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This week's FOCUS cover features country singer and songwriter Carl Chambers and his wife Nancy. The stylized cover was done by Tony McMichael from a photograph by Auburndale Star editor Joe Braddy. Joe had done two stories on Carl Chambers several weeks ago and I wanted to use them for FOCUS. Carl had written a song called, "Close Enough to Perfect" which had been picked up and recorded by the red-hot country music group, Alabama. The song come on the charts in modest fashion at No. 77. It moved up to No. 4 and then shot to the coveted No. 1 spot, where it stayed for a respectable time, and then gave way to later hits. For a native Auburndale singer and picker, it was quite a distinction. Carl has made some money from the song, and stands to make a lot more when a couple of pending lawsuits, not involving him but between two publishers and involving another court decision on royalty payments, are settled. Anyway, I have used one of Joe's original stories as it appeared. The other story is a collaboration of ours that updates and adds to the original material. Both stories appear on Page 22. I am indebted to Joe for these stories.

I had seen and heard Carl Chambers many times at concerts and always admired his band, Southern Honey, and his performance. I was also taken by the fact that Carl is the only country music star who wears a regular fedora or Panama hat - never a cowboy hat. He also disdains western or country dress. He started out in the customary way wearing a cowboy hat, but he saw that he looked just like everybody else, besides, he didn't think it suited his style. So he started wearing a standard felt hat. Now it has become something of a trademark with him.

His wife Nancy is his band manager. They both had children from previous marriages when they met, and now they have a two-year daughter named Trudy. They are a nice, comfortable, unaffected family. Success may dictate that he leave Auburndale and go to Nashville. He dosn't want to do it, but if the business demands it, he will. He is essentially an Auburndale boy and wants to stay that way. He is of the same generation of remarkably successful musicians that started out together here many years ago. It includes Jim Stafford, the late Gram Parsons, songwriter Bobby Braddock, and Kent LaVoie, known as Lobo. With a little luck, Carl will reach the same level of success that some of these musicians have attained. We wish him that luck.