Speaker 1: I Welcome to episode eight seven Bobby Cast. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Express Prose for sponsoring this. Our guest is Marcus Hammond.
Speaker 1: Who your songwriter? You are artist, author, a playwright, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of things confused until I started digging, I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, because what I had known you for
Speaker 1: and we're just kind of broad stroke. This at the
Speaker 1: beginning was like blessed the Broken Road, working with the
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks, and I think that's probably what most people know,
Speaker 1: most people for their biggest, humongous But then once I
Speaker 1: started go, wow, this dude wrote plays. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: did a bunch of that for about the last ten
Speaker 1: twelve years. And it is funny because sometimes, uh, I
Speaker 1: find you know, it's sort of scary as you get
Speaker 1: older in the business and in instead of people saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: have you written something great? You know, have you written
Speaker 1: a new song that you're really are you working with
Speaker 1: anybody you really love? They go, hey, do you have
Speaker 1: any new plays? And I'm believe it or not in Nashville,
Speaker 1: that's not good news. But yeah, I started. I did
Speaker 1: start writing after after doing records. I did a couple
Speaker 1: of records, you know, I did a record on Columbia
Speaker 1: and then I did a rock record out of London.
Speaker 1: So when you say records, like you actually pursued a
Speaker 1: deal like and not a deal, you actually had a
Speaker 1: deal like you're gonna be an artist. No, I mean
Speaker 1: the only reason I was here was that I didn't
Speaker 1: come here to write songs for anybody, and um I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I had, you know, I had like five
Speaker 1: record deals signed, you know, five what they used to
Speaker 1: call development deals. And in the in the back in
Speaker 1: the day, as they say, in the late eighties and
Speaker 1: into the nineties, of course, the whole industry was different,
Speaker 1: was much larger. The wave of the nineties was you know,
Speaker 1: there was like it was as you know, I'm as huge.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know at one time they like twenty
Speaker 1: seven labels in town. So you come to town to
Speaker 1: be an artist? Yeah, and from well I was. I
Speaker 1: was born in d C. My dad, uh was a
Speaker 1: foreign service He was in the Foreign Service. He worked
Speaker 1: for called Agency for International Development, so it was the
Speaker 1: economic development side of the US government, on the Embassy
Speaker 1: State Department rather and so we you know, I had
Speaker 1: a crazy upbring. I was. We lived in Tanzania when
Speaker 1: I was a little moved to Nigeria when I was
Speaker 1: eleven and twelve. We were in the Philippines right when
Speaker 1: the marquess Is came into power and Ferdinand Marcus came
Speaker 1: into power in seventy two or three. Anyway, we're there
Speaker 1: three years and then we went During the Carter administration,
Speaker 1: my dad switched from man i d. He was a
Speaker 1: political appointment and he headed up the Joint Economic Commission
Speaker 1: between the U S and Saudi Arabia. So we went
Speaker 1: to live in the most sort of conservative and by
Speaker 1: that I mean Islamics conservative part the capital of Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: Riad And I was sixteen, I was sixteen and then
Speaker 1: uh I. In fact, my oldest sister have three sisters.
Speaker 1: My oldest sister went on to Colgate University in Upstate,
Speaker 1: New York, and then they didn't want both of us
Speaker 1: to go and and I was a tenth grader. And
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, they don't allow expatriot
Speaker 1: Americans to go to school. They didn't in the seventies. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they don't allow you to go to school there. What
Speaker 1: what ex patriot Americans? But well X an ex patriot,
Speaker 1: but X patriot be somebody from another country living in
Speaker 1: your country, and in this case Americans. You know, there
Speaker 1: was of course there were you know, people from everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, Saudi Arabia during that time had all this wealth,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were bringing groups like like j
Speaker 1: Core to join Economic Commission. My dad had it up
Speaker 1: where we were bringing in American know how and an
Speaker 1: education and you know, really helping out with building you know, highways,
Speaker 1: and the Saudis were you know, trying to use their
Speaker 1: wealth to to create development. So that was Dad's area.
Speaker 1: I mean, he'd previously been in what we used to
Speaker 1: call the third World. Now they don't anymore, they called
Speaker 1: the developing world. I wonder, as a sixteen year old
Speaker 1: living in Saudi Arabia, it's gonna be so much different
Speaker 1: than a sixteen year living in the States where your
Speaker 1: driver's license and yeah, you couldn't drive. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: none of that. Mr. Women couldn't drive. I mean in
Speaker 1: the seventies, like just recently, just in fact, I believe
Speaker 1: it was last week. Actually amazingly, the Saudis um finally
Speaker 1: overturned their law and women can drive. But at that
Speaker 1: time women could not drive. And I remember there was
Speaker 1: one woman from the French embassy and she was a
Speaker 1: really interesting woman and friends with my mom and dad.
Speaker 1: And she was like, I don't care. You know, I
Speaker 1: am going to I'm going to drive almost okay whatever.
Speaker 1: Like I told you before, John, you can say whatever
Speaker 1: you want. Yeah, I'll probably be a little different than him,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I know. She So she drove and and
Speaker 1: and she was you know, uh, she was arrested, picked
Speaker 1: up and they arrested her even though she was working
Speaker 1: for the French solutely and they got she was out
Speaker 1: of the country like twenty four hours. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't you do not fool around with stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That is like bye bye French lady. And I admired her.
Speaker 1: There's no protection, Like, there's no even though she's there
Speaker 1: and she's supposedly and France. Well there there's the protection
Speaker 1: that she didn't end up in jail. You know, they
Speaker 1: they the embassy was able to get in there and
Speaker 1: say okay, like diplomatic immunity, yeah, that didn't happen. Well,
Speaker 1: the only again, like I say, the diplomatic immunity aspect
Speaker 1: of that is she didn't have to you know, sit
Speaker 1: in a in a Saudi prison. Well, I I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, this was a lot of years ago,
Speaker 1: but I remember that I would imagine that's diplomatic privileges.
Speaker 1: You get to leave and not come back, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're sixteen year old seeing this. Is it normal
Speaker 1: to you or is it like whoa, this is scary
Speaker 1: to me? Yeah. No, it's normal in the sense that
Speaker 1: it's normal, and that I every two years. I remember
Speaker 1: leaving two or three years, you know, you have a
Speaker 1: post and then you'd go to another country, you know,
Speaker 1: And that was just our life until I was seventeen.
Speaker 1: And actually I didn't stay the full two years in
Speaker 1: Saudi Um. The first year I tried to take courses
Speaker 1: at school at home because we didn't want to lose
Speaker 1: two kids of the four, you know, like jan flew
Speaker 1: back to America and you know, we didn't have cell
Speaker 1: phones and back in those days, like you, that's a
Speaker 1: big separation. She was going to college anyway, but they
Speaker 1: didn't want a sixteen year old. Like the kind of
Speaker 1: families that I grew up with a lot more European,
Speaker 1: and it was not odd at all to send your
Speaker 1: kid off to boarding school, you know, at an early age.
Speaker 1: Kind of a Harry Potter World, right, Americans, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't do that. We don't really do that that much.
Speaker 1: I mean some do in New England, you know, you
Speaker 1: have the andover choked grouten kind of schools. But that
Speaker 1: wasn't I mean, my parents from Midwestern like, they were clannished,
Speaker 1: they were huggers, they were like love, you know, so
Speaker 1: all about family. So we finally decided after taking some
Speaker 1: courses from the Universe. University of Nebraska had these courses.
Speaker 1: They'd send it to folks who were in these kinds
Speaker 1: of posts around the world, you know, And I took
Speaker 1: them and they were just by road kind of memory stuff,
Speaker 1: and so there was nothing to it. So I had
Speaker 1: to choose the school. And the next year I went
Speaker 1: to Italy, and so I did go to boarding school.
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen turning seventeen, I went to Notre
Speaker 1: Dame International, which is a private school run by the
Speaker 1: same folks that run Notre Dame University. And even though
Speaker 1: when I'm not Catholic, I went to that school. Is
Speaker 1: a big, beautiful school and it's only ten minutes out
Speaker 1: of side of downtown Rome and um, and so I
Speaker 1: spent that you know that that two semesters in it
Speaker 1: in Italy. Talked me through this then, just run me
Speaker 1: through all the countries that you remember living in up
Speaker 1: until you're eighteen years old. So yeah, so it was
Speaker 1: just it was, you know, the US and then Saudia.
Speaker 1: Well I think we moved to Tanzania when I was three.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the U S And at three? I
Speaker 1: had no memories? At three, No, I don't really remember it.
Speaker 1: I mean I like to think, you know, because they
Speaker 1: say it's like a sign of intelligence if you remember
Speaker 1: things early. So I've tried, you know, you try to
Speaker 1: dredge it up, like it's like, I bare that's the case,
Speaker 1: unless there's trauma. Yeah, maybe that's it. At three, you moved.
Speaker 1: Walk me through it from Yeah. So we lived for
Speaker 1: a couple of years in Tanzania. Then we came home
Speaker 1: to the Maryland area of the d C. You know,
Speaker 1: I always everything Virginia, Maryland. Every says d C. But
Speaker 1: we're living in Maryland. And then when I was twelve,
Speaker 1: we left for the Philippines and then we lived but
Speaker 1: we lived there more than two years, and uh, then
Speaker 1: we came back for a summer and my dad got
Speaker 1: this big post, this really exciting post in Saudi because
Speaker 1: he had to leave the Department State Department. This was
Speaker 1: all under the auspices of the Department of Treasury, and
Speaker 1: it was a straight you know, it was a diplomat.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a um an appointment, you know,
Speaker 1: from from President Carter, you know, so it was He's
Speaker 1: a Democrat and he had worked under primarily Republican administration,
Speaker 1: so this is kind of a big deal. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, at that time, President Carter was all about
Speaker 1: if you remember Camp David Accords and manach and began
Speaker 1: an onword sadad, and he was trying to create this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, reproachment or whatever between in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. He was trying to bring Middle East peace
Speaker 1: and our friends then and really now are the Saudis,
Speaker 1: you know, and so Dad, you know, that was a
Speaker 1: big job and it was a big chance. But I
Speaker 1: mean it was a wild place to be because you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not fun time. It's not like a party
Speaker 1: in riads out here. Maybe now man I we you know,
Speaker 1: we lived in you know, you'd be in your we'd
Speaker 1: have you know, on a compound with really super high walls.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember growing up. You know, some of
Speaker 1: the places we lived we had guys, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: have a guy a guard at the gate with a gun,
Speaker 1: you know, and we always lived in big compounds, you know.
