Speaker 1: On this New Year's Eve, I'd like to go back
Speaker 1: into the Bear Grease archives to a unique standalone episode
Speaker 1: about Southern comedian Jerry Clower. Something about the holidays can
Speaker 1: make us nostalgic, and I've been thinking about this one,
Speaker 1: which originally aired a March twenty third, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: That seems like so long ago. Man, the years just
Speaker 1: kind of roll by. I vividly remember that I drove
Speaker 1: eight hours just a few days before this episode aired
Speaker 1: to meet with Jerry Klower's former neighbor in a Mitt County, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: After we called the town hall and asked if they
Speaker 1: knew anybody that knew Jerry, and sure enough, they gave
Speaker 1: us this fella's name. Even on that trip, stopped by
Speaker 1: to talk with old Brent Reeves, who was on this
Speaker 1: episode who you met Jerry Klower, and had a great description.
Speaker 2: Of meeting the man.
Speaker 1: I really think you're going to enjoy this one, and
Speaker 1: I just want to take him in and just thank
Speaker 1: you all so much for the support of Bear Grease
Speaker 1: in this country life and Backwoods University in twenty twenty five. Truly,
Speaker 1: it's the honor of my life to be able to
Speaker 1: bring this podcast to you every week, and I want
Speaker 1: to wish you a happy new year, and I look
Speaker 1: forward with eager expectation for twenty twenty six, and I
Speaker 1: know that we are going to continue to uncover great
Speaker 1: American stories. So happy new Year to everyone, and I
Speaker 1: know that you're going to enjoy this episode about Jerry Klower,
Speaker 1: a true Southern legend.
Speaker 2: What did it look like?
Speaker 3: It was red red suit. It had on the lapels
Speaker 3: like a lapel. The stitching was white, so it stood
Speaker 3: out against that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, white boots, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And red pants. Had a big white belt with a
Speaker 3: belt bucal size of a Studebaker hubcap. And he had
Speaker 3: an embroidered coon on the on the left lapel. Really, yep,
Speaker 3: coon face right there.
Speaker 1: On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're diving
Speaker 1: deep into Southern culture and identity to get a view
Speaker 1: from the captain's chair of Jerry Klower's mind. Does that
Speaker 1: name ring a bell? Jerry was thrust into national fame
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies when a story he told about
Speaker 1: coon hunting topped the country music charts. I'm interested in
Speaker 1: those odd places where rural culture, and specifically hunting, touches
Speaker 1: the main stream. Old Wilson raws bridge the gap with
Speaker 1: this book where the Red Fern Grows, and Jerry did
Speaker 1: it with comedy about hunting varmints. He's been gone for
Speaker 1: a long time, but I was able to go meet
Speaker 1: up with his old neighbor in East Fork, Mississippi and
Speaker 1: a Mitt County, and he'll give us a behind the
Speaker 1: scenes looking to who Jerry was, and some of it
Speaker 1: will surprise you, and believe it or not, Old Brent
Speaker 1: Reeves met Jerry Klower and saw his famed gold Cadillac
Speaker 1: that Brent swears was as long as the battleship. Trust me, boys,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna want to miss this one.
Speaker 3: It was beyond my comprehension that somebody in my family
Speaker 3: didn't know him, because the stories that he told were
Speaker 3: stories that I could identify with as far as how
Speaker 3: he grew up.
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Knukem and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 1: places we explored.
Speaker 4: First of all, I want you to know that I
Speaker 4: come from Route four Liberty, Mississippi. Now that's twelve miles
Speaker 4: west of McComb, Mississippi, sixty five miles due northeast of
Speaker 4: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and one hundred and sixteen miles due
Speaker 4: north of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was there that I
Speaker 4: first saw the light of day out of a Mitt
Speaker 4: County September the twenty eighth, nineteen hundred and twenty six.
Speaker 2: I was born there.
Speaker 1: If you recognize that voice, many assumptions could be made about.
Speaker 2: You and your history.
Speaker 1: You're likely over the age of thirty, have tie to
Speaker 1: the Southern United States, are a fan of old country music,
Speaker 1: and I could likely guess your political leanings. Throughout any
Speaker 1: culture in the world, there are insiders who represent a
Speaker 1: sector of the population.
Speaker 2: These people are significant and.
Speaker 1: Carry the values of their people, but their interpretation of
Speaker 1: those values is amplified through time. My friend Steve Brunella
Speaker 1: recently said that if you can ice fish in your state,
Speaker 1: that state isn't in the South, and I completely agree
Speaker 1: with that. From a geopolitical boundary standpoint. But I'd like
Speaker 1: to add a second layer of analysis. If your family
Speaker 1: listened to Jerry Klower, you're likely culturally Southern, and I'll
Speaker 1: make a definitive statement. If you don't know who Jerry
Speaker 1: Klower is, you aren't Southern. I'm sorry, or you've been
Speaker 1: locked out of Chicken Cooper your whole life. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about hunting raccoon with hounds and exploring the cultural
Speaker 1: impact of the book Where the Red Fern Grows. We've
Speaker 1: pontificated on that time coon hunting did a tomahawk dunk
Speaker 1: on mainstream culture and they loved it. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: patterns on how to positively portray rural life to a
Speaker 1: sector of the population that may not understand it. Wilson
Speaker 1: Rawls did it with his book, and we'll see that
Speaker 1: the brilliant humorist Jerry Klower did it by telling a
Speaker 1: human story.
Speaker 2: You see, Jerry was.
Speaker 1: Catapulted into the national spotlight in nineteen seventy one because
Speaker 1: of a short tale he told about a coon hunt
Speaker 1: in Mississippi. The story was so intriguing producers from New
Speaker 1: York City traveled to meet him with, in Jerry's words,
Speaker 1: a pocket full of money in the following contract launched
Speaker 1: the forty five year old fertilizer salesman into immediate stardom.
Speaker 1: Jerry wasn't a musician, but recorded twenty seventh full length
Speaker 1: recordings through MCA Records, producing two gold albums and a
Speaker 1: platinum record, and he became a member of the Grand
Speaker 1: Old Opry, wrote four books and hosted multiple television shows.
Speaker 1: Jerry's first album made more than ten million dollars in
Speaker 1: the first ten months and stayed in country's top twenty.
Speaker 2: On the chart for thirty weeks.
Speaker 1: Author Willie Morris said Klower's comic art demonstrates the richness
Speaker 1: of the spoken language in the South in all its
Speaker 1: inwardness nu once in Sweep, he described it as extravagant
Speaker 1: Southern talk.
Speaker 2: Jerry would become known.
Speaker 1: As the Mouth of the South, and in a time
Speaker 1: of racial upheaval, he was outspoken in his support of
Speaker 1: racial integration and support of African Americans. Jerry has been
Speaker 1: gone since nineteen ninety eight, but I traveled to East Fort,
Speaker 1: Mississippi in a Mitt County to meet with Jerry's longtime
Speaker 1: neighbor and fellow East Fort Baptist Church member, mister John Newman,
Speaker 1: who will help us under rivaled Jerry's life and comedy.
Speaker 1: Mister John is a clean shaven, handsome feller in his
Speaker 1: early seventies, with a headful of white hair, midleinked sideburns,
Speaker 1: and a worn pair.
Speaker 2: Of leather boots.
Speaker 1: But most importantly, he knew Jerry well and loved him
Speaker 1: like a brother. So Jerry he was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six. He passed away in nineteen ninety eight at
Speaker 1: the age of seventy one.
Speaker 2: What do we know.
Speaker 1: About his early life that probably had some impact on
Speaker 1: just who he was?
Speaker 2: Tell me about his early history just as a kid.
Speaker 5: Jerry was born during some real hard times in the
Speaker 5: history of the country. Depressions were pretty common. We went
Speaker 5: through two of them, went through a couple of World wars.
Speaker 5: Jerry and his brother Sonny, both served in World War Two,
Speaker 5: and his mother told me that one of the saddest
Speaker 5: stories that she could relate to in regard to her
Speaker 5: children in that at one time both of them boys
Speaker 5: were missing. They didn't know where they were. She prayed
Speaker 5: that God would look out for him bring him back
Speaker 5: home safely, and he did. But Jerry was brought up
Speaker 5: in some pretty tough times. His mother was the sole provider.
Speaker 5: They didn't have a lot of the luxuries of life,
Speaker 5: just like a lot of people, a lot of us
Speaker 5: that were lived in this part of the country that
Speaker 5: grew up in the south, then some pretty tough times.
