Country Music Broke My Brain (30 page)

So, back to the “gherming.” In case you're
not
from around here, a “gherm” is a slightly derogatory term for someone who gushes over a star. Getting ghermed is a common event for somebody who sings for a living. There is a fine line between gherming and stalking. Recording artists, for the most part, are wonderful. I'm not talking about me, but usually the actual star I'm with. People want to take a picture or say hello. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people come rushing up to Reba or Ronnie Dunn or whomever and say, “You're my biggest fan.” It's always funny. They're excited, and, in the moment, it comes out wrong.

I can also say I've never seen one artist/famous/music performer be rude in any way to anybody. I've seen them hide before they get attacked. I've seen them move to a quieter or hidden table, but not one single incidence of the “Leave me alone, peasant” attitude. Never. And there are some fans who can be pretty forward. The ones with the “I bought your album, and I
made
you what you are today” body language drive me crazy.

Of course, I welcome anybody attacking me for an autograph or a pic, but, for some strange reason, folks give me my privacy. It's amazing how huge fans of mine act like they don't even know who I am in public. How they manage to contain their raw excitement and passion is astounding. They can sit two feet away and carry on like it's not the most heart-pounding moment of their entire life.

Speaking of taking pictures, Merle Kilgore was a real piece of work. He wrote two classic songs: “Wolverton Mountain” and “Ring of Fire.” The latter he wrote with June Carter Cash, Johnny's wife. He also managed Hank Williams Jr., and that always sounds to me like saying you were in charge of a herd of buffalo. I think you just try to head things in a certain direction, but you don't really control anything.

I loved Merle because he was always cheerful and always paid for the martinis. I imagine the martinis made him so cheerful.

We were sitting in a restaurant somewhere when we noticed a quasi-famous singer stand up and have a picture made with an excited fan. Merle said, “Johnny was great about that usually most always.” I asked, “What do you mean, ‘most always'?” Merle leaned in and said, “Well, if John R. was in an obvious rush or in the middle of something else, he would ask me to take the picture.” Sounded like a signal to me. It was. He explained, “John wouldn't be rude, even though the tourist obviously was taking advantage of him. The lingering, long fan story about their life and how they'd seen the star in some city twenty years before. I would grab the camera and say, ‘I'll take this for ya, honey.'

“After much posing and trying to get the damn camera to work
—
usually the flash wouldn't go off or the batteries would be dead
—
we'd take a memory shot and they would walk away. Then Johnny Cash would say, ‘Where'd you cut me off?' In taking the photo for the fan, I would only include Johnny's arm or leg or half his hair in the picture. We didn't do that
all
the time, but it did make us feel better knowing that, back in Arkansas, this nut would try to convince his family,
‘THAT's
Johnny Cash's left hand on my shoulder, I swear!'”

I've been so tongue-tied in front of some of my heroes, God knows what I actually said. One of those was Neil Diamond. Neil has been a huge star for almost as long as I can remember. “Cherry, Cherry” and “Solitary Man” and dozens of others take me all the way back to the gym at Simon Kenton High School. Hopping around in my socks like a mental patient to Neil Diamond records. I wasn't at a dance or anything, I just enjoyed hopping around in my socks.

Neil came to Nashville to write songs and record an album. It had the faint hint of “Gone Country,” but nobody cared. It was thrilling for all my friends who got to write with him and talk to him and listen to him. He gave big black guitars to a lot of the guys when they finished cowriting. I didn't get that lucky, but he did drop in one morning on my show. He'd been listening because he was living in town for several months. Just before we went on the air, I said, “I hope I don't gherm you.” He looked at me as if I'd spoken in tongues.

“
What
me?” he asked. I explained the term and he threw his head back and laughed. “Wow, I love that. I know exactly what it means.” I bet he did. When someone fills up the space that's exactly the height, depth, and width of Neil Diamond, people notice you. When you sound exactly like Neil Diamond when you speak, it's Gherm City.