Speaker 1: But that was this my childhood. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: all That's what it was like. So how in the
Speaker 1: world do you want to be an American music artists
Speaker 1: and country? That was always fun when I had a deal,
Speaker 1: Like when I was in Columbia, I'd go to the
Speaker 1: radio stations and they'd be like and they'd start in
Speaker 1: about you know, your up your upbringing, and and folks
Speaker 1: would look at you like like what you know, what
Speaker 1: the heck are you what? You know? It's as a
Speaker 1: as a joke, it's I used to say, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the the perfect upbringing for a
Speaker 1: country artist. You know, Um, it gets worse, you know.
Speaker 1: I went to school in New England, and originally, like
Speaker 1: when I started out in school, I wanted to study
Speaker 1: Arabic and be it like an Islamic Islamic studies major that,
Speaker 1: you know, And I actually ended up political so I
Speaker 1: finished college and and it was a political science, you know,
Speaker 1: with a with an emphasis at Islamic studies, so you
Speaker 1: don't ever. So I actually got called in by the
Speaker 1: record company. I was at Sony and the record president
Speaker 1: called me. And after one of these interviews with I
Speaker 1: don't know, the Chicago troupe, so there's some big interview
Speaker 1: and the and the guy had got kind of in
Speaker 1: depth about things, he started to read my bio you like,
Speaker 1: really look at it. And I remember the guy and
Speaker 1: the record president is saying, listen, you know, let's not
Speaker 1: talk about any of that. Like it's not helping you
Speaker 1: at radio at all. Like that's not helping you at
Speaker 1: country radio. That's right, that's not helping you. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, like when I was on Columbia, I think
Speaker 1: the entire state of Texas never played a song of mine.
Speaker 1: And which is funny in a way because actually a
Speaker 1: family like from Texas like I have, I have kind
Speaker 1: of a weird connection. I have roots in Texas. But
Speaker 1: it meant you know, it meant nothing. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there were other problems, and why because of one
Speaker 1: you're upbringing to your education. Why do you think they were,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, black balling you from radio.
Speaker 1: I think I was. I think it's it's funny now
Speaker 1: it's ironic now given um what again, these are all
Speaker 1: relative terms to what people talk about, what's country and
Speaker 1: what's not. I mean, you know, I got I got
Speaker 1: to Nashville in eighties six, and I mean this this
Speaker 1: the discussion we have today about broke county, broke country
Speaker 1: versus pop country, versus judicial versus what I'm listen, that's
Speaker 1: been going on NonStop since. I mean, I've seen generations
Speaker 1: of these ideas people battling and talking about. So it's
Speaker 1: common that people are fighting about what's country. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: are more obsessed. I mean, I'm trying to think. The
Speaker 1: closest thing I've ever seeing to our obsession with what
Speaker 1: our identity is is like jazz, you know, you like
Speaker 1: sometimes you talk to jazz guys and that you'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I really like Jamie Column or something, and
Speaker 1: they look at you like you you just spat on
Speaker 1: their you know, their mom or something. I mean, people
Speaker 1: get really wired about their identities in different in different genres,
Speaker 1: but weird, weird in the country. I mean it's kind
Speaker 1: of charming in a in a in a way, we're
Speaker 1: just obsessed with it. You know, people are always people
Speaker 1: talk about it all the time. It's funny to bring
Speaker 1: up the jazz comparison too, because for me and I'm
Speaker 1: not a huge fan of dance music, but dance, trance, house,
Speaker 1: dark trance, they do the same thing in their world.
Speaker 1: They fight about and it's a very small difference between
Speaker 1: one and the other. But to them it's the world,
Speaker 1: at least to those who have an opinion or those
Speaker 1: who want to have a big boys, it's like here,
Speaker 1: if I have to hear what's country and what isn't again,
Speaker 1: people fight me about it. Well, and I got this
Speaker 1: thing too. I got a bound to pick because I
Speaker 1: live in kind of multiple camp you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like, I'm a guitar player, and I played on
Speaker 1: records on my stuff. I'm a piano player. I'm really
Speaker 1: a roots based guy, and I played banjo. I love
Speaker 1: to play banjo. I love mandolin. Um, I don't do tracks.
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I wish I did, I don't
Speaker 1: know how. And so and I'm kind of too old
Speaker 1: a dog to, you know, to teach a new trick.
Speaker 1: And I remember being told to your earlier question. I
Speaker 1: think it was the perception was, well, he's not really
Speaker 1: country enough, and that's you know, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: at the end of the day that when I look
Speaker 1: back and I think, well, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: number of songs on that record that went on to
Speaker 1: be one of them went on to the song of
Speaker 1: the year in country. You're talking about Blessed Broken Road.
Speaker 1: I mean it was the first piano recording of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is cut. Yeah, long lost Dream? Let me too?
Speaker 1: You that? So did you put this out as a single?
Speaker 1: Where were you when I needed I've been slamming it.
Speaker 1: I would have been yelling at my own people. I
Speaker 1: got it, So you cut the song? Now we cut it.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. It was just the usual thing. Look,
Speaker 1: I went in there's a there's a saying in Nashville.
Speaker 1: Or maybe maybe I made it up. I don't know
Speaker 1: if if it's good, it's probably something I heard, but
Speaker 1: it was. You know, you get a record deal when
Speaker 1: you're when your friends become record presents, and I had,
Speaker 1: you know, I just kept signing. Record deal was my
Speaker 1: first record deal was on Mary Tyler Moore Records, And
Speaker 1: that's correct. And I was two weeks or two weeks
Speaker 1: away from my first single being released and the company imploded.
Speaker 1: But you gotta we gotta take a step back. Mary
Speaker 1: Tyler Moore record like you're gonna make it after all? Right,
Speaker 1: So there wasn't Mary Tyler Moore Records. Did she own it? Well,
Speaker 1: her corporation did. And they had great stuf off. I
Speaker 1: mean they had let me think now, they had Judy
Speaker 1: Rodman who had been who had been um maybe was
Speaker 1: the reigning and female vocalists of the year in country.
Speaker 1: They had Paul Overstreet who subsequently went on, you know,
Speaker 1: not only be one of the greatest writers in national history,
Speaker 1: but also had a you know, really uh significant artist's career.
Speaker 1: They had um gosh, they owned the publishing on Radney
Speaker 1: Foster and Bill Lloyd's what became the Faster and Louder,
Speaker 1: that famous record. The the receptionist was Tricia Yearwood. And no,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding, and that I remember, you know, she
Speaker 1: was so great and you know, she was really nice
Speaker 1: and beautiful. And then somebody said to me this is
Speaker 1: you know, they said, well, you you know you ought
Speaker 1: to hear you ought to hear her sing the receptionist,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding where you were signed. That's correct, yes,
Speaker 1: and that's right. And the and I may tell you
Speaker 1: how I got signed to because I had already you know,
Speaker 1: I've gotten into town and I had my first single,
Speaker 1: my first cuts. My first single was a song by
Speaker 1: Michael Martin Murphy called Pilgrims on the Way and that
Speaker 1: went to I don't know, it didn't go that high,
Speaker 1: but it broke the top forty and and partly because
Speaker 1: of that, and then I got signed. But the way
Speaker 1: I got signed is the other guy that there was,
Speaker 1: the guy that was ahead of an r MTM Records
Speaker 1: MTMS what was called was a guy named Tommy West
Speaker 1: who produced Bill Crochy who you know that was more
Speaker 1: like the sound that I had, bad bad was listening
Speaker 1: bad badly? Roy Brown, Uh, you don't um to read
Speaker 1: your mind? What a oh my god? Yeah yeah, So
Speaker 1: I mean like, and that was your sound? You feel
Speaker 1: like that was more was definitely more my sound. In fact,
Speaker 1: that was you know the I know that was the
Speaker 1: rap on me. When I had a country deal was like, man,
Speaker 1: he sees like a folk rock sort of you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what they thought, but
Speaker 1: I get it. I to get it. I get it
Speaker 1: in a way. But for Tommy, I literally had to
Speaker 1: stand there I didn't play in a club. I mean
Speaker 1: I was playing in clubs. But I remember to audition
Speaker 1: for Tommy West and he he had a room and
Speaker 1: I just came into his looking room and he sat
Speaker 1: on a couch and he just said, you know, He's like,
Speaker 1: go ahead, and I played ten songs. I like, played
Speaker 1: an album. I just stood there right in front of
Speaker 1: just played an album. And he's watching you watching because
Speaker 1: you hear like the people that auditioned for SNL and
Speaker 1: they're up on stage and there are three people watching
Speaker 1: and they don't really make a lot of movement. That's
Speaker 1: what it was like. Yeah, it was poker facing and
Speaker 1: he just sat there and you know, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it was creepy, because I really admire him, and
Speaker 1: he was and and look he got he listened to
Speaker 1: the whole thing. He goes, okay, let's do it. Let's
Speaker 1: do it. And you know, in a way we started
Speaker 1: to go And then it just happens that the timing
Speaker 1: of all this was I got married right about that
Speaker 1: same time to be cut and and the thing was
Speaker 1: at the also at the same time that it was
Speaker 1: so to the end of the run of Pilgrims On
Speaker 1: the Way. So I remember on my honeymoon the first
Speaker 1: time and the only time I ever heard Pilgrims on
Speaker 1: the Way on the radio. We were down at like
Speaker 1: you know, destoned of course, you know, because we don't
Speaker 1: have any money, so were like destin and we're out
Speaker 1: on the beach and the loud speakers and they're playing
Speaker 1: that Pilgrims on the Way, which was a percent or two.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, it was like some weird and
Speaker 1: I was a piano and it was like the eighties,
Speaker 1: so I had to have a saxophone on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was really weird song. And when it was like
Speaker 1: my breakthrough, that was it seemed like I thought then
Speaker 1: I thought, that's it, you know, oh my god, and
Speaker 1: it sounded more like a Hornsby song. And if you
Speaker 1: listen to it now, if you ever check that out.
Speaker 1: Um anyway, So that was and I remember right the
Speaker 1: day I got back from my honeymoon, I went to
Speaker 1: Mary Tyler Moore, which is where Paul Worley studios now
Speaker 1: that building and uh and used to the old chapel building.
