Quiet Memories

Are Some Of The Best

Recent TENNESSEAN coverage of the medallion ceremony inducting Tom T. Hall and The Statler Brothers into the Country Music Hall of Fame stirred a swirl of memories. I worked with Tom on two different album projects and a book, subsequent to doing an interview that could easily have been his first from a performer's perspective. I saw him emerging as an incredibly identifiable act with the first single and pitched him to two magazines; one had just done "a songwriter piece" and the other wanted to wait to see "what the follow-up singles do."

I then pitched the idea to Hiram Goodman of INSIDE COUNTRY MUSIC, who didn't do a lot of long profile pieces: "I think Tom T. Hall will be an important act," he responded; "do it, and we'll use as much space as it takes."

It took a while to coordinate him being at home with me being able to get to Brentwood, but we did it. A long time plan for this publication is to re-print that entire interview here but re-typing it for digital purposes is more intimidating than I've been able to overcome.

But the short version is that Tom T. and I became friends. He called one morning and said, "Hey, would you be interested in ...?" and I interrupted him with "Yes." He laughed. "You don't even know what I'm proposing." My response was quick and honest: "I can't imagine anything you would be into that I wouldn't be interested in."

So off we set, "In Search Of A Song." The idea was to travel around Northeast Kentucky, track down a few situations he had in mind and staying open to others, all for the purpose of him writing songs. My role was to carry a camera and a tape recorder for the purpose of doing a liner note documenting the process.

That trip worked so well we did it again a year later, only, this time, we flew to Chicago, rode a Greyhound Bus to Fort Wayne, where we rented a car and moseyed by way of Connorsville, Indiana, down to Cincinnati, where we caught a plane back to Nashville.

Don't hold me to this, but my best recollection is that in the hotel room in Fort Wayne, the ongoing conversation continued past the turning out of the lights. I'm sure Tom was in the bed closest to the window because as I instinctly faced the direction of his voice, the changes of a traffic light on the street below oozed through a crack in the drapery.

I have no idea how the conversation took that turn, but how Tom T. Hall met John F. Kennedy became the story of the moment, tempoed by the silent pulses of red, green, amber, red, green, amber, red. It took place in West Virginia, where Tom was "doing radio," managing that station, perhaps, and part of the job was covering local politics. "A woman active in a lot of things told me there was somebody at this particular event that she wanted me to meet," he recounted, "and she took me over to a group of people around a young man who epitomized charisma -- you could feel it in the room. 'Tom Hall,' she said, 'This is Jack Kennedy.' We shook hands, and I had a distinct feeling that something important was going on."

Not sure I said much more than "Wow, what a story." There really wasn't much else to say, as my mind went into an immediate swirl of my own memories -- hey, Tom T. Hall had just described my exact feelings at the moment I first met HIM!"

One of the major Nashville charities of the '60s staged a huge salute to Chet Atkins in the fall of '66, I'm pretty sure it was. Arthur Feidler came in for it, and the main floor of Municipal Auditorium was transformed into a magic mesh of downhome fun and uptown revelry. I had helped Tandy Rice publicize the event, so he got tickets for Connie and me. During the meet and greet hour, Dixie Deen materialized out of the crowd and said, "Bill, have you met Tom T. Hall?"

Every time I play this back in my head, my answer to her is a bit different, but the feeling of something important going on is cast in the scarce concrete of my memory. And that night in Fort Wayne, I'm sure he took my silence for sleep. Pretty soon we both were.

 

Memories of The "Old Gray Black Gentleman"

by Gus Barba

I enjoyed Peter Cooper's tribute to Tom T. Hall in the TENNESSEAN, but there was an inference that "Old Dogs And Children and Watermelon Wine" was written in an alcoholic fog. It was not. We were working. May I go back a bit and explain.

After a few months as the drummer for Tom T.'s band, The Storytellers, it seemed like I was out-drinking and out-partying everybody on the bus. So I asked Tom T. if there was any thing that I could do to help around the office, instead of simply waiting for the next gig.

He suggested I get in touch with Frank Mull, National Promotions Director for Mercury at the time. With Mull’s contacts and the CMA radio listing, I was able to call ahead and set up interviews with DJs all over the country. To increase my efficiency in promotion work, Tom T. paid for me to take a typing course at Fall's Business College, opening possibilities for me right up to this minute of writing a piece for TheBridgeWorks!

But back to working on the road, more than just a drummer ..."Hi Mr. DJ, My name is Gus and I’m Tom T. Hall’s drummer and he wanted me to call and see if you’d like to get together for a cup of coffee or something before the show tonight?" That was a routine role for me by the time we wound up going to Miami.

