A song on his lips, a deal for Dunedin
By Vanessa De La Torre
July 30, 2006

DUNEDIN – The memorabilia room in this mammoth waterfront mansion is actually kind of small. But to the point.

Hanging on the wall are country music singles charts from the 1980’s. Framed is a vintage letter from former President Ronald Reagan, thanking the home’s owner, J.C. Weaver, for singing him some songs at a campaign rally in St. Petersburg.

The eyes drift some more. Ah! A life-sized cutout of Mr. Weaver, with red heart taped to it that says, “EVERYONE LOVES J.C. WEAVER.”

Then we see it. Almost too good to be true:

A black bearskin coat with big rhinestones that spell out “Josiah” on the back.

Weaver takes it off the hanger and slips it on. He knows he’s larger than life when he has on the bearskin.

Not that he needs to put on a show. This man just might have a vast waterfront park named after him if a certain $19-million deal goes through with the Dunedin City Commission.

Weaver- Florida businessman, Virginia rancher, country music songwriter and performer-plans on selling 7 acres of land, just north of Dunedin’s downtown. Ideally, it would be to the city he has lived in since 1960. Of course, developers have been interested in it for years.

The land overlooks St. Joseph Sound on the west, while abutting the Pinellas Trail on the east. An 800-foot dock points toward Caladesi Island.

Weaver, 64, plans on giving us a tour this recent morning. But first, we visit the mansion a mile down the road. We see the memorabilia. The bearskin. And how this man dressed in all black, a musician who can’t read or write music, can give a performance.

“Been writing songs all my life. Anything, everything. Just make it up. If you just give me an idea,” Weaver says. “Come on, girl. We’re just down to earth, simple. I’ll write a song for you.”

He heads to the small recording studio down the hall. Picks up an acoustic guitar. Sits on a stool, and leans into the microphone.

Fingers the guitar strings…

I’ve been here since 1960, he sings.

And I’ve enjoyed the beautiful sunsets, the fishing

I think that Dunedin, Florida, is the best city….

In the whole state of Florida

Josiah Cephas Weaver grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. He was one of 10 kids, the son of a sawmill owner. The story goes that when he was 5, he tried getting into first grade. Teachers said he was too young. So his father picked him up from school that day, and drove Josiah to work in the sawmills.

Weaver left home at 15. He says he had enough money to get to Tampa. He wanted to get to Clearwater, which he had visited in childhood trips with his dad.

So he walked, Weaver says.

First night I spent sleeping in a telephone booth

Along the road

I was ready for another dream….

Headed south at only 15

I had to learn a trade to get by

I had to learn a trade to make some money

To survive

J.C. Weaver the businessman started small. He learned how to set tile as his trade, then says he started Weaver Tile Co. in Clearwater at age 19.
Business grew over the next two decades.

“We installed ceramic tile all over the county and state,” Weaver says. “I made a lot of money in the tile company. The problem with the tile company is that I’d be leaving home at 4 in the morning, and sometimes come home at midnight”.

By 1980, Weaver had another business plan: close to the tile business, and buy about 40 acres of land between Belcher Road and Hercules Avenue in Clearwater. At the time, he says each acre cost only $10,000.

Now many of those acres have been developed into Weaver Park, at 350,000 square-foot industrial and retail leasing space that Weaver owns.

When the Dunedin City Commission voted recently to pursue buying Weaver’s land, also purchased around 1980, some city commissioners expressed concern that the $19-million ballpark price was too high. Two grants would pay for the bulk of it, with the city paying a net cost of $3.1-million. Two appraisals put the value of the property at $19-million to $21.2-million.

“This is probably our last best opportunity to secure waterfront for the public’s use,” says Harry Gross, Dunedin’s leisure services director and the interim city manager.

“Our vision for that property is to provide that public access to the waterfront,” he says. “Not just the view, but the physical ability to go down to the water.”

It was an associate of Weaver’s who approached the city last year. Said the businessman had been talking about converting the land to a park.

Over the years, Weaver says he has gotten more than 1,000 calls on the property, mainly from developers wanting to build apartment complexes.

“I think he genuinely wants to give something back to the community….” Gross says of Weaver. “ We told him flat-out the only way the city could fund this was through grants, and it could take two to three years to get the whole amount to fund the whole property; If he would be willing to hold off that long.”

