Bubba Exclusive | August 8th|JR The Handler Show with Gary Pettus

Gary Pettis and the Quiet Craft of Keeping Shows Alive

There are people whose job is invisible until things go wrong. Gary Pettis has spent three decades on the invisible side of live music, the part where decisions are made with half the information and the clock is always running. His career reads like a map of modern touring: trumpet in junior high, mixing boards in Charlotte, a sudden apprenticeship on the road in the early 1990s, two decades with a platinum-selling rock band, the stop-start shock of a global pandemic, and a late-career return shepherding a rising Kentucky country singer down arena ramps and into festival fields.

From trumpet player to tour decision-maker

Pettis’s arc is not dramatic for its initial ambition so much as its accumulation of small competencies. He learned to play trumpet, then to run a PA, then to fix monitors and set up stages. That sequence—musician to audio engineer to tour manager—is almost a blueprint in the oral history of road crews. He learned by watching, asking, and carrying spiral notebooks, the low-tech ledger that would become his tour accounting practice. Those notebooks were the kind of on-the-job training manuals that don’t exist in a classroom: lessons in logistics, temper, and making a plan at 2 a.m.

Mentorship, the human software of touring

Mentors recur as a theme in Pettis’s conversation. He credits small, local sound companies and older road techs for giving him the first practical, transferable skills. Those relationships taught him not just tool use, but a mindset: the patience to learn, and the humility to stand where things break. He calls himself a teacher now—another node in a chain that passes down what cannot be learned from a manual: how to hold authority without ego, how to triage a day when flights are delayed and a van is melting under a southern sun.

The invisible muscle: handler vision

Pettis describes something he calls 'handler vision'—a practiced ability to weigh probabilities in the moment, choose a plan, and then pivot when new information arrives. It is a kind of operational empathy: understanding what the artist, crew, promoter, and venue each need, deciding which details to share with whom, and staying ready to reassign resources. That skill is why the old adage survives in touring: the show must go on. Often, seeing what will likely go wrong before it does is what keeps the show on schedule.

Small rituals and surprising tools

Part of that preparedness is cultural—little traditions that stabilize the day. Pettis mentions his 'Christmas hat,' a token he wears sparingly, which points to another truth about long touring lives: ritual and humor keep fatigue from becoming cynicism. Other practical rituals include keeping cash floats for per diem when service is unreliable, or routing an advance call in the morning to reduce surprises. Technology has changed many of those habits, but not all. Starlink on buses, near-instant messaging across a national network of tour managers, and apps that hold itinerary data have removed the payphone and the spiral notebook from a lot of workflows—but not the need to think fast.

From payphones to Starlink: the tech shift

Pettis narrates the contrast between the analog road and today's connected tour life with equal parts nostalgia and relief. He remembers pullovers at payphones, printed atlases, and card-sized contact books. Now the master scheduling app fits in a palm, buses have internet, and tour managers swap advice in group chats. Technology has made the job more efficient and less lonely, but Pettis argues it hasn’t changed the core requirement: be flexible and prioritize the goal, not the ego.

Pandemic, pause, and reinvention

When COVID-19 shut touring down, Pettis stepped back, did corporate gigs, slept in his own bed, and discovered a rhythm he’d missed. That pause let him return on new terms—one of the few people who could shift from arena rock to modern country, from being a FOH engineer to staging opening sets for major artists. The pandemic also highlighted how many touring practices had no playbook; every crew had to improvise contingency plans for realities no one had prepared for. Those improvisations hardened into fresh procedures: renegade shows, scaled production at unique venues, and a renewed appreciation for the live-audience exchange.

Stories that show the work

The interview is rich in anecdote: wrestling masks bought in Mexico; a bus whose air conditioning failed on the first overnight run; handing out cash per diem when there is no service. These moments are not mere bravado. They reveal a steady hand that makes small-scale triage look routine, and that builds a culture of trust where crews will stay together for 15 years. That longevity matters; tight crews produce smoother tours and fewer last-minute emergencies.

Public stagecraft, private labor

Gary Pettis’s career intersects with artists at different stages—young, hungry performers who need a tour manager to teach them the road, and established acts who become family. His account shows how much of modern music's public success depends on discrete, private labor: the person who knows which truck to unload first, who keeps the band fed, who decides whether to book an extra hotel room that might sit empty but might save a show if someone falls ill.

Conclusion: the work that keeps music moving

Pettis’s story is memorable because it is ordinary in all the best ways. It’s about slow accrual of competence, the generosity of mentors, and the art of taking responsibility when the world conspires to interfere. The road teaches patience and improvisation; it also forces an appreciation for those small rituals and relationships that keep music moving from town to town. In that quiet craftsmanship—choosing plans, shifting them when needed, and protecting the goal—live music continues to survive and occasionally, against long odds, to thrive.

Reflection: Touring is not a spectacle of unending adrenaline; it is a series of small decisions, compassionately delivered, that allow a room to be filled and a song to land.