re: Unexpected run-ins with music people

This one isn't as unexpected, but it was still cool. In 2008, Nadirah Shakoor had released an album called Nod to the Storyteller, and was promoing it by doing a few songs from it on a side stage before the Jimmy Buffett here in Atlanta. It had been promo'd as Nadirah with Atlanta-based Buffett tribute band A1A backing her up. Anyways, got to the show early and was checking out her set. It ended up that several different members of the Coral Reefers sat in on some songs with her. Mac McAnally sits in on a song with her, and then comes down off stage and is just hanging around talking to folks. Got to spend a few minutes talking to him, asking him when he would be back in Atlanta for some solo shows, etc.

Probably the most random music person sighting I've ever had was in the late 90s/early 2000s. I was at Auburn, dating a girl from Chilton County (between Montgomery & B'ham). Drive down to her place one afternoon after classes, and when I get off 65, I pull in a BP station for gas. This white VW Bug pulls up a few pumps away, guy gets out and pumps gas - walks in to pay. As it walks by I notice he looks really familiar - dark hair, close cropped beard. A kid comes running out of the store part and shows his mom a piece of paper, just as this guy gets back in the Bug and pulls off. Turns out it was Randy Owen from the group Alabama.