TIFTON — One of the first sounds Mike Weaver remembers hearing is the sound of his father’s heart.

“My dad was not a musician, but my dad would always sing,” said Mike. “I remember being a small, small child and my head being on this chest and feeling the vibration of his chest in my head.”

Last December, as his dad, Russ Weaver, was fighting the pulmonary fibrosis that would ultimately claim his life, Mike found himself coming full circle.

Struggling for breath, Russ would lean up, put his head on Mike’s chest and just breathe.

“I was so grateful to be with him,” said Mike. “I could have been on the road somewhere when he came to be with the Lord, but I was right here.”

Russ Weaver may not have been a musician, but Mike credits him with his love for music.

When Mike and the rest of Big Daddy Weave take the stage in Tifton Feb. 17, they’ll bring that diverse love of music with them.

“Everything from musicals to Neil Diamond,” said Mike. “He was a huge fan of music. He would sing everything.”

Russ would sing frequently, never for a group or a concert, but more absentmindedly as he would go about his day.

Mike remembers his dad cleaning at church, thinking he was alone and belting out tunes.

“He’d be vacuuming and he’d be singing his guts out thinking nobody was there,” said Mike.

Mike also credits his Christian faith, in part, to his dad.

“My dad is a huge reason why we do what we do today,” said Mike.

“We saw lots of people growing up in church that said one thing and lived another thing. But my dad was not that guy. He’s true blue. He really lived out his faith in Jesus, dude.”

Growing up on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, Mike found an early love for music, not just listening and singing but playing as well.

Big Daddy Weave got its start 20 years ago at the University of Mobile, when Weaver cornered saxophonist Joe Shirk, asking him to play.

“Joe was a little too cool for school,” said Weaver. “Dave Matthews Band was really prevalent right then. I had written a few songs I thought sax would be good on.”

Weaver ended up getting a jam session together.

At their first jam session, another student came up and asked Weaver if his group would play a show.

The student needed to know what band name to put on the flier.

“I was being stupid, man,” said Mike. “I said tell ‘em we’re Big Daddy Weave and the Institution.”

“If you’re my size in south Alabama, you’re Big Daddy,” he added.

The name stuck.

The group played everything and anything.

Campus shows.

Used car lots.

Chinese buffet wedding receptions.

All sides of the denominational divide.

“We’d play at the Baptist church on Sunday, the Pentecostal church on Wednesday,” said Mike.

When they were getting signed three years later, the band opted to drop “the Institution” from the end.

That the band is still going two decades into it — long past the average life expectancy for a college jam band — Mike credits to God and grace.

“God’s got this thing,” said Mike. “God’s got you. We’re Big Daddy Weave and how ridiculous is that? It’s grace, it really is. That sounds like church cop out, but that word means more to us that it ever has.”

The Jesus I Believe Tour — where they’ll be joined by Brandon Heath — will bring the band to John Hunt Auditorium at UGA Tifton Confercence Center, 7 p.m., Feb. 17

Tickets are available in town at Fig Leaves or at transparentproductions.com.