Jeff Carlisi: A Special Jaguar for a .38 Special Man
In 1988, I was nearly 25 years old and a writer and photographer for the hudspeth report, an Atlanta-based entertainment newsletter. Ron Hudspeth gave me a column, An Atlantan on Wheels, where I spotlighted an Atlantan who had a love affair with a car. This feature was about a Jaguar Jeff Carlisi, .38 Special guitarist, had received from his dad and completely restored. I interviewed Jeff in his sleek Buckhead high-rise and we then took the car for a photo shoot at a nearby park. What follows is the original article and a present-day reflection.
Jeff Carlisi, guitarist and songwriter for .38 Special, recalls being 12 and sitting in his father’s 1962 Jaguar E-Type Roadster. The year was 1964 and Russ Carlisi, a Navy fighter pilot, was filming Jeff as he was driving the Jaguar and shifting imaginary gears.
"When the car came out in late 1961, it was a sensation," Jeff said, "a 150-mph car and quite beautiful. The ’62 was the first sports car you could buy for a reasonable price. I think my father paid $4,900."
Jeff grew up with the car, watching his father drive it to work every day and taking the family on several trips a year to Daytona from their home in Jacksonville.
Twenty-four years later, Jeff and the Jaguar are still together.
Jeff was in college in Atlanta in the early 70s when the car needed a few repairs. His dad’s neighbor offered to fix the Jaguar. "Well, it sat in the neighbor’s backyard for ages," Jeff said. "In 1983, when I was with the band and could afford it, I asked Dad to let me have the car. I told him I would make it right."
Jeff placed the car in a restoration shop with no idea of what the actual expenses would be. The estimate to restore it to original condition was $20,000.
"Two years later, after I had been traveling with the band and not able to see the car, almost $40,000 had been put into it. The paint job cost $6,000, more than the car’s original price."
The Jaguar now sports its original pearly white paint and red leather interior. Eighty percent of the car and its parts are original. Even the radio is authentic. Although, for belonging to a musician, it’s ironic the radio doesn’t play.
"When you get in with the top down," Jeff says, "and the 300-horse power engine roaring, you wouldn’t be able to hear the radio anyway."
The Jaguar has brought Jeff and his father closer. "My dad has to come to Atlanta from Jacksonville for a couple of days to get his fill of the car."
The Jaguar took its initial first place show prize in April 1987 at Road Atlanta. Jeff’s dad was there to see it happen. At the Southeast Regional Jag show at Patio by the River, the car was judged on the national point system. Not surprisingly, it brought home first in its class and the Best of Show prize.
The man who has been holding on loosely and rocking into the night with the wild-eyed Southern boys of .38 Special for 14 years wants to see his car compete in a national meet.
"Once I get that out of my system, that’s it," Jeff said. "The sport of showing cars is very competitive and political. I don’t have time for that, I simply get pleasure out of meeting people who enjoy the car."
And people enjoy his car as much as they enjoy his music.
.38 Special began recording their ninth album in early April. Jeff has to think for a minute to recount all of their previous albums.
Flashback, .38 Special’s greatest hits album released in 1987, is a compilation of their best Southern tunes that turn back time. Remember "Fantasy Girl" and "Teacher, Teacher?"
Jeff experienced time turning back last year when he joined Lynyrd Skynyrd in Atlanta on the Southern rock group’s Tribute Tour ’87.
"I grew up with all the guys from Lynyrd Skynyrd, only a couple of blocks away, and I hadn’t seen them in 10 years," Jeff said. "When I stood backstage at the Omni on October 15, 1987, with the group and Charlie Daniels, waiting to go on, I was as excited as the fans. I thought ‘Jeez, this brings back so many memories.’"
Just as it did for everyone in attendance that night.
Jeff can be heard on the album Lynyrd Skynyrd LIVE taped that night at the Omni. He can also be heard zooming up and down Peachtree Street in his Jaguar after making Atlanta his home once again.
"I tried Los Angeles," Jeff said. "But it’s not for me. I don’t get on well with that coast." He does get along with members of his band, though he admits the music business isn’t all glamour like most people believe. "You have to pay your dues, but if you love it, it doesn’t matter, because you wouldn’t want to be doing anything else."
For Jeff, the best part of being a part of .38 Special is touching people with his music. "The greatest thing is when someone comes up to me and says, ‘you don’t know what that song did for me.’ I like making people feel good, or writing a slower song, maybe sad, that they can identify with."