Speaker 1: Jerry said that his county was so poor people couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to sin, and that he ate so much slick,
Speaker 1: shiny boiled ocre that when he was a boy he
Speaker 1: couldn't keep his socks up. Once, when asked if he
Speaker 1: hadn't been poor, if he would have achieved what he did,
Speaker 1: he said, quote no, because I probably would have been arrogant,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have had a coon dog.
Speaker 5: He was a joy to be around. He loved everybody.
Speaker 5: He never let his fame or his fortune go to
Speaker 5: his head. Many times, different occasions he would call me
Speaker 5: up ask me what I was doing. This was after
Speaker 5: he had moved back into the East Folk commune to you
Speaker 5: then said John, come on over, we're gonna put on
Speaker 5: some coffee. I want to tell you about where I
Speaker 5: be and who I saw. But everywhere he went, anybody
Speaker 5: that he had in contact with, and Jed and you,
Speaker 5: a lot of people he knew people all over the country, politicians, athletes,
Speaker 5: people from every walk of life, business characters, so many
Speaker 5: people that he knew he had an influence on.
Speaker 2: Now tell me how you knew Jerry.
Speaker 5: I knew Jerry when I was just a small child.
Speaker 5: Jerry was a few years older than me at the time.
Speaker 5: He lived in Yazoo City and became a fertilizer salesman
Speaker 5: there for Mississippi Chemical Corporation. And it was just by coincidence,
Speaker 5: an accident, as Jerry has told me before and has
Speaker 5: he related in some of his stories, he kind of
Speaker 5: backed into show business. But he was always a big talker.
Speaker 5: He was a good salesman. He had a lovable style character.
Speaker 5: If you met him, you never forgot him. And I
Speaker 5: think he was on a sales pitch over in Texas
Speaker 5: and somebody asked him, said, Jerry, with the talent that
Speaker 5: you've got, you need to use that you owe to
Speaker 5: Michael Record.
Speaker 2: So Jerry was selling fertilizer.
Speaker 1: He started using just some stories just to kind of
Speaker 1: loosen people up.
Speaker 5: That's right, I mean, just like he actually would as
Speaker 5: a sales peach.
Speaker 1: And somebody heard it and said, you are so funny,
Speaker 1: and the guy. The guy said, Hey, I want to
Speaker 1: record you tell one of these stories, and he did.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, at the unlikely age of forty five,
Speaker 1: the fertilizer salesman recorded his first comedy album titled Jerry
Speaker 1: Klower from Yazoo City, Mississippi Talking with Lemon Label out
Speaker 1: of Texas. The album was a series of stories of
Speaker 1: Jerry just talking. Each was titled like a song on
Speaker 1: an album, and they sold over eight thousand records for
Speaker 1: five dollars each, and some radio stations started playing it,
Speaker 1: and then he got the attention he needed.
Speaker 4: The next day, I got a telephone call from New
Speaker 4: York City, said, mister cly why, I'm vice president of
Speaker 4: a major record company. You have some talents, and the
Speaker 4: next time you're in this vicinity, eh, would you drop by.
Speaker 4: We'd like to talk to you. I said, I ain't
Speaker 4: never gonna be in that vicinity. I said, man, you
Speaker 4: don't leave, yes, Zoo said in Misssippi, and just drop
Speaker 4: by New York. If y'all want to see me, you
Speaker 4: gonna have to send for me. Two days later the
Speaker 4: phone rang.
Speaker 1: The Decca label would sign Jerry to a recording contract.
Speaker 1: The album would later become one of his two gold
Speaker 1: record albums, selling over five hundred thousand copies in just
Speaker 1: one month. A gold record is one that sells over
Speaker 1: a half million albums. If you remember Robert Morgan's quote
Speaker 1: from our Boon series about how most great artists, explorers
Speaker 1: and writers do the best work of their life in
Speaker 1: their thirties, you'll see that that must not apply to
Speaker 1: fertilizer salesman. Well, that's what's so interesting is that he
Speaker 1: he didn't get into it until you know, he wasn't
Speaker 1: born into it. I mean he was, it was later
Speaker 1: in his life. But that's very rare, I would say
Speaker 1: it is. Usually people have show business in their targets
Speaker 1: from a young kid. That's something they pursue. That was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he backed into it. It wasn't what he was trying.
Speaker 5: To he did. He backed into it.
Speaker 1: And then so he this guy recorded this record or
Speaker 1: recorded him telling some country story. Do you know what
Speaker 1: story it was, by chance that he told Originally?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was Knock him Out, John, Oh,
Speaker 5: really it was the cooner story.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Here in lies the reason we're talking about Jerry Klower.
Speaker 1: His all time most popular story was about raccoon, honey
Speaker 1: with hounds. Very interesting. We'll hear more about this story later.
Speaker 1: I've heard it said that he was he was a humorist,
Speaker 1: not necessarily a comedian, which you know, to me, you know,
Speaker 1: just to say to say someone's a comedian just means
Speaker 1: that they're funny, which I think he would, you know,
Speaker 1: qualify for that. But the way he described himself, as
Speaker 1: he said, I don't tell funny stories.
Speaker 2: I tell stories funny.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm so struck by as I've listened
Speaker 1: to so much of his stuff, is that the stories
Speaker 1: are often just kind of it's it's the normal life
Speaker 1: of it that sometimes is what's so interesting.
Speaker 2: But he has this cast of characters that he always
Speaker 2: goes through.
Speaker 1: So almost all his stories, all his all his routines,
Speaker 1: have this cast of characters.
Speaker 2: Can you name most of them?
Speaker 5: Well, that was mysell. There's Eugene R. Dale, rayn Nell Burn,
Speaker 5: Ale m Al new Gene, Eugene, Uncle Verceey, Ain't pet
Speaker 5: old man Zysh. That was my great grandpa, mister Versy.
Speaker 5: Quite a few of those characters.
Speaker 2: And so were those real people.
Speaker 5: Some of them were that I know of, and he
Speaker 5: used their real names or not. In some instances he
Speaker 5: did tell me what.
Speaker 1: You know about some of those characters and some of
Speaker 1: the some of the things that he talked.
Speaker 5: About, well, one in particular to my great grandfather.
Speaker 1: The story mister John is about to tell is the
Speaker 1: real story that Jerry titled The New Chandelier, and you
Speaker 1: can listen to it on any streaming platform. It was
Speaker 1: included on Jerry Klower's greatest hit album.
Speaker 5: The Magno Electric Association had just begun to establish rural
Speaker 5: electric service here in our county, was back in the
Speaker 5: late forties. All you had to do was sign up,
Speaker 5: be willing to pay for the poll to be put up,
Speaker 5: and electricity run from that pole to your house and
Speaker 5: they took care of everything else. So they had notified
Speaker 5: our church that while they were in the community, they
Speaker 5: would be glad to provide our church with electrical service.
Speaker 5: So the church had a business meeting monthly business meeting,
Speaker 5: and it was brought up said, hey man, look at here,
Speaker 5: here's a golden opportunity for us to have electricity lights
Speaker 5: at our church, and we need to think about this.
Speaker 5: It was brought up and voted on that we go
Speaker 5: ahead and let them put up the power polls and
Speaker 5: have electricity. And the moderator, which was a pastor, said,
Speaker 5: is there any amendments or is there any discussion before
Speaker 5: we vote? And my great grandpa said yeah, he had
Speaker 5: something he would like to share. But before that, one
Speaker 5: of the ladies in the church said she thought it
Speaker 5: would be a marvelous idea for the church to go
Speaker 5: ahead and get a chandelier since we was gonna have electricity.
Speaker 5: As the amendment was brought up, my great grandpa stood
Speaker 5: up and said he was against that.
Speaker 4: The moderator said, is there any discussion? And Uncle Versy
Speaker 4: that better, said, sir, I'd like to speak. I want
Speaker 4: all of you to know that if we gonna buy
Speaker 4: a shandelier, there ain't nobody in our church got enough
Speaker 4: education that when we order it from Seis and Roebucket,
Speaker 4: they could spell it.
Speaker 2: Then if we ordered.
Speaker 4: The chandelier and it got here, there's nobody in our
Speaker 4: church it knows how to play it. And what I'm
Speaker 4: concerned about is we don't need to spend this money
Speaker 4: on no schandelier as bad as we need lights in
Speaker 4: the church.
