Randy Travis
| Randy Travis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | T-RAY |
| Origin | Marshville, North Carolina, USA |
| Genre(s) | Country Rap |
| Years active | 1978 - Present |
| Label(s) | Unsigned |
Randy Bruce Travis Randall Traywick (born May 4, 1959), known professionally as Randy Travis, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, guitarist, actor, gangster rapper, and repeat felon. Since 1985, his career has been circling the proverbial drain with the modest reception and ultimate failure of nearly two dozen studio albums, in addition to more than 50 singles, from which only 3 managed to sporadically graze the bottom of the Billboard Hot 200. Considered a joke in the music industry, all things considered, Travis struggled throughout his career to make a name for himself, much like he struggled throughout his life to be loved and accepted. A resolve he could never achieve, and a pain that was well documented on his debut album, which stood as a testament to all of the things that would never come. Storms Of Randy's Life sold forty copies upon its 1986 release (most of which were purchased by the late Mrs. Traywick as a consolation to her troubled son), and tanked within hours of hitting the market. He followed up with a stellar replica of failures that somehow just managed to sell throughout the 1980s, including 1987's This Ol' Heart Is Forever, 1988's Old 8x10 of Mama & Me, and 1989's No Holdin' This Ol' Boy Back.
By the mid-1990's, Mrs. Traywick had passed away, leaving an even bigger hole in Randy's record sales and paving the way for many more problems professionally, and personally. Having lost his trailer, alienated his remaining family through his erratic behaviors, and ultimately resorted to giving out free copies of his music from the back of his pickup truck in the more impoverished areas of the transcontinental United States, he soon took up an alcohol and cocaine habit, which proved to be his undoing and led to many guest spots on the hit TV show COPS (which served to publicly scrutinize him, as well as his overall career in ways he had never even imagined). His misgivings have grown increasingly worse over the years, continuing well into the 2000's and the 2010's with his music becoming even more unilateral and narcissistic, his arrest record at fever pitch, and his addictions so far out of control that in 2013, he finally suffered a near-fatal stroke. Despite all of the adversity against him, however, Hollywood took pity and awarded him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014.
Early Life[edit]
Randy Bruce Travis Randall Traywick was born on May 4, 1959. The twelfth of sixteen children to parents Mary Lee and Harold Bruce. Both unemployed recipients of Social Security in the small town of Marshville, North Carolina, living in a double-wide trailer until their financial constraints forced them into an RV by the early 1960's. With his parents unable to afford an education for their children, and with young Randy forced to sleep sitting up at night with little more than an old pillow, he was very frequently spaced out and absent-minded in his day to day activities. Rarely able to take showers or cop a decent meal, his unkempt appearance and gaunt stature would also become life-long traits that would follow him well into his adult years. He was a lonely boy without many friends, or even bullies due to his personal care issues, yet he always preferred the company of his father's old George Jones records and a six-string guitar that he found one day laying behind a dumpster, after his parents told him to "go outside and play." Randy frequently practiced the guitar every chance he got, and after finding a mouse inside the hole of it one day, which bit him and gave him "these wild visions of the future I'd never known up until then," according to an interview with National Enquirer in the mid '90s, he knew his destiny was set. He was to become a country music superstar, as it was "ordained by the lord. Or somethin'. Hell if I know."
One thing was a certainty during the events of his hallucination, however. Randy had contracted the Hantavirus. He was hospitalized and given a tracheotomy during his treatment, which was largely responsible for the development, or de-evolution of his trademark voice. Once he finished the remainder of his recovery, he set off throughout the '60s and '70s performing various high school talent shows, weddings, proms and nightclubs. Sometimes, in order to make enough money to scrape by, Randy boosted vehicles, robbed convenience stores, and was even known to mug people from time to time. On occasion, he was placed under arrest, but usually on the condition that he would "sing a song for the judge, or pay a little pittance otherwise, if y'all know what I mean," his sentence would be commuted, or he'd be free to go altogether. Whether or not this alludes to some sort of back door homosexual activity on Randy's behalf still remains a mystery to this day. In 1978, he finally got up the cash and cut down on the crime enough to record a self-titled demo tape, Randy Bruce Travis Randall Traywick. Upon completion, he would spend the following seven years attempting to sell it off to every major label in Nashville, only to get rejected. Frustrated at his ineptitude, and everybody's unwillingness to give him a chance during this long and grueling process, Randy began seeing a psychiatrist and taking medicine for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. He also went back to his old ways, robbing and stealing from the less fortunate.
