Speaker 1: What did it look like? It was red red suit.
Speaker 1: It had on the lapels like on lapel, the stitching
Speaker 1: was white, so it stood out against that white cowboy
Speaker 1: boots yea, and red pants. Had a big white belt
Speaker 1: with a belt buckled size of a student Baker hubcap.
Speaker 1: And he had an embroidered coon on the on the
Speaker 1: left lapel. Yep, coon face right there. On this episode
Speaker 1: of the Bargaras podcast, we're diving deep into Southern culture
Speaker 1: and identity to get a view from the captain's chair
Speaker 1: of Jerry Clower's mind. Does that name ring a bell?
Speaker 1: Jerry was thrust into national fame in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: when a story he told about coon hunting topped the
Speaker 1: country music charts. I'm interested in those odd places where
Speaker 1: rural culture and specifically hunting, touches the mainstream. Old Wilson
Speaker 1: Rawl's bridge the gap with this book where the red
Speaker 1: fern rows, and Jerry did it with comedy about hunting varmouts.
Speaker 1: He's been gone for a long time, but I was
Speaker 1: able to go meet up with his old neighbor in
Speaker 1: East Fork, Mississippi and a Mitt County, and he'll give
Speaker 1: us a behind the scenes look into who Jerry was,
Speaker 1: and some of it will surprise you, and believe it
Speaker 1: or not, Old Brent Reeves met Jerry Clower and saw
Speaker 1: his famed gold Cadillac that Brent swears was as long
Speaker 1: as the battleship. Trust me, boys, you're not gonna want
Speaker 1: to miss this one. It was beyond my comprehension that
Speaker 1: somebody in my family didn't know him, because the stories
Speaker 1: that he told were stories that I could identify with
Speaker 1: as far as how he grew up. My name is
Speaker 1: Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where
Speaker 1: will expe lord things forgotten but relevant, search for insight
Speaker 1: and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of
Speaker 1: Americans who lived their lives close to the land, presented
Speaker 1: by f HF gear, American made, purpose built hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 1: places we explore. First of all, I want you to
Speaker 1: know that I come from right four Liberty, Mississippi. Now
Speaker 1: that's twelve miles west of McCombe, Mississippi, sixty five miles
Speaker 1: due northeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixteen miles due north of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was
Speaker 1: that that I first saw the light of day out
Speaker 1: of a nick Countess September nine hundred and twenty six.
Speaker 1: I was born there. If you recognize that voice, many
Speaker 1: assumptions could be made about you and your history. You're
Speaker 1: likely over the age of thirty, have some 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. These people are significant and carry
Speaker 1: the values of their people, but their interpretation of those
Speaker 1: values is amplified through time. My friend Steve Ronella recently
Speaker 1: 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 Clower, you're likely culturally Southern, and I'll
Speaker 1: make a definitive statement. If you don't know who Jerry
Speaker 1: Clower is, you aren't Southern. I'm sorry, or you've been
Speaker 1: locked at a chicken coop your whole life. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about hunting raccoons 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 Clower did it by telling a
Speaker 1: human story. You see, Jerry was catapulted into the national
Speaker 1: spotlight in nineteen seventy one because of a short tale
Speaker 1: he told about a coon hunt in Mississippi. The story
Speaker 1: was so intriguing producers from New York City traveled to
Speaker 1: meet him with, in Jerry's words, a pocket full of money,
Speaker 1: and the following contract launched the forty five year old
Speaker 1: fertilizer salesman into immediate stardom. Jerry wasn't a musician, but
Speaker 1: recorded seven full length recordings through m c A Records,
Speaker 1: producing two gold albums and a platinum record, and he
Speaker 1: became a member of the Grand Old Opry, wrote four
Speaker 1: books and hosted multiple television shows. Jerry's first album made
Speaker 1: more than ten million dollars in the first ten months
Speaker 1: and stayed in country's top twenty on the chart for
Speaker 1: thirty weeks. Author Willie Morris said Clower's comic art demonstrates
Speaker 1: the richness of the spoken language in the South and
Speaker 1: all its inwardness, nuance, and sweet. He described it as
Speaker 1: extravagant Southern talk. Jerry would become known as the mouth
Speaker 1: of the South, and in a time of racial upheaval,
Speaker 1: he was outspoken in his support of racial integration and
Speaker 1: support of our Frican Americans. Jerry has been gone since
Speaker 1: n but I traveled to East Fort, Mississippi, in a
Speaker 1: Mitt County to meet with Jerry's longtime neighbor and fellow
Speaker 1: East Fort Baptist Church member, Mr John Newman, who will
Speaker 1: help us unraveled Jerry's life and comedy. Mr John is
Speaker 1: a clean shaven, handsome feller in his early seventies with
Speaker 1: a headful of white hair, mid lenked side burns, and
Speaker 1: a worn pair of leather boots. But most importantly, he
Speaker 1: knew Jerry well and loved him like a brother. So Jerry.
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen twenty six. He passed away
Speaker 1: in nine at the age of seventy one. What do
Speaker 1: we know about his early life that probably had some
Speaker 1: impact on just who he was. Tell me about his
Speaker 1: early history just as a kid, Jerry was born doing
Speaker 1: some real hard times in the history of the country.
Speaker 1: Depressions were pretty common. We went through two of them,
Speaker 1: went through a couple of World wars. Jerry and brother's Sonny,
Speaker 1: both served in World War Two, and his mother told
Speaker 1: me that one of the saddest stories that she could
Speaker 1: relate to in regard to her children and that at
Speaker 1: one time both of them boys were missing. They didn't
Speaker 1: know where they were, but she prayed that God would
Speaker 1: look out for him bring him back home safely, and
Speaker 1: it did. But Jerry was brought up in some pretty
Speaker 1: tough times. His mother was a sole provider. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of the luxuries of life, just like
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of us that were
Speaker 1: lived in this part of the country that grew up
Speaker 1: in the south during some pretty tough times. Jerry said
Speaker 1: that his county was so poor people couldn't afford to sin,
Speaker 1: and that he ate so much slick shiny boiled ochre
Speaker 1: that when he was a boy, he couldn't keep his
Speaker 1: socks up. Once, when asked if he hadn't been poor,
Speaker 1: if he would have achieved what he did, he said,
Speaker 1: quote no, because I probably would have been arrogant and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have had a coon dog. He was a
Speaker 1: joy to be around. He loved everybody. He never let
Speaker 1: his fame or his fortune go to his head. Many times,
Speaker 1: uh different occasions, he would call me up asked me
Speaker 1: what I was doing. This was after he had moved
Speaker 1: back into the East four community. He did said, John,
Speaker 1: come on over, We're gonna put on some coffee. I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about where I been, who I saw,
Speaker 1: but ever where he went, anybody that he had in
Speaker 1: contact with, and genuine a lot of people. He knew
Speaker 1: people all over the country, politicians, athletes, people from every
Speaker 1: walk of life, business characters, so many people that he knew.