Speaker 2: So that actually happened, happened. I'll be there.
Speaker 5: But then technology wasn't like it is today. Most people
Speaker 5: had never been no further than fifty or sixty miles now.
Speaker 5: They weren't exposed to education like we are today, didn't
Speaker 5: have access to advancements in technology, and he didn't know
Speaker 5: right he was speaking his heartfelt convictions where he honestly
Speaker 5: did not know.
Speaker 1: In this story, Jerry told it almost exactly as it happened,
Speaker 1: but he told it funny. And because many of the
Speaker 1: stories were true or almost true, they were relatable and
Speaker 1: showed the character of the people, all the while poking.
Speaker 2: A little fun at the stereotypes.
Speaker 1: But because Jerry was at the wheel, because he was
Speaker 1: one of us, it was okay. It made us feel
Speaker 1: okay about being Southern and strangely, maybe even a little
Speaker 1: bit proud of our quirks. You know, the South seems
Speaker 1: to be known for these big characters like storytelling, and
Speaker 1: maybe if you're deeply embedded, and it's hard to see
Speaker 1: that maybe in other places it's not as it's not
Speaker 1: as prominent. But was Jerry surrounded by people that were
Speaker 1: like him? And I know nobody else made it in
Speaker 1: show business, but was he impacted probably by people that
Speaker 1: taught him how to tell stories and be funny.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of that just came to him naturally.
Speaker 5: He associated with a lot of people that were of
Speaker 5: the same character make up that he was. I guess
Speaker 5: in regard to that, they just did not have the
Speaker 5: people orientation to be able to express themselves and connect
Speaker 5: with people the way he did. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 5: think that Jerry ever realized until he got into show
Speaker 5: business the impact that he did have on people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there are three components to Jerry Klower. Number One,
Speaker 1: he was undoubtedly gifted at collecting stories and delivering them
Speaker 1: in unreplicatable, funny and compelling ways. However, number two, no
Speaker 1: man is an island, and I believe he would have
Speaker 1: learned components of his storytelling when he was a boy
Speaker 1: by listening to others in rural Mississippi. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: collected dialects and picked up on where to put the emphasis.
Speaker 1: He learned how to use sound effects and put it
Speaker 1: all together to create this unique style. And that brings
Speaker 1: up number three. Jerry Klower's style well affected the way
Speaker 1: the South would and still does tell stories. Up until
Speaker 1: researching this podcast, it had been a while since I
Speaker 1: listened to Jerry years. Actually in some of his stuff
Speaker 1: I had never heard. Coming back into his comedy, I
Speaker 1: clearly saw his cadence style, dialect, mannerisms echo through the
Speaker 1: way that people now tell stories. He helped interpret for
Speaker 1: us what was funny. You know a lot of people
Speaker 1: that our comedians are extremely intelligent number one, and are
Speaker 1: extremely socially aware. For him to be able to find
Speaker 1: the nuance of funny stuff inside of his everyday culture,
Speaker 1: the stuff that other people were like walking right past,
Speaker 1: I mean, just shows what an alert, aware, intelligent guy
Speaker 1: he was.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
Speaker 5: I would, Jerry. He had a way of relating to people.
Speaker 5: He was a very comical person, but to me, knowing
Speaker 5: him as well as I did, he appeared to me
Speaker 5: to be a lot more ease in a private climate.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: We've been to his house on numerous occasions, and he
Speaker 5: was a lot more comical because I think he was
Speaker 5: a lot more at ease with people that he knew
Speaker 5: and in a setting that he was familiar with you.
Speaker 2: Or his church, So he was more funny when he
Speaker 2: was with people.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, definitely, definitely. One thing that I've always been
Speaker 5: quite proud of. My wife had got a master's degree
Speaker 5: over William Carey Cottage, and Jerry gave her this plaque
Speaker 5: in recognition of it, and it's from the Knock Him
Speaker 5: Out John Foundation. He gave this to my wife. When
Speaker 5: he gave this to her, he told her how proud
Speaker 5: he was of her. And he looked at me and
Speaker 5: he said, you know, it's a miracle that you were
Speaker 5: able to accomplish, make the Deanes list, these honors that
Speaker 5: you have received. It was a miracle. And with what
Speaker 5: you have to put up with at home, I knew
Speaker 5: he was making reference to me. I said, Jerry, let
Speaker 5: me tell you what a miracle is. I said, I
Speaker 5: can't sing, and I know that. And I said I
Speaker 5: know you can't either, because I done sit with you
Speaker 5: before in church and other services. And you can't sing.
Speaker 5: I said, you couldn't carry a tune in the bucket.
Speaker 5: And I doubt if you know the difference between a
Speaker 5: guitar and a piano. Yet you had been inducted into
Speaker 5: the Grand Old Opry. That's what you call a miracle.
Speaker 5: And he grabbed me around the neck with his right
Speaker 5: hand and with his Bible cleanched in his left hand,
Speaker 5: and he looked up in the heavens and tears run
Speaker 5: down his face and he said, John, ain't God good.
Speaker 5: Ain't God good?
Speaker 2: So it was a real moment for him.
Speaker 1: It was just while you were trying to be funny
Speaker 1: and just and said, you know, making a joke about
Speaker 1: him not being able to sing, but being in that
Speaker 1: Grand Old Opry. It impacted him just in that moment.
Speaker 1: He was just grateful. It's moments like this with no
Speaker 1: cameras or recorders that you can see inside of someone.
Speaker 2: Jerry grew up dirt poor.
Speaker 1: He didn't hit the big time until he was in
Speaker 1: his mid forties.
Speaker 2: He truly appreciated what had happened in his life.
Speaker 1: I think it hit him hard on October twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, when he was inducted into the.
Speaker 2: Grand Old Opry.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're familiar with country music, there's no need
Speaker 1: to qualify that statement, But if you're not, this is
Speaker 1: a big deal.
Speaker 2: The Grand Old Opry.
Speaker 1: Is a weekly country music concert show held in Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: that started in nineteen twenty five and has played almost
Speaker 1: every Saturday night for the last one hundred years. It's
Speaker 1: the longest running broadcast in US history. It's been called
Speaker 1: the home of American music and country's most famous stage.
Speaker 1: The Opry inducts certain people as members who are people
Speaker 1: of influence in country music, but usually they're musicians, but
Speaker 1: Jerry was one of the rare inductees that wasn't. Members
Speaker 1: are required to perform at the Opry a certain amount
Speaker 1: of times each year, and in its history, the Opry
Speaker 1: has inducted over two hundred and twenty five members. You
Speaker 1: guys know Old Brent Reeves. He is Bear Greece's goodwill
Speaker 1: ambassador of the South and our chief cornbread concoisseur. He
Speaker 1: grew up in the heyday of Jerry Klower's career, when
Speaker 1: listening to the Grand Old Opry was one of the
Speaker 1: highlights of the week, and wildly Brent got to meet Jerry.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine a young Brent Reeves meeting Jerry Klower?
Speaker 1: And I had to laugh when I heard what Jerry
Speaker 1: called him.
Speaker 3: We had what was known. I'm not even sure if
Speaker 3: it's still there, but there was an event center and
Speaker 3: it was called the Bradley County Cultural Center, cultural hub
Speaker 3: of the Universe as far as far as I.
Speaker 2: Know, cultural Hub of Bradley County exactly.
Speaker 3: And this is in Warnhart at Warren High School and
Speaker 3: it was on the campus of the high school there,
Speaker 3: and it was an auditorium And for our junior year fundraiser,
Speaker 3: we got Jerry Klower that booked him to come and
Speaker 3: put on a show.
Speaker 1: So nineteen eighty three, that had been eighty three, that
Speaker 1: would have been about the peak of his I mean,
Speaker 1: inside the peak of his career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I have no clue what it cost us
Speaker 3: to get him. But when he left, he handed the
Speaker 3: check back and said give it back to the school.
Speaker 3: No what he came from his home. He drove up
Speaker 3: there himself and the biggest, longest cadillac I ever saw
Speaker 3: by himself.
Speaker 4: He had.
Speaker 3: All he wanted was the place to change, to change
Speaker 3: into his that suit that he wore, that signature, what.
Speaker 2: Did it look like?
