In 2012, Alan Jackson released a new single, "You Don't Have to Love Me Anymore," penned by songwriters Jay Knowles and Adam Wright. The knockout line for most folks was "I'll be the S. O. B." in the first verse.
This great song was included on Jackson's album Thirty Miles West that same year.
IMHOP there are at least three kinds of S. O. B. -- (1) the person who consistently by his deeds and words is a true S. O. B., (2) the person who makes a stupid mistake that hurts someone or a group, and (3) the person who deliberately plays the role of S. O. B. to get something done.
(1) First, there's the real, authentic S. O. B. Most of us have known a few. They might be in our family or maybe we worked for them or with them. But they're pretty good at disguises and deception so some of them go into politics. :-) I don't think I personally belong in this category (although I know a few people who might disagree).
(2) As for category 2, I guess most of us have done or said something stupid a few times in our lives. I know I have, and I still remember and regret those times today. I've made some mistakes, said some stupid things that hurt someone. I can't go back and erase those things, all I can do now is accept my mistake and hope for forgiveness.
(3) At other times a person plays the role of S. O. B. in order to do a job. I'm thinking for example of the executive or administrator who because of circumstances has to fire someone, or of the military TI who has to discipline a recruit, etc. I've been in this category at least a couple of times, but it was over fifteen years ago, so the statue of limitations has probably run out.
The narrator in Jackson's song fits in this category as well. He's willing to play the S. O. B. role if it will make his lady's life easier after their breakup. The Knowles/Wright lyric is simple and unadorned, but emotionally -- very powerful. To illustrate, here's that first verse:
I'll be the bad guy, I'll take the black eye, When I walk out, You can slam the door, I'll be the S.O.B, If that's what you need from me, So you don't have to love me anymore.
This great song has it all. A son of a bitch (at least a guy willing to play that role), a breakup, a broken heart, a sacrifice, a sense of regret...the very life blood of country music. And then there's the great singer who brought all that emotion to life -- Alan Jackson. All that makes it a top 100 country song in my book.
The narrator in Kristofferson's talking blues song, "To Beat the Devil," says,
It was winter time in Nashville, down on Music City row,
And I was lookin' for a place to get myself out of the cold.
He says, "It'd been a month of paydays" since he's been paid and his "hungry needed beans." He steps inside a tavern and begins a conversation with an old man in a bar who tells him that songwriter poets' lead a "tough life" and asks the narrator, why waste your time speaking the truth to people who don't listen.
The narrator recognizes that this is the devil he's talking to and that "the devil haunts a hungry man."
So, in the end, the songwriter narrator doesn't claim to have "beat the devil," but he "drank his beer for nothing./ Then I stole his song." In other words, instead of giving in to the devil because he's hungry, he makes poetry out of it.
Listening to this song again recently reminded me of a poem by Jonathan Swift, the Anglo-Irish writer best known for Gulliver's Travels. In "The Progress of Poetry," Swift says pretty much the same thing Kristofferson says. He compares the poet to a goose who when fat "with corn and sitting still," can't "get o'er the barn-door sill," but when forced to look for food and exercise will eventually grow "lank and spare" which will enable her to successfully try "her wings" and take flight.
Both poets indicate that poetry is born from hunger and suffering and that success and riches might work against its creation. This explains why a successful songwriter's earliest work might be much better than that which comes after he's achieved success and has grown fat "with corn and sitting still."
The Progress of Poetry
The farmer's goose, who in the stubble
Has fed without restraint or trouble,
Grown fat with corn and sitting still,
Can scarce get o'er the barn-door sill;
And hardly waddles forth to cool
Her belly in the neighbouring pool!
Nor loudly cackles at the door;
For cackling shows the goose is poor.
But, when she must be turn'd to graze,
And round the barren common strays,
Hard exercise, and harder fare,
Soon make my dame grow lank and spare;
Her body light, she tries her wings,
And scorns the ground, and upward springs;
While all the parish, as she flies,
Hear sounds harmonious from the skies.
Such is the poet fresh in pay,
The third night's profits of his play;
His morning draughts till noon can swill,
Among his brethren of the quill:
With good roast beef his belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull,
Deep sunk in plenty and delight,
What poet e'er could take his flight?
Or, stuff'd with phlegm up to the throat,
What poet e'er could sing a note?
