For a lot of reasons, I have been thinking about the past this week. I found – scattered among the many boxes that I have been putting away – my eleventh grade journal. Mrs. Emma Hall, my English teacher then, made us keep a journal throughout the year. Looking back, I’m really glad she did.
One thing is for sure….I was a weird one. There was information about who my dream girl was during my high school years – I named names then…lol…not going to do that now! There was also quite a few blogs---oops…they weren’t blogs then….entries about music. For instance, my dream job was not a policeman….a lawyer….or a doctor….it was “General Manager of RCA Records.” I also wrote about my family, pets, my ten favorite songs, and how I felt to be a teenager. You know what they say about hindsight?
I say that because one of my best friends in the business has been affected by a recent suicide in his community. The child decided to take his own life largely because he felt bullied because he was different. I guess looking back into my past this week was sort of timely, as I revisited a lot of my past thoughts about myself.
Now, I will be the first to say that I had a fairly normal childhood. I can’t say that I really got made fun of too much in school. I was unique that I could give speeches on Eddy Arnold, Buck Owens, and the Dallas Cowboys – which was a very extinct football team during my youth – much like they are now. I was different. And, to be honest, I tried to hide how different I was. I didn’t have any interest in cars---still don’t. As long as they run, I’m happy. I could care less about what the latest fashion styles were – and haven’t changed too much today, to hear my well-meaning friends put it…..But, actually, there’s a record of me being a student at Dickson County High School from 1989-1992, but that’s about all. I wasn’t really there, as I was buried inside of a Billboard Magazine or working at the radio station.
But, bullying does happen, and it does leave an impact. My Junior High years were not fun, and I was at that school recently to cover a basketball game. I looked down the row from me, and I found myself wanting to burst from the top. There was a guy with his wife and two children who were watching the game. And, suddenly I was taken back. Back to the bus I rode growing up. Back to the comments he would always make about me. Back to feeling like I had to hide who I was for the sake of not being ridiculed.
Those feelings lasted the rest of the evening for me. The person in question likely wouldn’t know me from Adam, and has got other things on his mind like we all do – such as how he’s going to pay the bills each month. We all grow up, and we move on. I’m not still mad at the guy who took my lunch money, the one who threw a spitball at me in middle school, or the guy who told me I was going to Hell because I listened to Country Music. Honestly, I’m not.
But, I understand. I can sympathize with anyone who felt like they missed out on their teenage years because they didn’t feel like they could be themselves because of fear of being made fun of. I wish, looking back, I would have just been me – quirks and all. I was so scared of rejection that I took no chances, such as asking girls out, until after graduating high school. If I did think someone was special, I didn’t tell them. After all, why would they think it back?
All that said, I made it through it – pretty much unscarred. But in thinking about bullying, I wish I could offer an answer or a solution. In school, standing up for yourself gets you in as much trouble than if you were picked on. Many systems talk about their “No Bullying” policy. I am a Christian, but pardon me, that is a bunch of utter Bulls…. If a kid goes to a teacher, his day is pretty much done. The other kids are going to tear him up – maybe even worse. I don’t know what to say to my friend, who was upset that people didn’t really want to talk about it. We all have our own past, and maybe that’s it.
Still, there should be a solution. A teenager shouldn’t have to feel that ending their life is the only thing they can do when they are different. You can make it through, no matter how long those nights are when you dread going to school the next day.
If you need inspiration, think of Laura. Now, that’s not her real name. But, in elementary school, we – and I do mean me, as in this writer, all made fun of Laura in first and second grade because she was different. Interestingly enough, I bet none of us ‘cool’ second graders could even remember what that difference was. I haven’t seen Laura in over 30 years. She moved away during those early years of school. But, I hear tell she became a professional model. I hope she did, because she deserved it…
I have written one of the most in-depth and personal blogs that I have ever done. Some might disagree with every word I have written, and It might take some of you back to an awkward time. Sadly, I know that it’s not going to do a damn thing about the problem. And, for all the talk in the world, that is the tragedy. Well, next week, another music blog. That is something I can control……
Friday, January 27, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
LARRY BUTLER, R,I.P.
