S1: Previously on Murder on Music Row.
S2: He was so just such an open person. Never met
S2: a stranger.
S3: I don't know what made him go to Nashville. I
S3: think he'd just like the Belmont College.
S2: I don't think they ever really recovered from Kevin Shine.
S2: And especially the way that he died.
S3: We knew that Kevin would do the right thing.
S4: I do think most of the radio guys at that
S4: point were on the up and up. But I know
S4: some of them were not.
S5: I didn't want them to think that they could manipulate me.
S5: And I walked.
S6: In front and opened the door and sat down and
S6: started to close the door. And I thought I caught
S6: something moving out of the corner of my eye, and
S6: I looked up and the guy standing over me, and
S6: I just saw his arms straight out, and I saw
S6: a gun. And I said, oh my God, this guy's
S6: got a gun. And I threw my arms up to
S6: cover my head. And that's when he shot. And they said,
S6: Kevin did like a barrel roll out into the street,
S6: running back up 16th Avenue. And all I heard was
S6: shots after that.
S7: And old Hank wouldn't have a chance on today's radio
S7: since they committed murder down on Music Row.
S1: Nashville cops loved the Longhorn, a local bar where they
S1: could unwind after a long shift. All these years later,
S1: it's called The Row. I actually had lunch there the
S1: other day. It's just off West End in Midtown. Larry
S1: Cordle used to hang there, too. He said there was
S1: a bartender at the Longhorn named Susie, and she was
S1: a real pistol. He said the place was always full
S1: of songwriters and cops. After he finished writing and recording
S1: Murder on Music Row, Cordle went to the Longhorn one
S1: night and asked if any cop at the bar had
S1: some crime scene tape. Ape. Bingo. His writing partner, Larry Shell,
S1: wrapped up the demo with yellow police tape and drove
S1: a copy of Murder on Music Row to the Wkdf
S1: radio station, Music City 103 on your FM dial. Shell
S1: wanted to hand the song to the morning drive time
S1: personality Carl P Mayfield.
S7: Larry makes up a gaudy package and takes it to
S7: the guy. Carl P Mayfield. Carl P Mayfield. Carl P
S7: is not there. But we left it in his. Larry
S7: did I guess in his inbox.
S1: They waited and nothing. Then one day about a week
S1: later really early Caudle's phone rang.
S7: And Kim Fox is friend of mine. She's from New
S7: York and she's a great songwriter and calls me at
S7: 6:00 in the morning and says, My God, they're playing
S7: that song. They played it 2 or 3 times already.
S1: Cordle was in disbelief.
S7: I don't listen to a lot of music, but I
S7: went and turned the radio on. Son of a of
S7: a gun. So Carl tells me later that he played
S7: it every 30 minutes.
S1: Something was starting to happen. This is Murder on Music Row,
S1: an investigative podcast. I'm Keith Sharon. I work for The
S1: Tennessean in Nashville. On March 9th, 1989, a young man
S1: named Kevin Hughes was shot twice in the head in
S1: the middle of Music Row. In August of 2022, my
S1: editor handed me a flash drive full of police files,
S1: interrogation reports, coroner notes, crime scene photos and drawings, phone
S1: records and internal memos between Nashville police, the FBI and
S1: law enforcement officials in other states. Somewhere along the way,
S1: I began to feel like it was our responsibility to
S1: tell the story that two bullets stopped Kevin Hughes from
S1: telling this is episode three. Chasing that neon rainbow. In
S1: whispered conversations around Music City. Some people believed they knew
S1: who fired the gun that killed Kevin Hughes and why
S1: they did it. But here's the thing the more people knew,
S1: the more reason they had to be afraid. Independent music
S1: promoter Bill Wentz kept some firepower behind the door of
S1: his office.
S8: But after the murder, I had a shotgun here, a
S8: 12 gauge, and I lived out here where I live now.
S8: I think everybody was pretty, pretty afraid of what went on.
S1: That fear drove some people underground. They didn't tell everything
S1: they knew to police in the early days of the investigation.
S1: Bill Wentz was not one of those people. He knew
S1: Kevin Hughes. He played piano at Kevin's memorial service on
S1: Music Row on March 14th, 1989, five days after the murder.
S1: Detective Bill Pridemore went to Bill Wentz's office. The one
S1: with the shotgun.
S8: I told him everything I knew. You know, I was
S8: well versed in on Music Row, and I would be
S8: down there at lunch every other day or so. And
S8: I just, I knew. I mean, at this date, I
S8: can't tell you, but I just knew.
S1: The case bothered Wentz. Long after the police left his
S1: office in an alcohol inspired haze, Wentz called the guy
S1: he thought was the killer. The guy wasn't home.
S8: I mean, it was really stupid back then. I drank
S8: a little bit and I mean, it just. I left
S8: a message on his voicemail, something I didn't know. Anybody
S8: could trace anything back then or. I don't know if
S8: they could, but I really, uh, thought it was 100%.
S8: He was involved, but I had no proof or anything.
S9: What did you say on that voicemail?
S8: I can't remember. I probably. We know you did it.
S8: Or some some stupid thing.
S1: We know you did it. Or some stupid thing. Here's
S1: the problem. The story Bill Wentz told wasn't based on
S1: hard evidence. It was based on what he believed in
S1: his heart from his experience. No matter how accurate it seemed,
S1: Pridemore had no way of knowing if Bill Wentz was
S1: right or a million miles off. Pridemore couldn't make an
S1: arrest just because a promoter had a hunch. Sammie Sadler
S1: was born in Memphis August 23rd, 1966. It wasn't long
S1: before his family moved to Texas, where his father's from.