Speaker 1: And I went over there and I walked in the
Speaker 1: door and they said, um, there's been illegal like there
Speaker 1: was a big premise. I think there was a criminal
Speaker 1: I think there was I don't want to go into
Speaker 1: because I don't know the specifics, but they Marry Tyler
Speaker 1: and Company pulled the plug on it. And so in
Speaker 1: a way, it's one of the saddest things for for
Speaker 1: a lot of people because they got out just when
Speaker 1: the wave hit, like one of these one of the
Speaker 1: worst business moves ever when you think about you know nine,
Speaker 1: you've got something, and they really had something going on.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was an article in the Tennessee and
Speaker 1: a few months ago talking about the guys that ran
Speaker 1: that company, Henry Hurt and Tommy West and others, and
Speaker 1: they're saying, man that you know, it was a stacked
Speaker 1: independent label, and they um, they pulled the plug. So
Speaker 1: you're on it. And when you did Broken Road, that
Speaker 1: was on ANTM. Now so Broken Run comes, you know, Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, my situation is was so bad. It's
Speaker 1: funny that. I mean, I kept getting signed. I mean
Speaker 1: I got signed Timmy Blass, Sigmy Joe Galani signed me.
Speaker 1: Um U. I don't know. There was another label, an
Speaker 1: e M I label that signed me to a kind
Speaker 1: of a rock deal. Uh, Joe Glani was gonna move
Speaker 1: me at one point. At one point it was set
Speaker 1: up that I was going to work with the folks
Speaker 1: from Mellancamps in Indiana. It sounds like people were wanting
Speaker 1: to shift you over to a bit of that sound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're putting you with Mellancamp and they had well, I
Speaker 1: thought that was gonna be great. And then um, when
Speaker 1: Glanni it was right when Glanni got moved over to
Speaker 1: New York to take over everything for our say, and
Speaker 1: then actually Josh Leo took over and he dropped me,
Speaker 1: and but Glani at one point from New York was
Speaker 1: going to move me to Indiana and let me do.
Speaker 1: There was a song I had that became an Alabama cut,
Speaker 1: but it was called the Cheap Seats. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: was a big I had a band called the Pretty
Speaker 1: Red Wing and I was I mean, my my big
Speaker 1: thing was I played live, I played on album like
Speaker 1: I know that song it was a single, it was.
Speaker 1: It didn't go number one or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: it went and you know, for years they played it.
Speaker 1: It was a big song in baseball because it's about
Speaker 1: minor league. That's that's that was such a big baseball
Speaker 1: in seven inning st atch in a lot of places.
Speaker 1: For for quite a while, that was the song. I
Speaker 1: mean then you know, Fogerty has you know, center field,
Speaker 1: but a lot of places to be like the cheap seat. Yeah. God.
Speaker 1: And we used to play that in my band and
Speaker 1: we'd play the fire out of you know, we'd rock
Speaker 1: it real hard. Um. And I really thankful that Alabama
Speaker 1: did it because it was a significant break for me
Speaker 1: in what way. Well, for one thing, it was actually
Speaker 1: unequivocably even though it to me it was kind of
Speaker 1: like a folky thing, but really it was a country
Speaker 1: song by alab you know. And if it's one thing,
Speaker 1: you know, if you get uh, Michael Martin Murphy, for example,
Speaker 1: walk the line is his whole career. Now he just
Speaker 1: cowboy songs, right, cowboy poetry and all that, but he
Speaker 1: was also a pop pop singer. And one of the
Speaker 1: first songs that I ever learned as a guitar player
Speaker 1: was drawn Hima's Cadillac. And that's not really a country
Speaker 1: song that really belongs more to the folk rock field.
Speaker 1: But then he had a country career, so he was
Speaker 1: like walking that line, same line that I would walk,
Speaker 1: only unsuccessfully. Alabama's Alabama. They are like that it gets
Speaker 1: nor more country than Alabama. They get whatever they sing
Speaker 1: is now the country is on. Well yeah, now it's
Speaker 1: like it's like so country, you know, it's it truly
Speaker 1: feels almost like another time songs like hot Cotton, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's amazing stuff. So that was for me, that
Speaker 1: was a little bit. I mean, that's not the breakthrough.
Speaker 1: The breakthrough for me was why not not only love that? That?
Speaker 1: That's where why I got to stand town. Let me
Speaker 1: do it commercially. I don't even stop you, but Mike's
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Speaker 1: the location nearest to you. Okay, So you're talking about
Speaker 1: the wine on As song. Yeah all right, So tell
Speaker 1: me about that and why that's your big break. Um, well,
Speaker 1: it's my big break because it went it went number one,
Speaker 1: and um it didn't go number one on Billboard. But
Speaker 1: back in the day, you know, build b my er
Speaker 1: Ask would throw you a party and give you a
Speaker 1: one of those cups. You get a cup if it
Speaker 1: was on number one on either UR and R or
Speaker 1: Billboard records. Yetta, Yetta, take a step back for a second.
Speaker 1: So now you're writing these songs and getting breaks, but
Speaker 1: are you done pursuing the artist? No? No, no, gosh no, no,
Speaker 1: the whole time I'm and in fact I got one.
Speaker 1: So going back when MTM imploded, my publishing deal was
Speaker 1: then tied in. I'd come from a different group, nineteen
Speaker 1: Avenue or Lorenz Creative Services, which is its own wild thing,
Speaker 1: because that's kind of where Randy Travis broke out with it.
Speaker 1: You know, arguably the record which kicked off the wave,
Speaker 1: the you know, the new Traditionalist movement was a lot
Speaker 1: of people have pointed to the album Storms of Life
Speaker 1: by Randy Travis and it comes at the same time
Speaker 1: as Steve Earle and Love It and Nancy Griffith and
Speaker 1: this thing Dwight Yoakum. They call it the New Traditionalist movement.
Speaker 1: So I came to town right when that was happening.
Speaker 1: The company that signed me, this is just before the
Speaker 1: MTM thing, was a primarily Christian organization called Lorenz Creative
Speaker 1: Services and had thing called nineteen nineteen Reproductions. I think
Speaker 1: it was so Charlie Monks running the Countryside and he
Speaker 1: is the manager of at that time Randy Travis when
Speaker 1: that record goes down. So that was happening right where
Speaker 1: I get signed and when I when I first come
Speaker 1: to Nashville, so I get this massive education on a
Speaker 1: not just country but like serious roots kind of and
Speaker 1: and really I looked to it like, hey, man, if
Speaker 1: I love it, Nancy Griffith and Steve Earle have deals.
Speaker 1: Someday I could have a deal because I live somewhere
Speaker 1: somewhere in that land. I'm yeah, was there you mentioned
Speaker 1: Randy Travis being the launching point because that record was
Speaker 1: so big you kind of put that sound out. Now,
Speaker 1: he probably wasn't the first to do it, but his
Speaker 1: was so big that it made the movement happen, the
Speaker 1: success of it, I think. So was there an argument
Speaker 1: it's okay, this isn't country, Like was that was Randy Travis?
Speaker 1: It was the other way around, So okay, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's you know what it's like, I'll give you
Speaker 1: the to me, I'll give you an analogy. Um, Nirvana,
Speaker 1: I know this is really weird, like what you know,
Speaker 1: how is this in ans? But like there were a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, hair bands and spandex and and exactly,
Speaker 1: and then Cobain and like to me to me overnight
Speaker 1: for people go like, well, what hell, well, that's rock
Speaker 1: listen that guy that's like like that's the end of
Speaker 1: the world. I mean he's rocking like and sure enough
Speaker 1: he killed I mean like he he had that thing
Speaker 1: and the grunge thing comes and you just go, mother
Speaker 1: of God, what okay? You know, So Randy Travis did
Speaker 1: that to or showed you what country really would bones
Speaker 1: uming things. I remember going like exhuming, but yeah, not
Speaker 1: only that, but then you've got you know, then you've
Speaker 1: got buck Owen's would span you know, like with leather
Speaker 1: pants and and punk sensibility, Dwight Yoakum which was guitars
Speaker 1: cattle it, and then you have Love at the five
Speaker 1: and dime. Nasy Griffith wrote it, but Kathy Mattea, you know,
Speaker 1: so that's happening. And then Steve Earl sounds kind of
Speaker 1: like like Springsteen. You grew up in a holler, so
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was so great and intense and
Speaker 1: like when I tell young writers, you know, if you'd
Speaker 1: been here in like right then on the wave it
Speaker 1: this is pre garth by the way, Like it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It was so exciting because you really felt like like
Speaker 1: the music coming out of Nashville that time, I mean
Speaker 1: everybody was fired up. You talk about Dwight Yoakom. For me,
Speaker 1: I loved Yokom, still loved k I remember watching music
Speaker 1: videos being like, I don't even know, Like I was
Speaker 1: raised with the country music part of my life with
Speaker 1: my grandma, and it was an old school country from Arkansas, Kansas.
Speaker 1: So anybody so first of all, Johnny Cash was Johnny Cash. Uh.
Speaker 1: Anybody with an Arkansas pedigree was the biggest to us.
Speaker 1: And so I would see do I Yoko my TV?
Speaker 1: And like, what is happening? Like it's a rock star
Speaker 1: with the cowboy hat who's dancing? Like yeah, none of
Speaker 1: the things matched and that's what made it so cool.
Speaker 1: And then the guitar playing like the electric you know
Speaker 1: that What was it as to why Yokam was happening?
Speaker 1: What did the industry think of him? Um? I think
Speaker 1: that they were, you know, I think they embraced you know,
Speaker 1: in the early in the late eighties and early nineties.
Speaker 1: One of the things that was so you know, particularly
Speaker 1: before deregulation, and um, I think what happened in Nashville
Speaker 1: the I think what people will write about the explosion
Speaker 1: that was Nashville and particularly in the I mean the
Speaker 1: nineties in a way if you look at it broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: when you know it goes from in the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: the perception of countries. I think it's about the size
Speaker 1: of I don't know, jazz again, would I go back
Speaker 1: to like, you know, some more niche kind of thing, right,
Speaker 1: and then you know, country music it's just taken over
Speaker 1: the world, right. And I think when thing like that happens,
Speaker 1: it's almost like a religious movement. It requires a car
Speaker 1: some charismatic elements after then explode and then it creates waves,
Speaker 1: and then concentric waves and more waves, and eventually you
Speaker 1: have the you know, things slowed down and and a
Speaker 1: lot of things that are beautiful about a movement change
Speaker 1: and then gets you know, structured and stratified. But I
Speaker 1: think what happened was that people were allowed to be
Speaker 1: many things that the diversity of country music if you look,
Speaker 1: you know, into the early nineties, is extraordinary because you
Speaker 1: have Yes, Randy Travis, you have Verned Gosden, you know,
Speaker 1: like you want to talk about you know, damn country,
Speaker 1: you know, like wow, But then you'd have. You know,
Speaker 1: you'd have Vince Skill coming up, and you know, and
Speaker 1: then the new Grass Revival and there are things that
Speaker 1: were percolating from a blue grass standpoint that were really
Speaker 1: getting really and we're really creative and moving. Then the
Speaker 1: emergence of the mega stars, the rock stars led by
Speaker 1: you know, Garth, who I don't know outsells the Beatles
Speaker 1: in eight years or whatever. Know it's will that ever,
Speaker 1: anything like that ever happened again in country music. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it'll. It'll take a massive paradigm shift.
