"Women of Country" ~ 2019 CMA Awards

I'd read that the Country Music Association had summarily dismissed Brad Paisley from his regular hosting gig in order to "highlight women". While the sentiment may have been laudable, when one thinks about it, it is rather an insult to female country singers. In what alternate universe were women artists not recognized? I've listened to country since sometime around 1967, which is more than fifty years, and I distinctly remember female singers getting tons of exposure, from Patsy to Loretta to Tammy to Lynn to Connie to Dolly; Tanya in the seventies; Reba McEntire, Pam Tillis, Rosanne Cash and Paulette Carlson in the eighties; Mary Chapin Carpenter, Holly Dunn, Shania Twain, The Judds. The Dixie Chicks in the nineties. But somehow women got short shrift?

Regardless, if 2019 wanted to "right wrongs", there are several issues with this performance:



Number one, if you're "celebrating women", you might not want to have your three stars perform a song written by a man. "Those Memories Of You" was written by Alan O'Bryant and originally recorded by Bill Monroe. You know, women have written songs, too ~ take, for instance, Dolly Parton.

My second impression of this opening is that Carrie really needed to let her seamstress finish adding a skirt to that glittery gold blouson.

The harmonies weren't quite pitch-perfect, but since it was a live performance, a little slack should be granted.

Number three:  Is that Angelina Jolie in the audience, and if so, why?

Four:  Dolly Parton is the ultimate performer. She carried this.

Loretta Lynn is an icon. The gals (whoever they were) who sang "You're Lookin' At Country" are not good singers. Don't they make 'em anymore? I guess, nice hair, though. It seemed that Loretta was in the audience as a prop. One of her twins, Patsy or Peggy, had to whisper in her ear and tell her what was happening. That's sort of disrespectful. New gals, you need to thank your lucky stars Loretta Lynn plowed a path for you.

Some indiscriminate bad singers tackled Tammy's "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" next ~ poorly. The camera honed in on Natalie Maines in the audience, who could blow all these gals out of the water, even the obviously gay one. I'm not on board with The Dixie Chicks' politics, but talent doesn't belong in the peanut gallery.

Reese Witherspoon? Is this the CMA's or a Hallmark Channel marathon?

Thank goodness for Tanya Tucker. She's younger than me, and showing her age as all of us do, but she can still belt it out. Tanya is an actual star.

Is that goofy Billy Ray Cyrus the camera panned to? If I recall correctly, he hasn't been relevant since 1982, and the mullet, bad as it was, was preferable to...this. And did Billy Ray sire any offspring who aren't crazy?

Pam Tillis is also in the audience, as opposed to on-stage. WTF? Ran out of time?

Gretchen Wilson represented the nineties. Kudos. Not a big splash in the pantheon of country history, but each decade deserves representation.

I'll admit, my curiosity regarding Crystal Gayle was whether she'd kept her freakishly long hair. It seems she has.

Terri Clark, who is an actual bad-ass hat-wearing guitar strummer, is next, and aside from the producers making her sing her song in the wrong key, she is a reminder that some country girls at one time had balls.

Next, Sara Evans does "Born To Fly", irritatingly interspersed with some girl in the audience over-emoting for camera time.

Martina McBride appears onstage to sing a bit of "Independence Day". It is, admittedly, nice to see a few artists who actually impacted country.

Yep, there's Trisha Yearwood in the audience, kept under wraps lest she put the prancers on stage to shame. Kathy Mattea, too. Dang, I guess neither of them fit the predetermined song key.

If Patsy were alive today, she'd sit these ladies down and explain to them the facts of life. "Do you want pity or do you want to sing?" she'd ask. Loretta might talk to them about baking bread with one baby on her hip and three more chasing each other around the kitchen table; and then climbing into a '59 Ford with a guitar bigger than she was and driving fifteen miles on rutted roads to belt out two songs in a smoky dive bar. "What, now, are you squawkin' 'bout?" she might ask.

Dolly should know better. Reba should know better. Spare me the self-indulgence. Either you can compete with men for radio play or you can go sob in a corner. Better still, you can stand up on your own two feet and get judged on your merits.

No time in country music were female artists overlooked. It's a 2019 fiction.

It's admittedly nice to see remnants of the past. That's not a gender thing. For all its imperfections, I enjoyed this video. I personally would have nixed the nondescript artists and focused solely on the stars, but...ratings.

Thanks, CMA's. Next, let's do Clint and Travis and Randy and Alan and George.












 

"Country Music" ~ What Ken Missed

At the outset, Ken determined that the focus of his country music series would be Johnny Cash. I don't know why, but I can guess. As a non-country fan who probably is a subscriber to Rolling Stone Magazine, Cash took on a sheen; became a sort of demigod in Burns' eyes. Ken needed someone to wrap his episodes around, and who better? Cash led a melodramatic life. He had it all ~ family tragedy, rockabilly roots, substance abuse, infidelity; plus he sired a hugely successful daughter. The continuum.

The commenters on the one country music site I frequent invariably mentioned their dismay with Burns' absorption with Johnny Cash, to the exclusion of many deserving artists. It's a shame, really. A lost opportunity.

I've already talked about the complete disrespect shown to George Strait, but there are others.

Here, to me, are the most glaring omissions:

Jerry Lee Lewis ~ Ken spent a lot of time, quizzically on Elvis Presley. Not once was there a time when Elvis was even remotely country. His label-mate on Sun Records, however, not only is one of the most phenomenal artists of all time, but Jerry Lee Lewis actually had a successful country career. Nowhere in this eight-part series did Jerry Lee get a single mention. And, unlike Elvis, Jerry Lee actually loves music, country or otherwise. Jerry Lee is not a caricature.



Ray Price ~ We caught a glimpse of Ray Price somewhere within episode five or six, or something. I don't remember, but it was in the context of talking about some other artist. Had Ken been at all curious, he would have found that Ray Price was the country singer of the fifties and early sixties. No, not Hank Snow or Roy Acuff ~ Ray Price. And since Ken seems to have a fascination with Nudie suits, who better? But let's be frank:  Willie can thank his lucky stars that Ray Price recorded Night Life, and Roger Miller would not have had a career at all without Invitation To The Blues. Bill Anderson? How about City Lights? I could go on, but Ray can speak for himself:



 

Don Gibson ~ I'm not a fan of Don's singing, but that's not what made him iconic. He wrote many of the songs that were heavily featured (by other artists) in the series: I Can't Stop Loving You (Ray Charles), Sweet Dreams (Patsy Cline); as well as (I'd Be A) Legend In My Time (Ronnie Milsap) and Just One Time (Connie Smith), and many others. To feature those artists and not include the man who wrote the songs is inexcusable.



