September 12, 2022
By: Dwayne Page
Where were you?
Most people remember where they were on the day of the 9/11 attacks 21 years ago. Country music star Aaron Tippin will never forget.
Tippin, who lives in DeKalb County with his family, at that time had a business in DeKalb County called Aaron Tippin Firearms. Aaron said Sunday after his performance at the local 9/11 memorial that he was in the store that morning.
“I remember I was in my gun store. People would stop in there every morning for a biscuit and coffee. We were all standing there talking when someone walked in and said Hey man, I just heard the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane. My response was that’s crazy, but we turned on the TV and sure enough it was true,” said Tippin.
“I said to the girls who worked in the store, let’s just shut down and go home and be with our families but before we got the doors closed, folks started coming in the door to buy ammunition. It just shows that in a time like that they wanted to prepare to defend their homeland. That’s the type of America we need right now,” Tippin continued.
“I am proud to be a part of this (observance). In our little county in Tennessee, to have an event like this and see this place full of citizens is a big deal”, he said.
After the tragedy, Tippin introduced the song “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly” which became a hit. Although it had already been written two years before the 9/11 attacks, Tippin said the song seemed to fit the times.
“The song was written two years before the towers fell but the record label I was with at that time didn’t want me to do anything patriotic on my songs so this song was just laying in the catalog but after the towers fell, I remembered it and brought it back up (to record producers) and they let me release it as a single as a benefit for the American Red Cross. I didn’t want a sad song about how our country got sucker punched. Instead, I wanted something that made Americans feel proud and good about themselves in that when times get tough you grab yourselves up by the bootstraps, get back up, and get back on with living free. That’s the kind of song I wanted to send to America,” said Tippin.
Before it was recorded, Tippin had asked the co-writer, Kenny Beard, to allow him to change a line in the song, but Beard would not agree.
“Kenny has passed away now but it still means so much to me to do that song because every time I sing it I think of Kenny. There is one line in that song that he and I were working on, and I tried to get him to change it, but he would not do it. I have to smile and look up when I sing it today because there was something about that line in the song for him. The line is “where happiness ain’t out of reach”. I wanted to change it to ‘where being free means everything’ but he wouldn’t change it,” added Aaron.
In addition to having been a country music hit maker, Tippin is known as a tireless man full of enthusiasms. He’s a pilot, farmer, winemaker, outdoorsman, bodybuilder and devoted family man.
He’s also known for his patriotism and support of American troops and over the years has journeyed to Iraq and Afghanistan to sing for the troops. In 1990 at the beginning of his music career, he went with Bob Hope to the Persian Gulf to entertain.