Speaker 1: But you know, you think about all of that, and
Speaker 1: then the folkies, you had how catch him, You had
Speaker 1: Mary Chapin Carpenter winning you know female Vocus of the
Speaker 1: Year of ninety three or whatever it was. You had, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all of these things lived and they lived
Speaker 1: together and they profited together. So and pop country then
Speaker 1: emerged too in a different way Shania Twain. You know,
Speaker 1: like that's like what happened with that, Like when it
Speaker 1: would take over, it would take over, and as the
Speaker 1: water rose, all the ships went up with it. That's yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think it was like the big big boat,
Speaker 1: as they say, you know, it could carry a lot
Speaker 1: of things, and it really to me, it doesn't change
Speaker 1: until the Chicks, when the when the you know, when
Speaker 1: the when it all goes down with the President and
Speaker 1: the Chicks. To me, that was the beginning of the
Speaker 1: of a of a kind of a It was sort
Speaker 1: of to me where we began to stop allowing things
Speaker 1: to sort of expand and remain extraordinarily vital and diverse,
Speaker 1: which is healthy. It's like a democracy. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: really better when we have a lot of ideas from
Speaker 1: a multiplicity of this is I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: my I'm just I'm just talking off the cuff, you know,
Speaker 1: on trying to to make music theory or music popular
Speaker 1: music theory coincide with some ideas about culture and politics.
Speaker 1: But I think you know, the many is is more
Speaker 1: powerful than the dominant few. Do you feel like now
Speaker 1: with the landscape and you have artists not even sonically
Speaker 1: but philosophically that have the brothers Marin Although they do
Speaker 1: sound slightly different than what's considered traditional, they aren't in
Speaker 1: that hey, we just fall into the mold and believe
Speaker 1: what everybody in countries starting to believe. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like that type of thing is what it was happening
Speaker 1: back then too. He started to see it again a
Speaker 1: bit with some of these again, as you're describing all
Speaker 1: these people in this multicultural movement. Yeah, and I'm right
Speaker 1: in the middle of it here. I'm starting to finally
Speaker 1: see it again with people having voices and ideas and
Speaker 1: differences and staying the same but being different, because it
Speaker 1: sounds like as you're describing events and as you're describing people,
Speaker 1: like we talked about Dwight Yoakum, he wasn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's started California. Yeah. But when I was an artist,
Speaker 1: I met by Collens, you know, and and he was
Speaker 1: really nice to me. Um, you know, he played my
Speaker 1: record and he was just you know, he and anyway,
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of, you know, research on
Speaker 1: just because I didn't grow up listening to about Ohens
Speaker 1: a man, I didn't. I mean I wish when I
Speaker 1: was that, believe me, when I was at a country radio,
Speaker 1: I wish I had all kinds of records in my background,
Speaker 1: But you know, it wasn't. The only country stuff that
Speaker 1: I really heard growing up. Was my dad loved Johnny Cash,
Speaker 1: and I know that there's a period of time when
Speaker 1: he wasn't considered country, and there was all that going on,
Speaker 1: which is again you talk about the cycles and now
Speaker 1: you saw like again with me and my grandma, it
Speaker 1: was the gospel stuff too. It was Johnny, but I
Speaker 1: remember her telling me that she went to see a
Speaker 1: cash show and he played a lot in Arkansas, especially early,
Speaker 1: and there are people pickinging out front because this wasn't
Speaker 1: that's not country, and like the person that we hold
Speaker 1: as the most screw yes is wasn't. They were so
Speaker 1: angry that that wasn't a country music show? So why
Speaker 1: are you calling the country music show? Like? That's the
Speaker 1: same thing when I say, brothers, everything is a cycle.
Speaker 1: Everything's how we are. That's literally, that's just we like
Speaker 1: we're like eating or young or something, you know, like
Speaker 1: we're really we're funny. It's funny. It's vibrant and powerful
Speaker 1: and funny and then kind of sad sometimes all the
Speaker 1: like I did a show. I won't say who was
Speaker 1: the other night, but I did a show and you know, um,
Speaker 1: I mean ironically when I play now, I sound like
Speaker 1: I think people think I'm as you know, I've literally
Speaker 1: had people come up to me and say, hey man,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for keeping a country thank you. And
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, because I play Cowboy, Take
Speaker 1: Me Away, and then the way I play Born to
Speaker 1: Fly and stuff like that, you know, now that's really
Speaker 1: country sounding. And then um, and then I always had
Speaker 1: a gospel thing in me anyway. That's just that that
Speaker 1: actually helped me stay in Nashville because you know, that
Speaker 1: was sort of genuine. I did grow up singing in church,
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't evangelical or this or that. But
Speaker 1: I mean, like I still I sang in church my
Speaker 1: whole life, and I like to sing in churches to this.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a big part of my life too. Um.
Speaker 1: Even that though was sort of on the wrong side
Speaker 1: of it culturally, but nonetheless I did have that. Um.
Speaker 1: But oh God, whilst the trying of thought, I got
Speaker 1: thinking about the gospel and you were playing with somebody,
Speaker 1: and I think this person you being country, you sounding country,
Speaker 1: that was your thing that people are like, hey, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, I do remember now. Yet so I'm playing
Speaker 1: with this guy, we're like we're down in like a
Speaker 1: like it was during one of the like a cmf
Speaker 1: cmafest thing. And I play so many writers things now
Speaker 1: that I can't even remember while, but I remember this
Speaker 1: night because it was recent. Um it's like truth, I
Speaker 1: don't know three or four months ago. In anyway, this
Speaker 1: particular writer is very successful writer, and he's very country.
Speaker 1: And he got up there and he said, and he
Speaker 1: says to the audience and audience he's like, I'm just
Speaker 1: glad he said that, says, I tell you what, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna play any goddamn Sam Hunt record. He says,
Speaker 1: I'd like anything, as long as not a goddamn in
Speaker 1: pardon me for like Sam Hunt. And I'm like, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: what the hell do you care? First of all, Sam
Speaker 1: Hunt is unless unless you're just deaf, dumb and blind
Speaker 1: like that guy has lots of talent. I'm honestly, I
Speaker 1: mean I can't. I can't write that stuff. I mean
Speaker 1: i'd like to. I mean, I'd love to sit in
Speaker 1: the room with I've heard, by the way, from other
Speaker 1: writers that he's just an outstanding writer. And he's and
Speaker 1: he's even kind of old school, meaning he doesn't everything
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be done in two hours. Oh he's
Speaker 1: notoriously slow on purpose. Yeah, we'll see. That's the generation. Look,
Speaker 1: I came up in the generation where you know, you
Speaker 1: you would sit around and talk about where to put
Speaker 1: a comma so that the page would look right, you know,
Speaker 1: like it wasn't. So there's there's so many things that
Speaker 1: have changed, But the larger point for me was, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk authenticity. If you if everybody wants to talk
Speaker 1: about authenticity, let's take a moment and just step back
Speaker 1: for a second. Imagine you grow up in your you
Speaker 1: grow up in America, in your in in the nineties,
Speaker 1: your teens, your early teens are in the nineties. Let's
Speaker 1: just imagined that. And so that was that's like almost
Speaker 1: everybody that were who's sort of listening to all of this.
Speaker 1: If you grow up at that time and you fall
Speaker 1: in love with some country acts, and why wouldn't you?
Speaker 1: They were it was amazing time, right, and amazing writing community, vibrant, vibrant, vibrant.
Speaker 1: But you live in America, so what's even you know.
Speaker 1: The the other thing that's incredible and emerging and and
Speaker 1: really muscular is urban music and rap. Right, So as
Speaker 1: you move into the early two thousands, if you're not
Speaker 1: listening to rap at all and mixed in with your
Speaker 1: gumbo that has some country acts, right, then I just
Speaker 1: don't know what country you're in, because that's how it is,
Speaker 1: That's what it was. I mean, you aren't going home
Speaker 1: to Mary maybe RFD and sitting and just only listening
Speaker 1: to a few little records and you're not gonna know
Speaker 1: that's that's not culture. So of course, Sam, like a
Speaker 1: lot of people you know, like including my son, who
Speaker 1: has this real pop country sound, as artists, they naturally
Speaker 1: integrated these sounds, and that is by definition, honest to me.
Speaker 1: That's always been my biggest argument is it's no one
Speaker 1: kicking at country regoing I'm going to change it. It's
Speaker 1: everyone using the tools they've grown up with. And again,
Speaker 1: I was born in the eighties, so I was in
Speaker 1: nineties teenage kid. And it was also when Napster happened,
Speaker 1: and I then realized I could have every song that
Speaker 1: started with L. All I had to do was hit
Speaker 1: it and and I had every kind of no. I
Speaker 1: grew up in Arkansas, so if it wasn't Glenn Campbell
Speaker 1: or Andy Grafs Gospel Records, or Johnny Cash or Ray Charles,
Speaker 1: then it started to be mcgrawl and Garth. Then it
Speaker 1: started to be Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Then it was
Speaker 1: hip hop, and so at my core I'm a country
Speaker 1: music fan. But if I acted like I wasn't a
Speaker 1: hip hop guy or an alternative guy, it would be
Speaker 1: a lie. You be, we want and to your point
Speaker 1: of authenticity, do we want people lying? Isn't that the
Speaker 1: purpose of this entire format is that it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be real. And if you look with the people Sam
Speaker 1: reach like there's a reason that he sells out amphitheaters
Speaker 1: every single time instantly because he's actually reaching human. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and isn't at the point and here's the thing of
Speaker 1: twenty years, people are gonna go a man, I wish
Speaker 1: it was like the little Sam Hunt days. Yeah, It'll
Speaker 1: be like, boy that was country, that was country back then.
Speaker 1: This guy over here with the bike horn. You know
Speaker 1: this is not country. So look I make i'd be.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I gotta say it's I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about both sides of my mouth. But you know,
Speaker 1: like as a musician, I mean like when I do demos,
Speaker 1: now I get a couple other guys like me who
Speaker 1: play a bunch of instruments. There's no money for demos anymore.
Speaker 1: You know. People don't do like they used to. It
Speaker 1: was like you know, he used to it was every
Speaker 1: every six weeks we just do a big old session
Speaker 1: and just put it on the card, and everybody was
Speaker 1: those days are not that's not where we're at right now.
