(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sat 6 December 2025 1:30, UK
If he hadn’t been bitten by the acting bug, then Billy Bob Thornton would have tried his hand at becoming a full-time musician. Fortunately for him, one hand ended up feeding the other, and he used his Hollywood career as a springboard to pursue his other lifelong dream.
Would he be given the platform to record music, release albums, and go on tour if he wasn’t an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, recognisable star, and wealthy celebrity? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have given it a shot anyway had his initial plan of succeeding in Hollywood fallen through.
It’s unfair to call him an actor who dabbles in music, though, since he’s pumped out dozens of albums with his band, The Boxmasters, and as a solo artist. He’s just a guy who always wanted to be a musician, who happened to always want to be an actor more, so he used one love to further his passion for the other, which most people would do if they were in his situation.
He was raised on a steady diet of The Beatles and The Allman Brothers Band, two of the most important musical influences of his life. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to see either of their groups perform live in their original iteration, and if he had, then either one of them probably would have taken the top spot for being the greatest gig he’d ever attended as a punter.
Since he never got that opportunity, he had to make do with another all-star line-up that he still remembers vividly, despite going to the concert under the influence of narcotics. Reflecting on his standout live experience to Rolling Stone, Thornton remembered it as if it were yesterday.
“A concert at Martin Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1972,” he recalled. “That’s where we went for big concerts. The opening act was Freddie King. The second act was Tony Joe White. And Creedence Clearwater Revival were the headliners. I was standing about 12 rows back on psychedelic refreshments.”
Thornton would have been 16 or 17 years old at the time, which seems a little young to be off his tits on drugs, but we’re not here to judge. One of the greatest bluesmen of all time as the opening act was a hell of way to start off the show, with the Louisiana-born White upping the southern ante as the middle-billed performer.
It was just as well that the actor caught CCR when he did, though, since the band had disbanded by the end of the year, with Tom Fogerty already gone and his brother, John, at loggerheads with the rest of the band over money and creative control, opening the door to lawsuits, court dates, and the group’s total implosion.
“They hit the opening chord to ‘Green River’ the second lights came on the stage,” Thornton wistfully added. “It was so powerful to me in that moment.” Over 50 years later, and probably with hundreds more gigs in his back pocket as a fan, nothing has reached the heights of that night in 1972.
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