Don Rich ~ I've heard Buck Owens' recording of Together Again when he sang harmony with himself. Trust me, Don Rich hit that song out of the park. There wasn't enough focus on iconic bands overall in this series. The Strangers (and Bonnie Owens' contribution to Merle's sound) received no mention. The declaration that Roy Nichols was in someone else's band when Merle snatched him up went mostly unnoticed.

Don Rich was the heart of the Buckaroos, and if Buck was still alive, he'd say the same. Everything changed after Don died. He was the bandleader, he was the Telecaster master, he was the harmony singer extraordinaire.



Gene Watson ~ Country music was soooo in the doldrums in 1975. We had Tanya Tucker and...well, that's about it. I was working a menial job that allowed me to carry my portable radio around with me when I heard Love In The Hot Afternoon, and I was transfixed. This guy could sing, and he hadn't even yet shown off his best stuff:



Glen Campbell ~ Glen wasn't just some guy who had a network television show, but that's what one would glean from Ken Burns' dismissive reference to him. In the late sixties, one could not flip on their radio without hearing a Campbell song, ad nauseum, I would add. But damn ~ he deserved some love in this series, and he got zero.



Marty Robbins ~ come on! I know Ken is not a country aficionado, but Marty Robbins? Did Ken at least watch Breaking Bad?



Tanya Tucker ~ She was thirteen and I was seventeen and hotly jealous when my radio started playing Delta Dawn. Ken talked about Brenda Lee (who I love), but no reference to this phenom? Ken, Ken.



There are other niggling points, but these are the standouts to me; in addition to George, of course, who deserved far better. I could forgive a few, but it seems so obvious to me that country icons, regardless of whether they did or didn't sing about prisons, shouldn't have been ignored.

A couple less seconds about Johnny's Rick Rubin recordings and a few more about artists that country fans revere could have sent this series into the stratosphere.

On The Cutting Edge ~ Country Music 1975

I don't know if I was obstinate or if I just liked what I liked.

In 1975, everybody was fixated on Rhinestone Cowboy and stupid-ass CB radios that no one actually owned except long-haul truckers. Sure, I bought some of the singles seizing the charts (I bought lots and lots of '45's, because they were one of the few things I could afford), but my tastes ran to more obscure, and by "obscure" I mean stone-country tracks.

I was newly married and non-pregnant, although I did possess a preternaturally pampered dog (my first baby). I was loose and carefree, so when my mom and dad proposed a car trip to Texas to visit my sister, I said, why not?

Long car trips sound romantic in novels and memoirs, but they're just basically....long. Kansas wheat fields shed their fascination after approximately five minutes. The most exciting part of a thousand-mile trip is the "Truck Stop - Two Miles Ahead" road sign. Ahh, bathrooms and a short stack of pancakes! One has to play it carefully, however ~ don't drink too much coffee or Dad'll be grouchy when you beg him to pull off at a rest stop just ten miles down the road.

Dad loved driving his jaundice-tinted Lincoln. Ever since he acquired actual money in his late forties, he treated himself to a new car every year when the leaves began to mutate and crumple. The Lincoln was a butt-ugly conveyance, but roomy! Four people (and one dog) could ride comfortably with room for about four more. In the front seat, Mom and Dad rarely conversed except when, after scouring the map, she'd yell, "Turn here!" and he turned the wrong direction, and she'd scold, "I said here! Here!" I mostly ignored the clamor ~ it was business as usual between them. We did a bit of backtracking on the Texas quest, but no real harm was done, except to Mom's blood pressure reading.

(lost)

Unlike the tin can I drove, the Lincoln at least had radio speakers in the rear window deck. Although FM radio was a "thing", Dad always tuned the car radio to the closest AM station in proximity. Listening to music through radio static is a lost art. One has to listen really closely.

This is a song I liked. Forgive the "elderly" David Allen Coe performance, but the only other live set I could find was even sweatier and substance-fueled:

Asleep At The Wheel was a big act in Texas, but in North Dakota, it was "Asleep at the what??" As we meandered further and further south, this song buzzed through the speakers a lot:

Dad always turned the volume knob on the radio as high as he could for this song, and I like it because I like my dad:

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Ray Stevens released a wondrous album in 1975 ~ Dad even had an eight-track cartridge of it, and Dad only owned four eight-tracks. I think I actually bought a few eight-tracks myself, but the technology was asinine. A song would abruptly stop right in the middle and one would have to eject the plastic behemoth and flip it over to hear the second half of the song. And by then, the mood was totally lost.

Here is a track from that album ~ no live performance to be found ~ but still...

The quality of this video is extremely poor, but Tanya Tucker was hot, hot in '75, and I liked this one:

BJ Thomas's voice is like honey; there is no denying. This definitely wasn't stone-country, but who could resist?

There were three brand-new voices in '75, and here is one:

Here is two (no live video performance to be found):

We made it to Fort Worth, Texas fully intact. My sister Carole made up the sofa bed in her den and took Mom on a shopping excursion to Kroger's. She pulled her coffeemaker off a high shelf and brewed up some Folger's for Dad each morning. My dog wasn't happy with Carole's dog and just wanted to get the hell out and go home (my dog was a bit of a snob). We sauntered over to a nearby lake and ordered catfish from a roadside stand (the absolute worst, most vomit-inducing excuse for "fish" I've ever had the displeasure of biting into. The hush puppies were good, though.)

As for country music, I mentioned there were three new voices in '75. Here is the best:

As unassumingly goofy as my dad was, I sure miss him. I'd travel down the road with him anytime.

Finding Something I Was Good At ~ 1990/1991

I always liked getting in on the ground floor. When LaBelle's Department Store opened, all of us were new. It tends to even the playing field. Cliques have not yet formed; there's no, "Jenny never did it that way". Because there was no Jenny. US Healthcare was brand-spankin' new, at least in my city.

I knew nothing about health insurance, but I did possess a brain. I wasn't concerned about ranking at the bottom of the clump of thirty new employees. I didn't have to be the best, but I was not about to be the worst. If there existed a health insurance company in my town before US Healthcare, I plead ignorance. There may have been a two-room alcove somewhere above a furniture store that sold "health and life" to ranchers who couldn't legitimately form a group and therefore paid five thousand dollars a month for major medical. I therefore didn't know from whence the other twenty-nine girls were plucked ~ maybe they had a "semblance" of medical knowledge, like me.