S1: Jerry Sadler had a painting business that did very well.
S1: He was able to buy a 56 acre ranch and
S1: raise quarter horses that raced all over Texas, Oklahoma and
S1: New Mexico. Sammy went to Leonard High School, played on
S1: the baseball team. He often says in interviews, he was
S1: so good. If he hadn't been bitten by the music bug,
S1: he could have played professional baseball. I couldn't find any
S1: references to Sammy's high school baseball career in the regional
S1: newspapers I scanned. He was also in the marching band,
S1: playing symbols for about a week until he quit. His
S1: dream was much bigger than symbols in the marching band.
S1: Sammy had been singing along with the radio since he
S1: was three years old. Elvis songs. Johnny Cash. As a teenager,
S1: he had a couple of singing gigs with a band
S1: called Perfect Stranger. He sang at the Louisiana Hayride while
S1: he was still in high school. Like so many other
S1: country music crazed kids, he had to get to Nashville
S1: in November of 1984, just after Sammy had turned 18.
S1: Jerry and his wife Juanita brought their son to Music City.
S1: The plan was for Juanita to live with Sammy until
S1: he got on his feet. Jerry rented a limousine on
S1: that first night, and they drove with all the possibilities
S1: of Nashville's stardom floating in the cold night air. The
S1: limo driver, Ronnie Cummings, helped Sammy make a demo tape,
S1: which Jerry Sadler paid for, and the demo tape became
S1: Sammy's calling card. The limo driver also introduced Sammy to
S1: a couple of independent record producers. To put all this
S1: in context, this was the month Ronald Reagan was re-elected
S1: as president of the United States. The movie Nightmare on
S1: Elm Street premiered. The number one country song was Willie
S1: Nelson's City of New Orleans. Kevin Hughes, the kid who
S1: would later die on Music Row, was a business student
S1: at Belmont College. Hanging out at Tower Records and making
S1: index cards of his favorite music. In the early 1980s,
S1: country music was in a bit of a tizzy since
S1: June 6th, 1980, when the when the movie Urban Cowboy
S1: hit America like a bucking bull. Country music was becoming
S1: more mainstream. Record labels were chasing pop music dollars. Editorial comment.
S1: It wasn't even a good movie. John Travolta and Debra
S1: Winger tried, but come on. All that drama over riding
S1: a mechanical bull in a bar. At least the soundtrack
S1: was good. Looking for Love by Johnny Lee. Love the
S1: World Away by Kenny Rogers. Look What You've Done to
S1: Me by Boz Scaggs. Those songs, however, were a little
S1: too soft, a little too pop for some traditional country
S1: music fans, like the Larry's who wrote Murder on Music Row,
S1: Eddie Rabbitt, Juice Newton, Sheena Easton and Marie Osmond. All
S1: pop stars had number one country hits in the early
S1: and mid 1980s.
S10: I mean, it went from Conway Twitty, which was half
S10: pop ish, but it went from things right before Conway
S10: to Conway, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, they were on the radio.
S10: Those were the drive time artists. And then it went
S10: to Barbara mandrell and, uh, Milsap and all things very
S10: pop for the time.
S1: That's Trey Bruce, the genius songwriter. This guy wrote look, heart,
S1: No Hands and three other number one hits for Randy Travis.
S1: He's written songs with Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Leann Rimes,
S1: Trace Atkins, Reba mcEntire, and Carrie Underwood.
S10: And then, with Barbara mandrell and Kenny Rogers, it became
S10: Pop Goes the Country. There was even a TV show
S10: and that was looked on as ruining country music. And
S10: then when the rock stuff started coming in to country music,
S10: that ruined what we called country music before that. We've
S10: gone through that, that evolution several times, and it's still happening.
S10: I mean, it just should country be by country. It
S10: really depends on what decade you call country. And before
S10: now there wasn't bandwidth, but now you have 90s country
S10: internet radio and you have Spotify pages for all that.
S10: So right now Nashville's got a lot of hamburgers. Nobody's
S10: forcing you to eat McDonald's.
S1: Bruce teamed up with Scott Hendricks. If you don't know Scott,
S1: he worked on his grandparents farm driving a tractor in Oklahoma.
S1: Then he became a Nashville music producer with 75 top
S1: ten hits to his credit. He was the founder of
S1: the Big Tractor music publishing company. And Scott Hendricks became entangled,
S1: I guess you could say, with one of the witnesses
S1: of the murder on Music Row.
S10: I signed my deal in November of 89, and Scott
S10: Hendricks and I opened Big Tractor in 92. I was
S10: only at universal for three years. And when Scott and
S10: I opened our company, I remember going in the office
S10: one night we were in the curb building there on
S10: the corner, and, um, I said, hey, I'm going to
S10: hear an artist named Faith Hill tonight. Gary Burr is
S10: working with her. And he said, uh, I already passed
S10: on her. Wow. I went to the show and I
S10: thought she was great. Scott would sit in his office
S10: and listen to songs all night. I mean, a slave
S10: to trying to find the best song. And I went
S10: back after the show or the next morning and told Scott, man,
S10: I don't know. I think there's something there. And, uh,
S10: a few days later, Martha Sharp walked her down, you know,
S10: 3 or 4 buildings from Warner Brothers and introduced her
S10: to Scott personally. And, um, everything changed fast in 1994.
