NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Nashville has no shortage of incredible musicians with even more incredible stories. This one is about taking on obstacles and adapting.
"I don't do music. I am music," said musician J.T. Greenfield, sitting in Memories Bar and Grill in La Vergne before his set.
Under the name In-Cahoots, Greenfield plays with a lot of other musicians.
"It ain't gonna be a hack, I can tell ya that!" he laughed.
This was his first gig as a two -man crew with Rickey Godfrey.
"He said, 'give us a shot! Let's see what happens!,'" Godfrey said. "Here I am."
"It's two guys playing four instruments simultaneously," Greenfield said. "Great for a club owner. You get four guys for the price of two!"
It only makes sense to play a place named Memories. Greenfield's sharing memories including the ones that aren't easy to talk about.
"I do have some PTSD on a two lane road," Greenfield said. "It does stick with you."
It was ten years ago. Greenfield shared he was in a head-on crash.
"He hit me," Greenfield said. "I remember seeing his headlights for a quarter of a second and then it was months later when I woke up. The first thing I saw was my daughter who is a nurse come into the room. She's like, 'oh, look who's awake.' It left me with 19 broken bones. All the bones in my face were broken. I was on life support for a very long time. I ended up losing the use of my left hand. It's totally paralyzed. My right leg has enough metal in it, I could compete with the Home Depot. I got as much hardware in my leg as they do in the aisles."
Greenfield had been playing music since he was 14. He worried what happened would mean he couldn't play again.
"I was quite bitter for a long time," Greenfield continued. "Everything had been stripped from my life. Music had been stripped. What did I have to live for? Of course, I was bitter, and there was a big turnaround. There was a huge turnaround. The Lord spoke to me and said, 'I didn't bring you back for this. Don't feel sorry for yourself. This is why I brought you back.'"
Greenfield had to adapt how he plays, but he's done it. He's been back on stage.
"I saw visions of me playing drums and bass at the same time, and I said, 'Lord, I don't know how to play keyboard bass, and he said, 'but I do.' The next thing I know that's what I'm doing. I play drums with my feet and keyboard bass at the same time."
Godfrey is a blind musician. Greenfield wants the two to be a showcase for ability.
"My dream is for Ricky and I to get to have a reality show," Greenfield said. "There are other people, unique individuals. We want to go out and feature them. At the end of the first season, we could have a huge concert with all these people. Imagine that!"
"Obviously it's divine providence that he's here, so he's meant to do something special," Godfrey said. "Attitude is everything."
"If I can do it with what I have, look what you can do with what you have," Greenfield said. "If it didn't stop me, it shouldn't stop you."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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