We got booked at this baseball field across the street from the Democratic Convention. I still don’t know if we were booked by the Democrats or by the Republicans to keep voters from attending the Democratic Convention. On the show were Tommy Cash, other Grand Ole Opry stars, and Tom T. and The Storytellers.

I had set up an interview with some DJ who said he’d see us about 1pm after he got off his shift, in the lounge, which was on the roof of the Howard Johnson Hotel on the Bay. We waited. No DJ. About 1:45 I called the station and was told the guy had left for the day, so we waited. And waited some more.

We had a shot or two with some coffee, as we watched the afternoon rain come into the Bay. It was beautiful. There wasn’t anybody else in the lounge except for this old black man mopping and cleaning up behind the bar. About 2:30 I had to leave with the band for sound check at the concert site. I gave up on our interview, but Tom T. said he’d stay just in case the guy showed.

We did the gig and the band drove back to Nashville on our tour bus, right after the show. Tom T. flew back to Nashville on an early flight because he had to record the next day with Jerry Kennedy.

The day after that, as the band was unloading stuff at the office on Edmondson Pike, Tom T. hollered at me, "Come inside 'fore you leave; I want to play you what we did today." I finished unloading and went into T’s office. He was there with his cigarette stuck up in the air, which he manipulated with his teeth. His feet were up on his desk, and he smiled as I came in.

He never said a word, as he turned on his reel-to-reel tape player. There in that little office, we both had the same visuals as the tape played.....

 

I was sittin' in Miami

pouring blended whiskey down,

while this old gray black gentleman

was cleaning up the lounge ...

 

When the record came out and became so incredibly successful, it occurred to me that tracking down the subject of the song would be no problem -- we knew the hotel, a description of the old man, and the day we were there would surely connect us through management. So I asked Tom T. what he thought about getting a picture of the old man. I got the impression he had not thought of it because he was slow to answer and gave it a lot of consideration. "Nawh," he eventually decided, "We don't want to disrupt anybody's life."

Yes, my friend Tom T. Hall taught me a lot of things which led to some incredible adventures. Mostly, I think, he taught me to dream big. (Philippians 4:13)

 

 

"In The Beginning ..."

But There's No End Yet

When Sam Wellington finished writing "In The Beginning ... There Was The Men's Room," he thought he had the conclusive history of the Fabulous Four Guys. However, yet another incarnation is active on a limited basis; meanwhile, the history is one of commercial music's more amazing stories. We'll do more soon, but folks who care how things work (or don't work) will want to read this book. Click on authorhouse.com, then "bookstore" and type in Sam Wellington.

 

New Hollow Spots

Snuffy Miller

One of the great characters in a community built on great characters, I, like many folks, first met Snuff when he was the drummer in the initial incarnation of Bill Anderson's Po' Boys band. However, he was later known in wider circles as Jerry Clower's producer. Few of us knew, however, where the nickname came from until a poignant tribute written by Bill Anderson made the country music rounds via email and the Internet: back when the band was traveling by car, Snuffy was a nervous backseat driver and would announce, "Watch out, Hey you're gonna snuff us all out!!" "So I started calling him 'Snuffy," Bill recalls. "And nobody ever called him anything else."

Bruce Hurt

Bruce owned COUNTRY-HOTLINE NEWS back in the '70s and 80s, working with editor Vernell Hackett. That same team went on to found AMERICAN SONGWRITER, which Vernell stayed with until an ownership change in the past couple of years, Jim Sharp bought Bruce's interest a good many years ago. Bruce had been living in Nashville.

Denny Nelson

I didn't know Denny, but Jeannie Seely was identified in the obituary as his love, which says a lot to me, as she is unquestionably someone I love dearly. A lot of people had a lot to say about Denny at the funeral, but my favorite quote came in a conversation with Gary Leverett: "Stagehands are the bottom of the food chain; I’ve noticed that people who are kind to stagehands are generally kind to everybody. There was nothing I could do for Denny, but he was always kind and friendly to me at the Opry; I think that says a lot about him."

One other observation from the funeral: Helen Cornelius and Dawn Sears did a duet of "Farther Along," accompanied by Tim Atwood and Kenny Sears, that was incredibly emotional. The church was full, so a lot of people got to hear it, but I'm really sorry the rest of y'all missed it.

