Marshall Tucker Band’s Doug Gray remains a road warrior at 75

The Marshall Tucker Band was filed under Southern rock shortly after forming in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1972. However, there is more to the band, which incorporates country, pop and jazz into its sonic potpourri.

“We’ve always mixed it up,” vocalist-guitarist Doug Gray said, calling from his Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, home. “That’s the way Toy wanted it.”

Gray is referring to guitarist-songwriter Toy Caldwell, who crafted the majority of Marshall Tucker’s hits until he left the band in 1983

“Toy wrote many of his songs and he was a great writer,” Gray said. “But the band continued on without him.”

More than 40 years after Caldwell’s departure, Marshall Tucker, which will perform Sunday at Northern Quest Resort and Casino continues to tour. There have been 36 members of the Marshall Tucker Band, but Gray is the lone original.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” Gray said.”I’ve been doing this for so long. I’ve done what I can to keep this together.

“I’m 75 and there’s nothing I would rather do. My daughters, who are 41, and 31, say, ‘Why not retire?’ I don’t want to quit. Why stop? As long as fans come out to hear the songs, I’ll be on the road.”

Marshall Tucker, which is the name of a Spartanburg piano tuner, sold millions of albums and crafted a number of hits such as “Heard It in a Love Song,” “Can’t You See,” “24 Hours at a Time” and “Fire on the Mountain,” will stick to the familiar when the group performs at Northern Quest.

Fans continue to roar when the melodic “Heard It in a Love Song” is delivered.

“I love the song, but I have to tell you that I thought it was too wuss of a song when it was written,” Gray said. “I kept putting off recording it because I didn’t think it fit Marshall Tucker. But the guys said, ‘You got to put this on a record.’ I just felt it was too easy with ‘Heard It in a Love Song.’

“It became a hit but people still mess up the title. A lot of the time they think it’s ‘Pretty Little Love Song.’ But whatever, as long as they like the song, that’s all that matters.”

Marshall Tucker has played Spokane more than a dozen times.

“We’ve always played out a lot and we still do,” Gray said. “Last year, we did 140 shows. I was away from home for 250 days but I’m used to it. I have no problem with it, even at this age. We’ve played Spokane so many times, I remember playing there in 1978 in a club and it’s such a different city now.”

Gray and his bandmates went from playing clubs during the late 1970s to stadiums at the dawn of the ‘80s. The Marshall Tucker Band was one of the featured acts that headlined the “Round Up” tour in 1982, which also featured the Allman Brothers, the Charlie Daniels Band, .38 Special and Molly Hatchet.

“I’ll never forget looking out at 100,000 people, who were just so excited to see us,” Gray said. “That was incredible.”

Many of those recording artists, such as the Allmans and Daniels, are history, but Gray keeps rolling along under the Marshall Tucker moniker.

Gray never imagined the band with three platinum albums and four gold records, would exist more than a half-century after forming.

“When Toy and I started this band, we had just come back from Vietnam with the intention of making music,” Gray said. “There was no thought about the future. We hoped to be able to keep this band together for a couple of years and we would see where it would take us.”

Gray was floored when the Marshall Tucker Band, which also includes guitarists Rick Willis and Chris Hicks, keyboardist Marcus James Henderson, bassist Tony Black and drummer B.B. Borden, recently played the Grand Ole Opry for the seventh time. Pandora presented Gray with an award for 1 billion streams.

“That proves that people still listen to Marshall Tucker, ” Gray said. “With Spotify, we’ve gotten 66 million listens since January 2023. So I’ll keep playing as long as people keep listening.”