Country star Randy Travis was arrested Tuesday night for drunk driving after he was involved in a single-car accident, then got tough with police when they confronted the singer at the scene. According to authorities, he threatened to shoot and kill the officers. Oh yeah, Travis was naked at the time of his arrest.
Tom Vigner, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Travis made threats against the highway patrol officers and refused sobriety tests. Travis had driven his Trans Am off the road in Tioga, Texas. No word of whether he was clothed at that point.
He was released from jail after posting $21,500 bail and emerged from the police station wearing a blue paper suit. (There is a picture in the slideshow at the top of the post.)
The arrest was the second of the year for Travis, who was busted for public intoxication in February when he was found with an open bottle of wine in his car outside a Baptist church.
It's a sad story but puts Travis in the heart of a tradition of country music benders. We take a look at some of the most epic examples.
Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw's wild ride
We're not certain any intoxicating elements were involved, but read the story and judge for yourself. After a show in Buffalo in 2000, Chesney saw a police horse and asked if he could sit on it. When he was in the saddle, he went tearing off down the parking lot. When police intercepted him, fellow country star Tim McGraw dove into the fray and hauled the cops off his pal, earning Chesney a disorderly behaviour charge and McGraw one for assault. The two were later cleared of all charges stemming from the incident.
George Jones and the riding mower
There are few country stars whose association with booze runs as deep as George Jones's. The man's hits include tracks like "White Lightning," "Tennessee Whisky" and "Yesterday's Wine." The muse was booze. At one point, however, his wife got sick of it and hid the keys to every car the couple owned to keep him from restocking his supply. Undeterred, Jones searched his home and found a riding mower in the garage. He mounted up and made a slow but determined drive 12 kilometres into town to load up at the liquor store.
Johnny Cash and the damn yellow buzzards
Johnny Cash was a man who knew how to fall off the wagon. Often, he'd fall right into his trailer and drive off somewhere to indulge in pills and booze. At one point, his destination was the Los Padres National Forest in California. It was an unfortunate choice for some of the park's inhabitants. Cash had a cracked axle, and it was leaking very hot oil. Unperturbed, he went about his business while the superheated oil started a forest fire that would destroy 508 acres of forest and wipe out 49 of the park's 53 endangered condors. As Cash tells it in his autobiography, when confronted in court about his actions, Cash replied, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it." The judge tried to probe into Cash's personal remorse, to which the singer fired back, "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards."
Merle Haggard was a terrible burglar
Merle Haggard, who famously sang about turning 21 in prison, actually was in prison when he was 21. In 1957, Haggard was strapped for cash and tried with two accomplices to rob a restaurant. As we all know, the key ingredient to any good heist is booze, and the three crooks loaded up before their raid. The plan was to hit the restaurant at 3 a.m. but too impaired to tell time, the team pried open the door at 10:30 p.m. The establishment was still open and full of patrons. He didn't get the money, but Haggard did get a free trip to San Quentin prison.
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