Michael DeBakey, MD 1908 - 2008

The TENNESSEAN reported Dr. DeBakey's passing and his astounding life of discovery and leadership in medical science -- he invented the Medical Army Surgical Hospital concept, he performed the first heart bypass surgery, he helped develop the heart/lung machine routinely used in cardiovascular surgery, he ... well, the list is long. A writer friend in Houston, Michelle Scofield, posted this tribute on the TIBU website, and we're honored to share it with you:

On October 16, 2003, I was issued two starched lab coats with my name embroidered in dark blue over the left breast pocket. More importantly to me, the coats identified me as a member of the DeBakey Heart Center team at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. I wore my coats with pride and wondered how long it would take me to meet the man, the legend, Dr. Michael DeBakey.

It didn’t take long. Dr. DeBakey was quite involved in the surgery center and still accepting patients on his service in 2003. One morning I pulled up my walk-list on the computer and among the attending physicians listed was the man himself. I remember how my heart raced, and I remember telling my colleagues that I had a DeBakey patient. I was treated to a generous portion of friendly teasing and warnings to mind my p’s and q’s, that I better not screw this up because my career might depend on it.

As it turned out, he was much easier to work with than his reputation would have one believe. All I needed to do was make sure that everything was exactly as it should be. That’s all. It’s not always easy to do with heart surgery patients, but that was my job, after all.

He had a way of materializing like a specter, rising out of thin air and looking over my shoulder to glance at a chart when I was on the floor. He wouldn’t say anything, he’d just keep on going after reading a few lines. He was treated like a superstar when he was recognized, and I think it embarrassed him a little. He seemed to be more comfortable just checking in on how things were running, then making a hasty exit.

He had devoted nurses who protected his time and energy. They knew his schedule and made sure that nothing interfered with it. They also made it their business to know everyone on his team and how to reach them. I think they would eat fire for him, I really do. They were always within earshot when he was around. They got to work before he arrived and went home after he left.

I’ve said before that I never intended to be a surgery girl. I don’t pick up a pair of DeBakey forceps without thinking of him. I don’t engage in a discussion about heart bypass, left ventricular pumps, or carotid endartorectomy without thinking of his contribution to the discipline of vascular surgery. I was trained by one of his most accomplished students, and my understanding of aortic dissection is directly related to my time at DeBakey Heart.

Dr. DeBakey died at the Methodist Hospital on July 11, 2008. We will not forget him. I think I may pull out my lab coats and wear them in his honor this week. I am proud to say that I was part of his team.

 

 

The Meaning of Life

by Kathy Louvin

Bill's note: for those who may not know, Kathy's birth father was Ira Louvin. This is reprinted from her MySpace blog.

The Bible says for everything there is a season. When I realize it’s been since February that I’ve felt it good and necessary to share my experiences and other parts of my life in this forum, I get concerned. I think my brain has different seasons. Or maybe it’s my mind. Are the brain and mind the same? My brain definitely has a mind of its own.

I was reading in Ecclesiastes this morning. The Bible is the best companion of insomnia. For me anyway. The great thing about Ecc is just the frankness of Solomon as he says, ‘Hey, I’ve been, done, had, bought, sold, used, tasted, or otherwise experienced everything there is to do on this big blue ball and there ain’t nothing new under the sun, folks. So the best you can do is to stop trying to find the meaning of life. Life just IS. ok? Life is God’s good gift to us to be enjoyed responsibly, not a puzzle to be figured out. So just STOP!?'

I mean look at the second verse in the very first chapter..."everything is meaningless...utterly meaningless!" And goes on to say history repeats itself and so on.

I think the point he was trying to make is, he had tried everything. This was a frustrated man. And he had more resources than any other human on the planet at the time. And the answer, to everything, every time, was God. Just turning it over to God.

A lot has happened in my life since February. Not surprisingly, my most recent life experience has to do with my fathers. All three of them. You may remember a previous blog about the death of my stepfather, Benny Williams, back in October of ’07. A tremendous experience in itself, the story goes on and on. Because of the large funeral and burial expenses, there remains an outstanding balance that my depleted purse cannot handle.

Enter Tom Morgan, Bluegrass Mag's Renaissance Man, and lifelong pal of Benny’s. Tom and his partner Lynn graciously performed at the funeral and graveside service, and we had kept in touch since then. When he learned of the unpaid bill, he took it upon himself as his personal mission to get this taken care of. He launched a fundraising campaign that has resulted in radio spots, newspaper articles, CD and DVD sales, personal donations and an old-fashioned mountain community benefit auction, cakewalk and show on June 14, in Walden’s Ridge, Tennessee. It was a day of fun, friends, old and new, fellowship, hand-dipped corndogs and onion rings, homemade lemonade, and cakes of every form and fashion, baked by the senior ladies of the mountain, memories, both good and painful, and love.