S1: Faith Hill divorced her husband, Daniel, who you heard from
S1: in the first episode of this podcast. Faith then got
S1: engaged to Scott Hendricks, but then she met Tim McGraw
S1: in 1994 and married him in him in 1996 and
S1: became one of the biggest power couples in country music.
S1: Faith Hill became a star, but it took a lot
S1: of effort after singing to entertain prisoners at a Mississippi jail,
S1: singing demos in Nashville, auditioning to be a backup singer
S1: for Reba, not being selected, becoming a backup singer for
S1: Gary Burr, working a bunch of gigs with Burr in
S1: which he got his soul crushed by not attracting a
S1: record deal. Finally, Faith was discovered during a backup gig
S1: with Burr at the famous Bluebird Cafe. She got a deal.
S1: Burr did not. But don't worry about Gary Burr. He's
S1: had a long, great career as a performer and songwriter.
S1: Burr has more than 170 songs to his credit, with
S1: cuts by Reba mcEntire, Patty Loveless, Garth Brooks, and on
S1: and on and on. The Faith Hill story has inspired
S1: a million Nashville dreams. I tried several times to set
S1: up an interview to talk to her about the murder
S1: case and her career. I got a note from Faith's manager,
S1: Sandra Stillwagon. Quote. Faith is aware of the podcast as
S1: I let her know when I asked her about doing
S1: the interview. I appreciate your interest in speaking with Faith,
S1: but she isn't doing any interviews, unquote. Sammy Sadler's attempt
S1: to become a country star did not look like the
S1: same journey taken by Faith Hill or Garth Brooks. It
S1: did not involve open mic nights, playing corporate gigs, singing
S1: at birthday parties or bowling alleys. It didn't involve much
S1: singing at all. Instead, Sammy was going to make independent
S1: or custom records. Seven inch vinyl 45. Work the phones.
S1: Get his songs played on the radio and get his
S1: songs recognized in the country charts in hopes of getting
S1: noticed by a major label. In the first five years
S1: he was in Nashville, from 1984 until the shooting of
S1: Kevin Hughes. Sammy didn't play a single gig in town
S1: or sell a single record. In 1985, he signed a
S1: record deal with Johnny Morris, who was part owner of
S1: Evergreen Records. Morris had once been a radio DJ in Missouri.
S1: Evergreen had produced records on some local talent like Narvel Felts,
S1: Joe Stampley, and Robin Lee. Lee went on to sign
S1: with Atlantic Records, but Sammy said his record deal was
S1: different than a lot of other young people who came
S1: to Nashville with rich parents and got taken advantage of
S1: by independent labels. Sammy said neither he nor his parents
S1: paid Morris any money. While lots of musicians like him
S1: were getting shaken down for $5,000 here and $10,000 there,
S1: or much more. Sammy said that wasn't happening to him.
S1: It raises the question, though, who was paying for those
S1: records and studio time? Sammy was adamant the first five
S1: years of his career, he said, for all intent and purpose,
S1: was an Was an expensive game to which he contributed nothing.
S1: He and his parents paid no money for records. And
S1: his records made him and his label no money. Sammy
S1: said Morris agreed to produce and promote six singles. When
S1: you signed with evergreen, did you actually sign a piece
S1: of paper? Yeah. And did you have a signing party?
S1: I would think no. That would have to be the highlight.
S1: I mean, that's that's the dream, right?
S6: Well, I mean, again, man, I mean, I came to
S6: this town. I was just a naive kid, you know?
S6: I didn't know any of this business worked. How things happened. And,
S6: you know, there was no signing party.
S1: As part of their agreement. Morris also hired Sammy to
S1: work in the evergreen office, paying Sammy $200 per week
S1: for 40 hours of tedious promotion. Early in 1985, Sammy
S1: began working a regular eight hour shift, working the phones,
S1: pitching songs, sometimes 30 calls per day, promoting evergreen artists
S1: and promoting himself to radio stations and to Cashbox magazine.
S1: Sammy's paycheck from evergreen wasn't enough to pay for an apartment,
S1: so his father paid for that.
S6: My mom moved up here with me, and we we
S6: rented an apartment.
S1: Um, I know that it was about six months before
S1: you hooked up with Evergreen Records. Were you a waiter?
S1: Where did you. Did you work in a mechanic's? You know.
S6: I think I worked two days at a at a
S6: western store here in town. Out somewhere out, uh, by
S6: Opryland or. Or somewhere. But then my dad again, you know,
S6: my dad had his business, so he he kind of
S6: took care of me while I was here, and, uh,
S6: he kind of footed the bill for me, uh, to
S6: to do what we do.
S1: You had a strategy when you came to Nashville, and
S1: I want to know if this is intentional. You weren't
S1: the kind of singer to be playing a bunch of gigs.
S6: You know, I didn't, uh, we weren't playing, you know,
S6: gigs around here or doing any of that kind of stuff.
S6: And whenever I came and we signed with evergreen, you know,
S6: Johnny was looking for a I don't know if he's
S6: looking for another record promoter or what, but he said, man,
S6: you just go to work for the label. And, you know,
S6: I started working there promoting records as well. And that's,
S6: you know, that's how I learned how the record promotion
S6: business worked.
S1: But it was an intentional strategy. I think the reason
S1: I'm asking is if I've talked to a bunch of singers,
S1: and how do you make it in Nashville? I think
S1: they would say, play as many open mic nights as
S1: you can. You decided not to do that?
S6: Well, it's I don't know if it's I decided not to.
S6: I mean, man, I was just a 18 year old
S6: kid out of Texas, you know, I thought, you know,
S6: if you if you could sing, you know, you could
S6: make it in this business. And, you know, I just
S6: I don't I don't think I planned it any way.
