Country Music Broke My Brain (22 page)

Now, Tony Brown has made hit after hit as a producer. Tony Brown played piano with Elvis. He produced Reba, George Strait, and Vince Gill. The list is astounding. Tony Brown recorded my (and Devon O'Day's) song for George Strait. It was called “The Big One.” I was riding down West End Avenue when I heard a car honk, and Tony was in his Mercedes next to me. I rolled down the window and he shouted every songwriter's dream come true to me over the street noise, “HEY! GEORGE STRAIT IS GONNA CUT THE BIG ONE.” Yes, I know. When you repeat that out loud, it sounds like George has gas, but it was still a heart-pounding pronouncement.

Back to Will Robinson. Danger, Will Robinson. This is how songwriters think. Will said, “Between the time I got to the phone and said hello and Tony answered, I imagined he was calling to tell me that he was producing an album of all my songs. George and Reba had selected ten of my songs for their new project, and he wanted to let me know.” What Tony actually wanted was a translation of song lyrics into Portuguese, which, oddly enough, Will speaks. But we've all been through it. The rumor. The dream. The hope that somebody took one of my tunes.

A word about what I call “The Big Silence.” The BS is the most painful part. This is where you send in a song for consideration. I've done it a thousand times. Multiply that by the thousands of songwriters, and you get the idea. You rarely get a call back. It's an understood part of the game, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Over time, the Silence gets louder and louder. It's with you all the time. “Any word on the song?” you ask the bartender or wife or whoever happens to be near. I don't know how to fix the system, but it seems that with technology that allows you to send a song with the push of a button, you could also post somewhere that your song is rejected. Although then you lose the hope of a song being recorded.

The hope doesn't really die until you're on iTunes listening to the singer's new album and you notice your song is
not
on the record. This is usually a good sign that it's not going to ever be on the record. I still sometimes hold out hope that there's been a drastic mistake and that somebody will fix the CD or iTunes, and the song will magically appear.

You get the Big Silence from friends and nonfriends alike. I happen to know a lot of people in the business who actually record the songs. They is de Stars. Some write back and some just don't say anything. They become part of the Big Silence, too. Martina McBride, who I truly love, once wrote a tortured note to me about how the song didn't work for her album. I felt her pain.

I have to understand, as every other tunesmith does, that
nobody
wants to tell somebody their kids are ugly. And trust me, songs are kids. Oh, I still send songs to friends. After all, if you can't beg, gherm, arm-twist, or guilt a friend into recording a song, what are they friends for? What does hurt are publishers who ask you to send a few mp3s (songs) over for them to consider. The BS roars again.

Let me conclude by saying definitively, without a doubt, and with no further discussion, that although I hate the Big Silence, I understand it. I'm now going to try to make that work when my wife wants to know my opinion of which shade of white I like for the kitchen cabinets (we'll discuss
that
later). I'll employ the BS to see if that gets me off the hook. How do you like my chances?

An engineer told a guy fixing the plumbing that one of
my
songs was on the list to be considered as a possibility to present to a guy who knew a secretary who worked for a manager's girlfriend. Yes, it's that easy.

You want to live on the 1,000 days of “maybe.” You're in the “pile.” So, what happens? You call to see if they got the song. Yes, we got the damn song and stop bothering us. In the world of Nashville, the Big Silence means no! If they are gonna record the song, if they like the song, if they are remotely interested, they call and let you know. If it's tossed like an old newspaper, they don't call. It was just a song and there are a thousand more to hear.
You
don't feel like that.
You
know
your
song is a hit.

But one word from anybody can kill it. Some casual doubtful word from the receptionist can cause people to drop a tune. Lewis Anderson told me he went to the Bahamas because Alan Jackson had recorded a song, and it was on his new album coming out. “It ain't final 'til it's vinyl” used to mean it's officially a cut. You made the deal. Lewis got a call while he was lounging on the beach as a newly minted moneyed maker-upper of hit tunes. He was told, “We're recalling all the 300,000–400,000 CDs we printed so far and are taking your song
off
the album to put on another. Sorry.” That's ugly, ain't it? It wasn't personal against Lewis. Alan just had a song he liked better.

My daughter listens to songs for a living. She's the most beautiful A&R person who ever lived. She's also very tough. I'm trying to get an appointment with her soon.

She told me, however, “I learned watching you, Dad. I always take care to let people down as gracefully as possible because I have seen how it feels.”

She has a lot of experience watching songwriters hear they didn't make the project. It hurts, but then moments later somebody calls and says, “Hey, man, I just got a call from the guy who washes [producer's name here]'s car, and he said he saw our CD in his player! I think we're in.”

Showbiz Is Tough

YOU
KNOW THE OLD JOKE: A man is walking behind a circus elephant, shoveling “fertilizer” for hours. A friend asks the guy, “Why don't you quit that job?”

Man replies, “What? And give up showbiz?”

Actually, showbiz usually quits you. A close pal of mine once said of Pam Tillis (the supernaturally talented daughter of Mel Tillis and hit singer in her own right), “Pam will never quit. She's an entertainer, and that's what she does. She'll be out there on some stage for the rest of her life” (singin', it's hoped, Don Schlitz's and my song, “The River and the Highway”). Roger Miller once said about a fellow singer's need to stay in the game, “He'd appear at the opening of a pack of cigarettes.”

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You're an entertainer, you get onstage somewhere. That's fine, although sometimes you gotta know when to get off. One of the great things about the
Grand Ole Opry
is that it provides a venue for the older performers. I haven't gone to the
Opry
much because of that. Sometimes it's painful to see some of these people struggle through a song. Others still have the stuff or have learned to keep it going with new tricks. Their voices might be gone, but they continue to deliver the entertainment goods.