Speaker 3: It was red red suit it had on the lapels
Speaker 3: like on lapel the stitching was white so it stood
Speaker 3: out against that. Yeah, and he had an embroidered coon
Speaker 3: on the on the left lapel. Really yep, coon face
Speaker 3: right there. And I got to meet him and he.
Speaker 2: Was so nice. Now, how did you meet him?
Speaker 3: Since I it was our class and there was like
Speaker 3: ten or twelve of us that were selected to go
Speaker 3: over and help set everything up and to be there
Speaker 3: to help them since it was our project, our fundraiser.
Speaker 3: So I got out of class early that day to
Speaker 3: go over there and help him. Plus I wanted to
Speaker 3: meet him. I mean, this is somebody who I had
Speaker 3: seen on television and heard these stories. We had the.
Speaker 2: Records remember of the Grand Old Opera.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the whole the big It was a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I heard him on the Grand Old Oppry. My well,
Speaker 3: my dad and I and I've told you this before.
Speaker 3: My dad and I would go hunting at night. Of
Speaker 3: course we were running, he was chasing codies then with
Speaker 3: the pack dogs. But when until the race got going,
Speaker 3: we listened to the Grand Old Opery on AM radio
Speaker 3: in his truck and lots sometimes you know.
Speaker 2: On Saturday nights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jerry Clark to be there. And so I've been
Speaker 3: listening to those stories my whole life. And this was,
Speaker 3: you know, a guy that was in my radio. It
Speaker 3: was in he was in our community, you know, the
Speaker 3: community that the culture I guess that I grew up in.
Speaker 3: So it was it was a big deal him him
Speaker 3: coming there, and I remember it being packed full of folks.
Speaker 2: Now, so was it open to the public.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they sold tickets, sold.
Speaker 1: Tickets sponsored by your class, sponsored raised.
Speaker 2: Money, got you and that's what it was. So you you.
Speaker 1: Said he pulled up in a Cadillac. I mean you
Speaker 1: saw his cadillac. Oh yeah, what color was it?
Speaker 3: Gold? I'm telling you it as long as a battleship.
Speaker 3: It was huge.
Speaker 2: I heard that he had a gold Cadillac, so I'm.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, yeah, well that's what he was driving. And
Speaker 3: like I said, he came by himself. He had a
Speaker 3: a dressing room. They brought him some, you know, some
Speaker 3: cold drinks to drink, and I think somebody brought flowers
Speaker 3: and stuff. But he took time to talk to anybody
Speaker 3: that wanted to talk to. When I shook his hand
Speaker 3: and I was a junior in high school, he said, boy,
Speaker 3: that's a man's handshake.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 3: He said, you are pretty boy, and uh, that's.
Speaker 2: What he said. Are you serious? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: And we talked.
Speaker 2: Forget that one. We were a pretty boy.
Speaker 3: He said you were a pretty boy, and uh, of course,
Speaker 3: you know manners, yes or no, sir, He remarked about that.
Speaker 3: And we just talked and you know, I tried to
Speaker 3: talk about. I just assumed he had a pen full
Speaker 3: of coon dogs at home. I mean, yeah, but you
Speaker 3: know obviously he didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, he just had one embroidered.
Speaker 1: He had little pal of his red sports coach, sure,
Speaker 1: which every man probably should have.
Speaker 3: You had on white cowboy boots. Yeah, and red pants.
Speaker 3: Had a big white belt with a belt buckle size
Speaker 3: of a Studie Baker hubcap, big fancy shirt, you know,
Speaker 3: pearl snaps on it in that in that red signal
Speaker 3: so jacket.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the thing? What did he do when
Speaker 1: he stood up? Was he the only act of the night?
Speaker 2: He was the act?
Speaker 3: He was it?
Speaker 2: He was so how long did he speak?
Speaker 3: I would imagine about an hour.
Speaker 2: Jerry Klower has famous stories, and he kind of.
Speaker 3: The greatest hits, I would assume is what he talked about.
Speaker 3: Of course, he did the one about knock him Out John,
Speaker 3: you know about you know, shoot up in here, monks.
Speaker 3: This one of us has got to have some relief,
Speaker 3: you know when when he got up there with the Wildcat.
Speaker 1: Of Jerry's entire career, his story called knock Him Out
Speaker 1: John is his most famous. As always, the story starts
Speaker 1: out at Route four, Liberty, Mississippi, and then he begins
Speaker 1: to give very specific geographic detail of where this town
Speaker 1: is twelve miles west of McComb, Mississippi, sixty five miles
Speaker 1: due northeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixteen miles due north of New Orleans, Louisiana. It's so
Speaker 1: detailed you're drawn in with great curiosity of why this
Speaker 1: matters and place did matter to Jerry, just like it
Speaker 1: mattered to Wilson Ross. Then he proceeds to tell what
Speaker 1: they'd done during the day before they went coon hunting
Speaker 1: that night.
Speaker 4: This particular day, we wasn't too busy. All we had
Speaker 4: done is just cut down a few fence rolls, shutting
Speaker 4: shells from corn and went to mill, drew up some
Speaker 4: water because that was wash day, helped get the side
Speaker 4: back what rooted out from under the net wire fence
Speaker 4: sharp and two sticks of stove would real sharp and
Speaker 4: pegged them down over the bottom wire of the fence
Speaker 4: where the hog couldn't root out no more, and had
Speaker 4: a rat killing.
Speaker 1: If I'm lying, I'm dying. Jerry had a knack for
Speaker 1: using intricate detail of obscure activities to peak the interest
Speaker 1: of the listeners.
Speaker 4: He went on, Well, this particular day, after we got
Speaker 4: through the rat killing, I walked out on the front
Speaker 4: porch and I hollered, and them dogs come out of
Speaker 4: mother's house barking. They knew he was going coon hunt,
Speaker 4: and I hollered again. In my neighbor way across the
Speaker 4: sage patch, hollered back, and that meant I'll meet you halfway.
Speaker 2: We met in the middle of.
Speaker 4: That sage patch, and he had his dogs over brumming
Speaker 4: and Queen and spotting. I had Tory and Little Red
Speaker 4: and old Trailer, and we went out into the swamps
Speaker 4: and we started hunting. Oh, we was having such a
Speaker 4: fine time. Caught four great biggots.
Speaker 1: He and the neighbors then run into the landowner, mister Baron,
Speaker 1: who had gotten rich by selling cotton for a dollar
Speaker 1: a bell.
Speaker 2: During the First World Wars.
Speaker 1: Incredible detail, and with those riches he bought some good
Speaker 1: coon dogs. Along with him was John Eubanks, who was
Speaker 1: known for being a professional tree climber and loved knocking
Speaker 1: coons out of trees. Both of these guys were real
Speaker 1: people in Jerry's life.
Speaker 4: He had some world renowned dogs, and we hollered three
Speaker 4: or four times, and they started hunting, and we listened
Speaker 4: and directly old brummy, Old Brummy didn't bark it nothing
Speaker 4: but a coon. He had a deep boys bade and
Speaker 4: when he cut out on him, it was a coon.
Speaker 4: Don't worry about no ploshum on, no bobcat. Brummy was
Speaker 4: running a coon. And then old Trailer and o'high ball
Speaker 4: and them famous dogs, and mister Baron's got in there
Speaker 4: with them, and Old John U Banks holler, hey speak too,
Speaker 4: and my brother son and ha hoo, look ferd and
Speaker 4: oh it was beautiful.
Speaker 1: Shortly the dogs fall in tree on I quote, the
Speaker 1: biggest sweet gum tree in the a Min River swamps,
Speaker 1: and the group goes to the barking dog. John Eubanks
Speaker 1: didn't like shooting a coon out, and he only liked
Speaker 1: to knock him out of the tree for the dogs
Speaker 1: to sort out. So John proceeds to climb the tree
Speaker 1: with a sharp stick in his hand.
Speaker 4: Knock him out, John, It won't be long. And John
Speaker 4: worked his way on up to the top of the tree,
Speaker 4: and who what a big one. And he reached around
Speaker 4: in his overhauls and got that sharp stick and he
Speaker 4: drawed back and he punched the coon.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't a coon.
Speaker 4: It was a lynx. We call him souped up wild cats.
Speaker 1: And and then Jerry says, that thing attacked John up
Speaker 1: in the top of that tree. Jerry often purposely mispronounced words,
Speaker 1: as was the custom of the people in this region.
Speaker 2: Away, what's the.
Speaker 4: Matter with John? Knock him out, John.