I still have a framed piece of paper that reads,
“Gerry, thanks for letting me ‘GHERM' you.”
—
Neil Diamond.

Available Names Left

I
HAVE CHECKED with both the Country Music Association and the International Naming Rights Society for their lists of names not already taken for singers and bands. As you know, it's all in the name. Would Keith Urban or Tim McGraw be as big as they are without those cool names? Of course not. Even though several of these great names may have been claimed by the time you read this, here is the list of country names still available at press time:

Buddy and Julie

HE
EXTENDED HIS ARMS to push his shirt cuffs out a bit. Shooting your cuffs, it was called. It was a custom-made shirt, after all. The high collar and silk-print tie with the handmade suit gave him a sort of Elvis/Riverboat Gambler/TV Preacher look. Expensive Italian shoes completed his getup.

He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure his “piece” was on straight. It wasn't just any piece. It was a $3,000 natural-hair glory lid that was so magnificent and so meticulously crafted,
nobody
knew he was follicle-y challenged. The trick he'd discovered years ago, when he was young, was to go “toup” early. Just like Grandpa Jones went “old” early. If there's no one alive who has seen you without a full head of hair, then there's no one who can even wonder if your wig-hat isn't the real deal.

He'd fooled them all . . . all except for anybody who spent ten seconds looking at his pompadour. For every one of his years in the music business, from average songwriter to average producer to big-time music publisher, he'd walked the wig-hat walk.
And
he never appeared in public unless he was dressed in full-blown success regalia. He loved to flash that gleaming porcelain smile. Yes, it was just a tad
too
white. Urinal White was what he'd asked for, and that's what he got. It was blazing and blinding, just the way he liked it.

Buddy liked to wink a lot when he made conversation. It made people feel like he was really engaged and concerned. He was also a “point and clicker.” He'd finish off a one-liner with his index fingers pointed like pistols after a thumb click. He piloted a Corvette convertible colored a tasteful and very royal blue. He'd considered canary yellow, but thought that might seem cheap or showy.

It was a stormy night, so he put the top up (mostly so he wouldn't lose his). This chick singer was going to be downright impressed.

She was a singer, but not
just
a singer, according to her Texas bio. She had a voice like an angel. Someone had once suggested an angel “like Tommy Lasorda?” She didn't get the joke. Her press shot was sexy and gauzy—a “come hither” half-smile peering out from underneath a cowboy hat. Her blouse was opened only enough so that her church wouldn't disown her, and she was squeezed into a pair of Wranglers. She had laughed after the press shoot and had told her girlfriend that when she took the jeans off it was like opening a can of biscuits.

Nashville had been forced to wait awhile for her arrival because of a couple of marriages and financial problems that were not her fault. Now, she was finally in town. She was ready for Music City. She was footloose, and also with a free-enough fancy. This little town was not gonna know what hit it. All the bad times were behind her now. She smiled, knowing she was about to hook up with one of the movers and shakers on Music Row to discuss her career. She was on her way. She hummed “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now.” She pranced out of the hotel door onto the sidewalk.

Oops, a little chunky
, he thought. Not a problem, though. He could send her to his trainer. He was parked half a block away in the 'Vette.

Obvious dye job. That color blonde doesn't exist in nature.
For a second, he drifted away and remembered being a teenager and Linda Gratowski. Ahh! Those were such wonderful, carefree days.

He'd been naturally drawn to Linda Gratowski because of her magnificent hair
—
a beehive that pointed toward God all the time. Her God Compass, she'd called it. Linda never mentioned his comb-over, and he adored her for that. That and Linda Grawtowski had gazongas for days. When you're seventeen, you notice things like that and think about them about every five seconds. He was hoping she'd let him play “motorboat” again after they made an appearance at the high school dance. He'd also brought a bottle of Maker's Mark, which he hoped to empty into her and speed the “motorboat” process along. As they prepared to go inside the school gym, Linda drained the pint of Loretto, Kentucky's finest bourbon. Her eyes rolled around and she belched, “I'm ready to party now.”