Speaker 1: He had a he had an influence on. Now tell
Speaker 1: me how you knew Jerry. I knew Jerry when I
Speaker 1: was just a small child. Jerry was a few years
Speaker 1: older than me at the time. He lived in Yazoo
Speaker 1: City and became a fertilizer salesman day for Mississippi Chemical Corporation,
Speaker 1: and it was just by coincidence and an accident. As
Speaker 1: Jerry has told me before, and as he related in
Speaker 1: some of his stories, he kind of backed into show business.
Speaker 1: But he was all he's a big talker. He was
Speaker 1: a good salesman. He had a lovable style character. If
Speaker 1: you met him, you never forgot him. And I think
Speaker 1: he was on a sales pitch over in Texas and
Speaker 1: somebody asked him to Jerry, what to tell him that
Speaker 1: you've got you need to use that you older Michael record.
Speaker 1: So so Jerry was selling fertilizer. He started using just
Speaker 1: some stories just to kind of loosen people up. That's right,
Speaker 1: I mean, just just like sales pitch and somebody heard
Speaker 1: it and said you are so funny and the guy
Speaker 1: the guy said, hey, I want to record you tell
Speaker 1: one of these stories, and he did. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: at the unlikely age of forty five, the fertilizer salesman
Speaker 1: recorded his first comedy album titled Jerry Klower from Yazoo City,
Speaker 1: Mississippi Talking with Lemon Label out of Texas. The album
Speaker 1: was a series of stories of Jerry just talking. Each
Speaker 1: was titled like a song on an album, and they
Speaker 1: sold over eight thousand records for five dollars each, and
Speaker 1: some radio stations started playing it. Then he got the
Speaker 1: attention he needed. The next day, I got a telephone
Speaker 1: call from New York City, said Mr Klawa, I'm vice
Speaker 1: president of a major record company. You have some talents,
Speaker 1: and the next time you're in this vicinity, would you
Speaker 1: drop by, we'd like to talk to you. I said,
Speaker 1: I ain't never gonna be in that vicinity. I said, Man,
Speaker 1: you don't leave Yeah City, Missippi, and just dropped by
Speaker 1: New York. If y'all want to see Man, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to send for man. Two days later the telephone,
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. That's very rare, I would say it
Speaker 1: is usually people have show business in their targets. From
Speaker 1: a young kid, that's something they pursue. That was he
Speaker 1: backed into it. It wasn't what he was trying to 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? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think it was knocked him out, John, Oh really
Speaker 1: it was the coer. Okay, here in lies the reason
Speaker 1: we're talking about Jerry Clower. His all time most popular
Speaker 1: story was about raccoon honey with hounds. Very interesting. We'll
Speaker 1: hear more about this story later. I've heard it said
Speaker 1: that he was he was a humorist, not necessarily a comedian,
Speaker 1: which you know, to me, you know, to say, to
Speaker 1: say someone's a comedian just means that they're funny, which
Speaker 1: I think he would, you know, qualify for that. But
Speaker 1: the way he described himself as he said, I don't
Speaker 1: tell funny stories. I tell stories funny And That's what
Speaker 1: I'm so struck by. As I've listened to so much
Speaker 1: of his stuff is that the stories are often just
Speaker 1: kind of it's it's the normal life of it that
Speaker 1: sometimes is what's so interesting. But he has this cast
Speaker 1: of characters that he always goes through. So almost all
Speaker 1: his stories, all his all his routines, have this cast
Speaker 1: of characters. Can you name most of them? Well, that
Speaker 1: was my sale. There's Eugene Rdal Ray Noll Burnell, M L.
Speaker 1: New Gene, Eugene, Uncle Versey, ain't pet old man zays
Speaker 1: that was my great grandpa, Mr Versey. Quite a few
Speaker 1: of those characters, and so were those real people. Some
Speaker 1: of them were that I know of, and he used
Speaker 1: their real names or not. In some instances he did
Speaker 1: tell me what you know about some of those characters
Speaker 1: and some of the some of the things that he
Speaker 1: talked about, well, one in particular to my great grandfather,
Speaker 1: The story Mr 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 Clower's greatest hit album. The Magnolia Electric
Speaker 1: Association had just begun to establish rural electric service here
Speaker 1: in our county. That was back into late forties. All
Speaker 1: you had to do was sign up, be willing to
Speaker 1: pay for the poll to be put up in electricity
Speaker 1: run from that pole to your house, and they took
Speaker 1: care of everything else. So they had notified our church
Speaker 1: that while they were in the community, they would be
Speaker 1: glad to provide our church with electrical service. So the
Speaker 1: church had a business meeting monthly business meeting, and it
Speaker 1: was brought up said hey man, look at here, here's
Speaker 1: a golden opportunity for us to have electricity lights at
Speaker 1: our church, and we need to think about this. It
Speaker 1: was brought up and voted on that we go ahead
Speaker 1: and let them put up to power polls and have electricity.
Speaker 1: And the moderator, which was a pastor, said is there
Speaker 1: any amendments or is there any discussion before we vote,
Speaker 1: and my great grandpa said, yeah, he had something he
Speaker 1: would like to share. But before that, one of the
Speaker 1: ladies in the church said she thought it would be
Speaker 1: a marvelous idea for the church to go ahead and
Speaker 1: get a chandelier since we was gonna have electricity. As
Speaker 1: the amendment was brought up, my great grandpa stood up
Speaker 1: and said he was against that. The moderator said, is
Speaker 1: there any discussion and our conversy that better said, Sir,
Speaker 1: I'd like to speak. I want all of you to
Speaker 1: know that if we're gonna buy a chandelier, there ain't
Speaker 1: nobody in our church. You got enough education that when
Speaker 1: we order it from seas and Roebucket, they could spell it.
Speaker 1: Then if we ordered the chandelier and it got here,
Speaker 1: there's nobody in our church it knows how to play it.
Speaker 1: And what I'm concerned about is we don't need to
Speaker 1: spend this money on no chandelier as bad as we
Speaker 1: need lights in the church. So that actually happened, happened,
Speaker 1: I'll be there. But then technology wasn't like it yesterday.
Speaker 1: Most people have never been no further than fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty miles now. They wasn't exposed to education like we
Speaker 1: are today, didn't have access to uh advancements in technology.
Speaker 1: And he didn't know he was speaking his heartfelt convictions.
Speaker 1: He honestly did not know. In this story, Jerry told
Speaker 1: it almost exactly as it happened, but he told it funny.
Speaker 1: And because many of the stories were true or almost true,
Speaker 1: they were relatable and showed the character of the people
Speaker 1: all the while poking 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 that,
Speaker 1: maybe in other places it's not as it's not as prominent.
Speaker 1: But was Jerry surrounded by people that were like him?
Speaker 1: And I know nobody else made it in show business,
Speaker 1: but was he impacted Probably by people that taught him
Speaker 1: how to tell stories and be funny. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that just came to him naturally. He associated
Speaker 1: with a lot of people that were of the same
Speaker 1: character makeup that he was. I guess in regard to that,
Speaker 1: they just did not have the people orientation to be
Speaker 1: able to express themselves and connect with people the way
Speaker 1: he did. Yeah, but I don't think that Jerry ever
Speaker 1: realized until he got into show business the impact that
Speaker 1: he did have on people. Yeah. I think there are
Speaker 1: three components to Jerry Clour. Number One, he was undoubtedly
Speaker 1: gifted at collecting stories and delivering them in unreplicatable, funny
Speaker 1: and compelling ways. However, number two, no man is an island,
Speaker 1: and I believe he would have learned components of his
Speaker 1: storytelling when he was a boy by listening to others
Speaker 1: in rural Mississippi. I'm sure he collected dialects and picked
Speaker 1: up on where to put the emphasis. He learned how
Speaker 1: to use sound effects and put it all together to
Speaker 1: create this unique style. And that brings up number three.