Our new digs were a rented floor on the second story of a bank. We were granted parking passes, as long as we utilized the parking "arcade", which was a queasy sphere of lightheadedness I managed to maneuver each morning without passing out. In the office we were seated in sequential rows of five, in front of green-screened CRT's with impatiently-blinking cursors. Our trainers had been shipped in from Philadelphia and thus two wildly divergent cultures collided. East-coasters did not suffer fools or even semi-fools. Every raised hand was met with an attempt at a civil response, but disdain dripped like cheese steak from their lips. The travelers did not enjoy their sojourn to the hinterlands, as much as the idea had seemed like a fun lark when it was first presented to them. We were "rustic". Our local restaurants especially offended them. Amongst themselves, they pondered whether we had indoor bathroom facilities.

It had been determined that we would learn how to process eye exams. How bad could we fuck those up? If we managed to master that "skill", we might eventually advance to office visits. With three trainers and thirty trainees, one would have to hold her hand in the air for ten minutes before someone wended their way to the table, only to answer, "It's fine". Oh, okay. There goes my production, I guess.

Essentially, what we were learning was how to navigate US Healthcare's operating system. It makes sense in retrospect. But still, the scorn oozed.

On morning break, we all rode the elevator downstairs and streamed out to the concrete flower planters along Third Street. I gravitated to fellow smokers and found myself in a clutch of two much younger gals, Sherry and Marla. They may have told me where they'd worked before, but I have no recollection. After a couple of weeks, Sherry informed me one morning on break that I had only secured the position because someone dropped out. She didn't say it maliciously, but it still stung. At least I now understood why USHC had waited so long to call me. I don't know how Sherry knew and I didn't inquire. It might not have been true, but I think it was. Sherry was a nice person and she had no reason to jerk me around. Now that I knew I was an afterthought, I became more determined than ever to show 'em.

 Our local supervisors had been pre-selected ~ Kim, Barb, and Connie. They didn't do much during training; essentially hovered about trying to appear knowledgeable. When they ventured an answer to someone's raised hand, they were tentative, glancing up at the Philadelphia experts for validation. The rest of the day they huddled in a tiny back office and did...planning or something. There was also a manager; Marian, I believe her name was. She didn't stay long; I have no idea why. Maybe working with Connie was just too keen a punishment.

As the days dribbled on, I pondered who my supervisor would be. I liked Kim. He was an affable sort. Barb seemed a bit uptight, but harmless. Connie was a red flag. She didn't appear "real"; a person who went through the motions like she thought a normal human would, but couldn't quite pull it off convincingly.

Toward the end of our training, it was announced that three assistant supervisor positions were available. I applied. What the heck? Most everybody else did; I didn't want to seem unambitious. I didn't get it, of course. I didn't think I would. Girls named Carlene and (another) Shelly and somebody else who apparently was not memorable because I can't remember her, were granted the promotions. At least no one in my little three-person clique got it, so we could go on smoking and making small talk and anticipating our move to the new building on the north side of town that we'd all driven past a time or two and spied the formulating blue and white construction.

My supervisor would be Barb. When the building was completed, we moved into our respective units with their pre-ordained cubicles; Barb seated in her extra-special glass-enclosed case up front. Bye-bye sickening garage precipice.

And life went on.

As did country.

My man, Mark Chesnutt:

Pam Tillis:

And still there was Ronnie Milsap:

Some new guy:

Another new guy:

A new duo:

Yes, like me, all the way from '73, Tanya was still live 'n kickin':

Mary Chapin:

Some new group:

The all-time Dwight:

1990 Music...And A "Career"

By the spring of 1990 I was desperate to escape from Farm Credit Services. It felt like I'd been there forever, when in fact it had only been a little over a year. I'd made friends, one of whom in an attempt to "help", I'd inadvertently had to say goodbye to. Linda's husband was a ranch manager who was ready to move on. I found an ad in the classifieds that was just up his alley and pointed it out to my friend. Before I knew it, Kirk had accepted the job and Linda's whole family moved clear across the state. Aside from the stultifying cloud I worked under, fun came from unexpected sources. Our local United Way conducted a promotion in which people could have someone "arrested" and the person would have to call everyone he or she knew in order to raise "bail" and be released. Before Linda left town, we arranged to have our boss arrested. It was all for charity....

In the fall of each year Bismarck held its annual street fair, which consisted of arts and crafts shopping galore and various corny events, like a pageant that featured contestants from local establishments. We decided to get into the spirit and sponsor an entrant from FCS. We talked one of our co-workers, eventually, into allowing her name to be placed into contention. (Paula ultimately, despite her initial revulsion, found the whole experience exhilarating.) I think half the contender's score was based on the creativity of her sponsor's promotion, so I busied myself drawing up posters and concocting catchy slogans. I believe that was the only time Nancy, my boss, ever offered me a compliment (I knew my strengths). Alas, Paula didn't prevail, but it was a win-win experience for everyone involved.

As a result of quitting smoking, my weight had shot up...and up. I'd gained fifty pounds and was most likely viewed in the office as the FCS schlub. Ultimately, even I became disgusted with myself and plunked down money I couldn't afford to spend to enroll in a program called "Diet Center" (admittedly, not the most original, but at least the most honest, commercial program at the time). Who wouldn't lose weight on a regimen that basically consisted of baked fish, asparagus, and Melba toast? I think a lemon was considered a "free food". I'd done Weight Watchers in the past with my mom, but this was infinitely more restrictive. But once I committed myself to something, I was determined not to fail, and I succeeded wildly. I lost all fifty pounds and more and reduced to a size three before I stopped. I bought clothes at the local consignment shop because my frame continued to shrink. My Diet Center "counselor" tried to talk me into posing for an ad, but my aversion to attention put an absolute kibosh on that notion.

As a downside, I took up smoking again. Damn, I was starving!

(After I'd left FCS, I joined my former cohorts one evening for a get-together on a local bistro's patio, and one of the guys was perplexed when Paula pointed out that I was there. He searched the area for a time and shrugged. I was unrecognizable ~ no longer the schlub.)