While I'm on the subject of gone voices, how about voices that never were? I know he's one of the all-time great songwriters, but Kris Kristofferson cannot sing at all. He never could. It astounds me how we all overlooked that fact because he's so cool and charismatic. If he tried out for
American Idol,
he'd be part of the joke “vocalists” they always show. I comb my hair and never look at the back of my head. I know there's an exposed area back there, but looking straight on from the front, it's fine. I totally ignore my “spot” and instead go with the “damn fine hairdo” scenario. We do the same thing with bad singers and funny-looking singers. If the song is good or the guy is cool-looking, we are willing to ignore the “bald spot” in the mirror.

I also am puzzled why women go bonkers over a star that they wouldn't sit next to in a mall food court if he weren't rich and famous. Oh, there are some hunks out there, but there are also quite a few singin' sex symbols that don't keep George Clooney up at night. I'm just sayin'. . .

I keep rubbing my eyes wondering,
“
Am I not seeing what the screaming, panty-throwing women down front are seeing? What the hell?
”
He's five feet tall and has a face only a mother would cover with a bag. Yet his tour bus has so many women getting on and off that he's got a turnstile in the front. It's as if everybody says, “OK, we're all gonna pretend he looks like Brad Pitt.” Even if the guy actually looks more like Icky Pit, women are crawling over broken beer bottles to get to him.

I'm not jealous. Good for him. Good for the babes. It's just so odd to me.

Kris Kristofferson is a totally cool-looking guy. I understand that. Even today, when he walks into a studio in that hat and long duster, with those eyes, he's a star. But he sings like a shovel on concrete.

The worst part of showbiz is seeing people almost get to the brass ring. They are on top for about five minutes and are then voted off the island. You won't know this name; I only knew the name thirty-five years ago. Snooky Lanson was a singing star in the late '40s and '50s. He was “on the TeeVee,” as we say in Kentucky.

Snooky replaced Frank Sinatra on the show
Your Hit Parade.
They had a rotating list of singers who came out to sing the latest hits. This was back when the song was as much a star as the actual star was.

Come with me now to a small studio in a building on Murfreesboro Road in Nashville, where WKRN-TV (channel 2) still did some local programming in the mid-'70s. I walked in to do a show featuring musical guests and saw a stack of albums on the floor. Atop the heap was a worn copy of a recording by Snooky Lanson. I picked it up and said, “Snooky Lanson? I thought he was dead.”

“Oh no, he ain't!” I heard someone say behind me. There, in living black-and-gray, was the Snookster himself. He happened to be on one of the low-budget local singing shows they cranked out during those days. I was shocked and embarrassed, to say the least.

He just laughed and said, “Don't give it a second thought. That's what most people think.” He told me of some of the glory days: the national stardom, the grand TV productions and appearances with big bands—all in the past.

Snooky was now a Chrysler salesman at a local dealership. To make a living, he spent his days trying to slide customers into shiny new Imperials. He was just as dignified and warm as anyone could be. No bitterness. Me? I'd be somewhere in a shotgun shack in South Dakota writing my manifesto of bitter.

Snooky knew sometimes showbiz quits you. So did Barbara Fairchild. She had one giant hit back in '72 called “The Teddy Bear Song” and a couple of others that did very well. She was one of those gentle souls that you just loved to see coming. I lost touch with her, and her career fell on hard times.

One afternoon for lunch, I was in one of those “meat-and-threes” that permeated the Nashville dining scene in the '80s. Our waitress turned out to be none other than Barbara Fairchild. I could hardly stand to sit there and watch the people I was with ask her for some more sweet tea. I couldn't tell if she was feeling like I was or not. She had a lot of pride, not a hint of bitter. Me?
Manifesto of Hatred for Showbiz, Part Two.

Doug Stone had a slew of hits. I'm not sure how many hits are in a slew, but it's a bunch. Doug has been in and out of showbiz—and in and out of trouble—for quite awhile. I like him a lot. I also think Doug is listening to a station other than the one the rest of us are listening to.

In addition to his recording career, Doug also starred in one of the all-time cinematic classics,
Gordy
, featuring “The Talking Pig That Made It Big.” I think there was a reason they put Doug in a movie with a talking porkchop. I believe Doug could actually hear and understand what the pig was saying.

The last time I saw Doug, he was facing me, with microphones in front of us, while we were on the radio together. Doug laughed that maniacal cackle of his and returned to his main interest in our conversation—a car he wanted to sell. He wasn't there to talk about his career, his records, or his appearances. Doug had an old car that had broken down on an off-ramp somewhere, and he was ready to deal. I asked about how things were going for him, and he replied, “OK, but I'm tellin' ya, this car is a creampuff. Great mileage and real fake leather seats.” Then he gave his phone number in case somebody wanted the Stonemobile for their very own.

I don't know if Doug knows that showbiz quit him or not.

Remember Charly McClain? I didn't think so. She was simply gorgeous—a stunner who could sing. She was one of those who I think of as part of “feeding the monster”—the music machine that
must
have acts to stuff into the pipeline to keep everyone occupied: the promotion people, the production people, the record people, the road people, the songwriters, and the managers . . . it goes on and on.

Artists such as Charly are the pectin in the pie—part of the middle that holds the whole thing together. They make a good living and have fans. They do interviews and take pictures and sign autographs. They have fan clubs and a bus, or, in some cases, a van. They ride the country's highways and set up their speakers, plug in, and sing for the folks. God bless 'em. Charly was like that. I vaguely remember her hits such as “Who's Cheatin' Who”—a duet with Mickey Gilley, and then one day, she was gone.