Speaker 2: This thing's killing me. And John knew that.
Speaker 4: Mister Baron told the pistol in his belt to shoot
Speaker 4: snakes with and he kept howling, shoot this thing, have mercy,
Speaker 4: this thing killing me.
Speaker 1: Shoot this thing.
Speaker 4: And mister Baron said, John, I can't shoot up in there.
Speaker 5: I might hit you.
Speaker 4: John said, well, just shoot up in here. Amongst us,
Speaker 4: one of us got.
Speaker 3: To have some relief.
Speaker 1: Jerry's colorful sound effects, the details about the dogs, the
Speaker 1: surprise of the wild cat and the tree, and the
Speaker 1: absolute distress of John fighting that lynx created an unforgettable story. Now,
Speaker 1: something I don't have the answer to is why Jerry
Speaker 1: called it a lynx, which is a northern cat that
Speaker 1: never ranged into the American South ever, kind of like
Speaker 1: the black panther. Anyway, you got to listen to the
Speaker 1: whole story. You can search for it online and it's
Speaker 1: called a coon Hunting story.
Speaker 2: And Jerry's comedy skits.
Speaker 1: He he had multiple, multiple skits that talked about coon
Speaker 1: hunting and multiple skits that talked about quail hunting. Was
Speaker 1: he a big hunter or was he was that just
Speaker 1: kind of a part of his background that he was
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 5: It was part of his background. He was a big
Speaker 5: quail hunter, big coon hunter, big fisherman.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I had headed to Macomb one day and I passed
Speaker 5: by his house and he was standing at his mailbox
Speaker 5: and I turned and went back. He said, Jerry, what
Speaker 5: in the world you doing standing out you in this heat?
Speaker 5: He was wiping his forehead with a handkerchifere of sweating
Speaker 5: and I said, Man, it's hot out here. What you
Speaker 5: do in this heat? He said, well, John, I'm going
Speaker 5: to tell you the truth. He said, Bass pro shopping
Speaker 5: Jacksonssissippi call me and wanted me to come up there
Speaker 5: and pick out something on the showroom floor. Said there
Speaker 5: was one stipulation. I said, what was that, Jerry? He
Speaker 5: said it had to be a bass boat. So he said,
Speaker 5: I went up picked me out a bass boat and
Speaker 5: they own their way down here now to deliver it.
Speaker 5: And I was afraid that if they missed my driveway
Speaker 5: and wound up over at your house, I'd have trouble
Speaker 5: getting my boat back.
Speaker 2: I'll be daring.
Speaker 1: Were the coon dogs that Jerry talked about, were they
Speaker 1: real coondogs that he had?
Speaker 2: Brummy and high Ball?
Speaker 5: Yeah? And now the man that actually owned high Ball
Speaker 5: lived about a mile across his pasture, is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 5: he owned high Ball and he was a dog was
Speaker 5: known all over the country. Back when that dog was living,
Speaker 5: most folks might not could have told you who the
Speaker 5: sheriff of the county was. They might not have knew
Speaker 5: who the tax successor was, but they knew about high Ball.
Speaker 2: Now what kind of dog was Highball?
Speaker 5: I think high Ball was a redbone hound, I believe.
Speaker 5: But there were several other dogs that had some notoriety too.
Speaker 5: One of them was Rowty that was owned by my uncle.
Speaker 5: But old Spot and Brummy. But back then, in that
Speaker 5: particular time of history in our community, that was a
Speaker 5: big source of recreation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And they coon honeed and money for hides, right right,
Speaker 5: selling possum hides. And you probably heard DearS talk about
Speaker 5: flagging the conductor down on the train. He asked him,
Speaker 5: did he want to buy some possum.
Speaker 1: Hides, possum meat? That's what he asked, If he wanted
Speaker 1: to buy possum to eat? Yeah, yeah, he flagged. He
Speaker 1: flags down. The conductor of the train stops the train.
Speaker 1: The conductor gets out and says, what kind of catastrophe
Speaker 1: has happened that you've stopped the train? And the guy says, well,
Speaker 1: I just wondered if you wanted to buy a possum
Speaker 1: from us? And the conductor said, are you crazy? You
Speaker 1: stopped the train just to ask us if we wanted
Speaker 1: to buy a possum, And the guy said yeah. And
Speaker 1: then the conductor goes, well, it's crazy that you've done this,
Speaker 1: but since you have, I like possum, So how much
Speaker 1: you want for the possum?
Speaker 2: And then and then he said.
Speaker 5: Man said, you idiot.
Speaker 4: You mean to tell me that you have done stopped
Speaker 4: a hundred car Banana train seeing if we wanted to
Speaker 4: buy a possum. You must be an idiot. But I
Speaker 4: like possum. And inasmuch as we have stopped, what do
Speaker 4: you want for him? Marcell said, we ain't caught him yet.
Speaker 4: I just want to see if you wanted want.
Speaker 1: Jerry's stories were a combination of fact and fiction, but
Speaker 1: some of the stories were entirely true. This story is
Speaker 1: titled Marcel's Talking Chainsaw. It's on the Greatest Hits album.
Speaker 1: So this is a this is a story. This is
Speaker 1: one of Jerry Klower's bits that he told over and
Speaker 1: it was one of his more famous pieces. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: me where he got that? The real story behind that one.
Speaker 5: Marshall had been to the pump woodyard and he come
Speaker 5: back by the beer joint and he wanted to get
Speaker 5: him one of them big knee high belly washers and
Speaker 5: the moon pie. And he went to the front door
Speaker 5: and knocked on the door, and the man running the
Speaker 5: beer joints said, boy, get away from my door. That
Speaker 5: you ain't got no bed to sit here. And Marshall
Speaker 5: told him said, well, I ain't gonna cause no trouble, said,
Speaker 5: I just want a big sadie pipe and a moon pie.
Speaker 2: Now why did he run him off? Because this is
Speaker 2: a real story.
Speaker 5: This is the Rochelle wasn't old enough to go in there.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, he told him to get away from that door.
Speaker 5: Marshall went back truck pulled out that mc collor chainsaw,
Speaker 5: fired it up and come back and stuck it snout
Speaker 5: of it in that door, and it ripped that brace
Speaker 5: and bracket and the hinges off the door, and that
Speaker 5: screen tangled up through that chain as it went around
Speaker 5: that bar. Folks give marcell to beer joints, and that happened.
Speaker 2: That that happened just like that.
Speaker 5: That happened just before you crossed the Amitt County line.
Speaker 5: That beer joint was right there on the lift.
Speaker 1: So Jerry just told the story pretty much like it happened.
Speaker 1: That's right, except for the brand of the chainsaw right now.
Speaker 5: Tell me he did not. I don't think he remembered
Speaker 5: what the brand of the chainsaw was. But McCullough was
Speaker 5: the first name that came to his mind, and he
Speaker 5: said mccullor. And what he did. It's like he told me, said, man,
Speaker 5: folks started buying McCullough chainsaws. Didn't even know how to
Speaker 5: crank them.
Speaker 1: You know what's so funny about that is so I
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen seventy nine. The first chainsaw I
Speaker 1: remember my dad having would have been in the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: and it was a McCullough chainsaw, which I don't even
Speaker 1: think mccallaugh's.
Speaker 2: O don't businessman, I don't think.
Speaker 1: Now you told me McCullough's sent because of that skit
Speaker 1: and how big it was, McCullough sent some chainsaws to
Speaker 1: the family and kind of.
Speaker 5: Helped him out some four and go carts. I believe
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 1: I'll be darned send it to Jerry Klower just to
Speaker 1: Faith thanks for plugging McCulloch chainsaws.
Speaker 5: But Jerry could advertise it. One time he was spokesperson
Speaker 5: for Christ Corporation. I think at one time he was
Speaker 5: spokesperson for Lincoln but Man that the promotional items that
Speaker 5: companies would give him.
Speaker 2: Just hoping it would make it into one of his stories.
Speaker 5: He cared a lot of weight. He was influential wherever
Speaker 5: he went.
Speaker 1: Mister John remembered a funny story about Jerry.
Speaker 5: Jerry was always pulling pranks. He was a prankster. But
Speaker 5: he pulled up at church one Sunday morning. He was
Speaker 5: the first one there and I got there just within
Speaker 5: a minute or so after he did, and he got
Speaker 5: out of his car and he made a quick dash
Speaker 5: for the church steps. I knew you then knowing Jerry
Speaker 5: like I did. I knew that he was up to something.
