During 1973 and 1974 Larry worked with many artists such as Barbara Fairchild, Mel Street, Billy Crash Craddock, Red Steagal, Connie Smith, Ernest Tubb, and Freddie Hart, and ended 1974 by moving to Nashville with the Darrell McCall Band "the Tennessee Volunteers". The first part of 1975 brought a lot of session work for Larry until he was offered the gig as bass player for Ronnie Milsap.
After several months with Ronnie, Larry learned that Hank Jr. had just fired his daddy's band "The Drifting Cowboys", and was looking to start something new. Larry took the bass gig with Hank Jr., which lasted until Hank fell off a mountain in Montana in 1975. At that point, Larry went back to San Antonio and began playing in a band with one of his old Army buddies. That band was "The Buckboard Boogie Boys" and they showed no reverence for anybody's songs. They played everything from Burl Ives to Wings to Gene Autry to Charlie Daniels. A real party band with a lot of original songs and a big fan base. When Hank Jr. got ready to go back out on tour Larry opted to stay in Texas with The Buckboard Boogie Boys because he was just having too much fun to leave. After a few years and a live album the BBB called it quits.

Larry stayed in Texas for the next several years doing some song writing and recording with his own band The Pettus Brothers where he (Vernon Pettus) shared the stage with Virgil Pettus (actually legendary Muscle Shoals bass and guitar player Albert Lowe Jr. who had also played in the Hank Jr. band). In 1984 Larry went to work once again with Darrell McCall who was then living in Helotes, Texas (home of John T. Floores Country Store) just north of San Antonio. Larry played bass on several of Darrell's Albums during this time and Darrell also recorded some of Larry's songs. Read on...