S6: I think it's just how it happened.
S1: Sammy said he would show up to work at 1020
S1: 1/16 Avenue South in the Evergreen Building. It's still there
S1: if you want to drive by. He usually would be
S1: the only person in the office. He would be given
S1: a list of radio stations to call nicely prodding, asking provocatively,
S1: strongly suggesting that it would be great if songs by
S1: Sammy Sadler and other evergreen recording artists be played on
S1: their stations. He said not only did he lobby hard
S1: for airplay, he would also collect statistics from radio stations
S1: and report them to Cashbox. In effect, the singer was
S1: calling in his own numbers and numbers for his indie
S1: label mates to Cashbox magazine. What did you need to
S1: call Cashbox for?
S6: You had to call in and report your stations to
S6: them or your report every week on your records you
S6: were working.
S1: So let me make sure I got this straight. W
S1: whatever station calls you and tells you which songs are charting,
S1: do they give you numbers like this? Has this many
S1: plays and that many?
S6: Yeah. I mean, it's like first, you know, you'll get
S6: an ad, so it'd be an add. So we're adding
S6: the record. So you get an add. Then like I said,
S6: once you get an add then you would have to
S6: turn it into or can you, you know, turn it
S6: into numbers of what you're playing. So you'd have to
S6: give Kevin, you know, say Norvel got this many adds
S6: this week, so you'd give him the number and then
S6: whatever he had to do with whatever his job was.
S1: The the important point, I think, though, is that it
S1: came through you, goes to you then, Kevin.
S11: Yeah. I mean, why didn't they call Kevin directly?
S6: I mean, that's just, you know, that's how that's how
S6: the system was working at evergreen of what we had
S6: to do and what I had to do every week,
S6: I would just take and compile my list of evergreen's
S6: artists of whose record we were working, and I would
S6: just call it in and give it to him.
S11: Was there about 4 or 5 artists at a time?
S6: It sometimes it just depends on, you know.
S11: Sometimes only 1 or 2 maybe.
S6: Just depends on when they were because.
S11: It was small.
S6: Yeah. And when they were released. Singles.
S1: I've shared Sammi's Sammy's explanation with a couple of industry insiders,
S1: who said it was hard to even wrap their heads
S1: around a situation in which a guy at a small
S1: label was reporting for radio stations.
S9: I don't make any sense. That's total corruption. If the
S9: report that's like, you know, going and doing ballot harvesting
S9: for a vote, that don't make any sense. So that
S9: stinks to high heaven right there.
S1: Mark Carman was a singer who then got into the
S1: business side of music. He took over as the cash
S1: box director of operations after Kevin Hughes was killed. He
S1: knew how the reporting was supposed to work. I haven't
S1: said a whole lot about the guy who was in
S1: charge of putting all these investigative threads together. Detective Bill
S1: Pridemore was raised a military kid bouncing around bases. He
S1: was ten years old, living in Dayton, Ohio, when he
S1: was the victim of a crime.
S12: I'd just gotten this bike and it was a Schwinn
S12: five speed, which is, you know, really hot at the
S12: time with the banana seed and the butterfly handlebars and,
S12: you know, kids our age. And at that time, we
S12: just set the bike down in the middle of the
S12: yard or on the side of the house and didn't
S12: have to worry about being stolen, I didn't think. Uh,
S12: so anyway, I it was sitting on the side of
S12: the house or in the yard, and I came out
S12: the next day and it was missing and I was
S12: really upset. And so my mother called the police and
S12: a police officer came out, and he seemed really concerned.
S12: He said, well, come on, let's get in the car
S12: and let's ride around the Platt and see if we
S12: can find it. And so I did. I got in
S12: the car and in the front seat with the radio blaring,
S12: and we rode around. I mean, it was like at
S12: least 30 or 40 minutes. And sure enough, he rode
S12: down this one street and there was my bike without
S12: a front wheel, but, uh. And my speedometer was gone, but,
S12: you know, got it put in the trunk of his
S12: car and took me back home and took it out
S12: and went on his way. And I just, you know,
S12: I was amazed I was that somebody, especially a policeman,
S12: that he would take the time out of his day to,
S12: you know, to ride around with a ten year old
S12: kid in the car and look for his bicycle and
S12: that just it always from that point forward, I just felt,
S12: you know, I was just I just admired him. I
S12: admired the fact that, you know, he's a perfect stranger.
S12: And as I got older, it just impressed me more
S12: because he was a perfect stranger.
S1: Pridemore's family lived in Offutt, Nebraska and Kingston, Tennessee, before
S1: moving to Nashville in 1971. Pridemore attended Stratford High. Shortly
S1: after high school, he got a job working at UPS.
S1: He started at the police academy in 1976. Over the
S1: next nine years, Pridemore worked his way to the spot
S1: he had always wanted.
S12: So they created the Murder Squad unit. They took the best.
S12: They considered the best from the homicide unit and created
S12: the Murder Squad unit.
S1: There were six guys on the Murder Squad. One of
S1: the guys was Pat Castiglione, the guy who became Pridemore's partner.
S1: What was your first impression of Pat?
S12: Well, other than he was from New York City, I
S12: liked him. I mean, he didn't try to be overbearing.
S12: When we got to a crime scene, he didn't he
S12: didn't try to take over the crime scene. Uh, he
S12: and I got along well. We we giggled. We, you know,
S12: we ask each other questions, made points and things.