Speaker 1: Jerry Clower's style affected the way the South would and
Speaker 1: still does tell stories. Up until researching this podcast, it
Speaker 1: had been a while since I listened to Jerry years actually,
Speaker 1: and some of his stuff I had never heard. Coming
Speaker 1: back into his comedy, I clearly saw his cadence style, dialect,
Speaker 1: mannerisms echo through the way that people now tell stories.
Speaker 1: He helped interpret for us what was funny. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are comedians are extremely intelligent
Speaker 1: number one, and are extremely socially aware. For him to
Speaker 1: be able to find the nuance of funny stuff inside
Speaker 1: of his every day culture, the stuff that other people
Speaker 1: were like walking right past, I mean, just shows what
Speaker 1: alert aware intelligent guy he was. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: I would Jerry. He had a way of relating to people.
Speaker 1: He was a very comical person. But to me, knowing
Speaker 1: him as well as I did, he appeared to me
Speaker 1: to be a lot more ease in a in a
Speaker 1: private climate. We've been to his house on numerous occasions,
Speaker 1: and he was a lot more comical because I think
Speaker 1: he was a lot more at ease with people that
Speaker 1: he knew and in a setting that he was familiar with,
Speaker 1: or his church, So he was more funny when he
Speaker 1: was with people. Yes, definitely, definitely. One thing that, uh,
Speaker 1: I've always been quite proud of. My wife had got
Speaker 1: her master's degree over William Carey Cottage and Jerry gave
Speaker 1: her this plaque and recognition of it and it's from
Speaker 1: the Knock Him Out John Foundation. He gave this to
Speaker 1: my wife. When he gave this to her, he told
Speaker 1: her how proud he was of her, and he looked
Speaker 1: at me and he said, you know, it's a miracle
Speaker 1: that you were able to accomplish make the Dean's List,
Speaker 1: these honors that you have received. It was a miracle.
Speaker 1: And with what you have to put up with at
Speaker 1: home and you. He was making reference to me, and
Speaker 1: I said, Jerry, let me tell you what a miracle is.
Speaker 1: I said, I can't sing, and I know that. And
Speaker 1: I said I know you can't either, because I don't
Speaker 1: sit with you before in church and other services. And
Speaker 1: you can't sing. I said, you couldn't carry a tune
Speaker 1: in the bucket. And I doubt if you know the
Speaker 1: difference between a guitar and a piano. Yet you have
Speaker 1: been inducted into the Grand Old Opery. That's what you
Speaker 1: call a miracle. And he grabbed me around the neck
Speaker 1: with his right hand and with his Bible clanched in
Speaker 1: his left hand, and he looked up in the heavens
Speaker 1: and tears run down his face and he said, John,
Speaker 1: ain't God good? Ain't God good? So it was a
Speaker 1: real moment for him. It was just even while you
Speaker 1: were trying to be funny and just and said, you know,
Speaker 1: making a joke about him not being able to sing,
Speaker 1: but being in the Grand Old Opery, it impacted him
Speaker 1: just in that moment. He was just grateful. It's moments
Speaker 1: like this with no cameras or recorders that you can
Speaker 1: see inside of someone. Jerry grew up dirt poor. He
Speaker 1: didn't hit the big time until he was in his
Speaker 1: mid forties. He truly appreciated what had happened in his life.
Speaker 1: I think it hit him hard on October nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three when he was inducted into the Grand Old Opery. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with country music, there's no need to
Speaker 1: qualify that statement. But if you're not, this is a
Speaker 1: big deal. The Grand Old Opery is a weekly country
Speaker 1: music concert show held in Nashville, Tennessee, that started in
Speaker 1: the nineteen and has played almost every Saturday night for
Speaker 1: the last one hundred years. It's the longest running broadcast
Speaker 1: in US history. It's been called the home of American
Speaker 1: music and country's most famous stage. The Opery in ducts
Speaker 1: certain people as members who are people of influencing country music,
Speaker 1: but usually they're musicians, but Jerry was one of the
Speaker 1: rare inductees that wasn't. Members are required to perform at
Speaker 1: the opera a certain amount of times each year, and
Speaker 1: in its history, the Opery has inducted over two five members.
Speaker 1: You guys know Old Brent Reeves. He is Bear Greece's
Speaker 1: goodwill ambassador of the South and our chief corn bread contesseur.
Speaker 1: He grew up in the heyday of Jerry Clower's career,
Speaker 1: when listening to the Grand Old Opery was one of
Speaker 1: the highlights of the week. And wildly Brent got to
Speaker 1: meet Jerry. Can you imagine a young Brent Reeves meeting
Speaker 1: Jerry Clower? And I had to laugh when I heard
Speaker 1: what Jerry called him. We had what was known. I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure if he's still there. But there was
Speaker 1: an event center and it was called the Bradley County
Speaker 1: Cultural Center, cultural hub of the universe as far as
Speaker 1: far as the cultural love of Bradley cow exactly. And
Speaker 1: this is in warn Hearts at War in high school
Speaker 1: and it was on the campus of the high school there,
Speaker 1: and it was an auditorium and for our junior year
Speaker 1: fundraiser we got Jerry Clower that booked him to come
Speaker 1: and put on the show that would have been about
Speaker 1: the peak of his I mean, inside the peak of
Speaker 1: his career. Yeah, And I have no clue what it
Speaker 1: cost us to get him. But when he left, he
Speaker 1: handed the check back and said give me back to
Speaker 1: the school. He came from his home. He drove up
Speaker 1: there himself in the biggest, longest Cadillac I ever saw
Speaker 1: by himself. He had. All he wanted was a place
Speaker 1: to change, to change into his that suit that he wore,
Speaker 1: that signature. What did it look like? He was red
Speaker 1: red suit. It had on the lapels like on wappel,
Speaker 1: the stitching was white, so it stood out against that.
Speaker 1: And he had an embroidered un on the on the
Speaker 1: left lapel. Yep, coon face right there. And I got
Speaker 1: to meet him and he was so nice. Now, how
Speaker 1: did you meet him? Since it was our class and
Speaker 1: it was like ten or twelve of us that were
Speaker 1: selected to go over and help set everything up and
Speaker 1: to be there to help them since it was our project,
Speaker 1: our fundraiser. So I got out of class early that
Speaker 1: day to go over there and help him. Plus I
Speaker 1: wanted to meet him. I mean, this is somebody who
Speaker 1: I had seen on television and heard these stories. My
Speaker 1: uh we had the records old operation. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole the big it was a big deal. And uh
Speaker 1: I heard him on the Grand Old Library when my dad,
Speaker 1: and I've told you this before, my dad and I
Speaker 1: were go hunting at night. Of course we were running.