Speaker 1: But because I mean, I'm really a roots guy, I
Speaker 1: really am, you know, and I mean what I really
Speaker 1: love to listen to is still I mean, I still
Speaker 1: love a Patty Loveless record like crazy, you know. I
Speaker 1: still love New Grass Revival, I still love you know,
Speaker 1: I love Jimmy Webb's song sung by Glenn Campbell because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a piano player and I just the harmonic
Speaker 1: ideas and those songs that really was as much as
Speaker 1: anything that kind of brought me to the genre. I love,
Speaker 1: you know, the way you know, the people that are
Speaker 1: really who play acoustic guitar beautifully. I try, you know,
Speaker 1: my whole life. I'm always trying to stretch as a musician,
Speaker 1: but I don't really I don't really dig a lot
Speaker 1: of digital information in terms of my aesthetic, in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, I'm I'm an old dog, if you will,
Speaker 1: and happily so. At the same time, I really feel
Speaker 1: like as long as I've been in this industry, I've
Speaker 1: been hearing this stick since the day I got here,
Speaker 1: and I'm tired of damn, honest to god, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sick of people. You know. It's just it's so
Speaker 1: it's so nonproductive, you know, because yes, thank God for
Speaker 1: Zach Brown and you know, and and the earthy whatever,
Speaker 1: the roots side of things that still and I definitely
Speaker 1: hope that it makes a comeback also because if it does,
Speaker 1: I might have a job as I get older, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, because more and more I find the stuff
Speaker 1: that I'm doing. It. Yeah, it just sounds like it's
Speaker 1: hopelessly in another world. But these things do tend to
Speaker 1: work in cycles. And the song is at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it is the king, the queen, it is,
Speaker 1: you know, the court. Eventually everything does return to the song.
Speaker 1: I know that. And eventually everyone has to be able
Speaker 1: to play such a song like that somewhere with a
Speaker 1: guitar or a piano in a room. And that's the
Speaker 1: classic thing. And that and most songwriters and artists, you know,
Speaker 1: that's really what they want. They want to have a
Speaker 1: song that you can play and it just immediately is
Speaker 1: transformative that you know, that's what they refer to as
Speaker 1: a copyright and it's not just money, you know, it isn't.
Speaker 1: It isn't. I'm not not the same, you know, pure
Speaker 1: as a driven snow or anything. But for those of
Speaker 1: us who are crazy songwriter musician types, we are. We
Speaker 1: are like like odd religious devotees and and pilgrim souls.
Speaker 1: I mean, we really are. You know, It's it's a
Speaker 1: strange bunch. You know. I think you might be the
Speaker 1: smartest person I've ever talked to. I'm sure. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm listening and I'm understanding everything you're saying, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like wow, And it's crazy that, you know,
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of people I brought in
Speaker 1: you talked to and you go, okay, there it's a
Speaker 1: familiar level level they're thinking out with me. Not that
Speaker 1: I'm right, but it's a familiar level and you're talking
Speaker 1: on a familiar level that I thinking, but so much smarter.
Speaker 1: Like I want to go back and listen to this,
Speaker 1: go this is watched the same next time I get
Speaker 1: to argue because I have the same like to me,
Speaker 1: there's room for everything. Is there's room for everything, and
Speaker 1: there's no definition inside of art. As soon as you
Speaker 1: start to put walls around art, then it's not what
Speaker 1: you wanted to know. And what do you want out
Speaker 1: of people? You know, you say you want artists, you
Speaker 1: say you even know what that means. And then you
Speaker 1: you know the nature of those kinds of people is
Speaker 1: they're sort of explosive. They they move in directions, they
Speaker 1: go to the river, moves in a way that you
Speaker 1: didn't see it coming. You know. I'm like, that's what
Speaker 1: that looks like. And like my son, for example, is
Speaker 1: so Levi is you know, making his way in music
Speaker 1: right now, and his sound is more pop country, but
Speaker 1: then he has two or three different gears and I'm
Speaker 1: always telling him maybe he gets sick of hearing it.
Speaker 1: We just literally got off the road from two weeks
Speaker 1: together and we shared a room, which I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: That's something, you know, because he's twenty six and got
Speaker 1: a poor guy. You know, we're in like Amsterdam, he's
Speaker 1: he's sharing a room with his dad. Think about that
Speaker 1: for a moment, just let that settle in. But we
Speaker 1: had a great time, you know, and we're out and
Speaker 1: we're playing with a lot of people and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're doing you know, a country week in
Speaker 1: the UK, and and I've been playing in and out
Speaker 1: of the UK for years. I mean that it's just
Speaker 1: give a following there. I wouldn't say I have a
Speaker 1: following um in the UK. I mean that when I
Speaker 1: was on Columbia the one great tour, I had one
Speaker 1: just unforgettable tour well, and then I was signed my
Speaker 1: my rock deal was was out of London, So I
Speaker 1: guess I have all kinds of UK connections. But um,
Speaker 1: I got to open for Alison Kraus and Union Station
Speaker 1: and they did like the Royal you know, um, oh
Speaker 1: what's right there in the Times, the Thames, the Royal
Speaker 1: Festival Hall or whatever. When we did like Ulster Hall,
Speaker 1: in the Gaiety Theater and double like the best places,
Speaker 1: and I could take one musician with me. I was
Speaker 1: allowed one side man. I took Darryl Scott, who I
Speaker 1: had just met, and we septs to be k He's
Speaker 1: one of my best friends in the world. It's like
Speaker 1: a brother to me and he's my longest to this day,
Speaker 1: longest running co writer. Do you know Darryl at I don't,
Speaker 1: Oh you know, do you know who he is? Though
Speaker 1: I know who he is? People talking about him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never met him. Yeah, well, he's one of the
Speaker 1: best ever. And he's taught me more about what is
Speaker 1: country what isn't than probably anybody, because I don't know
Speaker 1: anybody who knows country music the history of it more.
Speaker 1: And can do you know, you can do anything, you know.
Speaker 1: It's a guy can play literally everything. But anyway, he's
Speaker 1: my sideman, you know. Uh. And we would go into
Speaker 1: these places and and I would do my forty minutes
Speaker 1: and with Darryll, you know, and then we would sit
Speaker 1: and we would watch this greatest, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest of all American musical forms, you know, like
Speaker 1: just her, you know, just Alison, you know, and then
Speaker 1: to Minsky and you know the band, you know, Jerry Douglas.
Speaker 1: And we literally would sit night after night and then
Speaker 1: we then we'd get in our car because they had
Speaker 1: a bus we had to follow on a car. We
Speaker 1: drive in through Ireland, you can imagine. And it was
Speaker 1: it was just as romantic as it should be. It
Speaker 1: was a great thing. It was extraordinary, you know, And
Speaker 1: that was like the greyest thing I ever got to do.
Speaker 1: And I remember I even when I flew back from
Speaker 1: the UK um I literally had to get off the
Speaker 1: plane and went right to playing like a holiday in
Speaker 1: you know, on my radio tour. And I think I
Speaker 1: got drunk, you know, and and like the record President game,
Speaker 1: and like he got drunk too, and and I felt
Speaker 1: sick the next day, and I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's kind of a great thing
Speaker 1: to do. It's a great American thing to do. But
Speaker 1: now my son, you know, like our son, not mine,
Speaker 1: but our son, aren't We have three sons. The oldest boy,
Speaker 1: Levi's out there and he's already had like great sort
Speaker 1: of ups and downs and and uh, and he is
Speaker 1: teaching me about a new paradigm which is occurring. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's always a new paradise, something's always coming,
Speaker 1: of course. And it was interesting because this past year
Speaker 1: I helped co produce a movie called The Last Songwriter.
Speaker 1: And in this movie, with the directors director Mark Barsor Elliott,
Speaker 1: we looked at what has happened with streaming and the
Speaker 1: like severe attrition in the songwriting community in Nashville, like
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal says, of our uh, making a
Speaker 1: living population is lost. You know, there's only like it
Speaker 1: went from four thousand or four d eight years and so,
Speaker 1: and my job and it was to score it, but
Speaker 1: also my job is to pick songwriters to talk about
Speaker 1: it and to talk about what, you know, like what
Speaker 1: the art form is really like. So we got some
Speaker 1: major stars. Garth Brooks was agreed to do it. Jason Isabel,
Speaker 1: you know who's just extraordinary he did at Emma Lou
Speaker 1: Harris and then the the and yet the main event
Speaker 1: in a way is I picked Matresa Berg, Tony Rata,
Speaker 1: Tom Douglas down Shamblin to be this sort of internal
Speaker 1: dialogue in the movie. It's just an hour long movie
Speaker 1: and it it premiered at the Nashville Film Festival and
Speaker 1: got in a you know, like Appreciation Award or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever they have there. And it's a beautiful movie, um,
Speaker 1: but a lot of what it says in it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of talking about streaming, so you know, streaming
Speaker 1: comes along, and it doesn't really include writers and publishers
Speaker 1: as we know, and the deals are really made the
Speaker 1: with the people that own the sound recording, which is
Speaker 1: usually the record company unless you're Taylor Swift or your
Speaker 1: Kanye or whatever, and you own your own sound recording.
Speaker 1: And so we know the reality and the course the
Speaker 1: growth of streaming is off is off the chart, and
Speaker 1: so consequently, you know, Lomana tone Poll is a songwriter.
Speaker 1: So that's all true, Like that's all just happening. And
Speaker 1: in the midst of that, I see my son Um.
Speaker 1: He's on you know, Big Machine, and they have a
Speaker 1: really amicable parting of the ways. And he's got this
Speaker 1: great management company, Iconic, which is really a label, and
Speaker 1: they just start putting out you know, songs, singles as
Speaker 1: streaming singles, and he kind of has showed me that
Speaker 1: how great really streaming is in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and it's it's entire it's really bringing about this kind
Speaker 1: of democratization of the form because people who aren't just
Speaker 1: the four or five labels that's all that's left now, right,
Speaker 1: who get their little corporate push. You've got people like
Speaker 1: you know, he's got the first song that Don't Waste Tonight.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got you get two million streams from
Speaker 1: somebody that nobody knows and next single, the song called Stupid.
Speaker 1: In a week, it was like a hundred and something thousand,
Speaker 1: and he's explaining to me, you know, Dad, this is great.