S1: Pridemore used a term that I had never heard. He
S1: said he and gee had. I had to look it up.
S1: It's a farming term used when train donkeys work in tandem.
S1: They gee-haw when they move left or right smoothly. It
S1: means they work well together. In this case, Pridemore was
S1: the lead donkey. The two The two detectives would spend
S1: hours sitting on the short brick wall across the street
S1: from Evergreen Records, trying to figure out what the hell
S1: was going on. After Kevin's death, for the first time
S1: in their lives, the detectives were introduced to the mechanics
S1: of a music chart at Cashbox magazine. They found a doozy.
S1: The hitmaker, Bobby Braddock, said number one at Cashbox was
S1: basically meaningless. He wrote a hit song called Old Flames
S1: Have New Names for Mark Chesnutt.
S10: And it was.
S13: Number one in Cash Box and, uh, I think number
S13: four in Billboard at that point. I don't think anybody,
S13: you know, had a lot of respect for for Cashbox.
S13: And I think just the buzz that was going around
S13: after the after the murder of Kevin Hughes, you know,
S13: I think that that had a huge impact on the
S13: negative impact on Cashbox, for sure.
S1: I know it's a little hard to hear. He's saying
S1: number one at Cashbox wasn't a respected position, especially after
S1: the murder of Kevin Hughes. Here's Lon Helton, the chart
S1: expert on the Cashbox chart.
S14: It was certainly unethical. I remember stories of people sitting
S14: in Shoney's at the time, talking loudly about being in
S14: the music business, hoping that they would be overheard by,
S14: you know, a set of parents or grandparents with an
S14: aspiring young star or starlet who would come over them
S14: and talk about it, and then they would get them
S14: in the system of paying for chart positions.
S1: Mark Carman had similar thoughts.
S9: But I learned at that point the charts were just irrelevant.
S9: They didn't mean anything. I knew that there was that.
S9: The charts were indicative of nothing. They didn't represent sales.
S9: They didn't represent how popular the record was in the
S9: industry overall. They just represented somebody took a pencil and
S9: wrote it down. For whatever reason.
S1: It got so bad that promoter Jerry Duncan stopped working
S1: with Cashbox in 1988. He wasn't the only one who
S1: quit promoting to Cashbox altogether.
S15: It had been a year since I got out of Cashbox,
S15: and I knew about I knew what was going on.
S15: So it had taken that long for us to see
S15: just how bad it was. And so two and two
S15: makes four. It was clear to everybody.
S1: And there was one guy everybody in town believed was
S1: controlling the Cashbox.
S15: Chart Chuck Dixon, Chuck.
S16: Dixon, Chuck Dixon.
S17: Chuck Dixon, won't you lie to me?
S18: Chuck Dixon was probably the ugliest man I ever met
S18: in my life.
S1: Chuck Dixon's name wasn't Chuck Dixon. His given name was
S1: John Blane, Deadline junior. He grew up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania,
S1: which is about 40 miles from Philadelphia in the southeastern
S1: corner of the state. As a teenager, Chuck fell in
S1: love with rock n roll in 1955. He learned how
S1: to play guitar and spent the rest of the decade
S1: writing and singing songs. He played in Philadelphia and New
S1: York City sometime in the 1960s. His focus switched from
S1: performing to the business end of music. There's an old
S1: Tennessean clipping from August 20th, 1969. A Nashville company called
S1: Clark Records was being sued by a singer named John Poole.
S1: Poole said he had paid $1,400, and all the company
S1: gave him was one single 45 record. Poole said he
S1: also paid a clerk agent, John B Federline, junior, $600
S1: to advertise the record in trade journals. Federline kept the
S1: money and didn't promote the record. I couldn't find any
S1: resolution to that lawsuit. One thing is for sure, some
S1: people have not trusted Chuck Dixon for a long time.
S1: In the late 60s, he left Coatesville with the intention
S1: of chasing a music career in Memphis, a story by
S1: Joe Henderson in Cashbox magazine said, on the way to Memphis,
S1: Chuck made a stop in Nashville, and he never left.
S1: He saw the opportunities for business in Music City in
S1: his songwriting career. He wrote under the name Chuck D, J.B.
S1: Deadline Jr, and Chuck Dixon. His first break when George Gobel,
S1: who would later become a star as a comedian, recorded
S1: a JB Federline Junior song called Big Gold Cadillac. I
S1: talked to more than a couple of people who said
S1: Chuck presented himself as a good guy. A little intense, maybe.
S1: He liked the movie The Godfather and liked to act
S1: like as if his real life was a storyline in
S1: that movie. But they said he seemed like basically a
S1: good family man with a good eye for music.
S15: Chuck came.
S9: In. He said, you are the one that's.
S15: Got to write a song about Hank.
S1: Gary Gentry met Chuck sometime. It appears in 1982. Gary
S1: and Chuck share writing credit on a smash hit called
S1: The Ride, which was released on CBS records in 1983.
S1: It's about an imaginary ride with Hank Williams, and it
S1: was Chuck who pushed Gary to write the song. The
S1: ride was sung by David Allan Coe and later Hank
S1: Williams Jr and Tim McGraw. And one more singer of
S1: note I'll tell you about that most recent cover of
S1: The ride in the last episode of this podcast.
S9: Well, we met that night.