“I’m willing to work with the city’ has been his mantra throughout the whole thing,” Gross says. “I took that to be very positive community person.”

Weaver says in song and interviews, and sing-song interviews, that Dunedin has given him beautiful sunsets on his dock.

Also viewable from his dock are the gigantic condos on Clearwater Beach.

“The more I thought of this piece of property here, I didn’t want to see any high-rises. The people should enjoy this land,” he says.

“We don’t need a city with black pavement.”

I grew up a simple country boy, having a good ol’ time
Sisters and brothers playin’
In Blue Ridge Mountains were it shines…..
That’s why I can’t forget it
That’s why I go back there all the time

When Weaver isn’t in Dunedin, he is often at his ranch in Wytheville in southwest Virginia. Just under 4,000 acres, the ranch has about 1,000 head of cattle. He gets there by motorhome or private jet.

Weaver doesn’t have any children. He was married once, but his wife died of acute leukemia. His voice still quivers when he says she passed away in 1980.

“I’m not really close to anybody, really,” Weaver says. Buisness and music brought him friends like Jack Eckerd, the late drugstore magnate and philanthropist. And hundreds of people have walked through his mansion facing St. Joseph Sound.

Through hosting fundraisers and putting on shows, folks have zipped in and out of his life.

“You understand – work out a deal. Lets go, make it roll,” Weaver says, explaining his interactions with people. “Get the thing done and lets go.”

Marilyn Cantrell has seen him go in three different directions at once. She was his secretary and bookkeeper from 1969 to 2001, from the tile company to the industrial park, where she was his office manager.

Weaver kept a guitar in the building, says Cantrell, a 74 year-old Clearwater resident. In the 1980’s he had 12 songs on Cash Box Magazine’s Top 100 country singers chart. In 1991, Weaver was chosen Cash Box’s top independent male country vocalist.

“He’d sit there in the office and write songs, if something inspired him during the day,” Cantrell says. “He’d just sit there and make up stuff. He’s really crazy about the music. I don’t think he’ll ever give up on it.”

Weaver was a high school dropout who was proud of being a self made man. Cantrell would call him an entertaining boss, but not gentile.

Though he ran the operation, employing dozens of people at Weaver Tile at one point, he did a lot of physical labor. He liked the heavy lifting, Cantrell says. He got stern when others seemed to have a lesser work ethic. “He expected the best out of his employees. That they could perform,” she says.

Over three decades, Cantrell saw him as unorthodox in his ways, as an anomaly of a man. He liked the simple life, but could afford the complicated life, and did everything in his power to get the gold. He had no diplomas on his walls, she says. Yet he possessed something that couldn’t be taught.

If I look at a house that’s dilapidated, I’d say, ‘It’s a total loss, forget it.’ He’d say, ‘No, it has possibilities,’” Cantrell says. “He can foresee these things. And I guess sometimes I doubted his decisions, but he almost always proved me wrong. I have to give him credit. He never gives up.”

Now, the waterfront vista just north of Dunedin’s downtown – seems like a pretty smart move.
“If the people would elect to put the high-rise hotel there, yes it’d be worth $50-million,” he said. “We have backup offers ready to go on this thing….It’s going to cost me money to do this for the city. I’ll be honest.

“So city, let’s go,” Weaver said.” That’s all I can say. Let’s go, it’s going to cost me money, but let’s go.”
 

New waterfront park possible
by Vanessa De La Torre
July 21, 2006

DUNEDIN – In what would be a rare transformation, 7 acres just north of downtown could be converted into a waterfront park.

City Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to pursue purchasing the property from local businessman and country music songwriter J.C. Weaver, at a price in the neighborhood of $19-million.

The land lies on both sides of Bayshore Boulevard, about a half-mile north of downtown, near Pershing Street. It overlooks St. Joseph Sound on the west, while abutting the Pinellas Trail on the east.

“It’s a true waterfront and that would be rare if we got this property,” Commissioner Deborah Kynes said Thursday night.

Four rental homes are on the land, including a green, two-story framed house facing the water and white stone house where Weaver built his first recording studio.

City officials said they have been talking with Weaver, a Dunedin resident since 1960, for several months about the purchase.