Speaker 1: He was chasing codies then with the pack dogs. But
Speaker 1: when until the race got going. We listened to the
Speaker 1: Grand Old Opery on a m radio in his truck
Speaker 1: and a lots sometimes, you know, Saturday nights. Yeah, Jerry
Speaker 1: Claren to be there, and so I've been listening to
Speaker 1: those stories my whole life. And this was you know
Speaker 1: guy that was in my radio. It was in he
Speaker 1: was in our community, you know, the community that the
Speaker 1: culture I guess that I grew up and so it
Speaker 1: was it was a big deal him him coming there,
Speaker 1: and I remember it being packed full of folks. Now,
Speaker 1: so was it open to the public. Yeah, they sold tickets,
Speaker 1: sold tickets sold sponsored by your class, sponsored raised money.
Speaker 1: I got you. And that's what it was. So you
Speaker 1: you said he pulled up in a Cadillac. You saw
Speaker 1: his Cadillac? What color was it? Gold? I'm telling you
Speaker 1: it was long as a battleship. It was huge. I
Speaker 1: heard that he had a gold Cadillac, so I'm just
Speaker 1: conn Yeah, yeah, well that's what he was driving. And
Speaker 1: like I said, he came by himself. He had a
Speaker 1: dressing room. They brought in some you know, some cold
Speaker 1: drinks to drink, and uh, I think somebody brought flowers
Speaker 1: and stuff. But he took time to talk to anybody
Speaker 1: that wanted to talk to. When I shook his hand
Speaker 1: and I was a junior in high school, he said, boy,
Speaker 1: that's a man's handshake. That's nice. He said, you were
Speaker 1: pretty boy, and uh that's what he said. Are you serious? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And we talked. Gonna forget that one. We were a
Speaker 1: pretty boy, He said, you were a pretty boy. And
Speaker 1: of course you know manners yesterday and no, sir, he
Speaker 1: remarked about that. And we just talked to him. You know,
Speaker 1: I tried to talk about I just assumed he had
Speaker 1: a pan full of coon dogs at home. I mean,
Speaker 1: but you know, obviously he didn't. And uh, he just
Speaker 1: had one embroidered pel of his red sports coach, which
Speaker 1: every man probably should have. You had on white cowboy boots, yeah,
Speaker 1: and red pants, had a big white belt with a
Speaker 1: belt buckled size of a student Baker hubcap, big fancy shirt.
Speaker 1: You know, Pearl snaps on it in that in that
Speaker 1: red signal. Jack, do you remember the thing? What did
Speaker 1: he do when he stood up? Was he the only
Speaker 1: act of the night? He was the act? He was?
Speaker 1: He was? How long did he speak? I would imagine
Speaker 1: about an hour Jerry Clower has famous stories, and he
Speaker 1: kind of he the greatest hits I would assume was
Speaker 1: what he he talked about. Of course he did the
Speaker 1: one about knock him Out John, you know about you know,
Speaker 1: shoot up in here amost this one of us has
Speaker 1: got to have some relief, you know when when he
Speaker 1: got up there with the wildcats. Of Jerry's entire career,
Speaker 1: his story called Knock Him Out John is his most famous.
Speaker 1: As always. The story starts out at Route four Liberty, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and then he begins to give very specific geographic detail
Speaker 1: of where this town is, twelve miles west of McCole, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: sixty five miles due northeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixteen miles due north of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: It's so detailed you're drawn in with great curiosity of
Speaker 1: why this matters and place did matter to Jerry, just
Speaker 1: like it mattered to Wilson Ross. Then he proceeds to
Speaker 1: tell what they've done during the day before they went
Speaker 1: coon hunting that night this particular day, we wasn't too busy.
Speaker 1: All we had done is just cut down a few
Speaker 1: fence rolls, sutton shells from corn and went to mill,
Speaker 1: drew up some water because that was wash day. Help
Speaker 1: get the si back. What rooted out from under the
Speaker 1: net wire fence sharp and two sticks or stovewood, real
Speaker 1: sharp and pegged them down over the bottom wire of
Speaker 1: the fence where the hole couldn't root out the more
Speaker 1: and had a rat killing. If I'm lying, I'm dying.
Speaker 1: Jerry had a knack for using intricate detail of obscure
Speaker 1: activities to peak the interests of the listeners. He went on, well,
Speaker 1: this particular day, after we got through the rat killing,
Speaker 1: I walked out on the front porch and I hollowed,
Speaker 1: and them dogs come out from mother house barking. They
Speaker 1: knew he was going coon hunt. And I hollered again
Speaker 1: in my neighbor where across the Saint to patch. Hollered back,
Speaker 1: and that meant I'll meet you halfway. We met in
Speaker 1: the middle of that sage patch, and he had his dogs,
Speaker 1: Old Brommn Queen and Spot, and I had Tory and
Speaker 1: Little Red and old Trailer. And we went out into
Speaker 1: the swamps and we started hunting. Oh, we was having
Speaker 1: such a fine time. Caught four great Biggins. He and
Speaker 1: the neighbor then run into the landowner Mr Barron, who
Speaker 1: had gotten rich by selling cotton for a dollar of
Speaker 1: bell during the First World Wars. Incredible detail. And with
Speaker 1: those riches he bought some good coon dogs. Along with
Speaker 1: him was John Eubanks, who was known for being a
Speaker 1: professional tree calmer and loved knocking coons out of trees.
Speaker 1: Both of these guys were real people in Jerry's life.
Speaker 1: He had some world renowned dogs and we hollered three
Speaker 1: or four times and they started hunh and we listened
Speaker 1: and directly old brummy old Brammer didn't bark it nothing
Speaker 1: but a coon. He had a deep boys, babe. And
Speaker 1: when he cut out on in it was a coon.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about no blossom on No bobcat Rum was
Speaker 1: running a coon and an old trailer and old high
Speaker 1: ball and then famous dogs and Mr Barns got in
Speaker 1: there with him, and old John you Banks and Hallahoo
Speaker 1: speak to and my brother's son of Haho look fun
Speaker 1: and all it was beautiful. Shortly the dog's falling treed
Speaker 1: on I quote, the biggest sweet gum tree in the
Speaker 1: Amant River swamps, and the group goes to the barking dog. John,
Speaker 1: you bags didn't like shooting a coon out, and he
Speaker 1: only liked to knock him out of the tree for
Speaker 1: the dogs to sword out. So John proceeds to climb
Speaker 1: the tree with a sharp stick in his hand. Knock
Speaker 1: him out, John, It won't be long. And John worked
Speaker 1: his way on up to the top of the tree.
Speaker 1: And what a bacon. And he reached around in his
Speaker 1: overhauls and got that sharp stick, and he drawed back
Speaker 1: and he punched the coon. But it wasn't a coon.
Speaker 1: It was a lynx. We call him souped up wild
Speaker 1: cats and the can And then Jerry says, that thing
Speaker 1: attacked John up in the top of that tree. Jerry
Speaker 1: often purposefully mispronounced words, as was the custom of the
Speaker 1: people in his region. What's the matter with John? Knock
Speaker 1: him out? John? The things killing me? And John knew that.
