Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Country Music Unites for Autism Awareness

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Send us a text Country music and autism awareness come together at Nashville Palace for "An Acoustic Evening for Autism," where artists use their platform to support families affected by autism through the newly formed Country Music Autism Awareness Foundation. • Doug Mathis explains how his song about an autistic boy named Jack led to creating an annual benefit concert • The event features performances from Daryl Worley, T Graham Brown, John Barry, and others to raise funds for Vanderbilt's Kennedy Center • Emcee Devin O'Day shares personal connections to autism and how understanding has evolved over time • Discussion of how many brilliant artists and songwriters likely fall somewhere on the autism spectrum • O'Day shares touching story about connecting a high-anxiety horse with an autistic child, finding unexpected harmony • Plans to expand the Country Music Autism Foundation events to more cities nationwide • Statistics highlight that one in seven people worldwide know someone with autism in their family Tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me the World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.   https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor, and welcome to today's episode of Why Not Me the World. We're recording live at the Nashville Palace for a special remote podcast, unscripted, unedited, and full of heart.

Tonight's episode supports an acoustic evening for autism, a show happening right here this evening. We're thrilled to bring you this country experience and I hope you enjoy it as much as we're enjoying sharing it with you. We've got two fantastic guests join us tonight and for the next three weeks I'll be featuring two guests per episode to dive into everything we're covering right here tonight. Thanks for tuning in. All right, I'm here with Doug Mathis. So tell me a little bit about what you're doing tonight. Tony, it's a lot of work. Yes, yeah, it is.

We are hosting an event called an acoustic evening for autism. And we've got Daryl Worley, T. Graham Brown, John Barry, Dylan Massengale, I've left somebody, Jamie O'Neill, her sister Minnie Murphy, who has an autistic child. Okay. I'll be performing and Faron Hamlin will be performing with his autistic nephew. Nice. So it's going to be great.

So this is your number two, right? Second annual, yes. Yes, yes. Well, so what kicked it off? What started at all? I wrote a song a couple years ago about a little autistic boy. His name is Jack. He's seven years old.

He's all about numbers because of his autism. Right, right. So he's always asking, Mom, how many days till Christmas, how many days to my birthday, how many days till Grandma comes, you know, know, and he was actually about to take his first communion. They're Catholic. Okay. And so he's learning about heaven at church, learning about Jesus.

Yeah. And they're putting the toys away one night, taking, throwing them off the bed. And he looks at his mom in a very matter-of-fact way and says, Mom, how many days until I go to heaven? So that evening, instead of tucking him in, she climbed in with him and began to try and try to explain to a seven-year-old autistic little boy. Wow. Matters of faith and trust. And just, she posted about it on Facebook.

Okay. It hit me real deep. Yeah. I wrote this song. It didn't take me long. I probably wrote it in less than an hour. Wow. And the song took off.

It was a number one song on the positive country charts. Yeah. And people were listening to it all over town. And so here in Nashville, that's kind of a big. deal yes so we wanted to do more for the community and someone said well why don't you hold an event for autism and I said it's exactly what I need to do and so it kind of blossomed from there we got some help from some other people in the industry right and now we're hosting this event and we had we raised over $6,500 last year with

about eight artists and this tonight we'll have eight nice and we hope that to raise a lot more. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to, what, the Kennedy Center, the Vanderbilt? Yes. Yeah, I've dealt with them. They're nice.

They're terrific. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. I mean, so it must feel good to be able to put something together like this because a lot of people don't realize the hours and the legwork that it takes to put together a showcase like this with so many different people involved. We work on it for months.

Yeah. It takes months to be. put it together. And the real challenge is now we have formed the country music autism awareness foundation. Okay. And we want to do more of these. Yeah, nice. We'd like to do, you know, we'd like to do several of these a year. And I'd like to take them on the road and do one in Texas. Yeah. Do one in California and do one in Alabama. Yeah. And just move it around, depending upon the artists that we can get. And, and what kind of participation we can get. And, and, um, what kind of participation we can get. Right.

