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Trace Adkins Told Doctors To Reattach His Pinky Finger In A Specific Guitar Chord Position- “If You Put It Like That, I Can Still Use It”
Another incredible story from Trace Adkins.
Throughout country music history, we’ve seen some absolutely insane stories unfold to the biggest stars in the genre. Whether its Hank Williams Jr.’s infamous 500-foot fall off Ajax Mountain in Montana in 1975 that he miraculously survived, Tracy Lawrence surviving three gunshots, one of which missed an artery by by a tenth of a millimeter, after getting mugged and car-jacked in 1993 or HARDY, who recently revealed he nearly lost his life in his famed bus crash in 2022, you don’t have to look very far to find nearly unbelievable stories of beloved artists dodging death.
One artist who has flirted with death multiple times is none other than Trace Adkins.
Of course, he’s best known for late ’90s and early 2000s hits such as the infamous, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and “Swing,” as well as other popular tracks such as “Every Light In the House,” “You’re Gonna Miss This” and “Ladies Love Country Boys.” Beyond the patented baritone vocals and deep, southern drawl, however, is a long history of near-encounters with death throughout his life.
Adkins was severely injured in a head on car crash when he was 17, he almost lost both his legs in a bulldozer accident in 1982, an oil tank explosion crushed his left leg and he was also stranded on an off shore oil rig during Hurricane Chantal in 1989. Of course, this isn’t even mentioning the fact that Adkins was shot pointblank in the chest by his ex wife, Julie, with a .38 special that nearly killed him in the winter of 1994. That, of course, is nothing short of a harrowing story, and you can read more about it here.
There’s yet another story of the “Just Fishin'” singer that nearly sounds too incredible to believe. Thankfully for Adkins, this one doesn’t involve nearly dying, but instead, almost losing a finger — specifically his left pinky finger which is obviously pretty vital for his ability to play guitar on stage.
As Adkins recalls in an interview with Fox News Digital back in 2019, he nearly lost the finger in a freak accident at an offshore oil rig decades ago before his music career took off.
“I cut it off when I was working offshore on a drilling rig, Then, when they put it back on, it wasn’t going to work anymore, so they just had to fuse the joints. So, I showed him how I wanted it.”
And just recently, during an interview with the always entertaining Big D & Bubba Show, the 63-year-old singer/songwriter recalled making the decision to tell doctors to reattach the finger in an unconventional way.
Obviously, the standard mode of operation in terms of reattaching a finger would be to set it upright, mimicking a standard open-hand position that most people would prefer when it comes to day-to-day life. For Adkins and his music career, however, that simply wasn’t going to be an option.
Given the fact that the finger was his left pinky, resetting it upright would severely limit his ability to form otherwise basic guitar chords – and especially any minor variations of simple chords such as D in its suspended variation (if you’re not familiar with music theory, a suspended chord is essentially simply replacing the third note with a major or minor chord with either the second or fourth note in a respective key).
“Doctor asked me how I wanted it, and he was just going to put it straight. I said, ‘Put it in the sus position.’ And he goes, ‘Sus position?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, so I can suspend a D chord at least. If you put it like that, I can still use it on a guitar neck. There are chords I can’t make. I can’t reach up the neck anymore with it. That was the first thing I thought when I saw my finger hanging down… That was the first thing I thought of.”
What resulted is Adkins specifically making the doctors reattatch his left pinky in a permanent hook position, easily allowing him to hit the aforementioned positions on the guitar fret with relative ease (though he admits there are still chords he physically can’t make).
For most artists, this would probably be the most insane story of their career. Unsurprisingly with Adkins, however, this is just one of the many downright fascinating tidbits we’ve gathered from his life. If nothing else, it proves just how dedicated to his career in country music was to him at the time.
Watch here:
The post Trace Adkins Told Doctors To Reattach His Pinky Finger In A Specific Guitar Chord Position- “If You Put It Like That, I Can Still Use It” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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