Nor Pegasus could bear the load
Along the high celestial road;
The steed, oppress'd, would break his girth,
To raise the lumber from the earth.
But view him in another scene,
When all his drink is Hippocrene,
His money spent, his patrons fail,
His credit out for cheese and ale;
His two-years coat so smooth and bare,
Through every thread it lets in air;
With hungry meals his body pined,
His guts and belly full of wind;
And, like a jockey for a race,
His flesh brought down to flying case:
Now his exalted spirit loathes
Encumbrances of food and clothes;
And up he rises like a vapour,
Supported high on wings of paper.
He singing flies, and flying sings,
While from below all Grub-Street rings.
Nashville, TN. October 3, 2015. There's poetry in Music City. Writer Dan Jewell’s collection of poems, A Nashville Woman and Other Sorrows,received the highest award given in the love/romance poetry category of the international 2015 Readers Favorite competition. This year’s contest was the largest ever with thousands of entries ranging from indie authors to NYT bestsellers and authors.
Jewell’s poems tell the story of a Nashville songwriter whose life spirals downward after he loses the woman he loves. The collection also includes poems and songs about rejection, writer’s block, pickup trucks, Taylor Swift, cowboys, and the struggles of the dreamers who come to Nashville seeking fame and fortune. Readers Favorite Reviewer Lorelai Rivers gives the book a five star rating and says, “These poems ring true, as though author Dan Jewell has first-hand experience of the hope and heartbreak of being a working or non-working, musician/songwriter.”
Jewell says that some of the poems and songs were written over thirty-five years ago. “I was born in Nashville, so songwriting was in the very air I breathed every day. It was only natural that I would try my hand at it. My wife and I cut a demo of some of my songs once in the old Woodland Studio, a legendary place where artists like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Shania Twain once recorded.”
But, like most of the other dreamers in Nashville, Jewell says his songs went nowhere. “This collection of poems is about those women and men as much as anything, the ones who come here and struggle but keep at it, and the others who don’t make it in music but end up making a life for themselves instead. We know more than we want to know about all the ones who make it big. It’s the others I write for.”
Music fans, aspiring songwriters and performers, and anyone whose dreams didn’t quite materialize will enjoy this provocative book. More information about the book and the author can be found on the website http://www.musiccitypoetry.com/. A Nashville Woman & Other Sorrows is available as an eBook on Kindle and Nook, and in paperback (68 pages) on amazon.com.
Many country music songs are poetry in the oldest and most traditional sense. But there's also poetry in the struggles of those who make the music, in the beautiful city of Nashville itself, and in the hearts and souls of those anonymous dreamers who arrive here daily seeking success in the industry.
A Nashville Woman and Other Sorrowsis a book of poems, over thirty-five years in the making, which recently received the highest award given in the love/romance category of the 2015 International Readers Favorite contest.
These simply worded, mostly narrative poems describe the experiences of a Nashville songwriter and musician whose life spirals downward after he loses the woman he loves. He stops for awhile in a mental place he refers to as The Catatonic Hotel before he eventually finds his way back to writing and living again.
Other poems in the collection tell the stories of those involved in the day to day struggles of those trying to make it in the music business and others who come to Music City filled with hope and dreams but end up marginalized, desperately hanging on the edges of the bright, glittering life they aspire to.
Readers Favorite Reviewer Lorelai Rivers gives the book a five star rating and says, “These poems ring true, as though author Dan Jewell has first-hand experience of the hope and heartbreak of being a working or non-working, musician/songwriter…These snippets of life, feelings, moments, scenes, and snapshots read to me like an epic song put together with the best book openings and chapter closings from every great novel never yet written.”
Another Readers Favorite Reviewer, Jack Magnus, says, “Jewell’s words are spare and eloquent, conveying worlds within a few well-placed words. While suffused with melancholy and loss, these poems also hint at redemption.”
People live, people die. It's an inescapable fact of human existence.
If people are famous when they die, the world takes notice.
If they're famous and they die with other famous people in the same incident or at the same time, their death can become a kind of historical marker for a shift in the direction or substance of culture.
The history of pop and rock music was significantly altered in February of 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and their pilot Roger Peterson were all killed in a small plane crash in Iowa. This event was immortalized in Don McLean's "American Pie" in 1971 as "The Day the Music Died."
