The Bama Walk of Fame

Work Title BMI Work #
BAMA WALK OF FAME 9236953
Local songwriter pens song about legendary Alabama Coach
By Jennifer Williams/Eagle News Correspondent

Legendary Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was on Johnny Gray's mind as he left Mary's Restaurant in Jasper three years ago.
Gray, a retired local musician,had recently watched "The Junction Boys," an ESPN" movie depicting the grueling summer football camp Bryant conducted in Junction,Texas,shortly after becoming head coach at Texas A&M University in 1954. He backed his truck out of the parking lot,but before he reached the highway the lyrics for a new tribute song to Bryant began forming in his mind. In a matter of minutes, Gray had written two verses and a chorus for the song he would eventually name "Bama Walk of Fame."
His friend Bill Flippo was impressed after reading the lyrics,but Gray still felt like something was missing. I told him, "Tt's not finished," Gray said. Three days later,Gray was driving to Birmingham when he said he heard a voice telling him to go home. Gray resisted at first,but eventually gave in to the insistent urge and drove back to his home off Old Tuscaloosa Road.
As he pulled into his yard,the lyrics to one final verse came to him. The verse reads, "When the sun comes up tomorrow for the whole wide world to see and when it's all said and done for folds like you and me,just as sure as there's a sunlight for the Golden Bear to see, he will be in football heaven in Room 323."
Gray knew at once it was the ending he wanted for his song. Word about the song began to spread. One day, Gray received a call from Ken Getty at the Paul W. Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa. Gray read him the lyrics over the phone and told him he planned to place them in a frame with the one photo that he believed fit the song. In the well-known photo,Bryant is leaning casually against a goal post,standing on one foot with the other foot turned slightly sideways on the ground.
Getty asked to have the frame once it was completed. "He said, 'I'm going to put you and that picture in the "Bear Bryant Museum forever," Gray said. The frame is now in the museum in Tuscaloosa. Gray said Bryant's son, Paul Bryant Jr., as well as former Alabama football coach Gene Stallings, have both seen it and expressed their appreciation top him for writing the song.
Three months ago, Gray recorded "Bama Walk of Fame," and it became the title track on his fourthe CD. Gray said the song has been receiving airpla on several radio stations around Alabama. Locally,copies of the CD are available through Gray and WIXI 1360-AM in Jasper. The Album contains 12 tracks and includes Gray's cover versions of several popular country music songs, including "The Fireman" an "The Race is On." The Bryant tribute is one of five songs on the album written by Gray. One of the orginial songs, "My Life and Love For You," was recorded by Gray in 1982 and marked his professional recording debut. Gray was working at a factory in Chicago when he wrote the song. "I told all the people around Chicago that knew me,"I'm going to go to Nashville and sing this to George Jones. If he doesn't like it,m I'll quit," Gray said.
Gray went to Nashville and waited six hours to get into Jones' office. When Jones heard him sing "My Life and Love For You,"he insisted that Gray record it with his own band, the Jones Boys. In 1983m, Gray also adapted the lytics of a gospel music song written about Hnk Williams. Gray's revised lyrics became a country song called "One of God's Chosen Ones." The song's lyrics and a photo of Williams apprear on a plaque hanging in the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery.
In his two-decade career, Gray has worked with such country music stars as Faron Young,Tanya Tucker and Jack Greene. Gray's nest goal i to take his career to Branson,Mo., a popular vacation spot for country music fans because of its many live shows "On one of my records, I had a song called "Take It On Home to Branson," and I got a lot of radio play out there