Iran 1979: then President Jimmy Carter faced the worst crisis of his presidency, when Iran went all blooey over the west’s refusal to return their longtime dictator, the Shah of Iran. The Shah, suffering from cancer, had fled to the United States for asylum. When we refused to send him back, the Iranian Tea Party’s religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, sent his religious mobs to storm the U.S. Embassy. Fifty-two of them were taken hostage and imprisoned for 444 days and released just as Ronald Reagan was taking office.

For more than 30 years David Wilcox has been writing songs and touching lives with his music. He has sold more than 750,000 compact discs and has been touring the country performing in venues all over. On Monday, Oct. 22, he’ll perform at Slates in Hallowell. To that end, he agreed to a telephone interview that found him calling from his Ashville, N.C., home talking about how things are going musically for him nowadays, as well as the show coming up at that popular eatery in central Maine.