Four years later, on March 5, 1963, the landscape of country music and pop music was abruptly changed as well when Lloyd Estel "Cowboy" Copas, Patsy Cline, Harold Franklin "Hawkshaw" Hawkins, and pilot Randy Hughes, who was Cline's manager and Copas' son-in-law, were killed in a plane crash near Dyersburg, Tennessee.
In years to come, Patsy Cline's legend grew, but at the time of the crash, most people in country music and its fans as well would have said Cowboy Copas was the bigger star of the three. His first big hit was in 1946 with "Filipino Baby," and he had a string of others on into the early '50s including "Signed, Sealed, and Delivered," and "'Tis So Sweet to be Remembered." Then his career went South for a few years until 1960 when his biggest hit ever, "Alabam," reached the top of the charts and stayed at No. 1 for three months. Copas was an excellent guitar player and he demonstrates his fast thumb picking style in this video of "Alabam."
Patsy Cline was a recognized and honored star in country music at the time of her death in '63, but since that time her legend has grown. The re release of her great records, the successful stage plays about her life, and the movies and TV shows about her have made her the most famous of the four who died that stormy night back in '63.
In the years before she died, Cline bought her dream home in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, which is part of the Metro Nashville area. Several stars from that era made their homes in Goodlettsville and neighboring Hendersonville; today's stars seem to prefer the much more upscale area in Williamson county.
Here's Patsy Cline's last recorded song, "I'll Sail My Ship Alone." This is a nice video with lots of candid shots of Cline.
The third country star who died that fateful night was Virginia native, Hawkshaw Hawkins. Although he began his career back in the late '40s, Hawkins had only just begun to achieve the kind of success that would have more than likely propelled him to a star status comparable to that of Cline and Copas at the time.
Wiki says that
He gained his nickname as a boy after helping a neighbor track down two missing fishing rods: the neighbor dubbed him "Hawkshaw" after the title character in the comic strip, Hawkshaw the Detective. He traded five trapped rabbits for his first guitar, and first performed on WCMI-AM in Ashland, Kentucky. At 16, he won a talent competition and a job on WSAZ-AM in Huntington, where he formed Hawkshaw and Sherlock with Clarence Jack.
The 6'5" Hawkins served in WWII and won four battle stars at the Battle of the Bulge. His first two recordings with King Records in the later '40s were "Pan American" and "Doghouse Boogie." Both were top ten country hits.
He continued to record through the '50s but didn't have a hit until he recorded "Lonesome 7-7203" in 1962. The song didn't appear on the charts until March 2, 1963, three days before his death. By March 23, the song had reached No. 1 status and it remained in that position for twenty five weeks.
Randy Hughes, pilot of ill fated Piper Comanche, was a studio guitarist and Cline's manager. He signed on with her in 1959 and was instrumental in getting her to change labels; she went from Four Star to Decca. Because of this change Hughes was able to get her records produced by "legendary female-singer country music producer" Owen Bradley. Bradley was a proponent of the more lushly produced "Nashville Sound" which Cline initially feared. But he and Hughes eventually persuaded her to accept this style change which led her to greater success with "I Fall to Pieces" and "Crazy."
Most country stars of the time toured in car caravans or in buses. But Hughes, who had hopes of managing several stars, felt the Comanche would be a more convenient way for his clients to travel. The weather was bad that Tuesday when he and his three traveling companions took off from the Kansas City airport. They stopped once in Missouri to refuel and then made it as far as Dyersburg, Tennessee, where they landed at 4:30 p.m. Hughes was not instrument rated and the owners of the Dyersburg airport urged him to wait till morning when the weather was supposed to improve. But Hughes, Cline, Copas, and Hawkins were all tired and wanted to get back to Nashville which was just 170 miles away. So, they took off into the stormy night.
The wreckage of the plane was found in a forest in Camden, Tennessee, roughly 90 miles from Nashville.
Kathy Hughes, Randy's wife, faced a double tragedy that day; she lost both her husband and her father, Cowboy Copas, in the crash.
The contributions these stars might have made had they not been killed that night in March fifty years ago are obviously unknown, but judging from their prior accomplishments, it's my opinion that whatever they might have done had they lived would have altered the shape, culture, and direction of country music.
I know there's a big snow slamming into the midwest today and the Chicago Tribune says the Windy City will get up to ten inches.