In my zeal to get away from Nancy and her disapproving glances, I had been scouring the want-ads for a while. When I spied one that said, "National Insurance Company Seeks Claims Examiners For a New Local Branch", I became obsessed. I fixated on that ad and staked my existence on garnering one of those positions. I knew absolutely nothing about health insurance, but for some unknown reason I understood that this was my destiny, which sounds utterly dumb, but there it was. I applied and received an appointment for a group interview, and henceforth sat in my garage every day after work and smoked and practiced answering hypothetical questions and hyping myself.

The group interview was an assembly line. I'd move to the first queue and answer a question, then shuffle on to the next cluster of interrogators and respond to another. All my practice evaporated. The only thing I had going for me was my medical knowledge from St. Alexius ~ I knew nothing about insurance and they all grasped that.

I was informed I'd hear from them within the week.

I didn't get a callback.

One of the few things I'd ever strived so hard for and I'd utterly failed. My lot was working for FCS and Nancy until I either reached retirement age or chopped her up with an axe.

Out of the blue a couple of weeks later, US Healthcare called and offered me the job.

The pay was exactly the same salary I was making at FCS, but I leapt at the offer. I didn't stop to question why it took them a fortnight to call. The next Monday when I told Nancy I was leaving, she was perplexed and disappointed. When the time came to tell Nancy how inadequate she'd always made me feel, I deflated. What was the point? Why bother? I was gone. Would I feel good about myself unloading on her? I lied and told her I was offered twenty-five cents more per hour. She apologized that she was unable to match the offer, but budgets, you know...Funny how they never tell you they appreciate you until you quit.

It felt strange leaving FCS. It had been a filler job all along, but I'd formed relationships. Unlike the hospital, I was on an even par with most of the people I worked with. They didn't wave their degrees in my face, because like me, nobody had one. They were working class; trying to pay their mortgages and attempting to scratch out a moment of happiness in the midst of their eight-hour slog. I was moving on to a new group of thirty girls I didn't know and I'd have to start all over again. And I was thirty-five, twice most of their ages. I was a mom who bought her clothes at the consignment shop and who had to count her pennies to buy a new pair of pantyhose. I figured, however, at least we were all in this leaky boat together. And if it didn't work out, shoot, I'd become an expert at sussing out the one or two jobs in the newspaper that fit my meager skills.

Musically, I'd become torn. At Farm Credit Services, I mostly tuned my portable radio to the local rock station. Part of that may have been that I liked the morning DJ, Bob Beck; part of it was that I wasn't ready to let rock go. When I'd turned away from country in the mid-eighties because it reeked, I became the quintessential MTV fan, and my sons shared my enchantment with Huey Lewis and Dire Straits. We bonded over pop music and baseball cards.

Country music, however, was harkening me back. Changing one's essence is ultimately a hopeless quest. One can change for a while, but we always come back to the person we intrinsically are.

Luckily for me, Eddie Rabbitt was still around:

One of the best country groups of all time, Highway 101:

A pristine country voice, Patty Loveless:

Mark Chesnutt will forever reside in the top five of my favorite artists:

Tanya Tucker and T. Graham Brown:

Gotta love Steve Wariner:

My lord, Marty Stewart:

Like Eddie, Ronnie Milsap was still hangin' in there:

 Some dude named Garth appeared on the scene:

Ricky Van Shelton:

When someone says "ninety country" (although no one actually does), this will be the song on the tips of everyone's brain:

My new career in health insurance commenced, with country music as a backdrop.

Stay tuned...

1975 ~ More Life and Country Music

I write a lot about the sixties, because like most people, my teenage years were my most momentous.

Life, however, did not stop when the next decade began. If the mid-sixties were tumultuous, the early seventies were just as confusing; perhaps even more so. Unlike kids today who are twelve-going-on-twenty, I was nineteen-going-on-twelve. I was wholly unprepared for life, but impatient to get it started. I missed out on a lot of stuff in my teen years due to the jittery dysfunction of home life ~ things like how to grow up to be a regular person. I appropriated bits from my best friend's family dynamic and combined that with daydreams of how things were supposed to work.

I operated on instinct. I was trying to cram six years of learning into six months. Every little experience I tucked away for future reference.

My life in a nutshell:

• I graduated from high school.
• I got a job.
• I found a boyfriend.
• I got married.

Things went wrong from the beginning. 

My first "real" job (which means, not working for my parents) turned out to be an echo of the same queasiness I'd fought so hard to get away from.

My boyfriend (soon to be husband) was a mismatch from Day One. I knew it, but did nothing to stop it, because I needed to get away.

I (and by "I", I mean I) picked out our new home ~ a nice 14 by 60 mobile home parked on the sales lot that had black-and-white linoleum and harvest gold appliances and long-looped green shag carpets. I didn't even know one had to pay an electric bill or a gas bill or lot rent. Or pay money for food. My parents didn't have love, but they had money. Thus, while my mom insisted that I purchase my own clothes for school, I never had to lay out one thin dime for anything except my reel-to-reel tape recorder and my JC Penney component stereo.

I took my teenage bed to my new marriage home and someone (in-laws, I believe) gifted us with a tufted Sears sofa. We filled in the other missing pieces with particle-board end tables and a round cardboard "bedside stand" that looked great as long as it was draped with an FW Woolworth table topper.

I quit the crazy State job after nine-or-so months and informed my parents I would now be back working for them. I can't believe they let me, but they had other fish to fry at the time, like my dad going berserk on booze and my mom trying to find a way to offload him onto somebody who'd lift her burden.

It wasn't all daisies and cumulus clouds working for Mom and Dad. I cleaned motel rooms. The weird thing was, I liked it. I liked working alone. It was the first time I'd ever been left with nothing but my own thoughts. It was heaven! I didn't have to answer to anyone. I had my portable radio that I carried with me from room to room, and I lived a life that I couldn't quite describe or put my finger on, but it felt like freedom.

1975 was my bridge year. I wasn't yet pregnant ~ I was still technically a kid. Life held possibilities, although I'd kind of smothered those by choosing to marry the first guy who asked me. My dream life, however, was completely awesome.

And the music on my radio was magical.

It's not so much that the music of 1975 was notable, but some of it was:

I didn't even like this song so much, but I remember it:

These were songs that, when I talked to the people in my life, they could not relate to, but they nodded and pretended they understood. My mom liked Conway Twitty and my dad didn't like anything except "Paloma Blanca". My husband was a go-along, get-along kind of guy who didn't understand this whole music thing, but mollified me.

