Tracy Lawrence Reflects On Being Shot In A Mugging That Nearly Derailed His Career: “Might Not Get A Second Chance”

Revisiting a pivotal moment in his early career.

Tracy Lawrence is a famed ’90s country music star, responsible for hits like “Paint Me A Birmingham,” “Time Marches On,” “Stars Over Texas,” and more. Today you might know him beyond his music for this philanthropic work hosting his annual Mission: Possible Turkey Fry and Benefit Concert, which distributes cooked turkeys around Thanksgiving to shelters throughout Middle Tennessee, or you might know him as the host of the TL’s Road House podcast where he sits down with country music colleagues and up and comers to talk about life, swap stories or highlight an artist that he champions.

Tracy Lawrence is a living legend in country music, one who ha managed to maintain an impactful career for more than 30 years and counting.

However, there was a point early in his career when he didn’t think he would have all he has now. In 1991, after finishing the backing vocals for his debut record Sticks and Stones, Lawrence and a female friend were mugged at gunpoint, leaving Lawrence with four bullet wounds.

During a recent chat with Clint Black for Circle Country’s series “Talking in Circles with Clint Black,” the two revisited the details of that horrible night. Clint opened the conversation, sharing that, fortunately but also unfortunately, everyone in Music City knew who Tracy Lawrence was before his debut record’s release because of the news of his mugging. In Clint’s words, everyone wanted something good to happen for him after his record hit the shelves because something so bad had happened to him.

Tracy Lawrence recalls the event of that night.

“Just to kind of preface that whole thing. I got mugged. I was finishing up the background vocals on Sticks and Stones, and I’d done the last one, and a friend of mine had come through town. We’d gone out to celebrate, and were pulling up into the Shoney’s parking lot over there, and three guys… I opened the car door with a pistol in my face.

That whole thing went down. I fought the guys off. She was able to get away. They emptied a couple of pistols on me. When I went to the hospital, I had a bullet through my knee, a bullet in my hip, this finger was kind of half gone. They stitched it all back up, but I got hit and grazed in the arm. So, I got hit four times. 

But when I woke up, you know who was sitting there? Tim McGraw. Tim was there. My buddy was there.” 

Black jokes that all the pain of the bullet wounds washed away seeing his best friend in the hospital room. While that was a witty response from Black, many folks wouldn’t have the courage to fight off criminals the way that Lawrence did.

In a 1996 interview, Lawrence shared:

“I decided I’d rather go down fighting. The bullet that’s still in my hip missed a main artery by a tenth of a millimeter. If it had severed, I would have bled to death in three minutes. I’m lucky to be alive. I had nightmares about it for a long time.”

He truly was one of the lucky ones surviving a horrific event like that. Lawrence acknowledged to Black how fortunate he was to survive something like that, but the drive to get back on stage haunted him while he was recovering.

“I was very lucky. And I was angry for a very long time because there are dark forces in the world, and I felt like… to reference a ‘Blues Brothers’ term, ‘I was on a mission from God.’ I had these great plans, and everything was lining up just the way I expected it to line up, and then somebody just jerked the rug out from under me. It took me a long time to let all that stuff go.”

Looking back on this moment, Tracy Lawrence fully admitted that he did not take the proper time to heal. He was back on his feet, trying to get back on the road as soon as possible, given that in the music business, if you’re not touring and putting out music, someone is going to take your spot.

“In this business, you have a window of opportunity, and when that window begins to close, you might not get a second chance. I was very aware of that. If I didn’t get up on my feet and get moving, I knew I had a very small shot, or somebody else was going to get my slot, and I better get up and get after it.”

Even though he got back to it as soon as possible, Lawrence’s debut record was delayed by seven months. This was a terrifying time because if executives at Atlantic, his label at the time, had changed, there was a possibility that the record could have never seen the light of day.

Thankfully for Lawrence, when Sticks and Stones was ready to be released, he had no issues breaking out into the scene. The debut record had four hits from singles “Today’s Lonely Fool”, “Runnin’ Behind,” and “Somebody Paints the Wall,” and peaked on the Top Country Albums chart in the 10th position.

Tracy Lawrence’s story is a true comeback story, having his life flash before his eyes to getting back on track and putting out a record that put him on the map in the country space, and he’s been fortunate enough to have stayed on the map since.

Check out the whole conversation while you’re here.

The post Tracy Lawrence Reflects On Being Shot In A Mugging That Nearly Derailed His Career: “Might Not Get A Second Chance” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.