The glamorless part of the music business started from the beginning when .38 Special traveled in a station wagon. As the band progressed, they went to a van and then a motor home and on to their first bus.
"Today we have four buses on the road," Jeff said. "Sometimes we’ll sit around and complain about having to sit on a bus for so long, forgetting about the station wagon rides and van trips. But I love what I’m doing. It’s sensational."
Just like the Jaguar. And just like .38 Special.
Ridin’ Shotgun with Jeff Carlisi
What didn’t make it into the paper back then was the story of how that day really ended — riding shotgun with Jeff Carlisi, top down, a young writer soaking up the spring sun and a moment that still makes me smile.
Growing up just south of Macon in the ’70s, we were saturated with Southern Rock: the Allmans, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stillwater, Wet Willie, the Marshall Tucker Band, and .38 Special. We knew how close we were to the place where so much of that music was minted. I did my share of rockin’ into the night with .38 Special as my soundtrack — every single lyric carved into memory.
Still is.
So when Ron Hudspeth suggested I write about Jeff Carlisi, founding guitarist of .38 Special, and his Jaguar, I wasn’t starstruck. It was 1988, they were charting with “Second Chance” after earlier hits, but I’d already been around enough “famous” people in our Hudspeth Report days to just stick to the work — treat everyone like regular folk.
That was my plan as I drove my sister’s red BMW through Buckhead to Jeff’s high-rise on Peachtree Street — across from Elton John’s building, no less. I was 25, going through a divorce with two young kids to raise, and all I wanted was to prove I was a real writer. This was my chance: to spin words and observations into something worth reading — maybe to show our scrappy little paper was more than just club listings and restaurant chatter.
Jeff met me in the lobby, a true Southern gentleman — tall, dark-haired, polite. We stepped into the elevator together. “So you play guitar?” I asked.
“Yes,” he smiled, “I play lead — and sometimes rhythm.”
You’d think I’d have researched that. But there was no internet then — only liner notes, magazines, word-of-mouth.
If Jeff thought I was a bit green, he didn’t let on.
His apartment was all windows and white carpet, modern furniture, a glass-topped table where he answered my questions as I scribbled furiously. When we wrapped up, he led me down to the garage to see the Jaguar — a beauty. He drove us out into springtime Atlanta — the dogwoods blooming, the sun pouring through. We cruised to a small park with a pond, the car gleaming. He dropped the top. I took the photos.
The only thing missing? “Hold On Loosely” on the radio.
Back at the garage, Jeff parked the Jaguar, then insisted on walking me all the way back to my car. I was glad I’d borrowed Cathy’s cute BMW and not my clunky Escort.
Just then, a woman pulled up behind us, leaned out, and asked how to get to Peachtree Battle. Her accent told us she was a true genteel Georgian. Jeff gave directions, she thanked him, and then — instead of driving off — she leaned back toward her window and said, “Isn’t it customary for a young man to kiss a young lady goodbye?”
You can imagine my mortification — and delight. I was a professional, not some groupie! But Jeff just looked at me, grinned, then looked back at the woman and said, “Yes, Ma’am. You’re right.”
He leaned in and gave me the sweetest, most gentlemanly kiss. The woman drove away satisfied — a little romance conjured out of thin air.
When my story ran in The Hudspeth Report, I sent Jeff several copies along with a print of him beaming by that gorgeous Jaguar. I was delighted when he mailed the photo back to me… and signed. Unlike that gentlemanly kiss, hiss signature was cheeky: “Cindi — thanks for taking the top down, Jeff Carlisi.”
Well, Jeff, thanks for the kiss, the photo, the ride — and your ever-expanding soundtrack that never gets old. Never. On that clear spring day, I was a young writer setting out to prove her professionalism — and somehow I ended up kissing a rock star, just like in a Harlequin romance.
It was just a moment, a performance perhaps — but like any good song, it still plays when I need it to.
Hold on loosely, indeed.
Turns out, the best stories are the ones you’re still telling, decades later.
The original May 1988 article from the hudspeth report.
About the Author
Cindi Brown is a Georgia-born writer, porch-sitter, and teller of truths — even the ones her mama once pinched her for saying out loud. She runs Porchlight Press from her 1895 house with creaking floorboards and an open door for stories with soul. When she’s not scribbling about Southern music, small towns, stray cats, places she loves, and the wild gospel that hums in red clay soil, you’ll find her out listening for the next thing worth saying.