BJ Thomas had captivated me in 1968 with his "Eyes Of A New York Woman", and now he was singing country. Country fans were as snobbish as rock fans, except country was more like a secret club. Even in '75 one did not advertise that they liked country music. To admit it would subject oneself to a cultural shaming. So, "we" disdained any artist who appropriated country -- John Denver, especially; but also Olivia Newton-John, even though we secretly sort of liked them. To me, BJ Thomas sounded country, and "the sound" was prime.

There was a new guy who appeared on my radio. He reminded me a bit of Jerry Lee, and he played piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, too. Die-hard country fans know authenticity when we hear it. Gary Stewart was authentic. It makes me sad to watch Gary's videos, because life did not turn out well for him, but he was, for a brief moment, a star. And he deserved it.

Another guy who showed up in...well, technically, 1974...but was huge in '75, was Ronnie Milsap. I always think of Gary Stewart and Ronnie Milsap in the same parcel, because they (contrary to what you may have been told) were the the most shimmering stars of 1975.

Female singers didn't spring up like male singers did. The ratio of male country artists to female is approximately 95 to 1. Really -- make a list.

I was at home, kneeling on my green shag carpet, fiddling with the dials on my console stereo, when this voice piped through the radio speakers. I was puzzled. She wasn't Dolly, nor Loretta. I didn't know who the heck she was, and I knew everybody. I didn't know her because she was new. Soon to be "not new". I rushed down to my local Woolworth's store and purchased, for $3.99, her album called "Elite Hotel".

Everybody thought Ray Stevens was a fool, including Ray Stevens. He was a novelty act, albeit a clever one. At my rancid State job in 1974, I was subjected to "The Streak" approximately 20,152 times on the radio. But Ray could do other stuff, when he set his mind to it:

 

It's difficult to describe the pop culture of the mid-seventies to someone who was not there. We had our radios and our TV's, and that's it. The big three networks would only feature country artists who weren't too "country", "Hee Haw" aside (CBS would soon purge that program). The only place we'd ever see country artists was on variety shows, but they were all abuzz with Jim Stafford and, of course, novelties.

Here are the top two country singles of 1975. You can guess how I felt about them:

I didn't begin to like Glen Campbell until somewhere around the 2000's. As for CW McCall, well, we don't hear a lot of covers of "Convoy", do we? And just for the record, nobody had CB radios. Nobody.

Music was my lifeline in 1975. I was adrift and didn't even acknowledge it. Like all of us, I sauntered through my days focused on inconsequential things. Life hadn't exactly turned out right, try as I did to make it so. All I had that made any sense was music, and I don't dwell on that time. I hurt for the semi-person I was then.

Maybe that's why I don't pen a lot of posts about the seventies.

They Did Have Music In 1975

(Irony)

I was confused in many ways in 1975. I'd forgotten that until I took a glance at the top hits of the year, and then it all came back.

I was twenty years old, newly married; torn between my new home and my old, dysfunctional life. Funny thing about dysfunction -- you think you yearn to get away from it, but it pulls you back because that's your "normal". The thing regular people don't understand about kids of alcoholics is, you glom onto the familiar, as awful as it is, for dear life; because that's what you know. It's safe -- in a psychotic way.

I kept coming back. I'd tried the real world and didn't like it much. I'd had a regular job for a year; a job that pulled me deep into new dysfunction. I didn't know if it followed me like a heavy cloud or if the whole world was crazy. (In hindsight, I realize that, yes, the whole world is crazy; but I was young and naive.) Nevertheless, I fled -- back to the waiting arms of my parents who didn't exactly welcome me home, but who needed an able-bodied motel maid who could pick up the task with no training.

I wasn't ready to live my own life. I was scared of the world. I no longer had a best friend who'd slay the dragons for me. My marriage was one of convenience; a couple of kids who thought they could do no better. I had no connection to my husband. We struggled to tolerate one another. Mom and Dad were nuts, but they were at least nuts that I knew intimately.

Musically, life revolved around songs that other people liked. It wasn't that I didn't have definite tastes of my own, but I sublimated those, because I was a scared coward and afraid of being scorned if I expressed an opinion.

Mom and Dad had a long walnut console stereo in the corner of the living room. Dad was enthralled, for a while, with a guy who made a record imitating Richard Nixon -- David Frye, I think his name was. Dad thought Frye was hilarious. I found it tedious after the hundredth listen. 

The stereo also had a slot where one could shove eight-track tapes in. Eight-tracks were one of those failed musical experiments. Eight-tracks came on the scene just prior to cassette tapes. They were portable, if one had an automobile that accommodated them. The big drawback of eight-tracks was that the tape stopped smack-dab in the middle of a song and one had to flip the tape over and re-shove it into the slot to hear the rest of the song. That sort of ruined the whole musical experience. Dad had Ray Stevens and a couple of other artists I no longer remember. In total, he owned three eight-track tapes, so I heard Ray Stevens over and over and over.

In an effort to imitate a normal life, Mom purchased LP's that she played on the console. In my opinion then, Mom didn't actually like music -- she was a pretender. Today I have decided to give Mom a break. Who actually doesn't like music? Everybody likes music in some form. She did, though, seem a slave to the charts; as if she had no musical opinions of her own and had to rely on the words of the local DJ to tell her what was good. In reality, she was in love with Ray Price, who she considered a "hunk". I, on the other hand, didn't judge music by how the artist looked. Shoot, I thought Eddie Rabbitt was a country god, and he was ugly as sin.

My mom and dad played singles like this on their ugly coffin-like stereo console:

Mom was always buying records by artists like Billy "Crash" Craddock and Conway Twitty and Mac Davis. Usually they weren't even number one songs. I have somehow come into possession of all Mom's singles and I recognize only a paltry few. I think maybe she was simply a '45 collector.

Dad loved this next song. One of his idiosyncrasies was that he loved Latin music; all the better if the lyrics were in Spanish. Dad knew no Spanish, but I guess it just sounded nice to him.  

Thanks to one of Dad's three eight-track tapes, I love this next track still today:

After my work day was done, or after one of our interminable family gatherings, I went home and played the singles I liked -- on my own crappy (JC Penney) stereo -- which was, of course, better because it had detachable speakers and it didn't look like someone had just been sprinkled with holy water inside it.

