Jeff Parnell comes clean about his addiction to playing live music, an injury that almost prevented him from playing, working at KFC, and “red dirt music.”

Words by Terrell Manasco | Images by Blakeney Clouse

“Music is the worst drug you can be on because there ain't no cure. If you're not playing, you’re thinking about playing.”- Jeff Parnell

On a sweltering July afternoon, Jeff Parnell swings his pickup truck into a parking space beside KFC in Jasper. The air feels like warm molasses and it’s hot enough to roast the Colonel’s chicken on the pavement. Squinting into the sun, he unlocks the entrance doors—keys jingling in one hand—and strolls to a table.

 Jeff was still a baby when his family moved from Hammond, Indiana, to Jasper in 1963. By the time he was seven, his best friend was a guitar. In the early 1970s, he took lessons at Curtis Stewart Piano Company. Those times are not forgotten, as he was recently reminded.

 “I played at the Bankhead House a year or so ago,” Jeff says. “Mrs. Stewart read in the paper that I was going to be there. She remembered me taking lessons and wanted to see me play. It was one of the best things.”

 Jeff continued taking lessons into his teens and became a skilled guitarist. After graduating from Walker High in 1981, he met Shotgun founder Ernie McClinton. “I played music with him in the early 80s,” Jeff says. “I owe a lot to Ernie.”

 Frank Rutledge, then Jeff’s father-in-law, had owned a KFC franchise in Jasper since the 1960s. In 1988, he asked Jeff to come work for him. “The guy who managed it, Earl Forrester, was getting ready to retire,” Jeff says. “Frank, Jr. and I started about the same time. I started cooking and we kind of stepped into management. You had to learn how to do everything.”

 As Jeff took on more responsibilities, he was working longer hours, leaving him little time for family or music. For several years he didn’t play much. When he picked up his guitar again, music had changed. “In the 90s, alternative music became so acoustic-oriented,” Jeff says. “You had more opportunities here to do acoustic stuff. I've been doing it the last 20 years.”

 Eventually, the long hours and seven-day workweeks were taking a toll. Exhausted, Jeff took a three-year break from KFC in 2013. “I had six part-time jobs,” he says. “I worked at a carwash, I did an excavating job, I helped a guy with his chicken houses. I raised babies (chicks) instead of selling fried chickens.”

 The life of a musician has its challenges, not all of them music-related. Throughout his life, Jeff has struggled with a speech problem that still plagues him on occasion. “I stutter, like, really bad at times,” he admits. “Sometimes I'll go awhile and won't stutter at all. Sometimes I can't say nothing.”

 Ironically, his stutter has never been an issue onstage. “I have not had trouble with microphones. It seems like with a microphone, I don't stutter,” Jeff says.

 Speech isn’t the only hurdle Jeff has had to overcome. A while back, an accident forced him to alter his method of guitar-playing. “I cut my thumb off a couple of years ago on the toolbox of my truck,” Jeff says. “It doesn’t bend any more, but it's attached. I play a little different now. Certain chords are hard to do. Me and Barry Evans played at Oakman's Days Gap Festival and I couldn't play because I had this big bandage, so I was singing,” he laughs.

 Such an injury might have sidelined some musicians. For Jeff, the euphoria of playing live was the juice that propelled him back onstage again. “There's something about playing in front of people,” he shrugs. “I just enjoy getting up there. I like playing when you see somebody out there singing along. Music is the worst drug you can be on because there ain't no cure. If you're not playing, you’re thinking about playing.”

 His dad was a country music fan, so Jeff ‘s music has always included Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and Johnny Cash. Other influences like Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, and the Rolling Stones, came from watching his cousin, Mike Parnell, play rock with his band.  

 Jeff has played a number of venues, including Café Bill’s (“I played the last night they were open”), the Walt Williams Ride, and a horseshoe tournament. Last year, he played bass with the Groove Revival at the Foothills Festival. “That was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my whole life,” Jeff says.

As music evolves, some musicians may incorporate other genres in their sets. Jeff’s repertoire now includes ‘red dirt music,’ a genre based out of Texas and Oklahoma. “It's more alternative country—Robert Earl Keane, Jason Boland, Pat Green. I do a lot of that,” Jeff says.

 For anyone interested in learning guitar, Jeff’s advice is to start simple. “Don’t spend a lot of money to begin with,” he says. “You can learn on a hundred-dollar guitar like you can on a thousand-dollar guitar. Learn the basics, get with somebody that plays, and watch them. Practice every day, even if it’s only five minutes.”

 You may catch Jeff at some event, strumming his guitar and playing some Waylon, Skynyrd, or “red dirt music.” Feel free to sing along if you know the words. And be sure to give him a big “thumbs-up.” He won’t mind. 78