Atlanta Rhythm Section's Rodney Justo on rejoining after 40 years, maintaining band's legacy

When Rodney Justo, the original lead singer of Atlanta Rhythm Section, left the music business in the 1980s, he did more than retire. He “over-quit.”

“I didn’t sing a note, I didn’t listen to music,” Justo said in a recent call from his home in Tampa, Fla. “For a guy who used to be so in tune — I used to be the guy that knew the B-sides of records, you know what I mean? — now I didn’t know anything.”

After originally leaving the Southern rock band in 1972, Justo headed to New York where he worked on jingles and as a session musician, before transitioning to the wine and liquor business for almost 30 years. He rarely went to concerts, recalling seeing Ray Charles, Paul Simon and Roy Orbison, with whom he played early in his career.

Justo stayed friendly with his Atlanta Rhythm Section bandmates, checking them out when they came to town, too. That led to several fill-in appearances with the band over the years, including several dates in 2008 when singer Andy Anderson suffered a heart attack.

“So they called me and asked me to sing. I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. I’m out.’ ‘Please, you got to help us.’ ‘No, no, no, man. I’m not. Listen, I don’t sing anymore. I haven’t sung a note in 28 years,’” Justo said. “Dean Daughtry, the keyboard player, begs me, ‘Please Rod. We got these gigs. You got to help me.’ ‘All right. I’ll do it.’ Now it occurs to me this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

With short notice, Justo crammed for the shows, learning some songs he had never done before, like “The Ballad of Lois Malone.”

“So I say, OK, I’ll write it down. I’ll put it down on the floor and I’ll look at the words. I’ll cheat a little bit. Well, there was two problems. I didn’t have my glasses on, I couldn’t see the words,” he said with a laugh. “And the other one was, I couldn’t say Lois Malone. I kept saying Moses Malone, the basketball player. ‘The Ballad of Moses Malone.’

“I don’t think anybody caught it other than band members. For the life of me, I could not think of the real name.”

Justo officially rejoined the band in 2011, nearly 40 years after his original departure, and they’ll be making an appearance on Sept. 15 at Jergel’s Rhythm Cafe in Warrendale. As the last surviving original member of the band, Justo feels like it’s his duty to maintain the legacy of the group, known for songs like “So Into You,” “Imaginary Lover” and “Champagne Jam.”

“I got a call from Buddy Buie, who had put the band together. He mentioned legacy. He says, ‘You’re part of the legacy. You need to come back.’ ‘I don’t know, man. I haven’t sung in a long time.’ … And I’ve become a guardian, I guess, of the band,” Justo said. “When I die, it’s all over with. This is the dream of a guy named Buddy Buie, who was a great friend. Even though I left the band, we still remained friends. … I just don’t want it to die.

“When I came back, Dean and I talked about making it to the 50th year, that would be so cool, man. We’re in our 55th year,” he added with a laugh. “So I mean I’m still doing it, I don’t know what else to do. My golf game is not going to get any better, I don’t know how the hell I got worse.”

Justo missed a show in June after being hospitalized, describing the problem as his body was either losing blood or not making enough of it.

“It sounds like really serious stuff when you talk about it,” he said, “but I’m back to work.”

Although he’s feeling better now, life on the road isn’t as easy as a 79-year-old.

“When you’re on the road and you’re tired, you’re used to it, you think that’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “You don’t know that you feel bad. You assume you feel bad because you’re tired and you haven’t slept and you’re going on an airplane somewhere and the flight left early and you had to do this. So you just kind of get used to feeling like that.”

Although Justo’s been back in the band for 13 years, the current iteration of Atlanta Rhythm Section has been together for a few years, but the time feels like it has flown by.

“If I tell you we’re gonna do something two years from now, that’s a long time,” he said. “But if I tell you about something that happened two years ago, it’s like last week. Time in front is a long time, time behind is quick.”

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That goes the same for his personal life, where he’s got two grandchildren heading off to college, which has helped him appreciate every moment.

“Time, you can’t replace it. You lose your watch, you get a new watch. Wreck your car? You get a new car. Time is gone forever,” he said. “You got to not blink when it comes to having kids because it’s over so fast, man. I walk in an airport, and I see people with their kids. I look at them and I go, they don’t know how rich they are, they’re millionaires. They don’t know it.

“They got those kids, and I’d like to stop them and say that’s gonna be over really quick. Make sure you hold them as much as you can, pick them up, listen to them.”

Justo also values the connections he’s made with the band, mentioning his favorite part of shows isn’t the actual performance but meeting fans after the show at the merchandise table. He also cited one couple who drove from Texas to Florida for his wife’s funeral services and friends who commissioned a painting of Justo and his late wife.

“It is so remarkable. It’s even remarkable that people would do that for you. It’s not the painting itself. It’s the idea that people would do something like that. It can take away your humility or give you some,” he said. “It’s easy to just think you’re a big deal. I still say it’s very flattering. I talked to a guy the other day; he asked about retiring. I said, look, for the most part, I don’t mind that I get on a plane, I go somewhere and have someone to meet me. And then they treat me real nice. And then I go and I sing. Somebody gives me money. More people treat me nice. And I come home. What’s to leave from?”