Best song, bar none, of 1975:

Weirdly, Tanya Tucker has very few live performance videos on YouTube. Who does she think she is -- Prince? Nevertheless, in '75, Tanya was still a hot artist. I like this one (with guest vocals by Glen):

There was this new girl who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She was doing old songs (old songs -- even ones I didn't know). I bought her first album because I liked her sound; I knew nothing about her. Here is a sample (with guest appearance on mandolin by a very young Vince Gill):

Merle was still going strong. Unfortunately there are no live videos of this song, just like all of Merle's seventies hits. I don't know where he went, but he wasn't appearing on TV anymore. 

I won't feature songs by Ronnie Milsap and Gary Stewart, because I've recently featured them in other posts, but suffice it to say, the three big artists for me in 1975 were Gene, Ronnie, and Gary.

And, of course, Glen Campbell had the number one hit of the year, but if you want more of Glen, please see Still On The Line. 

Now, the elephant in the room:

Like many (most) country fans in 1975, I resented interlopers swooping in and collecting country awards. They were trying to change country. I didn't want country changed. I liked it just fine, thank you. It started in 1974 with a girl who had three names -- and she wasn't even American! Sure, "If You Love Me, Let Me Know" was catchy. She didn't, however, have a tear in her voice; and where was the twang? Yea, she would later go on to star in one of the guiltiest of movie pleasures of all time, but I didn't know that! I wasn't telepathic! And she won the 1974 CMA female vocalist of the year award! Over Loretta Lynn and Tanya!

Then it got only worse. In 1975, previous Entertainer of the Year Charlie Rich fetched a lighter out of his pocket and set fire to the card that announced the new award winner. (I just gotta say, that was one of the very best entertainment spectacles of all time. Kudos, Charlie!) 

I had an intense, fiery hatred for the new guy. I didn't know what he was supposed to be -- was he country or folk or some weird hybrid? He seemed to me like a pretender -- somebody who was trolling for award trophies. The very last time I talked to Alice on the phone, she informed me that she was really "into" this new guy, and I thought scornfully, well, she's gone over to the other side. How ironic. The person who'd originally tugged me into the bright light that was country had now become a turncoat. Thanks, and, oh -- enjoy your Roberta Flack records.

I can't say that I ever became a huge John Denver fan, but I grew to appreciate him. "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is a sublime song (although not written by John). This, however, made JD soar to the heights of country music stardom:

This post could have ended with John Denver, but oh no....

Much like eight-track tapes, 1975 was the year of completely unnecessary inventions. Remember those old K-Tel commercials for things nobody knew they wanted, and actually didn't want? The pocket fisherman was probably my favorite. Because one never knows when they'll be strolling down a sunny path on their break from the business meeting and thinks, damn! If only I had a fishing rod, I could reel in some of those tasty trout! 

And don't forget Mr. Microphone!

Well, CB radios were just as useless! From what I can gather, long-haul truckers used CB radios to tell other truckers where the "smokies" were hiding out. Not really germane for someone like me, who traversed The Strip about seven miles from home to work. And not exactly relevant for anyone. Regardless, CB's became the latest fad. They were like Rubik's cubes -- completely pointless and needlessly aggravating. The mid-seventies were a time of bumpkins who would fall for anything. Seriously. We loved lime green and orange. And afghans, preferably in orange and lime green hues. And shiny, slippery polyester. Honestly, the seventies, in my mind, are a low-hanging, foreboding cloud. They're best forgotten, as if they'd never happened.

Without further comment, here is "Convoy":

Can I be blamed for being confused in '75? It was a confusing, confounding time. I wasn't quite an adult, although I pretended to be -- yearned to be. Music was a bridge, albeit tottering, from my old life to my new. 

And it was about to get worse....

Curly Putman

Curly Putman died Sunday.

His name might not be familiar to you, but it certainly is to me. Putman was a songwriter extraordinaire. 

I suppose Curly Putman first entered my consciousness the same way all behind-the-scenes guys did for me in the sixties -- from reading the backs of album covers. I obviously wasn't a songwriter then, but I was fascinated to learn who wrote the songs I liked best. If they wrote at least two of my favorites (I had kind of a low bar) they were "good". Naturally, like most of my country music discoveries, I first found Curly's name on the back of a Tammy Wynette album. He was co-writer, with Bobby Braddock, of this:

And he wrote this one, again featuring Tammy Wynette, with David Houston (sorry, no David Houston live videos exist, apparently):

I just posted this video last week, and here I am again! I mistakenly thought Dolly wrote the song -- I hate when I mess up like that.

Give credit where credit is due:

Tanya Tucker was a revelation to me, at thirteen, because she was thirteen -- and I didn't do anything except go to school and play records, while she made records. Life wasn't fair. I digress, though. Curly wrote this song:

You know me; I like to throw in a few obscure songs every now and then just to flummox everyone. Actually, no, I like to relive songs that I like and haven't heard in decades. Nobody seems to remember Charlie Rich (I do). Here's another Curly Putman song, sung by Charlie:

Songwriters never know which songs will strike a chord. And how could we? We love our babies; we think they're cute as a button, while strangers take one glance and turn their heads away. Instead, they fixate on the mangy cat balled up in the corner of the living room, huddled under the end table, its fur askew. The cat we picked up at the shelter on a whim because we felt sorry for it. The cat that's howling out this melody:

Speaking of ugly children: this song isn't actually a homely child; it's just not the best country song ever, although many think it is (they're wrong). But like the Green Green Grass of Home, it will live forever, and a songwriter will gladly live with that.

Curly, I'm guessing, wouldn't have cited this as his favorite composition (I'd love to know which one he thought was his best), but ten million fans speak louder than pride, or something.

Here is George Jones:

Curly wrote more than two of my favorite songs, so that makes him a great songwriter. One great song makes one a great songwriter. 

Curly Putman cleared that bar easily.







 

Billy Sherrill, Epic Producer

As a kid just getting into country music, I didn't know what a record producer was. I had a vague notion that he was kind of an "overseer", making sure that everything synched up okay; and that the studio musicians rather went their own way, and the singer went his/her own way; and the producer? Well, he sat in the booth and every once in awhile spoke, "One more take" into the mic. Reading my album liners, I was more interested in who wrote the songs, because I figured if I liked one song by somebody, I might want to check out some others. Therefore, I read, "B. Thimble - S. Sanitary" (they never put the first names of the writers on the liner, so I didn't know who these guys - and they were mostly guys - were. And unless he was a songwriting phenom, it was always co-writes - much like now). So I didn't pay much heed to who the producer was; just like I also didn't understand that a movie director was some big deal.

