Country singer T. Graham Brown's battle with bipolar disorder: His wife speaks

On Saturday country singer T. Graham Brown played another well-received concert in Texas, one day before his birthday. Without a doubt, the singer shows no signs of slowing down. He has had an extremely successful and blessed 26-year career as a top recording artist.

Beginning with his second single on Capitol Records in 1985 ("I Tell It Like It Used To Be"), Brown ruled the country music charts for approximately six years with his soulful vocals that reminded many listeners of such Stax artists as Otis Redding or Sam & Dave.

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Three memorable songs went to No. 1 – "Hell and High Water," "Don't Go To Strangers," and "Darlene." But after 1991, Brown's singles fell off country radio, and Capitol dropped him in favor of newer artists like Garth Brooks. Much of that decade was spent in anonymity for Brown, other than touring.

When some folks thought Brown was finished, he rebounded with the autobiographical "Wine Into Water" in 1999, a song he cowrote about his struggles with alcoholism. But there was more going on behind the scenes. In fact, Brown was also battling bipolar disorder.

To read an in-depth, multi-part interview with Brown ("Running 'Til Your Feet Don't Touch The Ground: Singer T. Graham Brown Remembers") that began appearing in this column in August, click on the highlighted link.

Brown's wife and current manager, Sheila, has been his constant companion since their marriage in 1980. More than anyone, she knows all about her husband's life-long battle with the disease.

In an exclusive and very rare interview, Ms. Sheila recalls how she met her husband, whether there were any warning signs before her husband was diagnosed, what she has learned about the disease, the singer's suicide attempts, and the moment when she knew her husband was suffering from something besides alcoholism. The story begins now...

The Sheila Brown Interview, Part One

How did you meet your future husband?

I was born in Fort Benning/Columbus, Georgia. My dad was a career air force pilot, so we traveled all over the U.S. We were stationed in Hawaii for four years and then South Carolina for about seven years.

I grew to love the South, so when I started to look at colleges, I chose one that had a veterinarian program and one that was located in the south – the University of Georgia (UGA) was my first choice.

Tony and I met through a small circle of friends. It was at a Dirk & Tony show in ‘75 or ’76 at UGA. Dirk was a friend of Tony's, so they decided to form a duet and sing "beach" music, which was very popular with the college crowd at the time. Athens is a very musical town, and hearing live music was the thing you did on Friday and Saturday nights.

A few years later in 1978 I happened to see him again when he had his first band, Rio Diamond, a hardcore country group doing covers like Merle Haggard’s “Swinging Doors.” It was pretty much love at first sight. Actually, a more accurate term might be second sight [laughs].

We were married on November 30th, 1980. As it was going to take four more years for me to complete vet school, we decided, "Hey, let’s try this big adventure in Nashville! We'll go spend a couple of years there, and if we don’t have any luck, we can always come back to Georgia."

But I think we knew in our hearts that Tony would find what he was looking for and what he was supposed to do in Music City. We moved to Nashville in May 1982 in a little Volkswagen bug along with a red and white 1959 Ford station wagon we called "Ruby".

After a few years of doing songwriter demos and showcases for executives in the music industry, Tony got his first major label record contract with Capitol Records. We’ve never looked back.

Were there warning signs before his diagnosis?

When T. lived in Athens, his job consisted of singing in bars and clubs, and alcohol was around him constantly. He told me he was always in party mode, looking for a good time, all the time as the saying goes.

He was young, living and singing in an infamous party college town. If drinking every day for the purpose of changing how you feel is one of the definitions of an alcoholic, then that was what Tony was becoming.

Back when he was about 14 or 15, he said he began noticing that he couldn’t settle his mind at the end of the day to relax, lie down, and rest as most people do. His thoughts were always racing.

Subsequently, he realized drinking alleviated those symptoms. And when he took drugs, he chose the ones that were downers like Xanax, Quaaludes, and pot because they would relax him, a classic definition of self-medication.

At this time he had no idea, and neither did I, that bipolar disorder was interrupting his life. Although alcohol can be a stimulant, it is much more of a depressant if you drink it to excess.

The bipolar condition is a huge component of why he drank. He told me once that when he was in a manic state, there’s no drug that can touch it. It’s the most euphoric feeling for the person going through it, but it is not for the people around them.

When he would return from the road, he would go into the bedroom, close the drapes until it was completely dark, and curl up on the bed in a fetal position until he went out the next time. He did that for years. I thought it was an alcohol-related thing, and I could not get him to go to a doctor.

And Tony could not distinguish between dreams and reality. When Acme was a small child, Tony would wake up and say, “You can’t take Acme!” I’d respond, “What are you talking about?” And it was all due to a dream.

Did T. Graham contemplate suicide?

Tony’s been on the verge of suicide three times, and it was very frightening. Tony would close himself off in his bedroom, and he’d say, “I don’t know if I can take one more day of this. I feel like life is not worth living, and I need to do something about it.” People suffering from bipolarism think things through so specifically in every minute detail.

Tony also had shotguns since he was a Southern boy, and he used to hunt with his dad. I removed them all, but it was still scary. A lot of times I had to go to work or take Acme somewhere, and Tony would be home alone. But thankfully nothing bad ever happened.

His grandfather, George Washington Brown, committed suicide. We called him Mr. George, and he told me that he couldn’t quiet his mind several times. He would toss and turn all night. It never dawned on me until later that he was bipolar.

What have you learned about bipolar disorder?

Bipolar means a person is real high (manic state) sometimes, or they are very low (depressed state). And people cycle between the two – it could be as short as a few hours or as long as a couple of months (depending on whether the person has a doctor or is taking medication).

Manic depressives love that high feeling. They can’t sit down or stay still; they love the feeling of euphoria. They think they’re creative and productive and just the most wonderful person in the world.

But they’re not. Their behavior is irrational. They might get something creative accomplished, but it is not a pleasant experience when others are around. Not surprisingly, it was very hard for Tony to tell when he was manic, but other people could tell immediately.

Bipolar people do not want to take medicine. It’s the only disease where your mind tells you not to take it. Your mind is telling you that everyone else is crazy – you’re perfectly fine. When they’re in a manic state, they believe they’re very productive and creative, but they’re also quite destructive. It’s a very strange disease.

A number of musicians and artists had bipolar (to learn more, I recommend a great book called Touched With Fire). Did you know – Handel wrote The Messiah in a very short period of time, and he was manic. Vincent Van Gogh, Patty Duke, and Carrie Fisher also suffered from the disease.

When was T. Graham diagnosed?

T. was diagnosed with the disease when he was in his early forties, almost 15 years ago. We had done a private show at the Hard Rock Café in Nashville. In the middle of the show, T. became agitated and started saying things about the drummer not keeping the time correctly.

First of all, T. would never say anything like that onstage. He would wait until the show was over to speak with that individual, so it was very out of character for him.

After the show, they all got on the bus to travel to North Carolina for another gig. I didn’t travel much back then with the band, so I wasn’t there. I remember T. called me around 2:30 in the morning, and he was sobbing hysterically, saying “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

After he said that to me on the bus, I told him that once he returned home, we were going to find out what was happening.

The conclusion of the Sheila Brown interview is available here. Titled "When Everyone Else Is Completely Mad: How T. Graham Brown lives with bipolarism," it features what happened after T. Graham arrived home...