THE FAMILY OF COUNTRY MUSIC
The common thread that runs through the Country Music family is the simple lifestyle that most of us were raised in, and the basic goodness at the heart of most of them, and the heartfelt love of the music. The folks we think of as "stars" are just regular people that have a unique gift of expressing what all of us have experienced some time in our lives....in their music.
I love the story that Little Jimmy Dickens told me about the time, in the 1940’s, when after his first hit record he couldn’t wait to travel back to the hills of West Virginia to show his Grandma and Pap his new Cadillac Limousine. He got the car down the gravel road, and through the woods and pulled up in front of the old house. Inside, in the kitchen, Ma was fixin’ up some eggs and ham and Jimmy was talking to her, when he glanced outside the window and saw Pap "steppin’ off" the Cadillac to see how long it was. Jimmy went outside and Pap said "Jim, what kind of car is she?" Well, Jimmy knew that Pap thought the only good car ever made was a Buick....so he replied, "She’s a Buick, Pap". Pap just smiled, shifted the chaw of tobacco around in his mouth and said, "Wouldn’t you know." Later, Jimmy took Pap for a ride to town and Pap sat in the back seat while Jimmy drove. Jimmy was watching Pap in the rear view mirror and noticed that Pap’s chaw of tobacco was getting mighty moist, in fact it was starting to run out the corner of his mouth as he was trying to figure out how to roll down the back window’s, after all electric windows had not made it into that part of West Virginia. Finally Pap hollered, "Jimmy, how you get this window to roll down?" Jimmy answered,"Just point your finger at it," watching in the mirror as Pap pointed his finger at the window, at which time Jimmy hit the electric window button on the driver’s side that controls the back seat windows.....Pap spit brown tobacco juice all down the side of Jimmy’s new Cadillac limousine. This went on all day as they drove around the area, showing off Jimmy’s new car.....Pap pointing his finger at the window, and Jimmy rolling it down. When Jimmy finally told him, Pap made Jimmy swear he wouldn’t tell anyone because he was afraid the people in the white coats would come and pick him up.
One time, in the late 50’s Bill Anderson and Roger Miller were so hard up for cash that they drove all the way from Nashville to Atlanta in the middle of the night just to get Bill’s Mother to do their dirty laundry.....saving them quarters at the laundromat. Don’t you know that was something to wake up to, but Mama’s always understand. I wonder how you wash rhinestone underwear?
Tom T. Hall says that growing up in Kentucky his family didn’t even know they were poor until they read about it in the Saturday Evening Post. It was a real disappointment. He also says that he was too young to go to the Korean War like the rest of the young men in his town, so he took a job at the local radio station when he was 15, and one of his jobs was reading the news. The first week he ripped off the Teletype news copy and sat down in front of the mike. "In England today Winston Churchill was diagnosed with the .....(he stared down at the copy at the word he had never heard of: Ptomaine Poisoning).......with the FLU." After the newscast the station manager came in and said, "I thought Churchill had Ptomaine Poisoning." "Oh, he does", replied Tom T., "but he’s also got a small case of the flu." No wonder he turned out to be a wordsmith.
Yes, the years when the Stars traveled in sedans and station wagons, strapping the dog house bass on top of the car roof.....moving it inside when it was raining....trying to catch a few minutes of sleep sitting four to the backseat and three in the front....hardly ever stopping for a Motel, shoot, who could afford it. One time I was on my way down to Florida to play a gig and I stopped at a truck stop to get some coffee and get rid of some and when I walked into the men’s room an entire road show of Nashville musicians were trying to clean up in the sinks, and change into their stage outfits for a show on down the road. Yep, I only do this for a living ‘cause it’s so glamorous.
Ferlin Husky told me about his big trip to California from the farm he grew up on near Flat River, Missouri. He was just about 18-19 years old and he talked some of his musical buddies into heading for California to make it big in Entertainment. They throwed what little they had, along with their instruments, into a couple of 1930’s automobiles and headed out on the two lane road that would take them West…Highway 66. Course, since none of them had any money to speak of that .19 cents a gallon gas soon eat up their finances. They would stop, wherever they were, and work picking apples, peaches, strawberries or throwing bales of hay up in some haymow to make enough money to get another 100 miles. Occasionally they would find someone that would let them play their music and make a few dollars. They did make it to California, finally, and after a few days the other boys headed back to Missouri. Ferliin stayed on and joined the Merchant Marine for a 5 year period during World War II, playing his music for the troops wherever he was before getting back to a civilian life of music and finally recording “A Dear John Letter” with Jean Shepard which made both of them stars with a number one record. The heroes of our music followed many different roads but not many of them were easy.
Most anyone who lived the life of a musician in the sixties will always say, "Yeah, buddy, those were the days alright...the days when the music business was like a family, when something new was always coming down the pike and the excitement level was just unbelievable....Uh-huh son, those were the days." Well, if that sounds like something any old man would say when looking back to his youth, maybe that explains it......but, y’know I believe there really was something special going on in those early years. I sometimes dig through my record collection (yeah, records, you remember those little round black pieces of vinyl that had music on them.....before CD’s?) anyway, I listen to the music of the sixties and realize we really were making it up as we went along....playing it from the heart....inventing new licks, new ways to phrase a word, to bend your voice a different way for emotional effect. They were good years, with good people leading the charge, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. Yeah, I sure miss those days.
The great musical ride of the sixties was over, but what memories it left those who had lived it, loved it and survived it. The next generation had a heck of an act to follow.
-Stan
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