City officials plan to pursue about $17-million in grant funding over the next two years to cover a large share of the purchase price. If the city completes the purchase, it would plan to continue renting the property’s homes until the land is developed into a public park.

The Weaver property also includes a 100-foot pier.

Weaver said he wanted to give back to his longtime home.

“The most beautiful sunsets in the world can be seen from the pier I built,” Weaver said in a statement. “I have elected in my heart to share this with this community which has done so much for me over the last 45 years.”

Weaver bought the property in 1980 after doing well as owner of Weaver Tile Co., a Clearwater business he started at age 19.

About the same time Weaver purchased the vast waterfront vista, he closed down Weaver Tile and started buying acres of land between Belcher Road and Hercules Avenue in Clearwater.

Those acres would be developed into Weaver Park, a 350,000-square-foot industrial and retail leasing space Weaver owns today.
 

Grahams Forge Celebration
by Linda Spiker
July 4, 2006

Click here to watch video

“Grahamfest” took visitors back in time Saturday, July 1, at the Major Graham mansion in Grahams Forge. Civil War soldiers promenaded across the lawn with their ladies dressed in hoop skirts, bonnets and gloves.

A black buggy and carriage awaited passengers, along with two Morgan horses that were high-stepping in sync.

Josiah C. Weaver of Florida is owner of the mansion and surrounding property. He hosted the Fourth of July event for his family, ranch employees, and local friends. The day was chosen to honor Sue Graham, who at 92 is probably the oldest descendant of Squire Graham’s family. Graham is the widow of Frederick Graham, grandson of the squire.

After the welcome ceremony and a delicious Carolina barbecue and covered-dish meal, the double gates to the mansion were thrown wide, and two Civil War re-enactors in full dress, carrying swords, were stationed at either side ready to welcome Sue Graham onto the property.

She entered the grounds with her daughter Nancy, both riding on a black carriage, and the “soldiers” escorted her around the sloped road-way to the front of the house where she alighted and was helped onto the outdoor stage, which is on the foundation of the old carriage house that had collapsed in recent years.

“Dixieland” was played by the Crystal River Band of Galax, and sung by Weaver, as Graham entered the grounds, and upon her arrival, she helped sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

With the help of a microphone, Graham gave an interview to all present, during which she answered questions about the Graham family, told humorous anecdotes about the family, and down-played the ever circulating rumors that the house is inhabited by spirits.
The huge brick and frame house with Gothic-style front was previously owned by a Mr. Baker who was murdered on the premises by two of his slaves.

The slaves were subsequently hanged for the deed.

Many people claim to have seen, heard or felt unearthly occurrences while there.

After the interview, Weaver, in Western attire, steel toed boots and cowboy hat, took over the mike, performing numerous songs, accompanied by Crystal River Band. The audience, well-fed and entertained, sat back in lawn chairs under big spreading shade trees on the property and enjoyed the music, often singing along.

A special attraction on stage was the appearance of “Elvis,” gorgeously attired in white stretch jumpsuit and blue scarf, who performed “Johnny Be Good” and “You Gave Me A Mountain.”

During the music session, “Butch” Shaffer, owner of the Morgan horses, took guests on carriage rides across the property and down the gravel roads into the countryside.

Grahamfest was an early tribute to our country’s birthday, with guests enjoying their blessings of abundant food, friends and entertainment until late afternoon.

 

Josiah Sings with Charlie
March/April 2006

Dunedin’s J.C. Weaver and his Mountain Rock Music Band rolled into Tampa’s Hard Rock Casino to rock with Charlie Daniels and friends. After three shows at the Casino, Josiah jammed with the “who’s who” in country music at the Ford Amphitheater during a three-day fundraising extravaganza for The Angelus Home of Hudson, which houses 33 severely handicapped children and adults, as well as provides daily rehabilitation and respite services to day clients.

Click here to watch video

 

February 28, 2006
Interview and Performace by Josiah
Click here to watch video 

February 28,2006
Josiah Preforms in Dunedin Mardi Gras Parade
Click here to watch video 

December 3, 2005
JC Weaver Host and Performs for 2005 Dunedin Youth Guild Holiday Rour of Homes
Click here to watch video 

November 23, 2005
Josiah Sings at Clearwater's Festival of Trees
Click here to watch video 

Performing at the Festival of Trees

Josiah Cephas "JC" Weaver has been writing and performing his own brand of mountain music for almost 60 years. Music has seen him through the toughest times of his life and has carried his soul ever onward. He has written thousands of songs, opened for Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty, and performed for President Ronald Reagan. Josiah has released three original compact discs. A selection of his recordings is available at www.mountainrockmusic.com. (JC performed at UPARC's Festival of Trees in Clearwater on November 23rd.)

