Man with Guitar and Amp: A Sideman’s Memoir documents one musician’s journey from a night in 1964 when a lightning bolt went through him watching The Beatles on the family TV to a morning exactly fifty years later when he found himself standing on that very same stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater to play The Late Show with David Letterman. Between those two moments, Terry “Buffalo” Ware chronicles the unpredictable and often surreal life of a working musician in the middle of a shifting cultural landscape, from the first rock and roll trouble of his youth to the rowdy dance halls and “progressive country” scenes of Texas and Oklahoma. He shares (often hilarious and sublime, sometimes scary) behind-the-scenes stories of his time with legendary artists like Ray Wylie Hubbard and the Cowboy Twinkies, Jimmy LaFave, and John Fullbright, stories which include cameos by everyone from Little Richard to Frank Zappa. With a journalist’s eye for detail and a sideman’s inherent humility, Ware reflects on the grueling drives and the small-world coincidences of a career defined by the persistence to stay the course and the simple, enduring luck of being a man who got to do what he loved.
Toured with John Fullbright, Jimmy LaFave, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and played dates with other songwriters as well. Artists I have backed include Joel Rafael, Eliza Gilkyson, Smokey and the Mirror, Michael Fracasso, Bob Livingston, Audrey Auld, Susan Herndon, Don Conoscenti, Monica Taylor, Mary Reynolds, Red Dirt Rangers, Bob Childers, Greg Jacobs, Ellis Paul, Camille Harp, Wanda Jackson, Iain Matthews, Sandy Rogers, Susan Cowsill and many others. I also lead the house band at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah OK, where I've backed numerous artist including David Amram, Ronny Elliott, Sam Baker, Rob McNurlin, Susan Gibson, Betty Soo, Nancy Apple, Kris Delmhorst, Emily Kaitz. And there were The Shambles.
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