Speaker 1: Mr Barron told her the pistol it is about to
Speaker 1: shoot snakes with. And he kept holing, who shoot this thing?
Speaker 1: Have mercy? This thing killing me? Shoot this thing? And
Speaker 1: Mr Barron said, John, I can't shoot up in now,
Speaker 1: I might hit you. John said, well, just shoot up
Speaker 1: in here amongst us, one of us got the house
Speaker 1: from relief. M Jerry's colorful sound effects, the details about
Speaker 1: the dogs, the surprise of the wild cat in the tree,
Speaker 1: and the absolute distress of John fighting that lynx created
Speaker 1: an unforgettable story. Now, something I don't have the answer
Speaker 1: to is why Jerry called it a lynx, which is
Speaker 1: a northern cat that never ranged into the American South ever,
Speaker 1: kind of like the black panther. Anyway, you gotta listen
Speaker 1: to the whole story. You can search for it online
Speaker 1: and it's called a coon hunting story. 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 was he a big hunter or was he was
Speaker 1: that just kind of a part of his his background
Speaker 1: that he was part of It was part of his background.
Speaker 1: He was big quail hunter, big coon hunter, big fisherman.
Speaker 1: I had headed to him Comb one day and I
Speaker 1: passed by his house and he was standing at his mailbox,
Speaker 1: and I turned and went back. I said, Jerry, what
Speaker 1: in the world you doing standing out you in this heat?
Speaker 1: He was wiping his forehead with the hankers for your sweating.
Speaker 1: And I said, Man, it's hot out here. What you
Speaker 1: do in this heat? He said, Well, John, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. He said, Bass Pro Shop in Jackson, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: call me and wanted me to come up there and
Speaker 1: pick out something on the showroom floor. Said there was
Speaker 1: one stipulation. I said, what was that, Jerry? He said
Speaker 1: it had to be a bass boat. So he said,
Speaker 1: I went up picked me out a bass boat, and
Speaker 1: they on their way down here and now to deliver it.
Speaker 1: And I was afraid that if they missed my driveway
Speaker 1: and wound up over at your house, I'd have trouble
Speaker 1: getting my boat back. Darn were the coon dogs that
Speaker 1: Jerry talked about? Where they real coon dogs that he had?
Speaker 1: Bromy and high Ball? And now the man that actually
Speaker 1: owned high Ball lived about a mouth across his pasture.
Speaker 1: He owned Highball, and uh he was uh a dog
Speaker 1: was known all over the country. Back when that dog
Speaker 1: was living. Most folks might not could have told you
Speaker 1: who to share for the county was. They might not
Speaker 1: knew who the tax successor was, but they knew about
Speaker 1: high Ball. Now what kind of dog was high Ball?
Speaker 1: I think high Ball was a red bone hound. I believe.
Speaker 1: But there were several other dogs that had some notoriety too.
Speaker 1: One of them was Rowdy that was owned by my uncle.
Speaker 1: But uh old Spot and Bromy. But back there in
Speaker 1: that particular time of history in our community, that was
Speaker 1: a big source of recreation and they coon hunted and
Speaker 1: the dogs for hides. Right right setting pass some hides
Speaker 1: and you probably heard there is talk about flagging. The
Speaker 1: conductor down on the train asked him did he want
Speaker 1: to buy some possum hatch possum meat? That's what he asked.
Speaker 1: If he wanted to buy a possum to eat? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he flags him. He flags down, the conductor of the
Speaker 1: train stops the train. The conductor gets out and says,
Speaker 1: what kind of catastrophe has happened that you've stopped the train?
Speaker 1: And the guy says, well, I just wondered if you
Speaker 1: wanted to buy a possum from us, And the conductor said,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? You stop the train just to ask
Speaker 1: us if we wanted to buy a possum And the
Speaker 1: guy said yeah. And then the conductor goes, well, it's
Speaker 1: crazy that you've done this, but since you have, I
Speaker 1: like possum, so how much you want for the possum.
Speaker 1: And then and then he said, man said, you idiot.
Speaker 1: Do you mean to tell me that you have done
Speaker 1: stopped a hundred car banana train seeing if we wanted
Speaker 1: to buy a possum. You must be an idiot. But
Speaker 1: I like possum and int as much as we have stopped.
Speaker 1: What do you want for? Marcelle said, we ain't caught
Speaker 1: him yet. I just want to see if you want
Speaker 1: he want. Jerry's stories were a combination of fact and fiction,
Speaker 1: but some of the stories were entirely true. This story
Speaker 1: is 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 Clower'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 1: Marcelle had been to the puckwood Yard and he come
Speaker 1: back by the beer joint and he wanted to get
Speaker 1: him one of the big knee high billy washers and
Speaker 1: the moon high. And he went to the front door
Speaker 1: and knocked on the door, and the man what running
Speaker 1: the beer joints? Said, boy, get away from that door,
Speaker 1: said you ain't got no bedness send you. And Marshall
Speaker 1: told him, said, well, I ain't onna calls no trouble, said,
Speaker 1: I just want a big soda pop and a moon pie.
Speaker 1: Now why did he run them him off? Because this
Speaker 1: is a real story. This is the shell wasn't old
Speaker 1: enough to go in there. Okay, He told him to
Speaker 1: get away from that door. Marcel went back, truck, pulled
Speaker 1: out that my color chainsaw, fired it up and come
Speaker 1: back and stuck it snout of it in that door,
Speaker 1: and it ripped that brace and bracket and the hinges
Speaker 1: off the door, and that screen tangled up through that
Speaker 1: chain as it went around that bar. And folks, give
Speaker 1: marcella beer joint. And that happened. That that happens. It's
Speaker 1: like that. That happened just before you crossed the amy
Speaker 1: A County line. That beer joint was right there on
Speaker 1: the lift. So Jerry just told the story pretty much
Speaker 1: like it happened. That's right, except for the brand of
Speaker 1: the chainsaw. Tell me, how didn't he did not? I
Speaker 1: don't think he remembered what the brand of the chainsaw was.
Speaker 1: But mcculor was the first name that came to his mind,
Speaker 1: and he said my color. And when he did, it's
Speaker 1: like he told me, said, man, folks started buying mcculor
Speaker 1: chain saw. Didn't even know how to crank him. You
Speaker 1: know what's so funny about that? And so I was
Speaker 1: born in the nineteen seventy nine. The first chain I
Speaker 1: remember my dad having would have been in the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: and it was a mccaullaugh chainsas, which I don't even
Speaker 1: think mccaulluugh's business. I don't think that you told me
Speaker 1: mccullus sent Because of that skit and how big it was,
Speaker 1: McCullough sent some chainsaws to the family and kind of
Speaker 1: helped him out some Follhilers and gold carts. I believe
Speaker 1: it was probably Daring sent it to Jerry clod thanks
Speaker 1: for plugging mccullor chainsaws. But Jerry could advertise. At one
Speaker 1: time he was spokesperson for Christler Corporation. I think at
Speaker 1: one time he was spokesperson for Lincoln. But man that
Speaker 1: the promotional items that companies would give him, just hoping
Speaker 1: it would make it into one of his stories. He
Speaker 1: cared a lot of weight. He just he was influential
Speaker 1: wherever he went. Mr John remembered a funny story about Jerry.