Click here to watch video

 

Best Bets of Tampa Bay
November/December 2005

Dunedin's J.C. Weaver has released "Winning Colors", a new compact disc of country songs written by him and Tom Wright through Mountain Rock Music. J.C. is a high-energy entertainer who will be performing at the UPARC Festival of Trees on November 23rd and at the Dunedin Youth Guild Holiday Tour of Homes on December 3rd. His vocals of "Money, Sex, and Rock 'n Roll" and "Living on Credit" are as big and powerful as J.C. himself. 

Best of Tampa Bay 2005
May/June 2005

Social Seens…

38th Annual Omelette Party
Photography by Noraa

This event has been Clearwater’s prime social outing for almost four decades. The black tie champagne supper was held at the Dunedin home of J.C. Weaver. The evening is hosted by the UPARC Foundation to benefit the Upper Pinellas Association for Retarded Citizens. Since 1958, this organization has been providing a continuum of services for clients who are developmentally disabled. UPARC serves over 550 individuals and their families each year.

Gina Hawkins, a chair of the evening, and J.C. Weaver, who hosted the fundraiser at his Dunedin home, greeted guests as they arrived. 

Country Music Singer Hosts UPARC Omelette Party in Dunedin

April 28, 2005

DUNEDIN – The UPARC Foundation’s annual Omelette Extravaganza fundraiser Friday and Saturday, April 22 and 23, was at the beautiful waterfront home of country music singer J.C. Weaver.

Co-chairs for the 38th annual event were Gina Hawkins and Karen and Ron Seel.

To kick off the festivities, more than 50 UPARC clients were invited for a sing-along Friday morning. As Weaver strummed his guitar and sang a few of his hit singles, the audience joined in with song and laughter. The clients also were entertained by Palm Beach gallery owner, John Amann who has provided fine art for the evening auction for 23 years.

“I was contacted by a friend who asked if UPARC could use my home for its fundraiser,” said Weaver. “After I met Karen Seel and she explained what UPARC did, I said ‘yes’. If I could do something to help children and a good cause, I wanted to be a part of the events.”

Weaver is a self-taught musician who grew up in the backhills of southern Virginia. He is also a self-made wealthy businessman.

Sixty paintings were available for purchase during Friday evening’s black tie champagne supper and at Saturday morning’s elegant garden party brunch. The proceeds, generally in the 80,000 to 100,000 range, go to the UPARC Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides a continuum of services for adults who are developmentally disabled. Founded in 1958, UPARC began as a children’s program that evolved into a progressive service agency in the field of rehabilitation and residential services. 

Magazine Honors Local Singer
By Sharon Kirby Lamm
Friday, May 22, 1992

Local singer/songwriter J.C. (Josiah Cephas) Weaver, developer of Weaver Office Park in Clearwater, has been selected in the Cash Box Magazine polls as Top Male Country Vocalist for 1991 in the independent artist category.

Weaver, who uses the name Josiah as a performer, won for his single "Girls Who Look a Little Like You". Over the past few years, about 10 of Weaver's country songs have made the Top 100 charts, said Jack Brown, his producer/arranger/studio engineer who oversees operations at Weaver's Studio, which has been in operation for about a year in the office park off Hercules Avenue. Weaver records on his own WTM label, which stands for Wild Turkey Music, and said several foreign promoters are interested in his music.

"We believe we'll be able to come out of here with a No. 1 hit," Weaver said recently. "We have the equipment and ability to go do it, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun with our music."

He is working on his next release, "Baby, I'm Never Gonna Hold You Down", in addition to his business obligations at the office park. "I think it is possible that we are going to reach high success in this," he said. "This has been something you just love to do and you keep doing it," he said of his lifelong interest in writing and performing music. 