Speaker 1: Do you see that it's great. And what I'm realizing
Speaker 1: is that it is great. It's great. The problem isn't streaming.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, it would be wonderful if the folks
Speaker 1: that created the form, the Pandora's, the apples, the Spotify's,
Speaker 1: if they had just gone like, well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just morally wrong to to cut out. But the thing
Speaker 1: is that because the nature of the laws that govern
Speaker 1: intellectual property in America, we are held under compulsory licenses,
Speaker 1: which means that we can't negotiate in this you know,
Speaker 1: in this society, this capital society, we cannot negotiate for
Speaker 1: you know, for our worth in business, songwriters. So we're
Speaker 1: we're screwed unless Congress has to go ahead and say, hey,
Speaker 1: these are laws, there are kick. This digital revolution is
Speaker 1: upon us. Music is being played more than ever. Let's
Speaker 1: find some way to you know, to in a fair
Speaker 1: way to monetize it. And before we lose this one
Speaker 1: of you know, one of America's greatest assets is it's songwriters.
Speaker 1: But it's really been interesting with LEVI because I've you know,
Speaker 1: when I was doing the movie, I kept thinking, you, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, streaming bad evil, you know, And I've come
Speaker 1: to realize it. Really, that's not where the fight is.
Speaker 1: The fight needs to be fought in laws need to change.
Speaker 1: But but streaming itself is just you know, who doesn't
Speaker 1: want to have access to all these songs? I've always
Speaker 1: felt with streaming and right now it's the wild West
Speaker 1: as far as laws, meaning no one's breaking it. There
Speaker 1: just aren't them yet. And just like the wild Wit,
Speaker 1: eventually there's there'll be a sheriff it comes into town
Speaker 1: that actually regulates what's happening in the town. And until
Speaker 1: then you a lot of people running crazy. There are
Speaker 1: no the rules are so old school. Yeah that they're
Speaker 1: not they're not real time. They're not real time. But
Speaker 1: what's happening with with a lot of my friends and songwriters,
Speaker 1: A lot of my friends will testify and talk to Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you're now new friends and now another friend
Speaker 1: that goes up. We go up to N S. We
Speaker 1: do the N S A I thing and you know,
Speaker 1: thank God for Bart and Krista and and those folks.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny when you do them because you
Speaker 1: realize that you're really there to play a couple of songs,
Speaker 1: and you know it's something's gonna have to happen, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, Uh, I just don't know when I
Speaker 1: believe it will. I mean, I know that it will happen,
Speaker 1: but I know that the laws will change eventually. I
Speaker 1: just hope they do, you know, before too long. But
Speaker 1: and a lot of that is because I feel for
Speaker 1: younger songwriters that you know, it's just it's really good
Speaker 1: to be able to make a little bit of money.
Speaker 1: You're not talking baseball money here. We're not talking about hey,
Speaker 1: you know, let's you know, like we're talking about just
Speaker 1: make enough money that you can do what it is
Speaker 1: that God meant you to do, which is to write
Speaker 1: this poetry, to try and become Jimmy Webb, to try
Speaker 1: try and write Galveston. That's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: You want to write American Pie. I mean, you want
Speaker 1: to write fire and Ring, you want to write damn
Speaker 1: You're anything Carol King wrote. You know, like, that's what
Speaker 1: you want to do. And and but to do that,
Speaker 1: you've got to be able to apply your trade all
Speaker 1: the time. And it it, you know, will will great
Speaker 1: writers emerge that One of the interesting statistics that we found,
Speaker 1: I mean this is is that even though less people
Speaker 1: are making a living, at songwriting that it's still kind
Speaker 1: of like the same general number of songwriters are floating
Speaker 1: around this town. So the true hearts, the real believers,
Speaker 1: they're all out there. They're all out there. And frankly,
Speaker 1: if streaming gives people a chance to be unique and exciting,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe John Marcus the gate keeper, you know,
Speaker 1: if he is, he's he's pretty groovy as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, you know, I mean, I know, at
Speaker 1: least maybe I'm speaking as a father, as a dad,
Speaker 1: you know, like he's been good. You know, he he
Speaker 1: digs leavey stuff, and and it's not just the it's
Speaker 1: its own thing, right, And I just think you have
Speaker 1: to be thankful for folks like that too, that are
Speaker 1: you know, that want to hear something new, that are
Speaker 1: willing to take some chances. You know, I think you're
Speaker 1: speaking as a dad. Okay, really, okay's got their own opinion.
Speaker 1: Um here's there because I like LEVI yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like this has been a college course and now I
Speaker 1: want to shift it a second. I want to here's
Speaker 1: my here's my theory on streaming and why it's all
Speaker 1: something's also gonna happen to it because it's becoming out
Speaker 1: of control to where these streams are so inflated, to
Speaker 1: where if somebody's gotta have friends that have songs have
Speaker 1: been stream ten million times, yea, they can't sell it
Speaker 1: a bar. You're gonna tell me ten million people have
Speaker 1: listened to this song, but you can't get to people
Speaker 1: to buy tickets. But I can tell but I can
Speaker 1: show you the opposite side of that, the other side
Speaker 1: to that. And again, I'm again it sounds like I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting around your pitching my son, But I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I'm telling you, like he goes out and
Speaker 1: he plays, He's three days away from going out with
Speaker 1: eighteen Days with l a young band, and he gets
Speaker 1: goes out with you know, I mean, you know, Kip
Speaker 1: takes him out, and Dan and Shaye take him out,
Speaker 1: and Kelsey takes him out, and he goes to Chicago
Speaker 1: and he hard tickets clubs. Now he's put almost two
Speaker 1: years in and he's got followings in pockets, and I
Speaker 1: even know, I couldn't believe it. I'm in London right
Speaker 1: with my kid in the same room. What we're going
Speaker 1: to do in shows, right, And I'm playing the show
Speaker 1: and I'm watching the audience and he's up there, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's singing, uh, what's the first one? Um, not
Speaker 1: stupid the uh, don't waste the night, don't wasten night,
Speaker 1: Come on, come over. I'm looking at the audience and
Speaker 1: they're singing it, and I'm thinking, well, okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's trippy to me. You know, let
Speaker 1: me not be a dad for a second and talk
Speaker 1: on the other side. And I do believe that it's
Speaker 1: reaching more people than anything since Napster. It's we're back
Speaker 1: to that where people. First of all we need is
Speaker 1: people to pay for the premium services. That's a thing.
Speaker 1: So that will in the end trickle down to the
Speaker 1: songwriters at least for a bit until we're able to
Speaker 1: change the laws. But paying for the premium services is
Speaker 1: actually a big deal, So we need more people to
Speaker 1: buy the premium services. I don't care if it's Spotify,
Speaker 1: Apple Music. I heart radio, Spotify with it's no commercials, Pandora.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody now is doing on demand music, and
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that people are hearing these songs and
Speaker 1: if someone's coming to town, they're able to check them
Speaker 1: out easily because they have access on their phone to
Speaker 1: um or. People can develop a fan basis too, with
Speaker 1: social media also a big part of this. I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. I took Laura Lane out and she
Speaker 1: opened for us for ten shows from my band UH
Speaker 1: and Lauren was like, I'm fifty million strange and I'm
Speaker 1: opening for you, And I'm like, you're right, that's crazy
Speaker 1: because you're so much better than I know. And it
Speaker 1: is reaching the mass more so. But what's happening is
Speaker 1: people are seeing these inflated numbers and going that's not real.
Speaker 1: So it's ruining it for everyone. And so when someone
Speaker 1: comes up and they go, now, I'll just give you
Speaker 1: a normal conversation inside of because for me, everything is
Speaker 1: digital like that the days of transmitters going into cars.
Speaker 1: There's probably three to five years of that being really strong,
Speaker 1: and that's going to start go away. So I've already
Speaker 1: shifted how I do my job. I'm playing to the phone.
Speaker 1: Like everything I do place to the phone, because everybody's
Speaker 1: got there's all the time I do my radio show,
Speaker 1: and I got three to five years of really strong
Speaker 1: that really strong, especially in country, which is a couple
Speaker 1: of years behind. But I'm playing to the phone already
Speaker 1: I have five million that listen on normal radio and
Speaker 1: another five million that download my podcast. So I'm looking
Speaker 1: at pretty much at split and who's taking my content.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you sitting in these meeting from
Speaker 1: people come and go, I have this artist and he's
Speaker 1: got three million streams, and I go, somebody just playlist?
Speaker 1: Did you? And they're not showing us the algorithm and
Speaker 1: how these things are getting tracked, Like, let's have a
Speaker 1: little bit of transparency here on. At least with sound scan,
Speaker 1: when albums were bought, there was some transparency, and know
Speaker 1: when this many records came from this store, it was deep.
Speaker 1: There's not that in the digital landscape. So it makes
Speaker 1: everyone seemed full of crap because you have people that
Speaker 1: are just putting songs on playlists and nobody knows it.
Speaker 1: And because you bought the guy at dinner or took,
Speaker 1: you know, took a nap at his house, you all
Speaker 1: of a sudden get playlisted. And it doesn't happen with everybody,
Speaker 1: but it is happening like that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: radio has its problems, streaming has its problems. Everywhere has
Speaker 1: a weakness, Satellite has its weakness. Higher end they don't
Speaker 1: know how people are listening either, much smaller audience. Everybody's
Speaker 1: got its weakness, but everybody has its strength too, And
Speaker 1: so I could sit here and I often do it,
Speaker 1: pick radio apart, and boy do I get in trouble
Speaker 1: for that, because I mean, that's who pays me when
Speaker 1: I go on the radio and talk about how radio
Speaker 1: is failing me. It's dying how and not even that
Speaker 1: it's done. It's shifting, its shifting. But I go, hey,
Speaker 1: why aren't we working on some of these new initiatives
Speaker 1: that we know? Regardless, I yell at my own people,
Speaker 1: and I get in trouble, so I feel safe and
Speaker 1: yelling at everybody else too. I did tell everybody, but
Speaker 1: I think that's my When it comes to streaming, that's
Speaker 1: the issue. These inflated numbers are making everyone look at
Speaker 1: and go, well, this is absurd. None of it's true
Speaker 1: because you can buy You can buy ten thousand streams
Speaker 1: very easily, and people are doing it. Labels are buying
Speaker 1: streams like crazy. And it's like YouTube views. You can
Speaker 1: buy YouTube views, no problem, that still happens, but that
Speaker 1: was a two years ago. A thing really where you're
Speaker 1: buying YouTube views now people are buying streaming numbers as well. Right,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna pay and I'm gonna get fifty streams
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna look that much cooler. Okay, Well, you
Speaker 1: pay ten thousand dollars, all of a sudden you got
Speaker 1: a million streams, and it helps you go, well, I
Speaker 1: got now I got a million streams. This guy should
Speaker 1: come play here. Too many people are doing that. The
Speaker 1: oversaturation of the person with ten million streams is happening,
Speaker 1: and people are starting to roll their eyes at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: does all that make sense? It does make sense, I
Speaker 1: mean it does. And yet I'm I have to admit,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not. I don't feel like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in my fifties and I think I resemble my
Speaker 1: own generation. You know, a lot of this stuff is
Speaker 1: kind of it's like mystifying to me. What's not mystifying
Speaker 1: is the idea once something starts to take streaming, and
Speaker 1: it's always it's funny because it's always happened. Something will
Speaker 1: take and then you find some way to pay for it.