Reporting from New York....(I've always wanted to say that!)
Some sad news to report with this blog......Larry Butler passed away this week. Chances are, if you weren't in - or hadn't studied the business, you might not know who Larry Butler was. He was one of the great record producers in Nashville history. It was Butler's records that he made with Kenny Rogers from 1975-1980 that made me first love this business.
Though there were certain early memories I have of music - "Sunshine On My Shoulders," "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed," and others of the era, it was the music of Kenny Rogers that made me a music fan from an early age. I remember going into Nashville each weekend with my mother to 100 Oaks Mall, and I would drive her, my father, grandmother, and whoever else could hear, crazy by repeating each track on 8-track tapes like TEN YEARS OF GOLD, THE GAMBLER, and LOVE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT. I also remember my mother bringing me home records of Kenny's from that same era. The United Artists logo with the clouds going around in circles as the record turned. Those were the days. It's funny that most people talk about Kenny being a master of the love song, and make no mistake about it----he and Butler cut some classics....but if you listen to those albums, there were some of Nashville's best moments of the 1970s....Mickey Newbury's "San Francisco Mable Joy," "King Of Oak Street," "While I Play The Fiddle," and a song that I would love to hear someone re-cut today, "Buried Treasure." These two men cut some great Southern Gothic records, that covered everything from prostitutes to voo-doo queens. Of course, the singles Butler cut on Rogers were classics too...."Lucille," "The Gambler," "Coward Of The County," plus all of those classics with Dottie West. He also cut records on artists like B.J. Thomas and Jean Shepard. Butler might not get mentioned in the same breath as Atkins or Bradley, but to this child of the 70s, his creations had no less impact. Thanks, Larry, for the memories! I am the better for them!
Some sad news to report with this blog......Larry Butler passed away this week. Chances are, if you weren't in - or hadn't studied the business, you might not know who Larry Butler was. He was one of the great record producers in Nashville history. It was Butler's records that he made with Kenny Rogers from 1975-1980 that made me first love this business.
Though there were certain early memories I have of music - "Sunshine On My Shoulders," "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed," and others of the era, it was the music of Kenny Rogers that made me a music fan from an early age. I remember going into Nashville each weekend with my mother to 100 Oaks Mall, and I would drive her, my father, grandmother, and whoever else could hear, crazy by repeating each track on 8-track tapes like TEN YEARS OF GOLD, THE GAMBLER, and LOVE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT. I also remember my mother bringing me home records of Kenny's from that same era. The United Artists logo with the clouds going around in circles as the record turned. Those were the days. It's funny that most people talk about Kenny being a master of the love song, and make no mistake about it----he and Butler cut some classics....but if you listen to those albums, there were some of Nashville's best moments of the 1970s....Mickey Newbury's "San Francisco Mable Joy," "King Of Oak Street," "While I Play The Fiddle," and a song that I would love to hear someone re-cut today, "Buried Treasure." These two men cut some great Southern Gothic records, that covered everything from prostitutes to voo-doo queens. Of course, the singles Butler cut on Rogers were classics too...."Lucille," "The Gambler," "Coward Of The County," plus all of those classics with Dottie West. He also cut records on artists like B.J. Thomas and Jean Shepard. Butler might not get mentioned in the same breath as Atkins or Bradley, but to this child of the 70s, his creations had no less impact. Thanks, Larry, for the memories! I am the better for them!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Remembering "Gentleman Jim"
I recently had the chance to talk with Larry Jordan, who wrote the incredible new biography on Jim Reeves. In reading the book Jim Reeves: His Untold Story, it took me back a ways to much simpler time in life.
Though Jim Reeves passed away a decade before my birth in 1974, his music was still very much a part of Country Radio during the late 1970s and 1980s. I remembered his electronically engineered duets with Deborah Allen and Patsy Cline in the 1980s, which were very much radio hits - even during the "Urban Cowboy" period of the era.
However, I can pinpoint the night that I first became acquainted with the music of Jim Reeves. My family and I had been visiting relatives in Columbia, TN and stopped at the Shady Brook Mall. Even as a eight or nine year old, it was record stores that served as my toy shops. And, Columbia had one - Sound Shop. On the racks was a cassette copy of The Best Of Jim Reeves, Volume One. Released just a few months before the plane crash that took his life, there was something about that voice that intrigued me somewhat.