Music Career[edit]
1980's[edit]
Not long after returning to his old ways, it came as no surprise to those closest to him that Randy would end up right back in the system again. It was only a matter of time, and on August 19, 1985, at a bar in Memphis, Tennessee, that time came at approximately 2:00 AM EST. Angry and frustrated that people weren't willing to listen to him perform, he was two months late on the rent, and his utilities had already been shut off the month prior, Randy reportedly had a psychotic episode and attacked a female patron, Elizabeth Hatcher, with a folding chair, screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Police were called to the establishment, and it was there that Randy was detained, and later arrested for aggravated assault. Record company executive, Erv Woolsey, the one member of the audience that night who had actually been invested in Randy's music, took interest in the brooding young man despite everything that had just gone down, paid his bail, and arranged a meeting concerning his musical future. It was from then on, the groundwork for Randy's debut album, Storms of Randy's Life, was set. Unfortunately, the good run of bad luck continued well into its 1986 release with only 40 copies sold. His mother, Mary Lee Traywick, purchasing most of them in order to cull any potential psychotic blow-back.
At the end of 1986, Randy and Elizabeth Hatcher settled the aggravated assault case out of court on the condition that she would become his manager. Soon after, they also began dating. Another change that came with the territory was the alias Randy Travis, which significantly boosted record sales, as evidenced by the reception of Randy's 1987 sophomore release, This Ole Heart is Forever. Although nothing groundbreaking was, or ever would be achieved in any of Randy's releases, he continued to scrape by enough to afford his very own trailer with the release of 1988's Old 8x10 of Mama & Me, and 1989's No Holdin' This Ole Boy Back.
1990's[edit]
By 1990, now able to afford the right medications to become tolerable, and having used his connections in the music business to garner himself a few friends, he would use this as fodder for his fifth studio album, Randall & Friends, which was arguably his most successful release with two charting singles. Between 1991 and 1994, while Randy wouldn't have another hit single on the Billboard Hot 200, he would continue to enjoy modest record sales. That is, until the inevitable happened.
In the early morning hours of May 9, 1994 - Randy's 35th birthday and precisely one month after the release of This is Randy - Mary Lee Traywick, now in a stockpile of debt from supporting her son's career where his intended audience wouldn't, and fed up with trying to right the ship whenever he'd have a psychotic episode, committed suicide on Randy and Elizabeth's doorstep. His attitude in the aftermath of her death was reportedly at an "all-time low," with the development of a frequent alcohol and cocaine habit which prevented him from meeting his contractual obligations with Warner Bros. records, resulting in his removal from the label by the end of 1996. During this time, his public image also began to take a hit as there would be frequent reports of drunk and disorderly encounters with law enforcement, fights with random people just because they would walk by his trailer and not wave at him, and according to a segment in an episode of COPS - a show where he would make regular guest appearances, and later receive top billing as its main offender - an incident in the summer of 1995 where he dumped a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy out of his wheelchair for the sole reason that "he was lookin' at me all funny and suspicious like." It was also during this time that his music became even more self-centered and narcissistic, with a sudden, unexplained turn into Gangsta Rap territory. Among these incidents and unexplained career moves, he had earned the nickname "Randy Travesty" all throughout the media. The gangsta rap albums released under the name T-RAY, Randy's Circle (1996) - his last for Warner Bros. and the only one he would release for Death Row Records - and Randy and Randy Alone (1998), were released to virtually no success during this era. Things were reportedly so bad for the Travis clan that Elizabeth was forced to take up prostitution in order to make ends meet. After escaping her pimp during a struggle one night, she would find herself attending therapy for various mental health conditions - a move that Randy, to no one's surprise, greatly opposed. Randy and Elizabeth Travis would divorce on February 14, 1999, and sever their business relationship soon after.
Unable to overcome his many insurmountable character flaws, but in debt to the point that he couldn't even afford cigarettes, much less pay his meth dealer, Randy decided to return to country music and sign with DreamTwerk Records for his most personal album yet. Randy Ain't Made of Stone. While the title track would go down as Randy's last to hit the billboard charts, he would go on to win a Country Music Association award for the performance of "Goodbye, Elizabeth" (originally released under the title "Can't Stop Shootin' (Dope)" on Randy and Randy Alone the previous year). One week later, he would also go on to win a felony after drunkenly ramming his car into the side of the Marshville, North Carolina courthouse that sided with Elizabeth in the divorce proceedings, culminating in the forfeiture of his CMA award.