Speaker 1: But I have to say that I think that where
Speaker 1: the rubber meets the road a little bit is any
Speaker 1: form of if you get any kind of saturation or
Speaker 1: any kind of that may not be the I don't
Speaker 1: even know if I know the term the terms any
Speaker 1: traction and you and if you play live, if they're
Speaker 1: if you notice a relationship, if there relays a relationship
Speaker 1: between being a really vital live musician where you go
Speaker 1: and you know you're you're really building something, you have
Speaker 1: a sound, then I think you've at least got some
Speaker 1: building blocks to work with in this very strange time,
Speaker 1: which it feels like an interim time to me, it's
Speaker 1: an it's a niche time. This this is what I'm seeing,
Speaker 1: is I can for me, technology is huge and getting
Speaker 1: all my messages out. See now you seem like the
Speaker 1: smartest guy I've ever met. But I have to eat,
Speaker 1: so I have to pay the bills. So I've got
Speaker 1: to figure out how to use all of these areas
Speaker 1: and you get my message out whatever it is. Everybody
Speaker 1: has a message, So I've got to learn how to
Speaker 1: use my Twitter in the in the correct way, my
Speaker 1: Instagram in the right way, what music I put up,
Speaker 1: what music I promote to put So there are all
Speaker 1: these things, and what I've determined is that we're becoming
Speaker 1: a niche celebrity society, meaning the days of just having
Speaker 1: three channels and Mash gets twenty million viewers is over.
Speaker 1: By the way, I wasn't even I don't even know
Speaker 1: how's a live one match was on. But that's my
Speaker 1: example of everybody watched the finale and match. There's a
Speaker 1: reason it has the record. So there are so many
Speaker 1: options out there. It's like a high It's like the
Speaker 1: interstate and all these cars are going by, and so
Speaker 1: you gotta quickly catch one because there comes another, here
Speaker 1: comes another. If you build your niche and you find
Speaker 1: your small audience and you super serve the crap out
Speaker 1: of them, that's where the success is going to start
Speaker 1: coming from. Because there are a thousand different things to do.
Speaker 1: That's why people are putting out songs so quick, because
Speaker 1: it goes from one of the other one or the
Speaker 1: other one or the other. If you find your little
Speaker 1: group of people in you serve them. It's Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 1: to them every single night. You give them cranberry sauce
Speaker 1: and turkey, and you serve them like crazy, and you
Speaker 1: build that niche out instead of throwing the big blanket
Speaker 1: up and hoping you catch as many as possible. That's
Speaker 1: not working anymore. It's about zeroing in and spreading instead
Speaker 1: of going hey, everyone, I hope you like me. Boom.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the change happen even in my dam
Speaker 1: I mean I started as a teenager in the late
Speaker 1: nineties doing radio. It's changed dramatically since then. When you
Speaker 1: would just put out a record and go, everybody love it,
Speaker 1: that's just not what happens. Even in country music now
Speaker 1: it's not. It's starting to be niche on the major
Speaker 1: side of things, even with how you know, I want
Speaker 1: to hear traditional country. We have radio stations that are
Speaker 1: now breaking apart inside our format. Yeah, which they always
Speaker 1: used to talk about remember the nineties. In the late nineties,
Speaker 1: people started talking that. Now they do it because so
Speaker 1: it's a very niche. If you super serve your small group,
Speaker 1: that small group gets a little bit, bigger gets. This
Speaker 1: podcast started with one thousand people listening. It's like a million.
Speaker 1: I never thought any able to listen to this crap.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm I'm counting. This is a big
Speaker 1: I'm counting on my career. Pick up. Sure you can
Speaker 1: we talk about hard tickets. You'll be able to go
Speaker 1: anywhere and just talk but yeah, this has turned into
Speaker 1: an entire music theory. You have wrote so many so
Speaker 1: we didn't even get the song. Let's we have like
Speaker 1: a few minutes, let's talk some stuff here because and
Speaker 1: let's just get right down to it, because I feel
Speaker 1: like I just got a degree from Home University all
Speaker 1: right now. I feel like I just learned something, although
Speaker 1: it's so hard for me to follow. And again, I
Speaker 1: see you. I'm seeing a lot of what you're talking
Speaker 1: about really through kind of through my son's eyes. And
Speaker 1: I know Fletcher Fosters manager and like, um, we're really
Speaker 1: you know, really close family friends and um and then
Speaker 1: and you know, and we and and actually the guy
Speaker 1: that you know helps finance Iconic is lair back within me.
Speaker 1: And I love to talk to him, you know, because
Speaker 1: they you know, and they care. They care about their Yes,
Speaker 1: they care about their artists. Is only you know, three
Speaker 1: of them, but they and they're thinking about this stuff
Speaker 1: all the time, you know. Um, and then it's just
Speaker 1: very it's an extraordinary time. And again, as a dad,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just that I have a I
Speaker 1: have two dogs in the game, if you would, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to kind of stay vital or involved
Speaker 1: in the business. Vital is a separate issue, by the way,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, you know. But the other thing I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do is I'm also watching you know, my
Speaker 1: son and who I you know, make music with sometimes,
Speaker 1: but also you know who I just love and he's
Speaker 1: trying to you know, I see him going into these waters,
Speaker 1: the very thing that you're talking about, and I'm excited
Speaker 1: for him. But sometimes I also feel like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: it's so tough for artists today. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: when I was an artist in the nineties, like when
Speaker 1: I had a couple of record deals I had, and
Speaker 1: you know, you would think about, oh wow, I get
Speaker 1: to do an interview. That six great, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: you know, I'll reach a lot of people. And I
Speaker 1: see artists today and you know, if they don't do
Speaker 1: three four selfies a day and and do you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're you know, Twitter feeds and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're trained to do that, and of
Speaker 1: course it makes perfect sense you you kind of have
Speaker 1: to do that. But think about the generation before you
Speaker 1: They said that about you, like, I can't believe what
Speaker 1: they have to do now. Again, we talked about cycles
Speaker 1: that people were saying the same thing about from the sixties.
Speaker 1: I really didn't we really didn't have to do anything
Speaker 1: too much during the day. I'm like, I just think
Speaker 1: you have to be on a you gotta be on
Speaker 1: your phone. It's just you know, if to compete. And
Speaker 1: and then the Twitter thing, you know, you're like, we
Speaker 1: got a president who's commenting seven eight times a day.
Speaker 1: I don't even have Twitter, you know, Like I had
Speaker 1: Twitter briefly, and I was like, I can't believe I'm
Speaker 1: commenting on my own life. I can't believe it. Like
Speaker 1: that's something is separate from President Trump, because I just
Speaker 1: talking about me in that way. I just I find
Speaker 1: it that's a separate issue. But the the this generation
Speaker 1: that is filming itself and commenting on itself as they
Speaker 1: live their lives, you know. And I've done, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was just just two. I did two weeks
Speaker 1: in Europe with a c m A right into the
Speaker 1: Songwriter series, and I've you know, I've took pictures and
Speaker 1: you know, Stockholm and you know, two funky places and
Speaker 1: sculptures and and uh and Leavi. You know, like we
Speaker 1: would be we'd be at summer and he'd go, Dad, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, take a picture. It's I gotta do a
Speaker 1: shot for you know, get this out. And I'd be like, okay.
Speaker 1: So then I'm the cameraman, you know, so I'm like
Speaker 1: part of the team. All of a sudden, I'm like
Speaker 1: doing the shot and then we're checking out and he's
Speaker 1: like I like that when I'm like, okay, we'll use
Speaker 1: that one, and I'm thinking wow. So so that's sort
Speaker 1: of the amicable, positive way of looking at But the
Speaker 1: other side, it's just the pressure for these young people,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh my god, it's trained. It's it's
Speaker 1: the only thing that I know. Yeah. So to me,
Speaker 1: it's like if I never had a television, what I
Speaker 1: missed television. I've never not known that I had to
Speaker 1: digitally be on the forefront. Yeah, that's always been a constant.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's not weird. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying, and I mean and I
Speaker 1: get it, and I know, I don't think leeve I
Speaker 1: think it's weird, you know. And and and it's funny too,
Speaker 1: because there's a kind of a there's a fellowship too
Speaker 1: within there, like the way that you like other people's things,
Speaker 1: you know, And I do have Facebook, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I definitely liked. I mean, I want to like if
Speaker 1: I'll see something, you know, people who put out a
Speaker 1: record or they've done something, or they're playing and their
Speaker 1: picture or their their dog or somebody. You know. I
Speaker 1: you know, I'm enough a part of it. I'm not
Speaker 1: completely out of it, but I'm I feel a little
Speaker 1: bit out of it. You know, you feel generationally a
Speaker 1: little bit out of it. I think at some point
Speaker 1: we all should start to feel generationally a little bit
Speaker 1: out of it. That's probably an actual, isn't it. It is?
Speaker 1: It is because I remember, like with my mom and dad,
Speaker 1: you know that when they would listen to my music,
Speaker 1: and they were huge fans and they were so supportive,
Speaker 1: and when they could travel, they came to everything, you know,
Speaker 1: and they love music so much, and they've made music,
Speaker 1: you know, and and but they you know, what they
Speaker 1: like was the ballads. And I could play Born Fly,
Speaker 1: Ready to Run or you know or whatever, and and
Speaker 1: they would go, that's cool, you know, like yeah, that's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I could tell they were like kind of getting it.
Speaker 1: And then you'd sit down at the piano, and if
Speaker 1: I get the piano and I'd played Blessed the Broken
Speaker 1: Road or um or over my Shoulder or something, you know,
Speaker 1: and they would go, yeah, that's it because they came
Speaker 1: from an age of ballads, you know, where the ballot,
Speaker 1: you know, and all the singers you'd have a song,
Speaker 1: and the song you'd have a song, and like you'd
Speaker 1: have a Burt backrock song for example, you know, well,
Speaker 1: I do know that's what I'm thinking of a Karen,
Speaker 1: But there's what's a good Burt Back correct song? Is
Speaker 1: he saying rain drops keep falling? But let's say that.