Winter in Tennessee, however, usually means rain.
The last couple of days have been sunny, but, as I said, it's winter and it's Tennessee, so the rain is coming...in about an hour actually. From midnight tonight and all day Tuesday, the cold rain will be falling.
Be patient with me now, I'm fixin' to ramble a bit.
That weather forecast started me thinking about rain songs and wondering how many of those water soaked lyrics have been written over the years. I'm not talking here about using the word "rain" in a line or two, I'm talking about rain all through the song, or a verse, or, at least, as a major motif or theme or image.
There have been lots of them. Many memorable ones. All of those on the list below except the last two popped into my head as I was writing. I suspect Goggling would turn up quite a few more. You who are reading this right now are probably thinking of a couple I didn't mention.
Singin' in the Rain
Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
In the Early Mornin' Rain
Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
Kentucky Rain
I Love a Rainy Night
Listen to the Rain
November Rain
Rain
Rain falls in Bluegrass Music too. Some of the truly classic bluegrass songs have used rain as a major theme.
This first song is my favorite country/bluegrass song. Really I suppose it's my favorite song period. "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight." It was written by the great Johnny Bond, but it's become a part of our family's history, part of my history.
I remember those Christmases in the '70s when Joyce's whole family (all six siblings and their kids) would come home to her parents' house. Her younger brother Mark was in his late teens and early 20s then and had learned to play the guitar. We practiced a couple of songs over and over and almost drove the other family members crazy. One of the songs was CCR's "Lodi" (for a future post) and the other was "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight." Mark and I would sing and sometimes Joyce would join it harmonizing. We had such great fun doing that. Great fun. Even though it was usually raining outside, we had a roaring fire and there was cake and pie and coffee. And music. Lots of music.
Mark's gone now, he passed away unexpectedly in 1999 in his forties. But I still remember those great times and our duets on "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight." If there is heaven and a Deity, especially One who digs old bluegrass songs, I know where Mark is tonight.
I enjoy "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight" so much I'm posting two versions of it. The first is in the true up tempo bluegrass style and it's sung by a great group called the Cluster Pluckers. They've been around since the early '80s, and three original members of the group are still playing: Margaret Bailey, Kris Ballinger, and Dale Ballinger. The video isn't dated, but I would guess late '80s - early '90s.
Like in most bluegrass songs, the fast tempo becomes an emotional counterpoint to the heartache. In this song the cold, slowly falling rain underscores the loneliness of the singer and reminds her of how cold hearted the bastard was who left her. He treated her mean but she can't get him our of her mind.
This time, the rain falls in the chorus and it's used as a metaphor for her ex's cold heart and even colder love. In the fast versions of this song, I love that split second between the last line of the verse and the beginning line of the chorus. This is a crude comparison, but if the musicians do it right (and the Cluster Pluckers do it mighty fine), the guitars and other instruments sound almost like an automatic hemi shifting into what we used to call "passing gear." Like I said, crude. But I hope you get the point. What I feel the music say at that precise point is, "listen up, this is about to get damn serious here."
The rain is cold and slowly falling
Upon my window pane tonight.
And though your love is even colder
I wonder where you are tonight.
Here's another great version of the song that I found while foraging on Youtube. It's by the great Johnny Rodriguez, who slows the song down and turns it into a ballad, complete with a verse in Spanish. This is from a Hee Haw show in '73.
Okay, last rain song coming up. If you like Bluegrass, you've heard of Rhonda Vincent. I believe this is one of her first recorded songs; it's "I'm Not Over You." The rain in the first verse is an intensifier, it adds to the speaker's heartache. The falling rain is compared to the tears she's crying and then becomes a storm of emotion which blows full force into the chorus.
Tonight the rain that's falling
only adds to my heartache
It runs quietly down my window
Like the tears upon my face
And each time the lightning flashes
And I hear the thunder roar
I'm reminded of the closing of the door
Chorus:
I'm not over you
the storm still rages
The waves of pain remind me
That we're through
I'm slowly drowning
In a sea of endless heartbreak
I'm going under
'Cause I'm not over you
Guess it's time to sign off now and climb in bed for an afternoon nap. Our bedroom is on the second floor and the ceiling angles up with the roof line so I can hear the muffled raindrops falling as I go to sleep. Keep dry y'all.
