Caprock Chronicles: Mac Davis: Lubbock's songwriter - Part 1

Editor’s Note: Jack Becker is the editor of Caprock Chronicles and is a Librarian Emeritus from Texas Tech University. He can be reached at jack.becker@ttu.edu. This week’s article is the first of a two-part series about Mac Davis by frequent contributor Chuck Lanehart, Lubbock attorney and award-winning Western history write

Mac Davis’ last public performance in his hometown of Lubbock was Sept. 15, 2015, at an outdoor venue north of town, and I was on the front row. He sang a couple of songs, but then a huge thunderstorm interrupted the concert. As everyone sought shelter, Mac huddled with friends and family members under a canopy, awaiting the storm’s end.

I had met Mac at a charity golf event, and later at a Cactus Theater concert, so I considered him my buddy. I hurried over, ducked out of the deluge under his shelter and re-introduced myself. He greeted me like a long-lost cousin. We chatted a bit, and he enthusiastically consented to a photo op.

Mac seemed to me the most down-to-earth, likeable, approachable fellow who happened to be a major music, TV and film star. When he died a few years later, I was not surprised he was buried as promised, in Lubbock, Texas—in his jeans.

Born in 1942 in Lubbock, Morris Mac Davis was the son of Edith and T.J. Davis, a commercial builder and owner of College Court Efficiency Apartments. Growing up, Mac lived at the motel/apartments, located just east of Jones Stadium.

At age 13, he attended a 1955 Elvis Presley concert in Lubbock and became “hooked on music,” a phrase he made famous in song. Later, he saw Buddy Holly driving down the street in his brand new Pontiac Catalina convertible with new teeth and a bunch of good-looking girls. He thought, “Woah! If he can do that, I can do that!” Again, his experience was later immortalized in song.

Despite early influences from Elvis and Buddy, young Mac was not known in his hometown as a musician, but the seeds of his talent were forming. “I started writing melodies when I was seven, eight, nine years old,” Mac remembered. “My daddy thought every kid should learn to whistle. As soon as I learned to whistle, I started making up songs. I found that I had this gift. I don’t call it a talent; I call it a gift. Nobody in my family played instruments or sang. I remember my Daddy asking me, ‘What’s that song you’re whistling?’ I told him I made it up. He said, ‘You did not!’ He couldn’t fathom that and neither could I. I put words to them when I was about 14, the same time Buddy Holly started making it.”

Jack L. Davis of Lubbock met Mac when the two were ninth graders at Carrol Thompson Jr. High in Lubbock. “We were friends through high school,” Jack said. “Everyone liked Mac. He was a real good-looking kid, but small. He shot up after high school to about six feet tall.”

"In those days,” Mac said, “It was all about football, rodeo, and fistfights. Oh, man, I got beat up so much while I was growing up in Lubbock. I was 5 feet, 9 inches, and weighed 125 pounds.” According to friend and promoter Don Caldwell of Lubbock, Mac became friends with star football player E.J. Holub, four years older. “If somebody tried to pick on Mac, E.J. would clean their plow!”

In a 2008 interview with Lubbock Avalanche-Journal entertainment editor William Kerns, Mac discussed his childhood memories of Lubbock. “My earliest memory of Lubbock was shoveling sand. We lived across the street from Jones Stadium, and back then the stadium parking lot was all dirt. Most of it blew right at us. My sister Linda and I hauled tons of sand. I still have some grit in my teeth.”

Another job at the family-run motel/apartments: “I got to go out and clean and sanitize trash barrels, so I developed a good relationship with flies early on.”

Mac graduated from Lubbock High School at age 16 and moved to Georgia, where his mother had moved after divorcing his father. However, he always claimed Lubbock as his hometown and said West Texas inspired his songwriting. “There’s tornadoes and foul weather and wind blowing constantly,” he said. “Yet if you stand back and look it’s a vista . . . There’s a feeling of isolation out there I think inspires a lot of people. It’s like a muse of some sort, the West Texas plains.”

In Georgia, Mac formed a band, the Zots, which opened for many top acts. When the Zots opened for Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs in Memphis, Mac found himself standing next to Domingo “Sam the Sham” Samudio at a urinal. In the men’s room, Mac sang Sam his composition “The Phantom,” which Sam recorded in 1966. It was the first song Mac sold, and his prospects improved.

He signed a deal with Lowery Music in Atlanta and recorded a few singles. Then, he took an A&R (arts and repertoire) job, moved to California, and his career as a songwriter had its beginnings.

Part Two of “Mac Davis: Lubbock’s Songwriter” will be published in next Sunday’s Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Caprock Chronicles: Mac Davis: Lubbock's songwriter - Part 1