He supported himself as a Columbia Recording Studios custodian, making $58 a week. He also bartended part-time.

Eventually, his wife left him and took their kids back to California. It took five years before his music career took off, and artists like Janis Joplin and Johnny Cash were collaborating with him.

He told People, “I’m still amazed at my audacity. I mean, when you’ve been thrown out of Nero’s Cactus Canyon steakhouse — and I had been — how are you ever gonna get on the Grand Ole Opry? But whatever momentum carried me back then helped me through performing and acting. I found it terrifying, but I was doing it. After that, it was like stepping onto a roller coaster.”