New Music Hall Tunes Up for a Bright Future
By Cyndi Astle

Clearwater Music Hall smelled like a brand new car for its official grand opening concert. Everything was bright and clean and sparkling, just like its backers’ hopes for the new concert theater, the only private concern of its kind in north Pinellas.

Judging from the enthusiastic response from the audience Saturday night, the music hall already has a core of supporters who will spread the word about the proficient performances awaiting patrons.

More of those patrons could have been in evidence, though for the grand opening featuring Tommy Griener as an opening act and J.C. Weaver’s “Josiah’s Mountain Rock Extravaganza.” The hall was barely half full. The half that wasn’t there missed a fine show.

Organizers Ken and Anne Spooner said business at the fledgling concert hall picked up during the holidays, an indication their dream is about to take wing.

A slew of dignitaries showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremonies, including ambassadors of the Clearwater Chamber of Commerce, County Commissioner Gabe Cazares, Sheriff Gerry Coleman and a representative of State Sen. Jerry Rehm, R-Dunedin.

They were amply rewarded for coming out on a damp, foggy night. The sound in the music hall is outstanding. There is not a poor seat in the house, which has 372 permanent seats and a capacity of 400.

Tommy Griener warmed up the audience in high style with his guitar solos. Griener plays guitar with his fingers, taps the bass strings up the neck and picks with his teeth. His rendition of a “Malaguena” and “Classical Gas” medley brought vigorous applause.

As for J.C. Weaver, one of the benefactors who made the music hall possible, it is safe to say there probably is no other act like his in country music. As Anne Spooner aptly put it, “He’s a real character.”

Weaver-whose initials stand for Josiah Cephus-entered the music hall escorted by two Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies. He sported a fur coat embroidered with sequins spelling out “Josiah” on the back.

He gave an enthusiastic performance of songs he wrote himself, both up-tempo and ballads, in a style that combines rock beats with country lyrics. Weaver calls his music “mountain rock.”

But it was his rendition of Chuck Berry’s classic “Johnny B. Goode,” which closed the first half of his act, that brought down the house.

Some might have found Weaver’s second act costume – a white satin shirt sewn with red, white and blue sequins in the form of an America flag – a tad much, but then, so is Josiah. Just about everything he does is larger than life.

Weaver’s baritone voice and spirited movements on stage were superbly backed by an orchestra conducted by Mark Hendricks. Hendricks, an arranger-conductor based in Tampa, worked wonders on short notice.

He arranged Weaver’s songs, hired musicians to form a 16-piece orchestra, led them through one rehearsal Saturday afternoon and took them onstage Saturday night in rousing success.

Rousing success is what seems destined for the Clearwater Music Hall.

Clearwater Music Hall is located next door to Clearwater Guitar Gallery, 1088 Kapp Drive, in Weaver Industrial Park. Acts change each weekend. Ticket prices vary. Handicapped patrons will have a small curb to negotiate from the parking lot, but the interior of the concert hall is easily accessible.

The Sandy DeVito Trio is slated to perform Friday, with bluegrass band Red & Murphy & Co. scheduled Saturday. Performances are at 8 p.m. Call 442-6600 for ticket information. 

SALUTE THE BOYS OF VIETNAM
October 16, 1986

Mr. Sasser. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues in the Senate a song written by a man in Florida and dedicated to the veterans of the Vietnam conflict.

Entitled “Salute the Boys of Vietnam,” the song is currently being distributed by the Fischer & Lucas Co. of Nashville, TN.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Fischer recently and receiving a copy of the song and a note from J.C. Weaver, its author.

This song was written for the boys of Vietnam because of the strong feeling I have in my heart,…. For every time I see a boy with an arm missing, a leg missing, or even blind, he tells me he was in the Vietnam war – I know they didn’t choose to go there, but they did to represent America. May God bless them! Mr. President, I would like to share the lyrics of this song with the Senate, and I ask that the lyrics be printed for the record.