Speaker 5: And he had on his bright red coat and his
Speaker 5: designer jeans, and he ran up to the church steps
Speaker 5: and he put his foot up on next to the
Speaker 5: bottom step, and he pulled his richest leg up above
Speaker 5: his cowboy boot so I would be sure and see
Speaker 5: the new boots that he had on. But I walked
Speaker 5: right by him. I didn't shake hands with him, I
Speaker 5: didn't speak, didn't say good morning, Jerry, how you doing.
Speaker 5: I never acknowledged that he was there, walked right past him.
Speaker 5: And he ran up behind me and grabbed me around
Speaker 5: the nick and he said, John, you know you've seen
Speaker 5: them boots. You're just jealous because you ain't got a
Speaker 5: pair like them.
Speaker 1: I want to discuss with Brent Jerry's impact on the South.
Speaker 1: What do you think that impact of Jerry Klower was
Speaker 1: on the people of the South. You know, because he
Speaker 1: kind of rose up from the ashes in a sense
Speaker 1: of poverty and unlikely character. I mean, became famous when
Speaker 1: he was in his forties.
Speaker 2: Yea. He was a fertilizer salesman, correctly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he became famous in his forties, which is
Speaker 1: highly unusual. I mean usually by that time people are
Speaker 1: kind of their trajectory is semi set. And he until
Speaker 1: he passes away when he was seventy one, he just
Speaker 1: has this incredible career, becomes a member of the Grand
Speaker 1: Old Opry, writes multiple books, yeah, records, multiple records, has
Speaker 1: number one hits on country radio, which wasn't even music,
Speaker 1: but they were playing his his skits on the radio,
Speaker 1: in his his style, his mannerisms. They were very familiar
Speaker 1: to people in the South, sure, but very unfamiliar to
Speaker 1: Oh is that funny? Could that be? On the national
Speaker 1: stage of comedy? What do you think the impact of
Speaker 1: Jerry Klower was on the South?
Speaker 3: I can relate, you know. We talked about Wilson Rawls,
Speaker 3: you know, and I told you about I could relate
Speaker 3: to Billy in the story. But the tales that Jerry
Speaker 3: Klower put himself in, some of it based on truth,
Speaker 3: some of it just made it because he had a
Speaker 3: great imagination. But I could identify with that. It was
Speaker 3: to the point to where when we saw I saw
Speaker 3: him on television he would host a country music show
Speaker 3: that came out on Sunday afternoons. It was beyond my
Speaker 3: comprehension that somebody in my family didn't know him, because
Speaker 3: the stories that he told were stories that I could
Speaker 3: identify with, as far as how he grew up or
Speaker 3: bird hunting, you know, having a dog that you know,
Speaker 3: tree and coons.
Speaker 1: He talked about that I had corn and shelling peas
Speaker 1: and mules and.
Speaker 3: Going barefooted, and being hot and being so hot that
Speaker 3: in the summertime that you wouldn't button up the sides
Speaker 3: on your overalls.
Speaker 1: And eat eating so much bold ocre that he couldn't
Speaker 1: keep his socks up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: These were all things that he talked about I had
Speaker 3: either done or seen done.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just you weren't seeing that anywhere else.
Speaker 1: So you're this kid being raised in southern Arkansas, which
Speaker 1: I will note even for the South, there are different
Speaker 1: kind of cultures inside the South. Like I'm from the South, right,
Speaker 1: being from Arkansas, but we lived in the highlands, which
Speaker 1: is quite different in there. You know, where you grew
Speaker 1: up in southeastern Arkansas where Jerry Clower lived from, you
Speaker 1: would have basically been same agriculture, same influence of the
Speaker 1: river bottoms and Delta, and just a couple hours away.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, he just lived on the other side of
Speaker 3: the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you would have had even probably a stronger
Speaker 1: connection to some of that than a lot of people.
Speaker 3: I would hear stories, you know, we would hear the
Speaker 3: funny stories, and then my dad would tell one and
Speaker 3: it would have the same type. Characters are the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He would talk about a wagon, you know, Jerry Clarer
Speaker 3: might tell a story about riding the town in a wagon,
Speaker 3: and then my dad would tell a story about him
Speaker 3: riding in a wagon. So it was easy to transfer,
Speaker 3: you know, my kinship, I guess to the stuff that
Speaker 3: he was talking about, regardless of the subject, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I said, a lot of that stuff he was
Speaker 3: making up, but it all, it all went back to
Speaker 3: the stories I'd heard all my life and the things
Speaker 3: that I had witnessed with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: And you know what I think it did is I
Speaker 1: think it validated poor, poverty stricken people in the South.
Speaker 1: Because you think about the media of that time, the
Speaker 1: country music scene would have been focused in some ways
Speaker 1: on the South. I mean not entirely, but there have
Speaker 1: been famous people, you know, Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn
Speaker 1: and all these people, but the mainstream influencers of the
Speaker 1: time certainly would not have been from, you know, a
Speaker 1: guy like Jerry Klower. And so for him to rise
Speaker 1: up and to tell our stories, you know, quote unquote
Speaker 1: our stories talking about our people, and him being so
Speaker 1: funny and so likable. You know, you wouldn't listen to
Speaker 1: Jerry Klower and just instinctively say this man is intelligent,
Speaker 1: but a highly intelligent man. And that made us that
Speaker 1: that validated us.
Speaker 3: I read I read an article on Time talking about
Speaker 3: Jerry Klower that when he was on the grand Ole Offry,
Speaker 3: he was of all the folks on there wearing overalls
Speaker 3: and playing music and talking about being from the country.
Speaker 3: He was the only guy on there that had a
Speaker 3: degree in agriculture out of every member of the grand
Speaker 3: Ole Offry. So he had grown up living. He lived
Speaker 3: what he portrayed, you know, I mean it was I
Speaker 3: think you can see it's easy to see truth in that,
Speaker 3: and it will connect with somebody, even though you may
Speaker 3: not know his background, but you can tell when someone
Speaker 3: is genuine. And it all kept it off when I
Speaker 3: got to meet him in person. But he was a
Speaker 3: genuine person. And what you saw on television and what
Speaker 3: I saw on television. Now what I listened to on
Speaker 3: the radio. It was him.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Jerry's college education.
Speaker 1: He started off at a community college but ended up
Speaker 1: playing football at Mississippi State.
Speaker 2: Jerry was a pretty big old boy.
Speaker 5: Jerry said. The first college football game he ever went
Speaker 5: to in his life he played in.
Speaker 1: It is that right? So he he played? What school
Speaker 1: did he play for down here?
Speaker 5: I think Jerry went to I don't know if he
Speaker 5: went to Southwest Junior College, but he went to Mississippi State.
Speaker 2: But but he went to high school.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we had consolidated high school.
Speaker 2: Did they have a football team here?
Speaker 5: I don't think they did?
Speaker 2: So he how did that work? Because that's what I thought.
Speaker 1: I thought he didn't play high school football, but he
Speaker 1: ended up in college football. Just he was just that
Speaker 1: good of an athlete that he just went and tried
Speaker 1: out for the football team having never played and made it,
Speaker 1: played for Mississippi State.
Speaker 2: I'll be done.
Speaker 1: In Jerry's humor. You'll often hear sports analogies used. I
Speaker 1: want to dig deeper into Jerry's humor and why it
Speaker 1: was funny. First of all, he would start off with
Speaker 1: an intriguing story that you know that had to happened
Speaker 1: or been made up or partials of both of those
Speaker 1: things connected, and he would give an ordinate amount of detail,
Speaker 1: usually in the beginning, like he.
Speaker 2: Would say yeah, he would tell he would give.
Speaker 1: His address and say, I'm from east for Mississippi, one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five miles from Baton Rouge. I mean,
Speaker 1: just give you all this, and you're you're just intrigued
Speaker 1: because of the tone of his voice and the way.
Speaker 2: He's describing it. But you're just like, you have.
Speaker 1: No idea why this is relevant, but you're like doing
Speaker 1: geography in your head, you know, like figuring out where
Speaker 1: he's at. And then he starts talking and he you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard it said that comedy, the more specific you
Speaker 1: can be inside of comedy, the funnier it is, the
Speaker 1: more you can relate to it. And so he just
Speaker 1: gives these random details all over it. And then his
Speaker 1: accent was just I listened to it today and it's
Speaker 1: it's almost an artifact. You know, he's been gone about
Speaker 1: twenty four years, Jerry Clower has. He died in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, and so you know, his accent in the
Speaker 1: way that he structured his sentences very unique and probably
Speaker 1: unique even to that part of Mississippi. When you listen
Speaker 1: back to it, you hear sentence structures and completely improper
Speaker 1: usage of words, but that made perfect sense.