Speaker 1: Let's take that song, okay, rain drops keep falling on
Speaker 1: my head, and you'll have um ten different pop singers
Speaker 1: like Sinatral do a version, and then you know, Karen
Speaker 1: Carpenter will do version, and they do have you know whomever,
Speaker 1: and the songs you'd have songs like that. They just
Speaker 1: had this breadth and and I just think that was
Speaker 1: a generation that looked at you know, you might call
Speaker 1: it crooning or um and so certain kinds of things
Speaker 1: like rhythmic ideas that were real specific to a particular
Speaker 1: period of time that I think, my think for my
Speaker 1: folks a lot of that, which is sort of they
Speaker 1: just wouldn't catch it. I've never done this before. But
Speaker 1: what I want to do in a few months I
Speaker 1: want to have I've never anything back again. I want
Speaker 1: to have you back, and I will have to come
Speaker 1: back because for me, this has been it. I never
Speaker 1: know where he was going, but I feel like philosophically,
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot of things. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: want to run these songs real quick and we'll get
Speaker 1: to all this at a later points. So you wrote,
Speaker 1: first of all, you put out Bless the Broken Road yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I didn't put it out. I put it out
Speaker 1: on an album and that album also had one of
Speaker 1: these days, which but you put the album out. I
Speaker 1: mean it was out there people, Yeah, they could consume it.
Speaker 1: How did the flats get it? I just to this day.
Speaker 1: I mean that that and the song moving On or
Speaker 1: like two of my absolute favorite. The simplicity of the
Speaker 1: way they did that song, it was just killed me.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people did the song. You know,
Speaker 1: Melody Crittenden did it on her asylum and she actually
Speaker 1: put out as a single. And I died in the
Speaker 1: forties and I thought that was the end of it.
Speaker 1: And Jeff Hannah and I, you know, well, you keep
Speaker 1: pitching it. It got pitched by a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Tracy Gershawn and a woman be the name of Michelle
Speaker 1: Berlin at BMG kept put pitching it and and then
Speaker 1: Jeff and I would pitch the song all the time
Speaker 1: to different people, and I think, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Brooks and Donne took a stab at it. I believe
Speaker 1: one own it took a look at it. A lot
Speaker 1: of people looked at it. And the you know, in
Speaker 1: early on, I used to write a lot with Flats,
Speaker 1: the guys when their first three records, you know, and
Speaker 1: I had a number of songs on their albums um
Speaker 1: and they used to always say to me, Okay, we
Speaker 1: love that Blessed the Broken Road, because the thing about
Speaker 1: Blessed the Broken Road is it. And this is when
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized that it was it was going to
Speaker 1: have a life of its own. Was that, you know,
Speaker 1: my wife's a minister, okay, and then and I, you know,
Speaker 1: and pretty well known, and she does lots of really
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. She's the founder of Thistle Farms, and and
Speaker 1: she actually does more touring than any of us now
Speaker 1: by the way, she's far more involved, she's going far
Speaker 1: more national than anyone in the family. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: for years and years I was I was playing weddings.
Speaker 1: I realized, I mean, she would do weddings, but I was.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many weddings I was doing.
Speaker 1: And I got an award in the mail for like
Speaker 1: sheet Music Song of the Year, and I realized that
Speaker 1: we hadn't without meaning to we pop. We dropped it
Speaker 1: into a nerve people getting married later and you're going
Speaker 1: through a second marriage, third marriage, you know, or even
Speaker 1: you know, I got married. I was twenty seven years old,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd had relationships, She'd had relationships, you know,
Speaker 1: and reclaiming love what that is is is something of
Speaker 1: our time. It's different. It's not what my parents are,
Speaker 1: you know, as we all know folks, would you know,
Speaker 1: get married out of high school, certainly get married right
Speaker 1: out of college, and and that I didn't mean to
Speaker 1: write that song in that sense, but I realized, oh damn,
Speaker 1: we've really hit a vein, you know. Um, and the
Speaker 1: that song kept getting pitched. And my understanding is the
Speaker 1: Flats Guys on their last record with the Management production
Speaker 1: team that they had. They did an album called Feels
Speaker 1: Like Today, which I believe, I don't know if it's not,
Speaker 1: it's close. It's probably now there biggest selling record. I
Speaker 1: would think they were. The first song went out a
Speaker 1: fantastics on Fields Like Today that whatever. But and that
Speaker 1: song didn't go like number one or top five even
Speaker 1: and it was considered a massive, you know, setback. And
Speaker 1: I understand um because I was out of the country
Speaker 1: at the time that summer that that that the label
Speaker 1: was thinking of maybe trash and the record. That's what
Speaker 1: I've been told. I don't know if that's true. It
Speaker 1: might be apocryphal. I'm not sure. And I believe the
Speaker 1: label said, let's let's cut two more songs, Let's try that,
Speaker 1: Let's try that Blessed the Broken Road. You guys said
Speaker 1: you like oh, because they used always say, oh man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do that song. And they would never do
Speaker 1: that song. And I would, you know, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: come on, guys, you know, and they would never do
Speaker 1: the song. And I remember I got back revisiting my
Speaker 1: family was living in uh my parents at that time
Speaker 1: living in Botswana where they worked for a long time,
Speaker 1: and so we remember getting back, and I remember Michelle
Speaker 1: Berlin running out of the doors of BMG and she says,
Speaker 1: they did it. And I'm like, they did what? Who's
Speaker 1: they and what do they do? She said, they did it,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna put it out as a single, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what. Blessed the Broken Road? And I remember
Speaker 1: the first time I heard it. I mean I literally
Speaker 1: hair went up my arms, you know, and you don't
Speaker 1: you don't always feel that at all, but it was
Speaker 1: so pure and beautiful. It just was outstanding. But that's,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the story that I heard about it.
Speaker 1: So the Dixie Chicks to that one? How about this one?
Speaker 1: How did you get with the chicks? As you called them,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call chicks the chicks the Dixie Chicks. They
Speaker 1: I mean, I was I was kind of being let go.
Speaker 1: I was being let go by Sony and then they
Speaker 1: were coming in. So one of my guys, I have
Speaker 1: to two guys that during that period of my life,
Speaker 1: I had two guys that were really my champions, one
Speaker 1: with Scott Simon and the other was Paul Whorley. So
Speaker 1: one time Scott and Paul ran Sony and that's when
Speaker 1: I got signed. They you know, when my friends became
Speaker 1: record president. So Scott was a great publisher. Of course
Speaker 1: he subsequently was a great manager, has is a manager RPM,
Speaker 1: you know, Tim mcgrawn, um. And then of course Paul
Speaker 1: really is one of the greatest producers that ever worked
Speaker 1: in this town. And while I was being flushed out,
Speaker 1: they had moved on and someone else had come in
Speaker 1: to take over Sony. But they're still my friends. And
Speaker 1: so when the Chicks, the Dixie Chicks got signed, um,
Speaker 1: they that's really how I got set up to write
Speaker 1: with them, because the Dixie Chicks told me they knew
Speaker 1: my record, which although it didn't sell very well, um
Speaker 1: it did. We did a weird campaign where instead of
Speaker 1: putting a single out and then following it with press,
Speaker 1: we did six months of press, giving the album to
Speaker 1: people and then we did so it was really kind
Speaker 1: of an ask backwards kind of approach. But what it
Speaker 1: did do is it was like it got me a
Speaker 1: lot of publicity and promotion for the songs, many of
Speaker 1: which subsequently went on to get cut and um. And
Speaker 1: so I really look at it like it was like
Speaker 1: the most expensive publishing demo ever, you know, in a
Speaker 1: weird way, because That's why I got I got to
Speaker 1: play with them, because if you listen to songs, some
Speaker 1: of the songs on the record all in good time
Speaker 1: um their real roots, banjo grooves, folk meets soul meets
Speaker 1: you know, and that really is what the Dixie Chicks did,
Speaker 1: only they did it much better and in a way
Speaker 1: that was about to be eaten up by the country,
Speaker 1: and nobody saw it coming like I never caught a
Speaker 1: way before. And the first time I wrote with them,
Speaker 1: I wrote with Marty and I met her at Fido's
Speaker 1: in the village and she had a few hours in
Speaker 1: their back and their first single was out the cost
Speaker 1: of song of I Can love You Better than that
Speaker 1: I can love you Baby, I love you better. And
Speaker 1: that was when I and I. The thing is, I
Speaker 1: knew the dix Chicks because my cousin was a comptroller
Speaker 1: and Irvine and she had used to hire them when
Speaker 1: they were more of a writer's in the sky, you know,
Speaker 1: frills and cowboy hats, and they had that other singer,
Speaker 1: So I actually knew who they were, right And when
Speaker 1: I wrote with Marty, we were the first time we wrote,
Speaker 1: we wrote ready to run the first day, and I
Speaker 1: by the way. I eventually wrote with all of them,
Speaker 1: but Marty and I wrote many songs they only recorded too.
Speaker 1: But I wrote a lot of songs with her and
Speaker 1: uh and play it on the record. I played guitar
Speaker 1: and Ready to Run like that. It's a fine guitar
Speaker 1: playing up. I do say so myself. I wish I
Speaker 1: could say I played the band on that because that's
Speaker 1: a really killing Now from and this is a we'll
Speaker 1: do another hour in a few months. What's you come
Speaker 1: back over to the house if you don't mind something. Um,
Speaker 1: what we've learned from this is if you go hang
Speaker 1: out with enough satellite streaming a radio people and take
Speaker 1: them wine and give them massages, they'll play your songs.
Speaker 1: And that's running all And that's what you taught us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, but that's you know what that's been happening.
Speaker 1: It's like you know, they just they still do it
Speaker 1: just has to be. It's just different. Everything, everything's always
Speaker 1: there's always a thing. I really appreciate the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, Bobby, thank you, congratulations on everything and um
Speaker 1: that you've done. And it's sometime when we do if
Speaker 1: we do get to talk again, I want to ask
Speaker 1: you some questions. I think that'd be a fantastic because
Speaker 1: I want to the answer. I want sign you're a
Speaker 1: smart as you. But I love to answer questions that way.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even think of the question you're
Speaker 1: you're good though. Yeah, next time we'll do that. That's
Speaker 1: been interesting. Let me interview you a little bit. I
Speaker 1: just got a couple of things that I was doing
Speaker 1: some reading about you, and you've got some pretty there's
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting stuff. I just want to ask some questions.
Speaker 1: But I think that's that's fair. All right, Hey, thank
Speaker 1: you very much, thank you. There there is wow. I
Speaker 1: look at this guy here episode eighty seven. That is
Speaker 1: Marcus Humming And uh, I just flew in from Europe
Speaker 1: and hopped off planned and came over to the house.
Speaker 1: So uh LEVI for us in the shout out, buddy,
Speaker 1: I'll see around. We'll see you guys next time. About