But I always knew the name Billy Sherrill. First of all, Billy Sherrill was also part of a songwriting team - with Glenn Sutton (he, the ex-husband of Lynn Anderson, who didn't apparently grasp Lynn's appeal to country music purists. See this.)

So when Billy's name started showing up on Tammy Wynette albums, I noticed. For example, there was this (sorry, no live performance video, naturally). This song, by the by, was written by Johnny Paycheck:

Billy was David Houston's producer, too. Everybody has forgotten David Houston - he died young - but he had monster hits in the sixties. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I can't embed a performance of his song that made the charts cringe in 1967, "Almost Persuaded", which was a really maudlin dirge only rescued by the tinkling piano riff that caused drunks across the USA to drop a tear into their beer mugs. However, so as to not forget David Houston, here's a song he did with Barbara Mandrell:

Billy Sherrill's obituaries pounced on his embrace of the "countrypolitan" sound, but I disagree. Countrypolitan, to me, was Chet Atkins adding the Anita Kerr Singers to every recording that might have been country had it not been for the Anita Kerr Singers. As if Bobby Bare was going to take this group out on the road with him. He had, I'm sure, enough trouble just making the payroll for the actual players in the Bare band.

No, Billy Sherrill didn't forgo the steel guitar. Not at all. And he didn't add a bunch of chipmunks behind the vocalist to "smooth out" the sound. He was too smart for that. Yes, he liked the piano, and he was right. Get a load of this:

Billy also produced Tanya Tucker, who I hated because she was thirteen and I was thirteen, but she could actually sing, whereas I couldn't (I love Tanya Tucker, actually.)

And this, I don't think, is any kind of "politan":

I'm not gonna say that Billy "inherited" George Jones, but I will point out that George had a different producer before he hooked up with Tammy. George was, no doubt, grateful for serendipity.

There are, of course, two recordings that will forever cement Billy Sherrill in the annals of country music. The first one he co-wrote with Tammy:

Historians will debate for eons the cultural impact of "Stand By Your Man". It was a song of its time, and that time was 1968 - 47 years ago! Calm down, everyone! Claudette Colbert is no longer hitching up her skirt and thumbing a ride on a country road with Clark Gable, either! Yes, Tammy divorced George. How dare she, when she sang like an angel about how she'd forgive every one of his transgressions?

Here's the deal - it was a song! I was around and listening to country radio when that song hit the airwaves. Know what I like about it? I like the last chorus, where Tammy slides up the scale full throttle and sells it. The secret about good music is, the lyrics don't mean a fig. That's why they call it music. It's melodic. And if you've got a great singer, the lyrics don't matter. Just ask Sinatra and his dooby-dooby-do's.

And that song will last centuries longer than Rose Garden or Achy Breaky Heart or any other song one can name that wriggled its way into becoming an ear worm.

The other song that Billy Sherrill will be remembered for is one that, in a poll of folks who mimic what everybody else says, is the greatest country song of all time. Ahh, contraire! But I'm not here tonight to argue. This recording was done piecemeal, because George was rather - battered - and couldn't make it through a three-minute song if his life depended on it. Heck, he often couldn't even show up for his own concerts. George was down and almost out before Billy Sherrill saved his career with his patience and persistence.

The key to this song, in my opinion, is the key change, which naturally builds tension. Secondly, the twin fiddle glissando that stabs you in the gut. The recitation? I'm thinking that was George just not being able to sing. A good song is sound. That's what a good producer creates.

Billy Sherrill was a good, nay, a great producer. Now I know what producers do - they create. Create glory. It doesn't matter if the words are a fairy tale; it doesn't matter if the singer had to come back to the studio fifty times in order to splice it together just right. It's the sound that comes out of our radio, or our turntable, or our computer that matters. We don't care how much peptic distress the creation caused. We care about what our ears, what our heart, hears.

Good job, Billy Sherrill.

And thanks for the magic.

More Time Travels....and Travails

(I love ths movie.)

Working second shift (3:30 ~ 10:00) at the hospital was kind of peaceful, in reality.

Oh sure, it was pretty busy from the start of my shift until about 5:30'ish.  That was because from a couple of hours before clinic closing time to actual clinic closing time, the doctors made their decisions to admit folks, so everybody showed up around that time.

I was a Communications Clerk (or what some lesser-advanced hospitals called "Ward Clerks").  I like Communications better.  It sounded more important than it really was.

By working second shift, I avoided all the hustle and bustle of the daytime hours, when all the docs were hovering around, and the baths were being given, and people were checking out (is that what they called it?  Maybe not.  Discharged, I guess.  "Checking out" has kind of a negative connotation in hospital lingo).

At 3:30'ish, things were busy.  I had to take the calls from Admissions, and figure out where to place the incoming patients, and believe me, it was a real juggling act, because those nurses could be vicious if you overloaded them, and who could blame them?  I got into a verbal tizzy with an RN once, who felt that I was being unfair to her, by giving her too many new patients, and it took a long while for feelings to cool down.

Nothing was computerized then (what were computers?), so all the physicians' orders had to be filled out on little three-copied slips of paper, and sent by messenger to the various departments.

Likewise, the supper menus that the patients filled out.  Somebody from Nutrition stopped by each evening to pick those up.

My least favorite job duty was trudging along with my water cart, to fill all the pitchers in each patient's room.  I wasn't the most socially adept person then (I'd do way better now), so sometimes I felt awkward making small talk with the patients, but they were invariably cheery, no matter their condition.  I hope I'm like that when my day inevitably arrives.

But, after the supper hour, when all the trays had been collected, and folks had turned on their TV's to enjoy, as best they could, the evening's repose, the nurses and I sat behind the station, and did whatever we could to pass the time unobtrusively.

Counted cross-stitch was my big obsession then.  And not just mine.  A bunch of us always had projects going.  We'd all sit there, and chit chat, and work on our various projects.  The radio was on, too.  It was, well, peaceful.  Quiet.

The back rubs would be given at 9:00, and by 10:00, I was out of there.  I never gave a second thought to meandering out to the parking lot at 10:00.  There wasn't even a security staff on hand.  It took me all of 7 minutes to drive home   Now, I'd be petrified to work second shift.  Funny how times and circumstances have changed.

The big TV show then, at least my big TV show, was St. Elsewhere.  It was set in a hospital, so I guess I felt like I had an insider's knowledge of all the little peccadilloes of the hospital world.   I VCR'd it.  My schedule was unpredictable.  I preferred to be home on Wednesday nights, but often, that was not to be, so I had my trusty VCR.  I think all the nurses, not just me, watched that show.