The lyrics follow:

Salute the Boys of Vietnam

Leaving home with papers in hand
To fight a war that no one understands
Trying to be a man in this strange land.
Crawling through the jungles of Vietnam

We salute the boys of Vietnam
We salute the ones that gave it all
We salute the boys of Vietnam
We salute the ones that had to fall

Shiny medals and ribbons of a war
Memories of a battle that is no more
Fighting boys of America who stood tall
Remember those names are on the wall

We salute the boys of Vietnam
We salute the ones that gave it all
We salute the boys of Vietnam
We salute the ones that had to fall

We salute the boys of Vietnam
We salute the ones that gave it all
We salute the boys of Vietnam
We salute the ones that had to fall
 

He Knows What He’s Doing – He’s Doing His Very Best
Wednesday, November 14, 1984

By Maggie Talbot

Clearwater – Josiah Cephas Weaver – Businessman, patriot, self made man, philosopher and poet/musician-has performed a feat in the music world. He’s managed to put a song on the record charts, in record time, without the help of a major recording company.

In the short space of about one month, “My Mind Knows What I’m Doing and I’m Doing My Very Best” has made this week’s Cash Box Magazine’s Country Music Top 100. It’s No. 84 and marked with a bullet, a sign that Cash Box, the record industry bible of what’s hot and what’s not expects it to keep on climbing.

Weaver not only wrote the song, but he also sings it. And its success is due in part to his own independent music company, Wild Turkey Music.

“I tried to work with major record companies but they want to control everything about you,” said the 40-ish Weaver. “It’s really awful. If a person has no money and no knowledge of business, then he has to do whatever the record company tells him. And I just wanted to do it my way.”

Unlike most struggling musicians who want to make a record, Weaver can afford to do it his way. In fact, Weaver has been doing things his way most of his life.

The son of a Virginia sawmill owner, Weaver ran away from home when he was 15 and walked to his sister’s house in Clearwater. By the time he was 20, the high school dropout had founded the Weaver Tile Co.

“I was under age and I had trouble getting the tile companies to give me credit,” he recalled.

After expanding for 15 years, Weaver got fed up with government regulation of small businesses and decided to start investing in real estate. He astutely bought 40 acres off Hercules Avenue.

Today, he still owns much of it, including Weaver Industrial Park, where he leases office space to about 100 tenants. Outside his office, a grassy knoll serves as a lading site for his five-seater helicopter, which he calls “my velvet armchair in the sky.”

His office contains a 16-track recording facility and two stuffed wild turkeys, as well as assorted wild turkey tails. Weaver bagged them on hunting trips to Virginia.

“I’m always amazed at how smart they are,” said the rugged Weaver, who wrote a song about wild turkeys on the spur of the moment.

Weaver has been writing songs all his life. “I wrote a song before I even started school,” he said. “In the mountains where I grew up, music was one of the pastime things you did. I figure I’ve written probably a couple of thousand songs.”

One song was “America, God’s People Love You,” was written in 1979 for the hostages in Iran. He performed the song for President Reagan when Reagan was campaigning in St. Petersburg’s Williams Park. A thank-you letter from the president hangs on his office wall.

Weaver ardently shares the president’s philosophy of less government intervention in business.

“After I built Weaver Park, building wasn’t fun anymore because of all the state and federal regulations. It used to be, a young man could create something if he had the knowledge and ability. Not anymore. Freedom of the human mind gave us the telephone and electricity. I really worry about the future of our young people. We’re tying ropes around their creativity with regulations.”

“My Mind Knows” was recorded with top studio musicians in Nashville, with the help of Tampa arranger and friend Jack Brown.

“My songs deal with the real world. In most of my songs, I try to write about things anybody can identify with,” he said.

Weaver test-marketed “My Mind Knows” by sending copies of it to country radio stations throughout the South and Midwest. Hundreds of reply cards indicated a strong interest in airplay.

“That’s the real test, if the song stands on its own,” said Weaver. “The big record companies can sell anything if they promote it hard enough, but the people are still the ones who finally decide if a song’s going to be a hit.” 

Hoping a Star is Born Through Music Called…
Mountain Rock

By Rebecca Thomas

Two semis roll in, a swarm of policemen barricade Main Street and 10,000 wild turkeys charge out like the Bucs’ defensive line.

A regal-looking gobbler in a red velvet suit struts around with a 45 rpm record around his neck, and in the midst of all the chaos, musician Josiah Cephas Weaver takes the stage, acting as if this fanfare is a normal beginning for a concert.

Normal? No, but typical of the ideas Weaver hopes will make him as rich and famous as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

“We’re out to make a million dollars in the music business,” Weaver says convincingly. “Not a million, a billion. This dream to make it big in the music business has been in my mind since I was 5.”

