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Rock 'n' Roll Gary Hutchison
Never Forgets Words Dwain Hebda images courtesy Bob Dyer Photography
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For a guy who never wanted to be huge in music, Gary Hutchison of Fort Smith has had one hell of a run. A musician of fifty-five years, he’s played with countless artists across thousands of gigs, squeezing multiple marriages in between millions of notes. Emerging with his health and sanity intact – to say nothing of his marrow-deep love of music – his has been a career of his own making. “I got into the music business when I was twenty-one,” he says. “Growing up, I didn’t know you could make a living at it. I thought you were either a rock star or you played at home in your bedroom. I didn’t know there was a middle ground there, you know? When I got a little older and moved to a bigger city, I realized you could make a living playing guitar. That’s what I’ve always done.” “I never wanted to be a rock star. That wasn’t a dream of mine. I’m not sitting at home going, ‘I could have been a contender,’ you know? I just wanted to play guitar in a group and I think I’ve succeeded at that. I’ve made a living doing it since 1974. I’ve not had a day job or anything." The pride of Anderson, Missouri, Gary’s life in music has been something out of a lyric: small-town kid turns on, tunes in and drops out, takes along a guitar and the rest is history. Or, something like that. "Anderson is a little town straight up Highway 71,” he says. “It’s one of the first little towns you hit as you’re
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