Just plain old-fashioned love. But one of the things I experienced was this: I got to know my fathers in a very different way. See, my birth father, my stepfather, and my Heavenly father were all three represented there that day. There were as many people who knew and had stories about my birth father as did my stepfather.

Both men had come from the poverty of the Appalachian mountains to rise to fame and fortune, and both had many similar characteristics, both good and bad. Unfortunately, as it so often is, the bad outweighs the good in my memory banks. Not by choice, just one of those things. So I left there that day knowing these men as young boys, growing up the best they could in the hills, one in Alabama, one in Tennessee, all the hardship they had to endure, their fears, and their strengths, and just seeing them not as the monsters they sometimes were, but as God’s children, innocent victims of a cruel world that seldom showed them any mercy.

I also got to see folks who normally don’t speak, and would never enter the same county together, gather for the celebration of Benny’s life and to give of themselves and their pocketbooks unselfishly. So deep is the division of some of the family members, that trouble was expected. I’m so grateful to God He showed up and heard our prayer of peace, and I’m so grateful to Tom for that day and everything he does and is. Most recently, he got the IBMA involved, and I’m pretty sure this bill will go away soon. God bless you, Tom Morgan.

But back to the point, what is the point? Oh yeah, the meaning of life. The meaning of life is love. Just love. Jesus said, love one another. And if you think about it, if we all just did that one thing, how many other problems would that solve?

 

A Pertinent Quote

At 17, my world, metaphorically speaking, was the size of a basketball. At 26 and a couple of years into being sober, my world was the size of the City of Los Angeles. At nearly 45, my world is longer, farther, and wider than my senses can contain or comprehend in a lifetime.

At 17, I thought I knew everything, and I was right; I knew the basketball inside and out. At 26, I knew the city very well, and could get around almost anything, anywhere, anytime.

At 45, I’ve lived half my life, paid some attention along the way, and now understand that the world is amazing and maddening and wondrous and cruel all at once, a constant stream of change and learning.

Big difference from a basketball.

Heather Leavitt

 

Remainder Of The R.O.P.E. Calendar For The Year

The next Sunday Social for the Reunion of Professional Entertainers will be August 12 at John A's, a good opportunity for prospective members to take a look at the organization. A slot on your calendar for October 9 is also a good idea -- The R.O.P.E. Banquet and Awards event, enhanced this year by a John Hughey tribute appearance by the Time Jumpers and some pretty danged special friends. Email Leslie Elliott at lacyann@bellsouth.net for info.

 

A Purple Crayon Masterpiece

The memory of that day came back to me this morning, randomly, and I’m not entirely sure why. Her tiny face snuck its way into focus in my mind’s eye. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a childlike grin. She was five, in her first week of kindergarten.

I happened to be in the classroom assisting that day. As the all-too-vivid memory came rushing back, I recalled the teacher instructing the eager-to-learn faces that they were going to be doing self portraits to display on the hallway bulletin board outside of their classroom for the upcoming parents night. The chatter lulled to an active hum as tiny fingers sorted through buckets of crayons to create their self portraits.

I watched as she chattered cheerfully in between diligently working on the details of her masterpiece, her eyes intently focused as she bit on her bottom lip to concentrate fully.

After about a half an hour, she returned her crayons to their bucket and headed towards the teacher’s desk to share her work with nothing short of triumph in her step.

I was within earshot as I heard her announce "I’m finished!" as she turned her picture around to face her teacher for approval.

My heart sank as I saw the teacher’s eyes narrow and turn dark. With a scowl on her face she replied "You don’t have purple hair! This is all wrong, and you’ll have to start all over again."

With one delft move, she snatched the picture from the tiny hands of its artist and ripped it up in front of her eyes before tossing it into the garbage can and handing her another blank sheet of paper.

Dejection replaced the innocence in her tiny face in less than a heartbeat, as her endless creative energy was shoved into the cold, rigid box of social expectations.

I had witnessed a heartbreak, and I could hear it in my own heart as it shattered into a million pieces. The echo of that moment, for some reason, rippled its way into my brain all these many years later.

I sit and wonder what would have happened had her purple haired portrait been embraced, celebrated and displayed with pride on the wall for all to see.

K.M. Rockdale

 

Feedback

Bill, maybe you were being prudent in not mentioning the book title (A Guitar And A Pen) or its deceptive chief editor (Robert Hicks) in your lead Bridgeworks article this month. But having been gulled by the book’s publicity machine, I’ve since done all I can to expose this villainy, warning Davis Kidd before the book signing and alerting the book-publishing trades. Below is a blog I ran on CMT.com May 1 that may give you some background. Thanks for spotlighting it.