S15: I thought, well, it's a good idea. I've been clean
S15: and sober since 1984, but back then I was a
S15: party animal boy, and, uh, he wanted to write a
S15: song about Hank and Lefty. Well, we did, and at 10:00,
S15: he said, Gary, I gotta go home. He said, I
S15: like the song. I said, well, I don't it's not
S15: what I want for Hank. I want the I want
S15: a better song for Hank. So I was drinking and
S15: doing cocaine. The song went like, uh, last night, a
S15: DJ called me. He said, Gary, I need a drink.
S15: Said someone requested a lefty song, and it sounded like Hank.
S15: I said, brother, I believe you get his number next
S15: to my phone, because wherever Hank and Lefty are, that's
S15: where I want to go. Well, it's not what I wanted.
S15: I wanted a tribute to Hank. And so when Hank,
S15: when he left, I dove down deeper into the bottle
S15: and deeper into cocaine. And I had held a seance.
S15: So I dove deeper in the bottle, and I held
S15: a seance and cut all the lights out, lit candles,
S15: cussed Hank because I couldn't get him to come into
S15: the room. Well, guess what he did. And, uh, I said, Mr. Williams,
S15: we're going to take a ride. So next day, I
S15: found an unfiltered cigarette in the, uh, ashtray. I don't
S15: smoke unfiltered cigarettes. He was sitting there on a couch,
S15: smoking with his shirt off, and, uh. Yeah, Hank was
S15: a co-rider on that ride.
S1: The next morning, Gary called Chuck and Chuck's wife, Catherine,
S1: who they called. Carter was listening on the phone.
S15: And now Chuck was not per se, a songwriter. And
S15: I called him at 4:00 in the morning. I could
S15: barely read my own writing. I was still drunk. He said,
S15: I said, I want you to hear something. So we
S15: didn't have cell phones. Then I laid the phone down,
S15: picked up the guitar and played it for him. He said,
S15: oh my God, Carter, wake up, wake up, you gotta
S15: hear this. And so she did. I knew it was
S15: a hit. It was like sitting there on the lottery ticket,
S15: you know, all you had to do was go cash
S15: it in. It was a monster. I knew it was.
S1: Chuck got royalties and an enhanced reputation off that song.
S1: I don't know how many songs Chuck Dixon actually wrote,
S1: but I found 27 songs which listed him as co-writer
S1: with Johnny Morris, Jerry foster, Bill rice, John T Lewis,
S1: Don Goodman and others. I also found nine songs on
S1: which he sang, sometimes using the name Chuck D. Chuck's
S1: main focus was making money off songs, not sweet music.
S1: Many people I've interviewed have described Chuck Dixon as a
S1: mafioso type. The Mafia tag is used a lot in
S1: this murder case. From my reporting, Dixon was not a
S1: made guy. Even if he might have tried to act
S1: like one. I talked to Frederick Dannen, author of the
S1: seminal book Hit Men, Power Brokers, and Fast Money Inside
S1: the Music Business. He had never heard of Chuck Dixon.
S1: He said these low level scams ripping off kids from
S1: Iowa with acoustic guitars and manipulating small time music charts,
S1: were not a part of the Mafia.
S19: Footprint didn't matter all that much, certainly not compared to
S19: Billboard first and then Radio and Records. In that era,
S19: it just doesn't add up.
S1: Kyle Hughes was a teenager in 1988 when he came
S1: to Nashville for the summer to visit his older brother, Kevin.
S1: Kevin was introducing Kyle around to the people he worked with.
S1: One of them was Chuck Dixon.
S20: He was overly jovial. When I met, Chuck said a
S20: lot of nice things about Kevin. When I was there,
S20: but for some reason, I got home. When I came
S20: home to to Carmi, I said, Chuck Dixon guy just
S20: doesn't go well with me for some reason. He was
S20: really fake. That's how I felt when I left the office.
S20: He just felt like he was over the top fake.
S20: I remember he was behind his desk. I'll never forget
S20: him getting up. He's had the beard on and had
S20: his beard. And it's just I just never forget that
S20: moment of him doing that on his desk, you know,
S20: and come and shake my hand. We sat there for maybe,
S20: maybe five minutes, and we left.
S1: Since the charts were supposed to be based on radio
S1: station airplay, Chuck worked with several radio stations. In a
S1: deposition years later, a music promoter named Gary Bradshaw dropped
S1: several bombshells. He said 95% of the songs that appeared
S1: on the Cash Box Country Indie chart in 1989 received
S1: no radio airplay at all. Zero. There's no way to
S1: check on the veracity of that number, but if it's
S1: anything close to 95%, that's shocking. Bradshaw also said Chuck
S1: would buy tickets to country music events around Nashville and
S1: hotel rooms, and give them free to disc jockeys. Nashville
S1: law enforcement agencies never investigated payola, so we'll never know
S1: how much or how often Chuck Dixon corrupted radio station employees.
S1: Police did believe Chuck convinced some stations to report inaccurate numbers.
S1: Police and everyone else called those pocket stations. It's a
S1: common term, totally illegal. As if Chuck Dixon had them
S1: in his pocket. For example, Chuck Dixon would convince someone
S1: at radio station WRs to report they had played a
S1: song 100 times when actually they didn't play it at all.
S1: In other words, Chuck could take a crappy song with
S1: no airplay and make it look like a hit. In
S1: the world of independent promotions, that was like gold. It
S1: sounds preposterous, right? But check this out. On October 22nd, 1988,
S1: four and a half months before the murder of Kevin Hughes.
