Say the name Jimmy Capps anywhere in the Nashville music circle and you’ll get a wide smile and an approving nod of the head. Jimmy has been an integral part of the Music City scene since Moby Dick was a guppy and in fact, just celebrated the 60th Anniversary on the Grand Ole Opry stage.
He’s such a fixture at the Opry, where he still is a member of the Opry band every weekend, that they named the band rehearsal room backstage at the Jimmy Capps Room. “But they put my nameplate up in Velcro so things could change,” Jimmy jokes. As a musician, Jimmy has done it all from live stage performance, the session musician to T.V. work. He is in fact a regular on Larry’s Country Diner in Nashville. “ They told me when they offered me the job I could be the Sherriff or the Mayor. I figure I make a better Sherriff than a Mayor. The cool thing is after 60 years of being the man in back on the Opry where hardly anyone recognized me I now get stopped on the street with ‘ Hey you’re the Sherriff on Larry’s Country Diner!”
Jimmy Capps was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina to Tommie and Alice Capps, the third of three sons and bought his first guitar at the age of 12 with money earned from delivering groceries. He got his start in music at age 16 on a T.V. show in Raleigh called “Saturday Night Country Style”. This led to being the guitar player for his idols the Louvin Brothers and appearing on the show he grew up listening to at The Grand Ole Opry.
All of the amazing stories and events in Jimmy Capps illustrious career is now chronicled in a 228-page spellbinding book, aptly titled “The Man in Back.” In the book you’ll read in great detail Jimmy’s journey through the country music scene from live performance to playing on sessions of such classics as Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler, Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man and the song some call the greatest country record ever made George Jones’ He Stopped Loving Her Today.
And Jimmy is still very active performing and recording and I have to smile when I hear people say they’re looking for the new Jimmy Capps on guitar when the old Jimmy Capps is still active and playing better than ever.
The unique thing of this book is easy to read blocked quotes from the artists that Jimmy has played with and influenced. In the forward Jimmy Fortune of The Statler Brothers sums up the essence of Jimmy Capps nicely “Jimmy Capps put his whole life into his music. He had the love of music many decades ago and the love is still there, and he is playing as good today as he did on our TV show back in the 90s. When I see Jimmy on The Opry or Larry’s Country Diner or Family Reunion I see a man who followed his heart and did what he loved.”
This book The Man in Back is available on Jimmy’s website. What a great Christmas gift for the country music fan in your life. Get your copy today at jimmycappsbook.com.
