GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. -- The resort town where Ricky Nelson staged his last performance mourned the rock 'n' roll star's death in a Texas plane crash and a former band member said Wednesday that singing was Nelson's whole life.
Nelson played two shows at P.J.'s Alley, a Guntersville nightclub, including a Monday night encore as a favor to Pat Upton, a friend, former band member and the club's manager.
Nelson, 45, his fiancee and five others, including members of his band, were killed flying to Texas for a New Year's Eve engagement when their twin-engine plane crashed in a wooded area in northeast Texas.
Upton, a member of Nelson's band from 1980 until 1984, choked back the tears as he talked about the crash.
'We were close friends,' said Upton, who joined the band Monday night as the group ran through several of Nelson's biggest hits, including 'Hello Mary Lou,' 'I'm Walking' and 'Poor Little Fool.'
Nelson's final words as he left the state were, 'Rave on for me.'
Upton said Nelson thrived on performing and would never quit.
'It was just a routine gig,' he said of Nelson's feeling about the New Year's Eve performance scheduled in Dallas. '(But) he had no intentions of ever quitting. No way. That's his whole life.'
City Councilman James Hindman said the news of the crash 'hit me like a ton of bricks' and called Nelson's show 'a very personal thing for a little town like Guntersville.'
Hindman said the town of 10,000 in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains wrapped by Lake Guntersville 75 miles northeast of Birmingham was lucky to get a visit from Nelson, who shot to fame at age 12 on his parents' television show, 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.'
'I woke up feeling younger than I had in years,' Hindman said of the performance. 'Having grown up watching him made you aware of the values that his mother and father had instilled him. He was a very personal, genuine man.'
Annette Adams, a hostess at PJ's, said Nelson's death cast a pall on New Year's Eve.
'It's not been very much fun for me to night or the other people who work here,' said Adams. 'It's just something we probably will always remember on New Years's Eve.'