Speaker 2: The way them was correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so the accent was intriguing, The details were intriguing,
Speaker 1: the hooks were perfect, the names and the stories and
Speaker 1: the places where he over exaggerated stuff that you knew
Speaker 1: he was over exaggerating would be super funny. But he
Speaker 1: often too pitted country people against city people sometimes, and
Speaker 1: usually the guy from the country would not always end
Speaker 1: up looking to be the smartest, but he was usually right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was usually the hook in that or
Speaker 3: the bringing it home or what however you the phrase
Speaker 3: would be, is that guy used common sense. The country
Speaker 3: guy used common sense above you know, a college degree
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: It was like I've always kind of parried it with
Speaker 3: like the Andy Griffiths show, a show that I have
Speaker 3: seen all of them hundreds of times, and they never
Speaker 3: get old to me. Those stories. When I hear Jerry Clower's,
Speaker 3: they never even I know, I know the punchlines coming,
Speaker 3: I know what's fixing to happen. I could do his
Speaker 3: whole act myself. Just about you know, yeah, but they're
Speaker 3: still funny. And I think it's probably a mixture of
Speaker 3: nostalgia of listening to it and thinking back, you know,
Speaker 3: when me and my dad was down on the Potlatch
Speaker 3: road timber company road, waiting for the dogs to track
Speaker 3: the last time I heard that, or one time that
Speaker 3: I heard this story. And so there's just a lot
Speaker 3: of meat in it. It's just a lot of good,
Speaker 3: wholesome storytelling.
Speaker 1: So there's a book written by Jerry Klower called Stories
Speaker 1: from Home, and what it is it's an interview. It's
Speaker 1: a transcribed interview that they did with Jerry Klower, and
Speaker 1: he talked about a intentional decision that he made when
Speaker 1: he got into comedy to keep it clean. And there
Speaker 1: were people in Hollywood that advised him, like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: going to have to be more risk a if you
Speaker 1: want to be successful in this sphere, and he just
Speaker 1: he said he didn't believe him, and he made that
Speaker 1: decision that he was gonna that he was going to
Speaker 1: try to keep it in bounds, you know, And he
Speaker 1: teetered on the edge sometimes of you know, jokes that
Speaker 1: might not be appropriate for kids. Every now and then
Speaker 1: he'd say something.
Speaker 2: That would kind of be, you know, on the edge.
Speaker 1: But it was always like, you know, stuff you would
Speaker 1: let your kids listen to. No. I respected him for
Speaker 1: just having a value system that he stuck to his
Speaker 1: whole life. You know, I can't speak enough about Jerry's character.
Speaker 1: I'm impressed by stuff like that. And in the book
Speaker 1: Stories from Home, Jerry said quote, I stayed with MCA
Speaker 1: records and got to where I liked it. At first,
Speaker 1: they said, Jerry, unless you put a little risk a
Speaker 1: or vulgar stuff on your records, you ain't never gonna
Speaker 1: be no own nationally.
Speaker 2: But I defied them.
Speaker 1: I have never used risk a material end of quote.
Speaker 1: I've read about his positions on race relations in the
Speaker 1: South and kind of his story with that. He was
Speaker 1: really ahead of his time. He was in a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty profound way. He was what do you think about that?
Speaker 5: Jerry? As I said, he was a devout Christian. He
Speaker 5: read every word of the Bible to be true, and
Speaker 5: he accepted the fact that God accepted everybody, regardless of
Speaker 5: race or anything else. And Jerry was ahead of his
Speaker 5: time back then because a lot of people were pretty
Speaker 5: objective to integration, didn't want to mingle with black people
Speaker 5: and for whatever reason, did not associate with them that much.
Speaker 5: But Jerry did, and he respected everybody. And I think
Speaker 5: that's why everybody respected him, because he didn't cut any
Speaker 5: ice with any anybody. Race color didn't mean anything to him.
Speaker 5: He loved everybody.
Speaker 1: Jerry's ideas on race grew over time, which speaks to
Speaker 1: his ability to change. In his book, he said he
Speaker 1: grew up with some of the stereotypical mind frames at
Speaker 1: the time, but when he came back from the war,
Speaker 1: he said this quote, after I became a Christian, my
Speaker 1: convictions got to pricking my conscience. I would have to
Speaker 1: compromise my Christian convictions if I believed some of the
Speaker 1: things that I had been taught as a child. End
Speaker 1: of quote. Here's another story. It's in reference to the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church,
Speaker 1: a black church by the KKK. Jerry said, quote, I
Speaker 1: was in Birmingham selling fertilizer after they bombed that church.
Speaker 1: They bombed and killed three precious little black children. The
Speaker 1: following Monday, I was driving through Birmingham and I had
Speaker 1: the radio on and this guy was a disc jockey
Speaker 1: and he was black, and he was t to rally
Speaker 1: all the black children. He said, just say I'm somebody.
Speaker 1: I stopped at a red light by a school bus
Speaker 1: and a little black boy was looking out the window
Speaker 1: at me. I let the window down and I said,
Speaker 1: I know you are somebody's son. And if I could
Speaker 1: get this scoundrel that bombed you just because you're black,
Speaker 1: I would end of quote. I think this shows Jerry's heart.
Speaker 1: He also had a famous quote where he said, it's
Speaker 1: still a mystery to me how godly people can tie
Speaker 1: their income, give to the poor, read the Bible, pray,
Speaker 1: love folks, and let God run every fiber of their
Speaker 1: being except how they treat black people.
Speaker 2: End of quote.
Speaker 1: That was big stuff coming from a white comedian in
Speaker 1: the South in the nineteen seventies. It was Jerry's connection
Speaker 1: to place that made his words carry weight. He grew
Speaker 1: up in segregation and as I ideas on race relations
Speaker 1: changed after he was an adult, as we closed down,
Speaker 1: I want to explore the power of place. Well what
Speaker 1: I learned from Where the Red Fern Grows from Sean Tuton,
Speaker 1: literature expert, that connection to place is really intriguing to people,
Speaker 1: even if they're not connected to that place.
Speaker 2: So seeing Billy.
Speaker 1: Coleman's connection to the Ozarks in a genuine way was
Speaker 1: intriguing because you could look through his eyes and see
Speaker 1: that landscape and his life and the shapes of his life,
Speaker 1: and if even if it was different from you and
Speaker 1: you'd never been there and never going to go there.
Speaker 1: I think that's what they did with Jerry Klower too,
Speaker 1: is that they saw the rural, poverty stricken South in
Speaker 1: a lovable, nice way.
Speaker 3: They probably already had that image of it. You know,
Speaker 3: you look back at cartoons and Heal Billies and they're
Speaker 3: you know, wearing one strap overalls and they're barefoot, and
Speaker 3: they got those crazy looking hats, smoking a corn cob
Speaker 3: pipe and all of that. So they saw that, they
Speaker 3: saw that part of it and immediately. But then he
Speaker 3: puts those very vivid stories about the characters in there,
Speaker 3: and they're good people. They may bee dressed that way,
Speaker 3: but there's there's always a redeeming quality about most of them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know so, and you can identify that with whether
Speaker 3: you got to be there or get to be there
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 2: Here's John with a couple more stories about Jerry.
Speaker 5: I know, one time I went over to Jerry's and
Speaker 5: I took my coon dog. He followed me over. I
Speaker 5: went over on a horse. We got in Jerry's yard
Speaker 5: and a rabbit, a big rabbit, run out of one
Speaker 5: of Miss Homerleine's flower beds, and my dog took off
Speaker 5: after him, and he had a real deep bow. Oh
Speaker 5: you could hear him on my way. He was just
Speaker 5: barking trailing that rabbit. They was going in flower beds
Speaker 5: and out and Jake and I was hollering at the dog,
Speaker 5: trying to stop him because I knew Miss Hombling didn't
Speaker 5: want that dog in the yard. And that time Jerry come.
Speaker 2: To the door.