S1: A singer named Mickey Jones landed at number 17 on
S1: the Cash Box Indie chart with a song called The
S1: Gal from San Antone. The song was produced by Robert
S1: Metzger and promoted by Chuck Dixon. Here's the problem with
S1: that record. Due to a mix up at the pressing facility,
S1: the record had literally never been made. It had never
S1: been shipped to radio stations. It had never been played
S1: on the radio. But Metzger, I discovered in records I reviewed,
S1: had paid Chuck Dixon $15,000 for a position on the chart.
S1: So it got on the chart. Was that a one
S1: time mistake? Nope. Mark Carman remembers another one.
S9: I'd rather not say the name of the artist, because,
S9: you know, that may be humiliating to them, but I'll
S9: just say it this way. I was in the office
S9: when the call came in. Don't don't send in the
S9: chart yet. We got a problem. And the call was
S9: the record had been added and was being reported as
S9: being played in light, medium and heavy rotation. But there
S9: had been a problem on the on the labeling on
S9: the little 45 where they had the wrong songwriter on
S9: the label. So they were having to repress the record,
S9: and the record was three weeks behind. But the promoter
S9: had gotten the fact that it was going to release
S9: and had it in his schedule to get it out,
S9: and so he had promoted it for the whole week
S9: before he got the word that the record had not
S9: been mailed three weeks early.
S21: So it was impossible that anybody could have played that record.
S21: The record.
S9: Didn't exist.
S21: Who was that promoter?
S9: Chuck Dixon.
S1: Chuck Dixon also influenced what was going on inside the
S1: cash box office. Remember, it was a small operation. Chart director.
S1: Maybe one assistant. Dixon was good friends with Richard de Antonio,
S1: known as Tony de Tony. De was the chart director.
S1: Then after he was fired, he kept a key to
S1: the office and there were employees who believed Tony De
S1: would go in after dark and erase some names from
S1: that chart and add names of songs promoted by Chuck Dixon.
S1: Kyle Hughes said Kevin showed him two sets of charts
S1: he made every week. One was the chart that some
S1: unknown person was manipulating. Kevin had no control over that one.
S1: It would get published in the magazine. Complete fiction. The
S1: other was the real list of charting songs from real
S1: airplay statistics that Kevin had researched. A master copy that
S1: Kevin kept all to himself. He let his brother in
S1: on the secret.
S20: Kevin. Big old chart thing that he would work on.
S20: You know, we had those charts at the house with
S20: dates on them, and you could see, well, that's not
S20: what's in the Cash Box magazine. You know, so we
S20: knew doing that. So I knew that something had gone.
S20: Gone on with those those magazines for sure. We have
S20: it in black and white, you know. So he had
S20: the chart. It was a complete different magazine.
S1: He wanted to be able to prove to anyone who
S1: ever checked that he had integrity. Chuck was also friends
S1: with Cashbox owner George Albert, who was based in Los Angeles.
S1: Chuck's influence on the magazine was so pervasive, people in
S1: the industry called Cashbox magazine. Chuck Box magazine. Bradshaw, the
S1: promoter who worked with Chuck, said Dixon was completely in
S1: charge and made every decision for Cashbox magazine with George
S1: Albert's permission to do so. Listen to this conversation I
S1: had with Lon Helton, the famous DJ, music magazine editor
S1: and industry insider. While we're talking, he's got an issue
S1: of Cashbox magazine in front of him. I'm looking at it, too.
S1: It's August 12th, 1989. Beginning on page 20, he mentions Bradshaw.
S1: I found out later. Bradshaw is now dead.
S14: Cash box was George Albert's baby. It was part of him.
S14: It was part of his fabric. It existed because he
S14: willed it to exist. And he was willing to. He
S14: did not want it to die, so he was willing
S14: to do things maybe he didn't even believe in. By
S14: the way, in the August 12th, 1989 edition is an
S14: ad for Brian O'Neill. You're the softest rock I've ever
S14: leaned on and sing me records. Thanks, radio for your support. Management. O'Neill, Terry.
S14: National promotion. Chuck Dixon.
S21: Exactly. And that's six months after Kevin died.
S14: And there's another one for Razzy Bailey on So Records
S14: promotion by Chuck Dixon and Gary Bradshaw. Here's another one. Um,
S14: produced by Danny Day. The ads. So The promoters were
S14: getting money to promote their record, and then they were
S14: requiring them to buy ads. Here's another one Steve Douglas
S14: to a San Antone Rose national promotion. Chuck Dixon, Tim Fitzpatrick,
S14: also Tony de Antonio. So there's a lot going on here, man.
S14: I'd have to double check this, but I would probably
S14: say that none of those songs ever charted on the
S14: R&R chart.
S1: He's talking about a system in which promoters like Chuck
S1: Dixon charged money around $2,000 per month, promising singers chart positions,
S1: and then told them they needed to buy advertising in
S1: Cashbox if they wanted to be a star. He required
S1: artists to pay him bonuses up to $500 for songs
S1: that got on the charts successfully. Oftentimes, Dixon worked more
S1: than ten records at a time. That's good money. There
S1: were other allegations, too, about even bigger money. You heard
S1: from Amy Lavelle in a previous episode. She worked at Cashbox.
S1: Her husband, David Michalski, was a singer. He had a
S1: meeting with Chuck Dixon. I was talking to her when
S1: she put her husband on the phone.
S22: Chuck was telling him off for this. This many thousand.
S22: I can get you number one at Cashbox, you know,
S22: for this many thousand top ten and all the way
S22: down in the top 50. So that's how I knew
S22: for sure that was going on.
S23: Do you remember what those numbers were? What how how
S23: much for the top ten? How much for the top 50?