But we really want to encourage these families. Yeah, that's good. And try to be a blessing to them. Well, it's a need because I was telling some people just the other day that up until I started this podcast, I really didn't know anything about autism. And now in the last year and a half, I've learned so much. And we don't realize what they go through and what they have to deal with every day. Right.

And it's a struggle for a lot of people. So it's a good thing you're doing. Well, we didn't even know what autism was. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, growing up, I had some friends, and they were a little different, but I didn't think anything about it. Right, right. And then I pastored churches for over 20 years. Okay.

And I had an autistic boy in my church. Yeah. Didn't know that's what it was. Right. But it was clearly what it was. Sure. And so after I wrote this song, I started finding about how many people are dealing with this. Yeah.

It's amazing, the numbers. It is. It is. So we just wanted to help. Yeah. Well, I think it's a great thing you're doing. So what we'll have to do later, since this is just a preliminary to get you, get everybody knowing about what you're doing prior to the show going on, we'll have to get you back on to my podcast to do a full episode.

I'd be thrilled. Well, I appreciate it. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, sir. Okay, thanks. Okay, I'm here with Devin O'Day, and she's going to be the MC tonight. So nice to have you here.

You know what? It's so good to be here. I have had so many people call me about this event. Really? Because autism touches everyone now. It was something that no one knew. Years ago, my mother was a teacher. My dad was a teacher.

And years ago, the word autism was never used. True. It was special education. And it just, and my mother was one of the pioneers fighting to say, you know what, They're children who don't see well. They're children who don't hear well. They're children who are in wheelchairs because they don't walk well. They're children who have things that developmentally are different.

Yeah. And she said, this is not a one-size-fits-all label. Right. And she really started researching, and that's the reason I've gotten so involved in autism. I used to babysit a young man in my church, a little boy. He was so, his mother said, He's got autism, so I can't find babysitters for him. Nobody will stay.

And I said, I'll stay. And we got finished, and we started working, and we were playing these games. And I said, this child is so brilliant that this world can't contain all that he is. People can't handle this much brain power. You know how we only use 10% of our brains? Yeah. I said, these children that are on the spectrum, sometimes they can handle so much more. thought process that we do.

Well, you know, it's interesting because for the longest time, we always thought that just the odd man out was just the odd man out. And the odd man out could have been autistic. And with all the people that I've spoken with, it's everyone is different. You know, you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. Oh, that's a beautiful way to say that. Yeah. And it's like, it's, the sad part about it is.

that we put a stigma to it. Like it's a bad thing. And it's really nice to have people that's coming out tonight to do this show to help support them because they need a lot of help that we don't see. Yeah. So how did you get involved with this particular event? You know, I knew the people who started the prospect of this. They said, we want to have a show and we want to work with Vanderbilt.

And so Doug and Debbie called me and they said, would you do this? And I said, absolutely, you know, because I have so many friends whose children are affected by this. But if your children are affected by it, you're affected by it. That's right. And your whole family has got to work with it. I have families. It has their families right now that have several children who are on this spectrum. Yeah.

I will tell you, I've worked with a lot of entertainers and songwriters that are so, so genius. Right. But now that I know a little bit more about autism, I'd put money that every single one of them is on the spectrum in some way or force. Yeah. They are in some fashion they're on the spectrum because the brilliance that I see there. Right, right.

I go, you think differently than other people. Yeah. Well, you know, one in seven, they say that one in seven people around the world either know someone to have someone that's autistic in their family. That's pretty huge numbers. That is. That is. And, you know, I interviewed one autistic gentleman, and he said you could walk into a pharmacy,

you know, with a pharmaceutical company where they're working and doing the microscopes and doing all this stuff for medicines and all this. He goes, throw it pebble. He goes, throw it pebble. He goes, you're probably going to hit someone that's autistic because they're that brilliant. Yeah. The sad part is that we only see the worst. You know, it's like there are, unfortunately,

there are some of those autistic people out there that don't function well, and they're in their 30s, and they've got a brain capacity of like an 8 to 12-year-old, and that's what we see, but we don't see the other ones that thrive. And so we just need to get that word out there. They're amazingly talented people who are on the spectrum, that, you know, there are, I know a young man who's a singer, and he's just the most incredible singer-songwriter.

