43 years ago I first moved to Sumner County, after living in other areas of Middle Tennessee since 1962, when I first moved from Springfield, MO to Nashville, with a ’54 J-45 Gibson, a 1959 DeSoto, 5 pair of socks, 6 changes of underwear, 4 pair of Levi’s, 6 shirts, a couple of jackets, my pair of Tony Lama boots, one pair of tennis shoes, a small bag of personal care supplies….and a wide eyed wonder at the prospect of making a life as a country music singer of sad songs. I figured I had all I needed in that list of personal possessions. I had my guitar, my ride, my stage outfit and my tooth brush…who needed anything else?
It seems as time goes by, we complicate our existence with “things”. I look at that list of “net worth” that I owned in 1962, and the simple truth is…that was enough for the time and place. I search my memory for what I must have been feeling as I embarked on a music career…was it fear of the unknown? Was it just blind excitement? No, what I remember seems to be….hunger. I rationed myself to a pretty small amount of food each day, because the big bucks did not exactly roll in. I probably made less than $8,000 that first year in Nashville…but, who cared? I was singing and getting started on this new life, and something like being hungry all the time was not gonna stop me. I had just left a work of faith, at the Boys Ranch, working for three years with no pay at all, so making money was not exactly a driving force in my life. Before that I had four years in the Navy, so there was no savings to tide me over, but none of that mattered, I had been raised to believe that I could accomplish about anything that I set my mind to, and I still feel that way today.
And that is how it was when an Ozark boy came home to Tennessee, 51 years ago, with his DeSoto full of the essentials of a new life. And when I got here, I found a core of new arrivals that were in the same financial shape I was in, living in small rooms around Music Row, 5 to 8 people, sleeping on floors, hungry as I was, but starting out in this thing called “music biz” with calm dedication. Glenn Sutton, when he got here, lived in his car for awhile, parked in a parking lot behind the music offices of Music Row. At least, when I got here, I had a couch to sleep on at Jimmy Gateley’s house, and then a real bed at Mom Upchurch’s boarding house for pickers.
Maybe that attitude of stripped down to the nubbin’ style of living had something to do with the sounds we were all making, writing songs, learning new licks, sitting around in those smoky rooms passing a guitar around, openly sharing our songs and ideas for songs together in groups that were made up of future icons of music that had the melodies just pouring out of them in a rush of creativity.
And those that were already here, who had established themselves and were making a good living at it, they opened their arms, their couches, sprung for some good food, encouraged us and accepted us into their worlds. And as we went into the studio to sing our songs, they put every bit of talent and creativity that they had behind us, lifting us to musical heights we didn’t even know we could reach.
So, I reckon a clean pair of Levi’s, a clean, ironed shirt, and a pair of Tony Lama’s, behind a J-45 Gibson was pretty rich, and that was how I felt as I stood at a microphone to sing songs that were my own, not just sing along’s of other artists music. 51 years of lifetime ago.
stan
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