Speaker 5: Jerry hollered, what are you doing. I said, I'm trying
Speaker 5: to catch his dad gumb dog. I said, don't you
Speaker 5: hear him? He said, yeah, I do. He said, man,
Speaker 5: leave a dog alone. He said, anything got a voice
Speaker 5: like that ought to be singing in the church choir.
Speaker 5: Jerry came over one time. I forgot what the occasion was,
Speaker 5: but he to the time we had a circle driver.
Speaker 5: He pulled up in his car and he got out
Speaker 5: and he had on a pair of sandals and he
Speaker 5: had on a pair of cutoff pants and a real
Speaker 5: loud color high ware you type shirt. That coon dog
Speaker 5: of mine looked up and seen Jerry, and he done
Speaker 5: like a shen.
Speaker 2: He twisted his hand over the world that.
Speaker 5: Thing was, and he went and got under my pickup
Speaker 5: truck and wouldn't come out. And I told Jerry that
Speaker 5: we was gonna have to go down to Liberty and
Speaker 5: talk with my attorney because he had runned the best
Speaker 5: potential young dog that I had ever had, and that
Speaker 5: if he wanted to settle this out of court, we could.
Speaker 2: If I couldn't.
Speaker 5: He was gonna you have to promise me some puppies
Speaker 5: off the next gyp And he knew of it. It was
Speaker 5: gonna drop a litter of puppies. But I mean, we
Speaker 5: was all the time pulling stuff like that.
Speaker 4: One.
Speaker 1: Well, Jerry say, when he told him about the litigation,
Speaker 1: he laughed, he laughed. Jerry toured right up until his
Speaker 1: passing in nineteen ninety eight and had plans for more records.
Speaker 1: He gathered his content from people in this community and
Speaker 1: mister John, his neighbor, told him a story that Jerry
Speaker 1: was very intrigued by. He even told him that he
Speaker 1: was going to put it on his next record. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Jerry never made that record and will never hear Jerry
Speaker 1: tell the story, but we can hear it from mister
Speaker 1: John and if you listen, I think you can hear
Speaker 1: Jerry's voice telling it.
Speaker 5: One of those was a fellow that lived here in
Speaker 5: the community. He was a lot older than Jerry. He
Speaker 5: lived to be I guess on up in his late nineties.
Speaker 5: But as he began to get older, he reached a
Speaker 5: poem and laugh where his family encouraged him to go
Speaker 5: ahead and buy him a car. You know, he'd have
Speaker 5: his own transportation. He could get out and go. He
Speaker 5: didn't have to get nobody to take him where he
Speaker 5: wanted to go. He'd have his own wheels. So he
Speaker 5: bought him a sixty two Chevrolet Biscayne, and he got
Speaker 5: him some driver's license so he could get out and
Speaker 5: go where he wanted to. But they knew he was
Speaker 5: going to have to have a tag, a car tag,
Speaker 5: and some insurance. And if they would have trouble getting
Speaker 5: him to differentiate between the liability and the collision, the
Speaker 5: comprehension and all that, he just wouldn't understand it and
Speaker 5: it would create an argument because he felt like it.
Speaker 5: He didn't need all that junk if it was his car.
Speaker 5: They just told him said, well, Uncle Tom said, if
Speaker 5: you've got insurance and you ever involved in an accident,
Speaker 5: the insurance will buy you another car. That was just
Speaker 5: a simple way to get him to understand and bypass
Speaker 5: the comprehension the liability collision and everything else under guard
Speaker 5: automobile insurance. So he went to town every Saturday morning. But
Speaker 5: a stop sign didn't mean nothing to him because he
Speaker 5: had always went in that direction, and he felt like
Speaker 5: people ought to respect him because that was the road
Speaker 5: he had always traveled and he wasn't gonna stop for nobody.
Speaker 5: So it happened he ran stop signed one Saturday morning
Speaker 5: and a fellow from Baton Rouge running to him, hit him,
Speaker 5: turned his car bottom side up, told Uncle Tom I
Speaker 5: wanted to didn't kill him, so they called the law.
Speaker 5: He wouldn't. He wouldn't go to the hospital in the amulets.
Speaker 5: He just set by his car and the state trooper
Speaker 5: came out and investigated the accident. Well, he knew Uncle Tom,
Speaker 5: and he just didn't know how he was gonna get
Speaker 5: across to him that he was in the fault. So
Speaker 5: he went up to him and he said. Uncle Tom said, uh,
Speaker 5: I've investigated the accident, and said it's pretty conclusive as
Speaker 5: to what happened. And he said, I'd like to have
Speaker 5: your version of what happened here. Uncle Tom said, well,
Speaker 5: I said I was headed over to my comb. We're
Speaker 5: gonna get me a hair cut, gonna get some grocers,
Speaker 5: and said, I come down this road all time. Everybody knows.
Speaker 5: Said and then this idiot from Baton Rouge comes flying
Speaker 5: through him and he hits me, tears my car up,
Speaker 5: and said that's what happened in the state trooper said
Speaker 5: he didn't know how he was going to explain next
Speaker 5: to Uncle Tom, but he said, Uncle Tom said, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna I'm gonna have to tell you now. I said,
Speaker 5: I've investigated accident. He said, uh, it's my deedy to
Speaker 5: inform you. I'm gonna have to give you a citation.
Speaker 5: And Uncle Tom said, well, son, I appreciate it's mighty
Speaker 5: nice of you. Know, said I don't know nothing about Afford,
Speaker 5: said I never did like a Chrystler product, and said
Speaker 5: I ain't never rolled in or drove a citation. And
Speaker 5: if it's all right with everybody was involved. I'd rather
Speaker 5: have another chivallet, uh. But Jerry rowled when I told him.
Speaker 5: He said, that's going in my next man. That's going
Speaker 5: in my next album. And and that was the last
Speaker 5: night that he ever was at home. We talked a
Speaker 5: long time.
Speaker 1: In the foreword of the book Stories from Home, Willie
Speaker 1: Morris says, quote, all our distinguished American humorists have been
Speaker 1: serious people, their hearts as rueful as they are married.
Speaker 1: I'm funny because I'm sad, It was attributed to Mark Twain,
Speaker 1: and I'm sad because I'm funny. Jerry Klower is an
Speaker 1: artist of deep values, values which yet exist in our civilization.
Speaker 1: Hard work, loyalty, honesty, community, family, friendship, generosity, love, and
Speaker 1: with all a vibrant aversion to the hypocritical, the bogus,
Speaker 1: and the unpitying, not to mention an instinctual distaste for
Speaker 1: cynical barbers, dilatory hitchhikers, and all souls of greed. He
Speaker 1: understands the world because he assiduously lived it. End of quote.
Speaker 1: Jerry Klower was a complex and brilliant man, deeply connected
Speaker 1: to place, sure in his identity, loyal to his people,
Speaker 1: but also.
Speaker 2: Intolerant of its errors. He gave voice to the.
Speaker 1: South and dignity to a group of people coming out
Speaker 1: of a rough time, people often misunderstood by the nation.
Speaker 1: He was deeply connected to the land as a hunter
Speaker 1: and fisherman, and attributed his time in the Coonwoods to
Speaker 1: building the fabric of his character, a throwback to the
Speaker 1: ideology that Daniel Boone's legacy ushered into the American psyche.
Speaker 1: Like I said from the beginning of our series on
Speaker 1: Where the Red Fern Grows, I'm fascinated when hunting touches
Speaker 1: pop culture in positive ways. Just like Wilson Rawls, Jerry
Speaker 1: wrapped up our way of life and put it in
Speaker 1: a human story, and people loved it. As we look
Speaker 1: to the future of hunting and rural life, I think
Speaker 1: we have a pattern here. We've got to have a
Speaker 1: deep love of the land, its wildness, and its critters,
Speaker 1: but we've also got to love the people that live
Speaker 1: from its bounty. Wildness only makes sense to people that
Speaker 1: don't know it firsthand when it's wrapped in.
Speaker 2: The life of a human.
Speaker 1: So we like Jerry, have to become better storytellers, storytellers
Speaker 1: of the human experience because stories carry our culture.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to Bear Grease.
Speaker 1: You can listen to all Jerry's albums on all the
Speaker 1: major streaming platforms and you're sure to get a laugh
Speaker 1: out of it. Please share our podcast with your in
Speaker 1: laws and your crazy hillbilly neighbors this week. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you next time on the Bear Grease Render. Happy
Speaker 1: New Year, everybody, see you in twenty twenty six.