Speaker 1: Jerry was always pulling pranks. He was a prankster. But
Speaker 1: he pulled up at church one Sunday morning. He was
Speaker 1: the first one there, and I got there just within
Speaker 1: a minute or so after he did it, and he
Speaker 1: got out of his car and he made a quick
Speaker 1: dash for the church steps. I knew then, and knowing
Speaker 1: Jerry like I did, I knew that he was up
Speaker 1: to something. And he had on his bright red coat
Speaker 1: and his designer jeans, and he ran up to the
Speaker 1: church steps and he put his foot up on next
Speaker 1: to the bottom step, and he pulled his riches leg
Speaker 1: up above his cowboy boot so I would be sure
Speaker 1: and see the new boots that he had on. But
Speaker 1: I walked right by him. I didn't shake hands with him,
Speaker 1: I didn't speak, didn't say good morning, Jerry, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I never acknowledged that he was there, walked right past him.
Speaker 1: And he ran up behind me and grabbed me around
Speaker 1: the neck and he said, John, you know you've seen
Speaker 1: them boots. You're just jealous because you ain't got a
Speaker 1: pair like him. I want to discuss with Brent Jerry's
Speaker 1: impact on the South. What do you think that impact
Speaker 1: of Jerry Clower was on the people of the South,
Speaker 1: you know, because he kind of rose up from the
Speaker 1: ashes in a sense of poverty and unlikely character. I mean,
Speaker 1: became famous when he was in his forties. He was
Speaker 1: a fertilizer salesman. Yeah, and he became he became famous
Speaker 1: in his forties, which is highly unusual. I mean usually
Speaker 1: by that time people are kind of their trajectory is
Speaker 1: semi set. And he until he passes away when he
Speaker 1: was seventy one, he just has this incredible career, becomes
Speaker 1: a member of the Grand Old Opery Rights, multiple books, records,
Speaker 1: multiple records, has number one hits on country radio, which
Speaker 1: he wasn't even music, but they were playing his his
Speaker 1: skits on the radio, and his his style, his mannerisms.
Speaker 1: They were very familiar to people in the South, but
Speaker 1: very unfamiliar to Oh is that funny? Could that be?
Speaker 1: On the national stage of comedy. What do you think
Speaker 1: the impact of Jerry Clower was on the South? I
Speaker 1: can relate, you know. We talked about Wilson Rawls, you know,
Speaker 1: and I told you about I could relate to Billy
Speaker 1: in the story. But the tales that Jerry Clower put
Speaker 1: himself in. Some of it based on truth and some
Speaker 1: of it just played up because he had a great imagination.
Speaker 1: But I could identify with that. It was to the
Speaker 1: point to where when we saw I saw him on
Speaker 1: television he would host a country music show that came
Speaker 1: on on Sunday afternoons. It was beyond my comprehension that
Speaker 1: somebody in my family didn't know him, because the stories
Speaker 1: that he told were stories that I could identify with.
Speaker 1: As far as how he grew up our bird hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, having a dog that you know try and coons.
Speaker 1: He talked about that, and shelling peas and mules, and
Speaker 1: going barefooted, and being hot and being so hot that
Speaker 1: in the summertime that you wouldn't button up the sides
Speaker 1: on your overalls, and eating eating so much bold ochre
Speaker 1: that he couldn't keep the socks exactly. These were all
Speaker 1: things that talked about I had either done or scene done.
Speaker 1: 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,
Speaker 1: being from Arkansas, but we lived in the highlands, which
Speaker 1: is quite different in you know, where you grew up
Speaker 1: in southeastern Arkansas, where Jerry Clowd lived from, you would
Speaker 1: have basically been the same agriculture, same influence of the
Speaker 1: river Bottoms Delta, and just a couple hours away. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: he just lived on the other side of the Mississippi River. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you would have had even probably a stronger connection
Speaker 1: to some of that than a lot of people. I
Speaker 1: would hear stories, you know, we would hear the funny stories,
Speaker 1: and then my dad would tell one and it would
Speaker 1: have the same type. Characters are the same. He would
Speaker 1: talk about a wagon, you know, Jay Clara might tell
Speaker 1: a story about riding the town in a wagon, and
Speaker 1: then my dad would tell a story about him riding
Speaker 1: in a wagon. So it was easy to transfer, you know,
Speaker 1: my kinship, I guess to the stuff that he was
Speaker 1: talking about, regardless of the subject. And you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, a lot of that stuff he was making up,
Speaker 1: but it all, it all went back to the stories
Speaker 1: I've heard all my life and the things that I
Speaker 1: had witnessed with my own eyes. And you know what
Speaker 1: I think it did is I think it validated poor
Speaker 1: poverty stricken people in the South. Because you think about
Speaker 1: the media of that time, the country music scene would
Speaker 1: have been focused in some ways on the South. I
Speaker 1: mean not entirely, but there have been famous people, you know,
Speaker 1: Dolly Partoner and Loretta Lynn and all these people, but
Speaker 1: the mainstream influencers of the time certainly would not have
Speaker 1: been from you know, a guy like Jerry Clower. And
Speaker 1: so for him to rise up and to tell our stories,
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote our stories talking about our people,
Speaker 1: and him being so funny and so likable, you know,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't listen to Jerry Clower and just instinctively say
Speaker 1: this man is intelligent, but highly intelligent man, and and
Speaker 1: that made us that that validated us. I read I
Speaker 1: read an article one time talking about Jerry Cloud that
Speaker 1: when he was on the Grand Old Offering, he was
Speaker 1: of all the folks on there wearing overalls and and
Speaker 1: playing music and talking about being from the country. He
Speaker 1: was the only guy on there that had a degree
Speaker 1: in agriculture to every member of the Grand Old Offery,
Speaker 1: so he had grown up living. He lived what he portrayed,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it was I think you can
Speaker 1: see it's easy to see truth in that and that
Speaker 1: it will connect with somebody, even though you may not
Speaker 1: know his background, but you can tell when someone is genuine.
Speaker 1: And it all kept it off when I got to
Speaker 1: meet him in person. But he was a genuine person.
Speaker 1: And what you saw on television and what I saw
Speaker 1: on television, now what I listened to on radio, that
Speaker 1: was it was him. Speaking of Jerry's college education, he
Speaker 1: started off at a community college but ended up playing
Speaker 1: football at Mississippi State. Jerry was a pretty big old boy,
Speaker 1: Jerry said. The first college football game he ever went
Speaker 1: to in his life he played in it is that right?
Speaker 1: So he he played for? What school? Did he play
Speaker 1: for down here? I think Jerry went to UH. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he went to Southwest Junior College, but
Speaker 1: he went to Mississippi State. But but when he went
Speaker 1: to high school, yeah, we had consolidated high school. Did
Speaker 1: they have a football team here? I don't think they did?
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: it played for Mississippi State. I'll be done. In Jerry's humor.
Speaker 1: You'll often hear sports analogies used. I want to dig
Speaker 1: deeper into jerry He's humor and why it was funny.
Speaker 1: First of all, he would start off with an intriguing
Speaker 1: story that you know that had to have happened or
Speaker 1: been made up or partials of both of those things connected.