S22: Um, they said 50,000 for number one. Then we asked them, hey, honey,
S22: can you go on the phone from Nashville? Yeah. After
S22: 50,000 for number one, what were the amounts? 50,000 for
S22: number one. Uh huh. 40,000. Wow. And 30. And on.
S22: Down all the way. Like 10,000. Clear down into the
S22: top 50. So, did you hear that cue?
S23: Yes, I did. And and did. Did you guys ever
S23: play ball with Chuck? Did you you know when you
S23: heard those numbers, what was your reaction?
S22: It was disgusting.
S1: She said it was disgusting. Dave had worked so hard
S1: to make it in the music business, and he didn't
S1: want to be part of a corrupt music chart.
S22: David worked so hard, you know, in the music business
S22: to get anywhere, and so many of our friends and
S22: people we looked up to did as well. We didn't
S22: want to participate in that in any way, shape or form.
S1: I asked Dave what he thought of Chuck Dixon.
S23: I thought he was a crook after, you know, after
S23: he offered me a $50,000 deal in his office. I
S23: just thought it was a cook and I didn't care
S23: for him. You know, that's not how the music business
S23: should be run.
S1: In the police file, there's an interview with Kim Buckley,
S1: who was an intern research assistant when Kevin took over
S1: as chart director. She said she remembers Kevin, I'll quote
S1: her quota now became very upset because he was ordered
S1: to change the charts by the owner of Cash Box, unquote.
S1: Kim told Pridemore an artist she didn't say, who had
S1: been paying cash for chart positions since the days Tony
S1: Deantonio was chart director. Kevin tried to knock that artist
S1: off the charts, but George Albert called Kevin and promised
S1: this would be the last time he had to change
S1: the charts because someone had paid cash. Kim said, quote,
S1: Kevin was very upset, but he did change the chart, unquote.
S1: In the first week of March 1989, Kevin Hughes attended
S1: the Country Radio Seminar, the annual event at the Gaylord
S1: Opryland Hotel. With all the big shots of the music industry.
S1: Randy Travis was one of the headliners in 1989. Jerry
S1: Duncan saw Kevin there.
S15: I saw Kevin at the country radio seminar one night
S15: and one of the one of the through. I don't know.
S24: Where one of the restaurants and I said at the seminar,
S24: one of the panels was almost always a chart panel
S24: where the various chart editors would be on a panel
S24: and explain their chart methodology and take questions. I was
S24: I would do things for changing it with with him
S24: there now and trying to be honest and clean up
S24: the chart. I knew things were changing and I said,
S24: are you going to be on the panel tomorrow or
S24: whatever day it was? And he said, no, I'm not
S24: going to do it this year. We're making some big changes.
S24: That was the last time I talked to Kevin Hughes.
S1: I asked Jerry how the chart could be so dirty,
S1: while Kevin, who everybody said was a clean kid, was
S1: running it.
S24: Well, when he first got the job, it was all
S24: the system. The whole was there. The corrupt system, the
S24: stations that were on the panel were a lot of
S24: them had relationships, you know, with the promoters, etc. it
S24: probably took Kevin a little while to figure out what
S24: to do about that. So it's not it's a process.
S24: He couldn't go in and overnight say, okay, we're changing everything.
S24: So it was not his fault. He was trying to
S24: fix it from the start. You had to do research,
S24: had to get the right stations. And it was it's
S24: a major surgery that he was performing.
S1: Many promoters I interviewed believe Kevin was about to go
S1: public with what he knew about corruption at Cashbox magazine.
S1: They thought he was going to talk to The Tennessean.
S1: I wish I would have been around for that on
S1: the last day of the seminar. Kevin Hughes was supposed
S1: to participate in a panel discussion about how music charts work.
S1: Kevin was embarrassed because Cashbox was still using fax machines
S1: and pencils to make the weekly chart, while other magazines
S1: were using computers. He called George Albert in LA to
S1: ask permission to skip the panel discussion. Albert called Chuck Dixon.
S1: Chuck met with Kevin at the seminar and told him
S1: he didn't have to do the panel. Chuck also slipped
S1: him some money. More than a few people saw it happen.
S1: Kevin argued that he didn't want the money, but he
S1: took a couple of hundred dollars anyway. Kevin told people
S1: taking the money made him sick. He would be dead
S1: within the week. Next time on Murder on Music Row.
S6: I mean, there's so many people putting out records, you know,
S6: just to be on the charts, you know? I mean,
S6: it's thrilling to at least be on the charts, you know?
S12: There's no question that I think that he paid money
S12: to have his records put on Cash Box. I know,
S12: I mean, there's no question in my mind.
S6: I mean, I had no idea that that it was corrupt.
S6: I never knew any of that until. I never knew
S6: how this business worked until this crime was solved.
S25: I would say that even when Sammy told me he
S25: didn't pay for play, I said, that's bullshit, you know?
S25: And you know, because I know the chart.
S1: Murder on Music Row was.
S26: Reported.
S1: Written and narrated by me, Keith Sharon. The executive producers
S1: were Gannett's vice president of local news. And Tennessean editor
S1: Michael Anastasi and Tennessean news director Ben Goad. The project
S1: editor was Duane Gang. The sound editor was Amanda Rosman.
S1: Our reporting on the legacy of the murder on Music
S1: Row doesn't end with this podcast. If you've been duped
S1: by an unscrupulous promoter in Nashville, we want to hear
S1: your story. Please send an email to Sharon at tennessean.com.
S1: That's the letter k s h a r o n
S1: at tennessean.com. Include some details of what happened to you
S1: and how you can be reached. Thanks for listening.