It seems to me I'm always the last to hear about these things. I'm sad to say that one of my favorite groups is "evolving."
Old Crow Medicine Show is the group and the changes occurred in January and February of this year. Original band member Chris "Critter" Fuqua rejoined the group in January after a few years off (first to rehab from alcohol and second to pursue a college degree) while Willie Watson left the group shortly after that to pursue a solo career in LA.
That's "Critter" sitting down with the banjo.
I'm glad to see Fuqua back but I hate to see Willie leave. This is Willie (in the red flannel shirt) singing lead on one of my favorite "Crow" tunes, "The Next Go 'Round."
Another of my favorite "Crow" tunes is "Wagon Wheel" which has an interesting history. Ketch Secor, fiddler and original founder of the group along with "Critter," explains some of that history on Wiki...
"I heard a Dylan song that was unfinished back in high school and I finished it . . As a serious Bob Dylan fan, I was listening to anything he had put on tape, and this was an outtake of something he had mumbled out on one of those tapes. I sang it all around the country from about 17 to 26, before I ever even thought, 'oh I better look into this."
Secor eventually resolved the issue.
Secor and Dylan signed a co-writing agreement, and share copyright on the song; agreeing to a "50-50 split in authorship."[
Here's "Wagon Wheel," now officially a Secor/Dylan composition.
Here's a couple of "night" songs I've been listening to lately. First, Merle, with "Listening to the Wind."
I think I probably like the old Jim Reeves version of the next song best, but there's something haunting about Isaak's version. Take a look at the lyrics while this one is playing. It's a bit jarring to see the words there, how simple they are.
If there's a writing aesthetic I aspire to, it's this one: simple is best. (Alas, aspiration doesn't always lead to achievement.) Still, it's true--simple words can convey complexity, probably better than the complex (polysyllabic, etc.) ones.
I was born in Nashville and have lived here most of my life. Over the years I've seen several movies or TV shows that have used the city as a setting or backdrop. Probably the most famous of those was the Robert Altman film, "Nashville" in the year 1975. A high school friend of mine, Bill Jenkins, had a small uncredited speaking role in the film; he played a local TV announcer (which he really was) at the old Berry Field airport who was awaiting the arrival of one of the characters.
Altman's film was a critical and commercial success and won many awards, including an Oscar for best original song ("I'm Easy"). People in the music industry and in Nashville however, were not so pleased with the film. Wiki says (and I remember this response well), "The movie was despised by the main stream country music community at the time of its release; man artists believed it ridiculed their talent and sincerity."
It's a good movie, but I have to agree with the Wiki quote. The country artists and their sincerity were ridiculed. And, by extension, so was the city and Tennessee in general. The film's depiction of country music celebrities and local people continued and expanded the "dumb ignorant hillbilly" stereotype. Several years ago at a conference I welcomed a large group of college educators to "Music City" and mentioned that it was also known as the "Athens of the South." Although I didn't intend it, the line got a laugh.
But, I'm kind of used to that now, after seeing and hearing that stereotype perpetuated throughout my lifetime. The old ignorant redneck stereotype been overused and expanded to the point of meaninglessness. It's grown so that it now includes, not just southerners, but all those yokels in "red" states. And political pundits and biased MSM "journalists" are fond of referring to us as people in the "flyover" states.
I have a strong feeling, however, that ABC TV's new series "Nashville" will not push that old stereotype, at least not as blatantly as did Altman's movie. Judging from what I've read about the series and the promotional videos I've seen, I would say that the characters depicted, at least the main ones, are smarter and much more sophisticated than the old stereotype.
For example, Hayden Panettiere, who plays the young rising star, is said by some critics to be modeled at least a little bit on Taylor Swift. If that's a fair comparison, then making her character fit the dumb yokel stereotype would be impossible. The real Taylor Swift could probably buy ABC.
The Tennessean's blog "music" provides a good overview of the series and its stars, so click on the link if you want more verbal info.
And here's some visual info to whet your appetite, the official trailer for the series.
And here comes my own promo. My two mystery novels, the award winning Blood Country and the paranormal mystery Dream Country, are also set in Nashville and feature characters in the country music business. The links in the left column will take you to a purchase page. Both are now only $0.99 on Kindle and Nook. And I guarantee you won't find any stereotypical rednecks in either of these stories. The productions standards are a little lower for the following video trailer for Blood Country, but so was my budget.