Speaker 1: And he would give an inordinate amount of detail, usually
Speaker 1: in the beginning, like he would say yeah, he would tell,
Speaker 1: he would give his address and say, I'm from East Fork, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: a 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 ways
Speaker 1: describing it. But you're just like, you have no idea
Speaker 1: why this is relevant, but you're like doing geography in
Speaker 1: your head, you know, like figuring out where he's at.
Speaker 1: And then he starts talking. Then he you know, I've
Speaker 1: heard it said that comedy. The more specific you can
Speaker 1: be inside of comedy, the funnier it is, the more
Speaker 1: you can relate to it. And so he just gives
Speaker 1: these random details all over it and then his accent
Speaker 1: was just I listened to it today and it's it's
Speaker 1: almost an artifact. You know, he's he's been gone about
Speaker 1: twenty four years, Jerry Clowder has he died, and so
Speaker 1: you know, his accent in the way that he structured
Speaker 1: his sentences very unique and probably unique even to that
Speaker 1: part of Mississippi. When you listen back to it, you
Speaker 1: hear sentence structures and completely improper usage of words, but
Speaker 1: that made perfect sense to them and was correct. And
Speaker 1: so the accent was intriguing. The details were intriguing, The
Speaker 1: hooks were perfect, the names and the stories and the
Speaker 1: places where he over exaggerated stuff that you knew he
Speaker 1: was over exaggerating would be super funny. But he often
Speaker 1: too hitted country people against city people sometimes and usually
Speaker 1: the guy from the country would not always end up
Speaker 1: looking to be the smartest, but he was usually right.
Speaker 1: And it was usually the hook and that or the
Speaker 1: at home or however you the phrase would be, is
Speaker 1: that guy used common sense. The country guy used common
Speaker 1: sense above you know, a college degree or something. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like, um, I've always kind of parried it
Speaker 1: with like the Andy Griffith Show, a show that I
Speaker 1: have seen all of them hundreds of times and they
Speaker 1: never get older. Me. Those stories when I hear Jerry Clouds,
Speaker 1: they never even I know, I know the punch lines coming,
Speaker 1: I know what's fixing to happen. I could do his
Speaker 1: whole act myself, just about you know. But they're still funny.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's probably a mixture of nostalgia
Speaker 1: of listening to it and thinking back, you know, with
Speaker 1: me and my dad was down on the pot Leitch road,
Speaker 1: the Timber Company road, waiting for the dogs to trike
Speaker 1: the last time I heard that, or one time that
Speaker 1: I heard this story, And so there's it's just there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of meat in it. It's just a
Speaker 1: lot of good, wholesome storytelling. So there's a book written
Speaker 1: by Jerry Clower called Stories from Home, and what it
Speaker 1: is it's an interview. It's a transcribed interview that they
Speaker 1: did with Jerry Clower, and he talked about a intentional
Speaker 1: decision that he made when he got into comedy to
Speaker 1: keep it clean. And there were people in Hollywood that
Speaker 1: advised him like, hey, you're gonna have to be more
Speaker 1: risk a if you want to be successful in this sphere.
Speaker 1: And he just he said he didn't believe him, and
Speaker 1: he he made that decision that he was gonna he
Speaker 1: was gonna try to keep it in bounds, you know.
Speaker 1: And he he teetered on the edge sometimes of you know,
Speaker 1: jokes that might not be appropriate for kids. Every now
Speaker 1: and then he'd say something that would kind of be,
Speaker 1: you know, on the edge. But but it was always like,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff you would let your kids listen to. Now,
Speaker 1: I respected him for having, uh, just having a value
Speaker 1: system that he stuck to his whole life. You know.
Speaker 1: I can't speak enough about Jerry's character. I'm impressed by
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And in the book Stories from Home,
Speaker 1: Jerry said, quote, I stayed with m c A Records
Speaker 1: and got to where I liked it. At first, they said, Jerry,
Speaker 1: unless you put a little risk a or vulgar stuff
Speaker 1: on your records, you ain't never gonna be known nationally.
Speaker 1: But I defied them. I have never used risk a
Speaker 1: material end of quote. I've read about his positions on
Speaker 1: race relations in the South and and kind of his
Speaker 1: story with that. He was really ahead of his time.
Speaker 1: He was in a pretty pretty profound way. He was
Speaker 1: What do you think about that? Jerry was as I said,
Speaker 1: he was a devout Christian. He readd every word of
Speaker 1: the Bible to be true, and he accepted the fact
Speaker 1: that God accepted everybody, regardless of race or anything else.
Speaker 1: And Jerry was ahead of his time back then, because
Speaker 1: a lot of people were pretty objective to integrate. You
Speaker 1: didn't want to mangle with black people, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: did not associate with him that much. But Jerry did
Speaker 1: and he respected everybody. And I think that's why everybody
Speaker 1: respected him, because he didn't cut any ice with anybody.
Speaker 1: Race color didn't mean anything to him. 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 of
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 believe 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 for Dalizer 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 trying 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 being,
Speaker 1: except how they treat black people. End of quote. That
Speaker 1: was big stuff coming from a white comedian in the
Speaker 1: South in the nineteen seventies. It was Jerry's connection to
Speaker 1: place that made his words carry weight. He grew up
Speaker 1: in segregation, and his ideas on race relations changed after
Speaker 1: he was an adult. As we closed down, I want
Speaker 1: to explore the power of place. Well, what I learned
Speaker 1: from where the Red Fern grows from Sean Tutan literature expert,
Speaker 1: that connection to place, it's really intriguing to people, even
Speaker 1: if they're not connected to that place. 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 in the shapes of his life,
Speaker 1: and if even if it's different from you and you've
Speaker 1: never been there and never gonna go there. I think
Speaker 1: that's what they did with Jerry Cloud too, is that
Speaker 1: they saw the rural, poverty stricken South in a lovable,
Speaker 1: nice way. They probably already had that image of it.
Speaker 1: You know, you look back at cartoons and held billies
Speaker 1: and they're you know, wearing one strap overalls and they're barefoot,
Speaker 1: and they've got those crazy looking hats and smoking a
Speaker 1: corn cob pipe and and all of that. So they
Speaker 1: saw that, they saw that part of it immediately. And
Speaker 1: but then he puts those very vivid stories about the
Speaker 1: characters in there, and they're good people then maybe dressed
Speaker 1: that way, but there's there's always a redeeming quality about
Speaker 1: most of them, ye know so, And you can identify
Speaker 1: that with whether you get to be there or get
Speaker 1: to be there or not. Here's John with a couple
Speaker 1: more stories about Jerry. I know one time I went
Speaker 1: over to jails and I took my coon dog. He
Speaker 1: followed me over. I went over on the horse. We
Speaker 1: got in jail yard and a rabbit, a big rabbit,
Speaker 1: run out of one of his home lane Flyer Bay
Speaker 1: It's and my dog took off a treatment. He had
Speaker 1: a real deep bow. Oh you could hear him on
Speaker 1: my way. Who who who? He was just barking trailing
Speaker 1: that rabbit and they was going in flower beds and
Speaker 1: out and Jake and I was holding it the dog,
Speaker 1: trying to stop him because I I knew Miss Homeling
Speaker 1: didn't want that dog in the yard. And about that
Speaker 1: time Jerry come to the door. Jerry Hollard, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? I said, I'm trying to catch his dad
Speaker 1: gum dog. I said, don't you hear him? He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. He said, man, leave a dog alone. He said,
Speaker 1: anything got a voice like that ought to be singing
Speaker 1: in the church choir. Jerry came over one time. I
Speaker 1: forgot what the occasion was, but he at the time
Speaker 1: we had a circle driver. He pulled up in his
Speaker 1: car and he got out, and he had on a
Speaker 1: pair of sandals, and he had on a pair of
Speaker 1: cutoff pants and a real loud color how Walia type shirt.
Speaker 1: That coon dog of mine looked up and seeing Jerry,
Speaker 1: and he done like his shin. He twisted his head
Speaker 1: all that thing was, and he went and got under
Speaker 1: my pickup truck and wouldn't come out. And I told
Speaker 1: Jerry that we was gonna have to go down to
Speaker 1: Liberty and talk with my attorney because he had Runt,
Speaker 1: the best potential young dog he ever had, and that
Speaker 1: if he wanted to settle this out of court, we could.
Speaker 1: He was gonna have to promise me some puppish off
Speaker 1: the next jip, and he knew it was gonna drop
Speaker 1: a litter of puppish. But I mean, we was off
Speaker 1: time pulling stuff like that. What Jerry say when he
Speaker 1: told him about the litigation, he laved, he laughed. Jerry
Speaker 1: toured right up until his passing in n and had
Speaker 1: plans for more records. He gathered his content from people
Speaker 1: in his community and Mr John, his neighbor, told him
Speaker 1: a story that Jerry was very intrigued by. He even
Speaker 1: told him that he was gonna put it on his
Speaker 1: next record. Unfortunately, Jerry never made that record, and we'll
Speaker 1: never hear Jerry tell the story, but we can hear
Speaker 1: it from Mr John, and if you listen, I think
Speaker 1: you can hear Jerry's voice telling it. One of those
Speaker 1: was a fellow that lived here in the community. He
Speaker 1: was a lot older than Jerry. He he lived to
Speaker 1: be I guess on up in his late nineties. But
Speaker 1: as he began to get older, he reached the poet
Speaker 1: in life where his family encouraged him to go ahead
Speaker 1: and buy him a car. You know, he'd have his
Speaker 1: own transportation. He could get out and go. He didn't
Speaker 1: have to get nobody to take him where he wanted
Speaker 1: to go. He'd have his own wheels. So he bought
Speaker 1: him a sixty two Chevrolet Biscayne, and he got him
Speaker 1: some driver's license. But he could get out and go
Speaker 1: where he wanted to. But they knew he was gonna
Speaker 1: have to have a tag car. Tag in some insurance
Speaker 1: and that they would have trouble getting him to differentiate
Speaker 1: between the liability and the collision, the comprehension and all that.
Speaker 1: He just wouldn't understand it, and he would create an
Speaker 1: argument because he felt like it he didn't need all
Speaker 1: that junk if it was his car. They just told
Speaker 1: him said, well, Uncle Tom said, if you've got insurance
Speaker 1: and you ever involved in an accident, the insurance will
Speaker 1: buy you another car. That was just a simple way
Speaker 1: to get him understand and bypassed the comprehension, the liability,
Speaker 1: collision and everything else through the Guard Automobile insurance. So
Speaker 1: he went to town every Saturday morning, but a stop
Speaker 1: sign didn't mean nothing to him because he had always
Speaker 1: went in that direction and he felt like people ought
Speaker 1: to respect him because that was the road he had
Speaker 1: always traveled and he wasn't gonna stop for nobody. So
Speaker 1: it happened he ran stop signed one Saturday morning and
Speaker 1: a fella from Baton Rouge running to him, hit him,
Speaker 1: turned his car bottom side up, told Uncle Tom I
Speaker 1: wanted didn't kill him, so they called the law. He wouldn't.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't go to the hospital in the amlets. He
Speaker 1: just set by his car, and the state trooper came
Speaker 1: out and investigated the accidental. He knew Uncle Tom, and
Speaker 1: he just didn't know how he was gonna get across
Speaker 1: to him that he was in the fault. So he
Speaker 1: went up to him and he said. Uncle Tom said, uh,
Speaker 1: I've investigated the accident, and said it's pretty conclusive as
Speaker 1: to what happened. And he said, I'd like to have
Speaker 1: your version of what happened here. Uncle Tom said, well,
Speaker 1: I said, I was headed over to my comb. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get me a hair cut, gonna get some groceries,
Speaker 1: and said, I come down this road all time, everybody
Speaker 1: knows it. And then this idiot from Baton Rouge comes
Speaker 1: flying through him and he hits me, tears my car up,
Speaker 1: and so that's what happened in the state trooper said
Speaker 1: he didn't know how he was gonna explain that to
Speaker 1: Uncle Tom, but he said. Uncle Tom said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to tell you now. I said, uh,
Speaker 1: I've investigated accident. He said, uh, it's my dea to
Speaker 1: inform you, and I'm gonna have to give you a citation.
Speaker 1: And Uncle Tom said, well, son, I appreciated it. Mighty
Speaker 1: nice of you know, said I don't know nothing about it.
Speaker 1: Forward said I never did like a Chrysler product, and
Speaker 1: said I ain't never rode in or drove or citation.
Speaker 1: And if it's all right what everybody was involved, I'd
Speaker 1: rather have another chival leg u But Jerry rolled when
Speaker 1: I told him. He said, that's going in my n
Speaker 1: that's going in my next album. And and that was
Speaker 1: the last night and he ever was at home to
Speaker 1: talk a long time. In the foreword of the book
Speaker 1: Stories from Home, Willie Morris says, quote, all our distinguished
Speaker 1: American humorists have been serious people, their hearts as rueful
Speaker 1: as they are married. I'm funny because I'm sad. It
Speaker 1: was attributed to Mark Twain, and I'm sad because I'm funny.
Speaker 1: Jerry Clour is an artist of deep values, values which
Speaker 1: yet exists in our civilization. Hard work, loyalty, honesty, community, family, friendship, generosity, love,
Speaker 1: and 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 barber's dilatory hitchhikers, and all souls of greed. He
Speaker 1: understands the world because he assiduously lived it. End of quote.
Speaker 1: Jerry Clower was a complex and brilliant man, deeply connected
Speaker 1: to place, sure in his identity, loyal to his people,
Speaker 1: but also intolerant of his errors. He gave voice to
Speaker 1: the South and dignity to a group of people coming
Speaker 1: out 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 Coon Woods
Speaker 1: to building the fabric of his character, a throwback to
Speaker 1: the 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 and 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, it's 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 the life
Speaker 1: of a human. So we, like Jerry, have to become
Speaker 1: better storytellers, storytellers of the human experience, because stories carry
Speaker 1: our culture. Thanks so much for listening to Bear Greefs.
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 you're crazy hill billy neighbors this week. We'll
Speaker 1: talk to you next time on the Bear Greece Render.