Ed Morris

It Wasn’t Hazel’s Story After All

Edward Morris

Last week I gushed over a book of fictional stories and "true" recollections by country songwriters called A Guitar And A Pen. I was particularly effusive about the tale of Bill Monroe’s encounter with Frank Sinatra at the White House, which the book—and I, in turn—identified as having been written by CMT.com’s Hazel Smith. Hazel just told me that while the core of the story is true, she didn’t write it. Nor did she accompany Monroe on the trip to Washington, as the story says. These substantial departures from fact call into question all the other pieces presented as real happenings.

I first read of the Monroe-Sinatra meeting in 2000 in Richard D. Smith’s Can’t You Hear Me Callin’: The Life of Bill Monroe. In that telling, the person accompanying Monroe to the White House was his booking agent, Tony Conway. Hazel assures me that Conway should have gotten credit for the story and that she should have been left out, even though she did have a long and close friendship with Monroe.

I used to teach literary criticism to college students, so I can deal with the elasticity of imaginative fiction. But it distresses me when real people and real events are joined in such a way that renders them fictional but labels them true.

In an e-mail to me, co-editor Robert Hicks explains the deceptions thusly: "First of all, it is simply one of the best ‘tales’ any of us have ever heard to come out of Nashville. It has always seemed to be the great urban myth of the music industry....Secondly, it was very important to me, given her often unsung role in so much of the industry’s history, that Hazel be in the mix." So truth doesn’t matter?

 

A Trek From Austin To Nashville

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008, Day Two

by Doug Lang

I am in New Orleans, not far from Lake Pontchartrain, skim-walkin’ next the high glide of the licorice stick, cornet echoes of a collective improvisation down Rampart, through the Gates of Mercy, a feeling here that still gives life to old bones. I’m in the land of the voodoo, the haunting, the mystery, sleepy-eyed realm of the code noir, where Madame Olivia does the oyster dance and businessmen prowl Bourbon Street, holding beercans and cellphones.

Great collisions, past and present, the future tentative but now’s the time, two kids tapdancing Bojangles' memory into the uneven stone sidewalk while plucked chickens sleep off the heat on rooftops littered with jewelry left behind when Katrina struck.

Pages of the Times-Picayune blow down St. Louis, old women fan themselves on balconies in the Quarter, a wide smile mulatto girl on a bicycle rides by yellin’ "Homemade pies here! Pies to buy! fresh from the oven!" and you can smell the crawfish and catfish from Creole and Cajun kitchens as you move past Toulouse Street into the thick-as-honey sun, Fats Domino redone by Doctor John on a juke that drifts music like a windblown clothesline blouse from Pat O’Brien’s courtyard.

Here’s Liberty Street, where a hundred years ago Charles ‘King’ Buddy Bolden went mad in a marching band parade, stepped free of the military rhythms to blow a different song, a free song, the first improvisation, some say, kept dancing in among the people, burnished cornet held high as he played. He finally fell into the arms of his many lovers, collapsed unconscious, knocked out by the music, Mahogany Hall Stomp, all night long as kids listened through knotholes in fences and women danced with their colours flying up around them. The horn was stuck to his mouth with dried blood -- they had to moisten his lips to pry it free. Bolden spent
the rest of his life, some thirty years, in the Louisiana State Mental Asylum, last evidence of his genius being the mouthpiece he fingered in the pocket of his hospital smock.

Oh, yes, the Gates...they’re still open for those who go inside the music. I walked through them today, and you were there, friends, defiant souls were there, the calliope singers, the great spirits of jazz and blues, Mardi Gras dancers, the Canal Street trolley, the Algiers ferry, the ghost of John Hartford clogging, singing, "I thought I heard that Natchez whistle blow", and all the rest of us who stepped out of formation to play the music our hearts feel... we all went mad in the spell of it.

Music, music... it is the healing force of the universe, the bee charmer of sentient souls, the key to the gate -- it is the steady hand that holds the "very cup of trembling."

 

Doug's Last Day In Nashville

Doug Lang and Jonmark Stone, with a surprise opening set by Krista Detor, marked a magic evening July 12 at the Hillbilly Haiku House Concert series, hosted by Rick and Denise Williams. An appropriate review would entail many more pages than we have; all three performers can be heard on their respective MySpace profiles, and their music really does speak for itself. Hillbilly Haiku House Concert is also on MySpace, with info on how Denise can let you know what's coming up and how you can honor yourself by being there.