Tennessee writer Jesse Hill Ford is most famous for his novelThe Liberation of Lord Byron Jones which dealt with racial issues in the South. Once in a discussion during a workshop I attended, Ford discussed writing and the types of fiction we in the workshop were experimenting with. Ford advised us to (1) write what we enjoy reading, (2) keep the narrative flowing, (3) create believable characters, and (4) not only put our heroes up a tree but throw rocks at them. It was good advice. And that's what I try to do in my mystery novels.
Many successful contemporary mystery novels have some sort of angle to set them apart from others in the genre, a sleuth who’s odd or different, or perhaps a specialized setting. I’m working both of these angles. My setting is Nashville, more specifically the country music industry. At present, I’m writing about two sleuths, Joe Rose and Dilly Renfro, and both have certain peculiarities that make them different from other investigators.
Joe Rose, who moonlights as a traditional private eye, is a professional guitarist, but he also works as a sideman on Nashville record sessions. His work as a side guitarist gives him an insider’s perspective on many of the stars and the industry itself, but also adds a dimension to his character. Rose, who’s the narrator in my first novel, Blood Country, is a big, rough and tumble guy with a smart mouth. He's quick to anger and has a problem controlling his violent tendencies. Rose is fictional but if he lived, physically he'd look a little bit like the ex pro football player and sports analyst Howie Long.
But there's more to Rose than the tough guy exterior, he shows patience when dealing with his clients and has an unswerving loyalty to them. He's also a skilled and accomplished guitarist and his music artistry shows his sensitivity.
My latest central character or heroine, Dilly Renfro, is featured in my latest novel, Dream Country. She is the daughter of a rich and legendary country singer, Doyle Renfro, as big a star in his day as Eddy Arnold. Dilly was shot in the head by a robber in a mini-market holdup a year ago which has led to some interesting changes in her life. She has become more assertive, admitted to her family she’s a lesbian, and, most importantly, discovered she has precognitive dreams. Besides using her dreams to find her half-sister’s killer, she hires attorney Harry Hardin and Private Investigator Joe Rose to help in her quest.
She too is of course fictional, but I imagine that she would look a lot like the young woman on the cover of Dream Country if she were real. That's one reason I selected this picture for the cover. Check her out in the cover pic in the right column.
Why Nashville, why country music? In it's original and traditional forms, it's a music that is "of the people." After laboring in the hot sun all day, families in the south would sit on their porches or out under a shade tree and make music. They played stringed instruments--guitars, fiddles, banjos, and mandolins.Some of it was music they had heard their mothers and fathers sing, but there was definitely nothing commercial about it at first. Just people expressing themselves in song. And then the world heard the Carter family, Ernest V. Stoneman, and Jimmy Rodgers on records, and an industry was born. Today, people from Japan, to Germany, to Canada, to California, to Tony, Alabama, listen to and enjoy this music.
Country music deals with basic and universal human issues, that 's why it speaks to and for people around the world, as in this great song by Bobby Bare, "500 Miles Away from Home."
Another reason I like the music is that I’m a Nashville native and I grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry and Country Music on the radio. I’m not directly connected to the country music business, but I have friends who are song writers and producers. I also know three or four chords on my old Silvertone flattop (I think knowing a few guitar chords is the law in these parts). And I’ve written a song or two, just for fun and my own entertainment.
One of my students back in the day was a session musician, and he arranged for my wife and I to cut a demo of my songs in the famous Woodland Studio, where artists as diverse as Robert Plant, Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, and Gordon Lightfoot have recorded through the years. It was late night, off the books, and the musicians were paid with a case of beer. We had a blast. And now, several years later, I've found a use for a couple of these old songs in my first two mystery novels. Funny how things you forget about still pop up from time to time and reveal themselves to be most useful.
Have you ever missed out on something really good?
I have. Plenty of times. But this is clearly, one very special case.
I wonder...
How could it have happened? What else was so danged important in 1993? Where was I? What was I doing?What other mistakes was I mistaking at the time?
Almost two decades have passed. Why didn't I hear it somewhere, at a friend's house, on the radio, somewhere?
It's only a song.
Only a song, you say.
No. It's more than that. It's my song.