Even to a child, there was something about the songs - "He'll Have To Go," "Blue Boy," "I'm Gettin' Better," and a couple that had a profound impact on me - "The Blizzard" and "Stand At Your Window." The latter was not even a top ten hit, but when I think of Reeves and his music - that's one of my first thoughts. And, the former might very well be one of my favorite compositions from the late Harlan Howard. Still, when I listen to this recording fifty years later - I can still see the character and his trusted pony roaming the plains trying to beat the frigid conditions home. Alas, they didn't as they were only a "hundred yards from Mary Anne."
I might have been the only kid at Burns Elementary School who listened to Jim Reeves as much as I did Thriller by Michael Jackson. I guess that makes me somewhat of an odd ball, but in the past few years I have learned to embrace my oddness. I continued to listen to the man and his music, and am proud to say that I have most of the music he recorded.
As a biographer, Jordan does a brilliant job in capturing Reeves the artist - as well as Reeves the man. The artist was one of the smoothest voices that has ever lived, someone who could sing just about anything and do it well. The man, well, that is a complicated story. One of the things i had long heard about Reeves was how insecure he was about his talents. How he didn't really see what others saw in him. There were other demons and insecurities, as well. But, as I have found out in the years since I was that little kid coming back from Columbia listening to music from twenty years prior, we all do. I wholeheartedly recommend you to pick up a copy of this book. It's a lengthy read, but a mesmerizing one, at that.
Thanks, Larry, for a trip back in time. I truly enjoyed the book. I know it was a labor of love, and it shows!
For more information on the book, log on to http://www.jimreevesbook.com/
Though Jim Reeves passed away a decade before my birth in 1974, his music was still very much a part of Country Radio during the late 1970s and 1980s. I remembered his electronically engineered duets with Deborah Allen and Patsy Cline in the 1980s, which were very much radio hits - even during the "Urban Cowboy" period of the era.
However, I can pinpoint the night that I first became acquainted with the music of Jim Reeves. My family and I had been visiting relatives in Columbia, TN and stopped at the Shady Brook Mall. Even as a eight or nine year old, it was record stores that served as my toy shops. And, Columbia had one - Sound Shop. On the racks was a cassette copy of The Best Of Jim Reeves, Volume One. Released just a few months before the plane crash that took his life, there was something about that voice that intrigued me somewhat.
Even to a child, there was something about the songs - "He'll Have To Go," "Blue Boy," "I'm Gettin' Better," and a couple that had a profound impact on me - "The Blizzard" and "Stand At Your Window." The latter was not even a top ten hit, but when I think of Reeves and his music - that's one of my first thoughts. And, the former might very well be one of my favorite compositions from the late Harlan Howard. Still, when I listen to this recording fifty years later - I can still see the character and his trusted pony roaming the plains trying to beat the frigid conditions home. Alas, they didn't as they were only a "hundred yards from Mary Anne."
I might have been the only kid at Burns Elementary School who listened to Jim Reeves as much as I did Thriller by Michael Jackson. I guess that makes me somewhat of an odd ball, but in the past few years I have learned to embrace my oddness. I continued to listen to the man and his music, and am proud to say that I have most of the music he recorded.
As a biographer, Jordan does a brilliant job in capturing Reeves the artist - as well as Reeves the man. The artist was one of the smoothest voices that has ever lived, someone who could sing just about anything and do it well. The man, well, that is a complicated story. One of the things i had long heard about Reeves was how insecure he was about his talents. How he didn't really see what others saw in him. There were other demons and insecurities, as well. But, as I have found out in the years since I was that little kid coming back from Columbia listening to music from twenty years prior, we all do. I wholeheartedly recommend you to pick up a copy of this book. It's a lengthy read, but a mesmerizing one, at that.
Thanks, Larry, for a trip back in time. I truly enjoyed the book. I know it was a labor of love, and it shows!
For more information on the book, log on to http://www.jimreevesbook.com/
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