2000's[edit]
The royalties from Randy's 1999 release would be used to fund his rehabilitation via Passages in Malibu, California at the dawn of the 2000's, as well as long term, outpatient behavioral therapy. He would remain clean for the next six years, and relatively under the radar as he committed his life to Christ and released the albums Journey On Up To Heaven (2000), Rise & Shine, I'm By Your Side (2002), Worship With Me (2003), This Ol' Boy's Just Passin' Through (2004) and Hop On The Glory Train! (2005). After attending Church one night in Dallas, Texas that same year, however, and parking his vehicle in front of a hydrant, the Christian community's good faith in Randy was found to have been misplaced after the entire congregation witnessed him assaulting a police officer issuing him his ticket with a lead pipe, and according to the churches pastor, who preferred to remain anonymous, "screaming obscenities outside the house of the lord relating to the poor guy's manhood, his wife, his children - nasty, nasty stuff." On the preacher's testimony, Randy was arrested for aggravated assault and jailed for one year. Returning to the secular market, albeit unsuccessfully, he released his last studio album, What's Around The Bend For Ol' Randy?, in 2008.
2010's[edit]
Following the insurmountable string of personal and professional failures in his life—and an inability to get right with either God or himself—Randy shattered nearly a decade of sobriety in 2009. Not content with simply returning to alcohol and cocaine, he boldly expanded his chemical portfolio to include heroin and methamphetamine. By 2010, DreamWorks Records had seen enough and promptly dropped him. Every album released under the label was discontinued, now only available through the seediest corners of the internet—or at least one guy on Limewire claiming it's legit.
The following year, both Warner Bros. and Death Row Records also pulled the plug, discontinuing his entire pre-1999 discography. It's as though his entire career had been retconned out of existence.
After suffering a debilitating stroke in 2013 that left him with few functioning abilities beyond blinking, eight out of ten neurosurgical experts agreed that any potential for a comeback had been effectively and irrevocably neutered.
2020's[edit]
Randy managed to stay out of prison, keep the same wife without resorting to alternative domestic solutions, and against all odds, even made a one-off attempted comeback with the generative power of Artificial Intelligence. However, 8 out of the 10 neurosurgical experts who had weighed in a decade earlier argued that "not only does this fail to replace real intelligence — something that Randy has unfortunately never possessed — but the sheer semantics of the situation are more plentiful than the kids Randy has fathered in North Carolina over the years, out of wedlock". Nevertheless, the songs "Who Are You Again?!" and "Trampled By a Horse" both saw moderate success on TikTok in 60-second intervals by southern and midwestern Generation Z and Alpha demographics, who have evolved past the capabilities of their ancestors and adapted to the use of modern-day smartphones.
Personal life[edit]
Travis spent over three decades juggling extramarital affairs with men, women, and the occasional barnyard guest star. After his 1991 marriage to Elizabeth Hatcher — his assault victim-turned-manager-turned-wife-turned-hooker — the couple divorced in 1999 under circumstances best left to a Lifetime miniseries. Travis then declared, “All that shit’s done been left behind me now. I’m with a nice Christian girl! She reminds me of mama!” That relationship, with “You Light Up My Life” singer Debby Boone, fizzled after a year due to "irreconcilable differences".
Post-Boone, Randy maintained active dating profiles on Match.com and OkCupid.com beginning in 2006. As of press time, he had yet to receive a single like, wink, poke, message, or human contact of any kind.
In the summer of 2013, Travis’ long-term hobby of consuming drugs and alcohol caught up with him in the form of a massive stroke. He was discovered by an ex-girlfriend, face-down in a puddle of his own excrement, muttering what doctors later confirmed to be either ancient Aramaic or lyrics from his last album. Following months of recovery, he mastered the Speak & Spell and became proficient at chopping vegetables — two achievements that earned him a standing ovation at the 2015 CMA's.
Fox News initially reported that Travis was moved to tears by the applause. Unaired footage, however, revealed he had merely swallowed his own tongue. After flailing his one working limb and foaming profusely, he was rushed to Arlington Medical Center, where his tongue was successfully phished out and reattached. When asked afterward why he’d do such a thing, Travis made a pained gesture toward his Speak & Spell. Upon receiving it, he typed: “I wanted a cookie.”
Things went downhill again in mid-2015 when Travis refused to leave the hospital and began using his Speak & Spell to sexually harass staff. Interest was subsequently added to his "clean bill of health," and until filing an application for bankruptcy in 2018, he owed a continuously compounding 23.6% in back charges. Disability activists called this situation “deeply troubling,” but also “way too hot out for a protest.” In what would later be called a Christmas miracle that year, Travis would finally leave the hospital on his own recognizance after the staff collectively denied his most recent advances.
When he isn't leveraging technology for half-hearted comeback attempts, Travis now spends his time — circa 2025 — alternating between sleeping, playing with his power wheelchair, eating, using the bathroom, and mastering the transcendental art of breathing in and out, which he once described as "just kinda natural." Unfortunately, due to his inability to configure his now-ancient Speak & Spell, and his total refusal to adopt a basic text-to-speech app, this was the only intelligible content from a recent interview — abruptly cancelled after three hours of incessant, incomprehensible beeping, and mutual frustration.