No, I didn't write it.
Iris DeMent did.
I wish I had written it. It speaks to me, for me. It speaks my mind. It's my song.
It's a song that reflects part of my (work in progress) soul.
A song that simply, eloquently nails the point -- the one I've been trying to make or discover for probably 50 years -- to the wall.
A song that now I've heard, tonight, for the first time, I won't ever forget.
Don't say, "better late than never."
I really don't want to hear that.
Not right now.
I'd much rather hear the song again. "Let the Mystery Be" by Iris DeMent.
Let the Mystery Be by Iris DeMent (Lyrics copied from Cowboy Lyrics site)
Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from. Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done. But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me. I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Some say once you're gone you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back. Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack. Some say that they're comin' back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas. I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from. Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done. But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me. I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Instrumental break.
Some say they're goin' to a place called Glory and I ain't saying it ain't a fact. But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that. Well, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly. But I choose to let the mystery be.
Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from. Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done. But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me. I think I'll just let the mystery be. I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Have you ever been back to the town where you were born and lived for awhile as a child, say from birth to your 7th or 8th year? Back to the place where you were in the early dawn of your youth?
What a strange feeling it is.
Because you've grown up and your perspective has changed, everything that once looked so big, is now much smaller. And, since fifty or sixty years have passed, everything is different.
You remember the funniest things.
There's the little frame house on Richland you lived in back in the '40s. It was raining and you sat on the porch swing playing a cardboard horse race game where you spun a little needle around and you moved each horse piece accordingly. Citation always seemed to win. You can still smell the clean rain and hear the soft rumble of summer thunder.
Out on Main, there's another old house you remember. You were sitting astride your bike back in 1945 when Jerry's Mom came out of the house crying and said the war was over. You'd never seen anyone cry because they were happy before. The old house still stands, but its paint is peeling and the porch sags.
The highway bridge on Main, right by the shirt factory hasn't changed. The thick concrete top rail is still rough to your hand, but you have to bend down now to see between the short concrete cylinders supporting it. The creek looks smaller than it did in the '40s. You remember that you and Kenneth sometimes slipped under the metal rail at the edge of the bridge, climbed down the rocks, and walked on the smooth brown stones to a spot under the bridge where you could see the crawdads and minnows swimming in the shallow water.
Uptown now, on the square, there's the old insurance office where your Aunt Lellye used to work. You spent a few afternoons in there spinning around on her wooden lean back desk chair, watching the ceiling fans, or watching Mr. Smith play with his straw boater hat. He was a skinny guy who wore seersucker suits and bow ties and made you laugh.
The little wooden bandstand in the center of the square is gone now and probably forgotten. That was where they had a radio set up back in 1948 and you and your grandma were in the crowd listening as the presidential election returns came in. You remember the smell of cigars and cigarettes. The crowd seemed happy, yet quiet, listening carefully to the words on the radio. Occasionally, when the radio announcer said something, a few people would clap or cheer or sometimes laugh.
Scott's drugstore where you drank your first milkshake stands empty now, its brick facade faded and worn. Blind Mr. Adams' little market where you sometimes bought Double Bubble or Super Bubble gum was torn down long ago.
All of the older people have passed away, and the young ones you knew moved on long ago. If you see someone on the street or perhaps you stop in a store for a coke, the people look strange, you don't recognize anyone. And they look at you the same way, like you're a complete and utter outsider, a stranger, a rank stranger.
I may have written a post about my guitar before. But I'm too lazy to check this, and I have CRS anyway, so it's possible that this first part of the post is redundant. If I've told you this before, bear with me. I own a Silvertone 1220 jumbo flat top guitar, manufactured for Sears by the Harmony corporation. My wife Joyce gave it to me as a birthday gift back in 1968 when I was 28 years old.
I think my old Silvertone cost about $69 or $70 when new. It's in pretty good shape for its age and for all the rough treatment it has received over the years from grandkids, cast party participants, etc. I don't have a good picture of it, but here's one that looks just like it, color, pickguard, bridge, nut, tuning pegs, and everything else as well.
