country Music Legend.
To be honest, I am hoping friends and family of his might want to become familiar with just exactly what Sunny Sweeney does on a nightly basis, and what she stands for. Just as many of us have contributed to making this gentleman’s life a little easier, and we met him this week…his friends may now become Country Music fans through meeting her and Mr. Harley. So, that is exactly why I have juxtaposed both together…this article is for HIM. He brings joy to the party, because WHO DOESN’T LIKE PIZZA?
I do not wish to steer away from the title of this article, but I have always talked about Sunny Sweeney with avidity for the reasons I’ll talk about. But first let’s delve into what transpired on social media yesterday, and to my understanding, is STILL going on now! Not only has her music helped ME in my own drug addiction, her kindness has completely left me in awe this morning. And the kindness of her army of fans (and yes this includes me as well ) . YOU DID THIS. And Miss SUNNY LED THE WAY! Right now I’m going to post directly from her instagram page.
We are traveling thru Florida playing some shows. Had a day off in Jacksonville, FL and being lazy, we decided to order pizza. I went to the lobby to meet the delivery guy from @dominos . That’s where I met this man, Alvin.
I watched him walk super slowly into the lobby to bring us our pizza. There was something about this man’s kindness that made me want to cry my eyes out. As I stood there talking to him, (and I didn’t ask his age, but I assure you, he was too damn old to be physically impaired and having to deliver pizza to make ends meet.” I said, “well, Alvin, tell me a little about yourself.” He said I’m just out here trying to pay my bills.
I meet people all over the world and some of them just touch my heart more than others. He asked if he could shake my hand, and I asked if I could have his phone number. So this is why I’m here today, I know there’s lots of people struggling to make ends meet, but if I can attempt to make one guys life easier, then I feel like I am doing the job I was put here for.
Now I want to interject here for what I feel is pertinent to say. This man exemplifies the common working man much like OUR hero Merle Haggard once did. See now Sunny is fighting for the working man long after Merle has passed on. So when she posted all of this to all of her social media, and asked everyone to step forward and donate a little bit, the gofundme exceeded her initial goal of 7,000. Back to her website post.
So, in closing, I am gonna contact Alvin this week sometime and say I have a little present for him, assuming I can make a few extra bucks for him thru this go fund me. If we could pay his rent for a month, I bet he would be forever grateful. If you have anything to spare, even a dollar, anything helps. Link in my bio. As of now, the actual Go Fund Me is now closed for further donations.
Thank you to Alvin, for making our tough week on the road feel like it was not in vain. I’m so glad it took three pizza places to find someone to deliver to the @trubyhilton in JAX. We loved the hotel (thank you Darnique and Mari) and we loved the pizza from @dominos on Soutel and thank you to the universe for putting Alvin in our lives. And thank you for donating to a complete stranger to make just one person’s life a little easier for a minute.
So now I want to tell you all a bunch of things about Sunny Sweeney that make her so special to me as a person…as a man, as a Country Music fan, as a divorced man that used music to heal…and as a sober man that used her music to detox from the evils of heroin and pills. She recently released one of her albums ( and my personal favorite ) Provoked, and I wrote a recent article about it HERE.
Way, way back to the beginning of social media I found a bunch of new bands on MySpace right after my nasty divorce. I found out about Texas Music and Red Dirt stuff, and I found Hank III, and from there I witnessed an onslaught of underground stuff like a young Sunny Sweeney. Now, to be honest she wasn’t really following the Red Dirt sound of the rest of the crowd they tried to fit her into. And she was TOTALLY different from anything mainstream….she was COUNTRY! “Heartbreaker’s Hall Of Fame” is a song I have always wished she would play live again. ( however sometimes there are even legal reasons they cannot ).
Fast forward to me in 2019, see I have Rheumatoid Arthritus and I spent 20 years of taking pain pills to manage this. I developed a ravenous appetite for heroin and pills, or any opiate. I was mixing that with copious amounts of southern comfort. When I checked myself into a rehab center in Alabama and completed treatment, I came home sober and REALLY used music to heal. Her songs “Pills” and “Pass The Pain” both helped me get clean. Sunny Sweeney’s music overall, helped save me.
In the past she has rallied her online troops together to find homes for stray cats, and many other humanitarian things, and that is why I believe she sets a good example for Country Music. When the mainstream people think of Country, they think of sparkle jeans and ball caps played along to click tracks. When I want to debate with them and convince them to listen to real Country Music, I certainly use her music.
She has played the Opry so many times now, that she deserves to be an inducted member. All of the things that she stands for , and the deeds she does all render her beyond adequate for the Opry. A place that I can go for many years to come to see her perform well beyond her years of traveling…..Who’s gonne fill their shoes? She will…..who’s gonna fill hers?