Not that Clearwater’s businessman-turned-musician needs the money. He is already the epitome of an American success story: a 15-year-old from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains journeys to Clearwater, spends the first night in a phone booth, learns the tile business and makes a fortune. Now, at 38, he owns Weaver Industrial Park on Hercules Avenue and claims the two business ventures netted him between $8 million and $10 million.

But that’s not enough. His promising music career suffered a two-year delay, but he’s back, scrambling for success with plans in hand. He wants to be a star. Neon marquees. Footlights. Tours. The works.

Besides the hefty bankroll, several things already separate the mountain man from hordes of aspiring singers. There’s his music - “mountain rock” he calls it - an unlikely blend of country, disco and bluegrass backed by a 22-piece orchestra. Then there’s his P.T. Barnumesque showmanship, the offbeat, visual hook that might keep the audience wondering if it’s watching a show or interrupting some slightly eccentric man’s fantasy.

“I’ve got some ideas that are unreal,” Weaver says, explaining his musical concoction is meant to entertain, and more importantly, gives his listeners a musical message to relate to.

During a recent political campaign picnic, Weaver converged on the crowd by helicopter. As the spotlights followed the helicopter’s descent, members of the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony – in tuxedos the tails-waited for the man dressed in knee-high workboots and maize buckskin-like pants to start the show.

Weaver plans eventually to add theatrics to that show opener: A helicopter hovers overhead; the crowd spots a man dangling by a rope tied to the runners. The spotlight zeros in on an eerie-looking fog consuming the stage, and suddenly, Weaver appears out of nowhere.

But it’s not Weaver’s theatrics that have caught the ear of several record producers. He recently recorded four songs at CBS Records in Nashville using its studeos and orchestra and choral group for backup vocals. As yet, though, he hasn’t signed any contract and is negotiating with several major labels.

It appears the overwhelming desire to record music takes a back seat to a more consuming rationale to wait for the perfect contract. Weaver says he won’t sign with any company until the deal is sweet enough and gives him 100 percent control of his music. If that fails, he still has his own company –Wild Turkey Records-to fall back on.

If Weaver sounds like he knows what he wants and how he’s going to get it, it’s probably because that two-year layoff-caused in part by a personal tragedy and bad business deal-gave him time to plan it out.

A producer in London wanted to book the budding musician on a European tour, he said, but Weaver opted for musical beginnings on American turf. He then released an album nationally, “but we don’t want to talk about it, “Weaver says, “It was like one of those things you see on ’60 Minutes.’ ”

His wife contracted leukemia, and he benched his career to be with her; she died in June. Since then, he’s been playing locally to small crowds, visiting record companies and writing songs.

But that all seems apropos. Weaver grew up as part of a musical mountain clan, influenced by the simple, carefree home-style pickin and fiddlin’.

“The major influence comes from my mother’s people,” Weaver explains. “I’ve got aunts and uncles and nine brothers and sisters. In the mountains we all would have a picnic and everybody would bring instruments. And when we got together, it was a band within itself.”

Eventually Weaver took his music with him to entertain his buddies at his father’s sawmill.

“They use to tease me,” Weaver recalls, fondly. “When I put on shows they’d say,’Elvis hasn’t got nothing.’ “

Young Weaver wrote songs about whatever stimulated his creative juices. He composed his first song at 5, after visiting the marketplace in Roanoke. He now has 1,000 songs to his credit on subjects ranging from politics to jogging to a melodic lecture on renewing pride in America.

“I always could write a song about whatever came to mind,” Weaver says triumphantly. “In an afternoon I wrote a gospel album. Songs come to me fast. It always has been that way.”

But since Weaver can’t read or write music, he is only the idea man behind the songs. He writes the lyrics and sets them to music on his guitar, but the polishing comes from an arranger who pens the score for the orchestra and vocalist.

The zany show ideas –from the wild turkeys to the Evil Knievel helicopter landing – are his creations.

“We’re going to make it big in the music business,” he says assuringly. “We’re going to make it happen."

“No idea ever comes forth unless someone pushes it. You either come out in front and pull or be bogged down and push.”

And there’s no need to ask whether the mountain man is pushing or pulling.