I'm absolutely not an accomplished guitarist. I just make the basic 5 or 6 chords and can pick out a few (very few) melodies. But I've really enjoyed this old acoustic AXE over the years. It increased my love of music and in particular helped grow my love of (and lust for) all guitars. My old Silvertone led me to appreciate the fine quality and workmanship of factory made instruments like Martin and Gibson, and those smaller independent operations like Forbus Hand Made Guitars for example, whose shop is in Belfast, Tennessee, about 70 miles from Nashville. Follow the link and take a look at some of John Forbus' creations.
One of my other passions is reading fiction.
Since I was about ten years old, I've loved to read, especially fiction. That year my uncle Sid gave me a copy of the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I was hooked. I began to read other stories about baseball players and cowboys and soldiers. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I was totally immersed in Science Fiction, particularly the juvenile stories of Robert Heinlein, such as Space Cadet and Time for the Stars. I liked Asimov too, and Clarke, and anyone else who could spin a good yarn.
I began trying to write fiction myself in the '80s and finished a couple of manuscripts, one spy thriller and a mystery. The spy novel was at first conditionally accepted by Zebra but then three months later, the imprint was taken over by another publisher and my manuscript was returned. Que sera.
I finished some other mystery manuscripts in the '90s and when I retired, began and finished a couple of political satires (one of those was Liberalstein). After that I spent several months revising the manuscript that became Blood Country.
When I put together Blood Country, I made use my love of guitars. I gave my musician characters guitars that I couldn't afford but had heard or read about. Fiction works that way for the reader and the writer. A writer imagines something and it becomes semi real for him and for the reader. In a story you can go anywhere and do anything--even own and play some very expensive guitars.
To start with, the cover of Blood Country features a classic Gibson SG solid body electric guitar. (That's a picture of a Gibson SG below and if you look over to the left column near the top you'll see a picture of the book cover.) Even though the novel is set in Nashville and its country music industry, the SG is usually associated with rock musicians.
But I loved the shape of the guitar and I found an image that I felt meshed really well with my cover color scheme. As you can see, my cover SG is a black one with special gold humbucker pickups, gold knobs, and gold fret inlays up the neck. The background color of the cover is red and the main title letters are gold outlined in black. The subtitle, A Nashville Sideman Mystery, is in black. I believe a cover image and title should tell the reader at a glance what the book is about. What do you think, does the Blood Country cover work in that way?
There are some other guitars in the book as well. My private eye, Joe Rose, is also a guitar sideman. He owns several guitars but the one he uses in several scenes is an old 1940 Martin D-18. Why a '40 model? It's kinda silly but 1940 was the year I was born. Maybe my hidden motive was to suggest that something made in 1940 could still make good music, or in my case, a good mystery novel.
An old Martin like this is also probably way too expensive for me, but it's not too much of an investment for a pro sideman. By having Rose own and use it, I get to vicariously enjoy it myself.
Here's a You Tube video of a guy playing a 1940 Martin D-18, like the one I imagined Joe Rose would play in my novel. Notice that though the color is different, the shape and pick guard look a lot like my old Silvertone. The video guy is a pretty danged good picker too.
One of the main characters in the book is Vern Hamlin, a super star country guitarist, songwriter, and publisher. At one point he's playing on a Gibson Dove flattop. He tells Rose that it's one of many guitars that he owns but this one is extra special in that it was once owned and played by Elvis. Never in my wildest dreams could I own a guitar Elvis owned. But in the novel I get to do that vicariously again through Hamlin. It's pretty easy to imagine a character like Hamlin, whose superstar status has made him very rich, not only owning the Elvis Dove, but playing the hell out of it.
There are some nice pictures of the Elvis Gibson Dove guitar here but image downloading at the site was blocked which prevented me from putting in a picture of the guitar I had in mind for Vern. So, I found this You Tube video of a guy playing Japanese manufacturer Aspen's copy of the Gibson Dove. This one is the Aspen Dove DH32. It looks almost exactly like Elvis' Gibson and the guy playing it makes it ring like a bell. Listen closely and you'll hear a little "House of the Rising Sun" creep in there.
I have lust in my heart for these fine guitars (even the Aspen copy). But this stuff is kinda like a marriage to me. I'm still happily bound and committed to my old Silvertone 1220.
By the way...I'm still selling the Kindle edition of Blood Country for $.99. You can also buy a paperback copy for $17.95.
Click on the copy of the book near the top of the left column and you'll be linked to my amazon page where you can choose either the Kindle or the paper copy of Blood Country.