And I was working as his mentor. And then I just remember when I was growing up, and I would meet these kids that were, I was in the gifted program when I was in school. And so we'd go and we'd stay in this, like, stay-away camp, and we'd all, you know, everybody called everybody nerds. You know, we were all nerdy. And these extremely smart kids that were just different. Right.

And I thought, wow. I knew right off. I wasn't like them because they could do things in their head that I needed a calculator to figure out. Yeah, that's nice. That's nice. And it was really incredible. And I said, you know, we're going to live in a world one day that understands who these people are. Yeah.

I think we will at some point. It's just, unfortunately, we as a country, it's not a problem unless it affects our family. You know, you're right, but that's the way it is with every disease. Yes, it is. You know, I mean, number one killer in the world is heart disease. Is it every, I mean, the number one. Yeah. I mean, it killed more than COVID.

It killed more than cancer. Right. And do, as a country, do we understand how to fix that? Yeah, we know how to fix it, but we don't. Right. Yeah, we've just got to take and find a way to hopefully get people to be more, show more empathy towards others no matter what it is. And then if we get to that point, then we're winning.

Yeah, and not to think of someone, everyone's got an incredible calling on their life. Everyone. Everyone has a calling. Everyone has a purpose. Right. The problem is, is sometimes we don't get to find it. Right. You know.

Exactly. Or we are told, no, you don't fit into this particular one. So anyway, I think that if we all start looking for our purpose, you know, that's where it starts. Now, how did you get involved in working with autism? Oh, my story is interesting. I did a song right after when COVID was happening. Yeah. And I wasn't going to put it out.

My promoters that I work with in New York, Nashville, L.A. and London said, oh, you've got to put this song out. It's now, I'm not getting back on the road. I'm not doing any of that. So long story short, I put it out, and I did a video supporting our first responders. Yeah. And then after that was done, I had a lady call me up and asked me if I could do something like that for them. and she was a therapist for autistic children.

So from that, I did a video called Why Not Me, Nashville, and I had local people here in Nashville that were special needs and autistic in it. And then from there, I just started working and growing and developing this podcast, and now it's almost two years old. And the story keeps getting bigger? Yeah, yeah. I've always had horses, and a young couple had a child on this, and they brought he was high anxiety and sensory issues right and they said we don't know how he's

going to do with a horse I said you know what I've got a horse with sensory issues wow and I said she's really hot and she's really a difficult horse and I said I wonder what the two of them will do when they meet yeah well I took this show horse and I had her in her cross ties and I introduced them the little boy was quite terrified at first yeah and then I was talking to the parents and I had my back turned and they had their back turned and then I turned back around the horse was gone and the little boy was gone. Wow. And they would, oh no. And I got kind of scared. I go, uh-oh, where did he go? Yeah. And we looked out in the pasture and the sun was going down and I said, I wish you would look at that. This little boy was sitting in the

pasture looking at the sunset and there was my horse that was so high, but, quietly sitting behind him with her head down with her little nose nuzzling his neck on his shoulder. Did you get a picture of that? I didn't, that was when I didn't carry a cell phone every day. It was the most beautiful thing, and her mother started crying. She goes, he's never done anything like this. That's amazing. I said, but an animal has a way of sensing.

Yeah. And that equaled each other out. That's why I have Angel Horse Farm to this day. That's amazing story. And she was a horse nobody wanted because she was so hot, because she was so high anxiety. So I'm always grateful for those moments when I can take these animals that are misunderstood with children or people that are misunderstood and watching them understand each other.

That's awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to, you know, listen to you tonight and tell your stories as MC and it's been a great pleasure having you here. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. All right, thanks. Thanks. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.

We hope that you enjoyed it. as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com, contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone, everywhere, about why not me, the world,

the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere, that you are not alone in this world.