I wonder, now, if there was a show about people working in the insurance industry, would I be just as enamored?  Maybe.  But I'm sure it would have much more intrigue than the actual insurance world.  People would be setting up fake doctor's accounts and scamming the system (that really happened, by the way), until the wily insurance investigator showed up and used his (or her) CSI techniques to flush out the perpetrator.  Much more exciting than sitting at a computer and hitting F3, F4 all day long.  And the investigator would be played by Matt Damon.

Music, too, obviously played a big role in those days (nights).   We had an FM radio playing behind the nurse's station, and surprisingly, it was mostly tuned to the country station, unless somebody complained enough, and then we'd turn the channel and let them listen to their classic rock for awhile.  But you know, us rubes liked our country.

When the docs came by to make their evening rounds, and subsequently to dictate their progress notes into the telephone system, we shushed the radio.  We dealt with a lot of interns, because the actual doctors were home having their dinner served to them by their butlers, and they let the interns do all the work.  Interns were much nicer than the actual doctors, though.  At least until they became the actual doctors, and then they got all snooty, like they didn't know us.  And they still helped themselves to the candy that an appreciative patient had sent.

1986 was one of the (many) years I worked at St. Alexius.  And on the radio, whether shushed or not shushed, at night, at the nurse's station, we listened to songs such as these:

Bop ~ Dan Seals





Grandpa, Tell Me About the Good Old Days ~ The Judds



Just Another Love ~ Tanya Tucker (sorry, no actual performance video to be found)



On The Other Hand ~ Randy Travis



Rockin' With the Rhythm of the Rain ~ The Judds



Honky Tonk Man ~ Dwight Yoakam




One of the best country songs ever: 

1982 ~ Randy Travis



I Tell It Like It Used To Be ~ T. Graham Brown (again, (sorry, no actual performance video to be found of this one, either)



Another one of the all-time best country songs ever: 

Guitar Town ~ Steve Earl




This song got me back into country music, so it holds a special place in my heart:

Since I Found You ~ Sweethearts of the Rodeo





Ooh, I do like this one:

Stand On It ~ Mel McDaniel



George Strait had three hit singles in 1986.  Here's one:


Something Special




There's No Stoppin' Your Heart ~ Marie Osmond (sorry for the poor video/audio quality ~ this is the only one out there):



Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye ~ Charlie Daniels (isn't this cool?)

 

Here's an old Ray Price song, made a hit again in 1986 by Ricky Skaggs (and I guess this is the old-er Ricky, who has now decided to grow out his hair ~ hmmm....)

I've Got a New Heartache




Do you remember the O'Kanes?  Yea, probably not.  But they were good.  I really liked them in 1986.


Here's Oh, Darlin':



I truly love this next song, and dang, if it isn't impossible to find a video of it.  I don't understand this, but I do try.  But sometimes I fail.


However, here is a link to the video, which, for some unknown reason is not embeddable.

Walk The Way The Wind Blows ~ Kathy Mattea


1986 was one of the finest years in country music.  Just go back and watch these videos, if you don't believe it.  And we had new, young stars, like George and Dwight and the Judds and Randy.

In fact, two of the top 20 country songs of all time (my list!) were hits in 1986.  That's damn good, considering the long storied history of country music.

I guess it's the sentimentalist in me, but when I think about it now, even with all the aggravations and the travails I went through in 1986, I wouldn't mind being back in those days.  Back behind the nurse's station, working on my crafts and listening to country radio.

But, really, I think it was the music most of all.























  

The Singer-Songwriter Series ~ Episode 3

I won't say that "Crazy Over You" is the all-time best two-stepping song. Okay, I will.

This is how I first got to know Radney Foster:



Is that a kick or what? I love this song.

So, my introduction to Radney Foster was through his partnership with Bill Lloyd. Foster & Lloyd weren't around for a long time (although they're now back together), but they had some fine recordings.

Here are two (and regretfully, the guys only seem to have a couple of actual music videos from their halcyon days):





True music aficionados, I believe, pull out that little booklet from a new CD and check out who the writers are. As well as the lyrics, of course.

I always read my little booklet.

So, I found that Radney didn't just write for Radney. He wrote hit songs for other artists, too.

Like this one, by Tanya Tucker and T. Graham Brown (what the heck ever happened to T. Graham? He's a great singer!)



And this one, by Diamond Rio (Wasn't this DR's first hit song?):



How about Nitty Gritty?



Ha ~ and just to prove that I'm hip; I'm "with it" (although I have never in my life heard this song before), this is one that Radney wrote for Keith Urban:



Back in my sordid musical past, when I finally decided to give country music another go, I bought a couple of cassette tapes. One was by the Sweethearts of the Rodeo (and I don't remember the other one). I'd heard the SOTR a couple of times, and I liked their sound. It was, you know, country-sounding, as strange as that may seem today. I didn't know that Radney had written this song; I just knew that I liked it (and sorry for all the chatter in this video, but hey, it was the best I could find):



Lest we forget that Radney Foster is also a performer, here are some songs from his solo album, "Del Rio, Texas, 1959" (My, he looked much younger then!):



I'm kinda partial to this one:



And then there is this one, recorded by Sara Evans.

This song reminds me a lot of Texas in 1880. I think it was released around the time that I started to wean myself off of country music (not because of this song!), but it's kind of the last good one that I remember hearing on the radio.

The thing that I find about Radney Foster's songs is, melodically, they're superior. I, in fact, at one point, looked up the chord progression for this song, and tried to incorporate it into one of my own. Well, that didn't work.



What makes a good songwriter? Magic fairy dust? I don't know. I still say, either you've got it or you don't. You can't force things like that. Unfortunately.

I watched a video interview with Radney, in which he said that he has written between 25 and 50 songs a year for at least thirty years. I can't even comprehend that. Does he eat or sleep? Does he get any of that good exercise? I think he should get out and walk around a bit; stretch his legs; soak up a few rays. Man does not live by song scribbles and guitar chords alone. Does he?

Maybe writing 25-50 songs a year for thirty years makes one a master songwriter. But I truly think that if I wrote 25-50 songs in 30 years, I'd just have 750-1500 crappy songs. And what would be the point of that? How many crappy songs need to exist in this world? I'll say one. One crappy song. Just to have something to contrast with the good ones.

And to prove that good songwriters beget good songwriters, here's Radney's version of you-know-who's song: