I am going to discontinue my second blog, “Mother Church Of Country Music” as it takes more time than I really have to devote to it. In addition, I know that a blog of this type is very hard to get readers to follow. The Opry is a narrow topic that is hard to construct a whole blog around. It is not for a lack of stories, but instead just harder to get a certain demographic that loves the Opry to read a blog. What I will do, as in the past, is use my original blog “Caffeinated Politics” to post my thoughts and stories when events take place concerning the Opry. I have had great responses there for the Opry stories, but just thought maybe a second site was possible. It turns out I was wrong. I thank my readers who have visited here, and as Paul Harvey would say, “Gooood Day!”
Loretta Lynn: Feisty Stance Natural For Her
“I have my hair tied up in a fat towel,” Loretta Lynn, 74, reveals. “I put a rinse on it.”
The homey warmth and down-to-earth honesty you’d expect from this Nashville icon are much in evidence, even over the phone. But Lynn sounds slightly scattered at the moment, less than an hour before a scheduled rehearsal.
Her personal assistant, Tim Cobb, comes in, and there’s some talk about gardening.
“He’s out in the yard weed-eating,” Lynn says with a chuckle. “I like to get out in the yard, every now and then.”
Also, the star says she’s coping with a “little headache” — nothing like the back and shoulder problems she endured three years ago — and the soothing power of the medicine hasn’t hit her yet.
“I’m good, no problems at all,” Lynn says. “For the last few years, I’ve probably felt better than when I was 40.”
No wonder, then, she’s hitting the road this fall, playing a handful of dates each month until mid-December. One of those concerts is set for Friday, Oct. 16, at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Center, where Lynn will appear with her longtime band, the Coal Miners.
Her tour dates tend to be family affairs, featuring one of Lynn’s sons, guitarist Ernest Ray; two daughters, twin singers Patsy and Peggy; and one granddaughter, singer Tayla.
“I don’t have to work, so I work when I want to,” Lynn says. “I stay home and it bothers me. I’m working pretty hard this month. But I have it good on the road now, not like when I started. I have my bus fixed up just like a home, with five TVs in it. There’s a complete kitchen, a complete bathroom and a half-bathroom. It’s all my own.”
At this point, of course, it’s impossible for Lynn to present all of her hits during a single show. But she understands what listeners expect and crave: No. 1 singles such as “Fist City,” “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “She’s Got You” and “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).”
Lynn also delves into her long list of signature songs: “You’re Lookin’ at Country,” “Here I Am Again,” “When the Tingle Becomes a Chill” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man).”
During the 1960s and ’70s, the frank nature of her lyrics caused Lynn to be a controversial figure in the country-music industry; she wasn’t afraid to talk about touchy subjects such as sex, adultery or birth control.
“It didn’t bother me one bit, because it was true-to-life,” she says. “Everybody was doing it, so why not put it into a song?”
A feisty stance comes naturally to her, yet Lynn says much of her recent material takes a more spiritual approach.
“I think I’ve mellowed out some,” she says. “Some of the songs are religious: ‘You Don’t Pray’ and ‘Thank God for Jesus.’ That’s such an easy title, but no one’s ever wrote it. I had about five songs started for another album, but I just hadn’t finished them. Every time, I sat down, I couldn’t do it. So I’ve been working with a kid, Shawn Camp. He wrote a lot of hits, and he finished them for me. I like working with him.”
Loretta Lynn at the Grand Ole Opry in 1995. She made her first appearance at the Opry in 1960. (AP / Mark Humphrey)
Camp, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, has roots as a bluegrass sideman and cuts recorded by the likes of Garth Brooks, Randy Travis, Guy Clark and Brooks & Dunn. Lynn says they’re developing other tunes with relationship themes, about male-female struggles and the possibility of heartbreak.
“But I’m kind of making it a little easier to listen to,” she says. “You know, I write things, throw it out and put it in the garbage can. Sometimes I drag it out again.”
Fans can expect two new recordings from Lynn fairly soon, although she’s not specific about the release dates.
“The religious album first,” she says, “then I’m re-recording some of the songs that have been to No. 1. I have 37 of them.”
In the meantime, Lynn contributed tracks to the latest records by Elvis Costello and Todd Snider, co-writing “I Felt the Chill Before Winter Came” (on Costello’s “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane”) and “Don’t Tempt Me” (on Snider’s “The Excitement Plan”). She sang a duet with Snider, as well.
“Todd Snider is such a great kid,” Lynn says. “He’d say, ‘I’ll sit here and watch you write. He thinks everything I do is great. And I’d be, ‘Help me here, buddy.’”
Also on the horizon: Another cookbook from Lynn, similar to the one published in 2004, “You’re Cookin’ It Country: My Favorite Recipes and Memories.”
“Everybody loves the stories in that,” Lynn says, “so I’ll have to do more. You know, my husband threw out my cooking for the first six months. But I learned pretty fast.”
Learning how to pace herself as the queen of country was more difficult, as Lynn famously revealed in the two volumes of her autobiography. She’s got that part down as a senior citizen, though, and has no intention of stopping.
“Maybe 20 years from now,” Lynn says, “I’ll retire.”
A Look Back At The 60th Grand Ole Opry Birthday
This video is great as it builds to all the legends on the stage singing with Roy Acuff. Equally rewarding in this video is the voice-over near the end featuring the great Grant Turner.
Grand Ole Opry Theme Song From The 1950′s
On this 84th birthday weekend for the Grand Ole Opry we head backwards to the 1950′s and some video footage of some of the stars that made such excitement when the big red curtain went up each weekend. Enjoy!
Saturday Song: Lisa Marie And Melody “Two Legends”
Each Saturday on “Mother Church Of Country Music” a song will be featured that has either been on my personal playlist, or has struck me for some reason during the past week. As we celebrate the 84th birthday of WSM and the Grand Ole Opry I thought the song by Lisa Marie (no, not THAT Lisa Marie) and Melody might be a great way to start this feature off on my blog. While the singers are not household names, the words of the song fit the occasion, and the images on the video are perfect.
Therefore this song is dedicated to Grant Turner & George D Hay. Both of these men were vital to WSM, and the world’s longest running radio show. George Hay was the one who started the Opry after first blowing his steamboat whistle and then saying, ‘Let her go, boys’.
Grant Turner is one of those radio announcers that I listened to as a teenager. For a grand tribute to Grant Turner, click here.
Ryman Exhibit Honors Johnny And June Carter Cash
While a few onlookers viewed the items in the new Johnny and June at the Ryman exhibit as rare, fragile and untouchable totems of Nashville royalty, John Carter Cash chose to reach right in.
“I don’t remember seeing this one,” said Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash
, grabbing a Fender acoustic guitar gifted to his father by Carl Perkins, with “Johnny Cash” inlaid up the guitar neck. “That’s really cool.”
For his entire life, Cash has had ready access to such things. Reaching inside an exhibit case is his birthright. But that doesn’t mean his appreciation for his parents’ careers or for the Ryman building where they met and where they performed has been dimmed.
“My parents saw the Ryman as the church of country music,” he said. “The Ryman is very important to my family and to me. The people at the Ryman contacted me about doing an exhibit to pay historical tribute to my parents’ association with the Ryman, and I’m really excited to see that happening.”
Brenda Colladay, the curator at the Grand Ole Opry Museum, was instrumental in putting together the exhibit, which includes an autoharp played by June, outfits and footage from ABC’s Johnny Cash Show (which was taped at the Ryman), handwritten lyrics of “What Is Truth?” with two verses of “extra” lyrics that Cash did not record, the gold record from Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison album, footage from Grand Ole Opry appearances and other items of interest.
George Jones On TV Sunday
George Jones will appear on CBS Sunday Morning this Sunday Oct. 11. Host and interviewer Bob Schieffer visited Jones’ Nashville home and also stopped by Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium late this summer to talk about life, love and a lot of musical history.
Wanda Jackson Speaks About Elvis, Kitty Wells, And Jean Shepard
I found this interesting, and trust my readers here at “Mother Church Of Country Music” will feel the same.
Her latest album , “I Remember Elvis,” finds her paying tribute to her former boyfriend, Elvis Presley. We caught up with Jackson, who rocks the Rhythm Room Sunday, Oct. 11, to talk about that Elvis and a younger Elvis who may have paved the way for her induction to the Hall of Fame.
Question: Congratulations on the Hall of Fame. How was the ceremony?
Answer: Fantastic. I got to visit some with Rosanne Cash, who presented me with my award. We got to sit and have dinner with her and also, Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana and Bill Black’s two children. So it was like a family reunion.
Q: You did a lot of touring with Scotty Moore and those guys in the ’50s, right?
A: Yeah, in the early days, working with Elvis.
Q: Is it true that Elvis is the one who got you into singing rockabilly?
A: Yeah. Of course, I loved his stuff and being able to watch him perform on these tours. I was a teenager, so it was my generation’s music. But I didn’t think I could do it. I had it in my mind that I was just a country singer, because that’s all I’d ever done. So he gave me the courage to try to be more than what I was or what I thought I was. And rockabilly and country were like kissing cousins. It wasn’t too big of a stretch.
Q: I wondered if it felt that different, moving into rockabilly.
A: It is different. It’s wilder and more abandoned. That’s why I found it so much fun to sing. I started off with a song that was written for me by a friend in Oklahoma City called “I Gotta Know,” and it was my transition song. And then, I found a song that Betty Hutton did in some movie, called “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad.” I loved singing that song. After that, I began writing a lot of my own songs because nobody was writing rock and roll for girls. There weren’t any other girls doing it.
Q: When you moved into writing, did you meet with much resistance at the label?
A: No. They were thrilled that I was coming up with some songs to record. My producer was a fantastic producer. He had so much faith in the artists and letting them do what they felt they could do. It took three years for me to get a hit in America with rock and roll. “Let’s Have a Party” was pulled off my first album and released as a single after it was beginning to get some exposure up in Iowa. A disc jockey was using it for his rock and roll record show theme song. He was getting so many phone calls from people wanting to hear it all the way through and wanting to know who that was that he took it upon himself to contact Ken Nelson at Capitol Records and suggest that they release it as a single. And for some reason they did.
Q: So you and Elvis dated?
A: It wasn’t traditional dating because we were on tour, but we’d go out after a show and eat or get a Coke and drive around. He was already popular enough that it was kind of hard to go into a restaurant or a café, because the word would spread and here’d come all the fans. So we’d go to a drive-in and have a hamburger or something, just getting acquainted. We liked each other a lot. It was a very sweet relationship. Nowadays, people try to muddy the waters with things that . . . you know, they weren’t done. He asked me to be his girl and he gave me his ring to wear around my neck. So we were dating, officially. It just wasn’t traditional-style.
Q: Was Elvis enjoying his success when you knew him?
A: Absolutely. He was more or less a kid himself. He loved the girls clamoring over him and screaming. He got a big kick out of it.
Q: What was it like to be a girl in the rock and roll world of the ’50s? It was kind of like a boys’ club at the time.
A: All music was. In country music, there was only three of us when I first started. Kitty Wells and Jean Shepard were two of the first, and then I came along. But I was first in rock and roll. That’s just the way it was, and I didn’t think a whole lot about it, although I was disappointed that I couldn’t get airplay, because when I would do songs like “Hot Dog” or “Let’s Have A Party” on a personal appearance, the audience just loved it. So I couldn’t understand why the disc jockeys wouldn’t help me. I was one of the few artists that could open for Elvis, because if they were men stars, even stars that he was thrilled to be working with – Webb Pierce or Hank Snow – that audience came to see him, and they didn’t want Webb Pierce and Hank Snow. It got to where they couldn’t work with him. It was just too degrading. And he’d say, “What’s wrong with those kids?!”
Q: You sang with another Elvis on your 2003 album, “Heart Trouble.” Were you familiar with Elvis Costello?
A: Not a whole lot. I knew his name, of course. I remember he came to Oklahoma City and our kids were teenagers at that point and wanted to go to his concert. But his drummer came by a rehearsal and said that Elvis was one of my biggest fans and he would love to do a song with me. I had to make a special trip back to California to get with him on his schedule. But it was worth the trip. He said, “I won’t do it unless I can be in the studio with Wanda, singing with her.” Then he became a real advocate for me to get me into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And his help really got things stirred up.
Famed Record Producer Shelby Singleton Dies
Image the life that Shelby Singleton lived.
Famed record producer and label executive Shelby Singleton died Wednesday (Oct. 7) at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, following a battle with cancer. He was 77.
As a record producer, Singleton was responsible for hits such as Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.” and Leroy Van Dyke’s “Walk on By.” A key figure in the careers of Roger Miller, Ray Stevens and others, Singleton spent his later years administering the release, licensing and marketing of Sun Records, the legendary label he purchased in 1969.
Born Dec. 16, 1931 in Waskom, Texas, he began working for the Starday and Mercury labels in the late ’50s, overseeing their regional radio promotion and retail business. He was named chief of A&R for Mercury’s Nashville division in 1961 before moving to New York to head the company’s A&R operations in New York and Nashville. During his tenure at Mercury and its Smash Records imprint, he signed Roger Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis and Faron Young to the company’s roster.
Singleton’s legend includes producing three major hits in a single day at Nashville’s Quonset Hut recording studio: Van Dyke’s “Walk on By,” Stevens’ “Ahab the Arab” and Joe Dowell’s “Wooden Heart.” He left Mercury in 1966 and created the Shelby Singleton Corporation in Nashville. After launching Plantation Records, he produced Riley’s recording of “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” a pop crossover record that sold more than 8 million copies.
In purchasing Sun Records, Singleton controlled the Memphis-based label’s extensive catalog of recordings, including early sessions by Lewis, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Roy Orbison, along with blues legends such as Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Parker and Little Milton, among others. In addition to promoting the recordings, Singleton was also aggressive in marketing the Sun Records logo on a wide variety of merchandise aimed at fans of the legendary label.
This does not happen to every star who steps onto the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. To see the cartoon strip click on the link.
Montgomery Gentry recently took an animated form as characters in “Nancy,” one of the most beloved comics of all time. The duo’s June 23rd induction to the legendary Grand Ole Opry became inspiration for an episode of the internationally syndicated comic strip.
Upon seeing his cartoon alter-ego in print, Troy Gentry said, “What a nice surprise in my Sunday paper! I think we might have made Nancy’s aunt’s shirt once, but to be the subject and for them to include our Opry induction is very cool. And I’ve always wondered what I’d look like as a cartoon. Very flattering.”
