You never really keep a realistic track of time. In life, we are so caught up in the moment that you don’t think about how long you have done something. Next April will mark twenty-five years in the media / music business for me. To say it’s all I know is an understatement. Fourteen of those years, I have been a writer for one publication or another. But, for all twenty-four (so far) years, I have been in radio. There has not been a week that has gone by that I haven’t been on the air somewhere doing something.
That being said, it’s time to revamp the wheel a bit. Earlier
this year, with some of the health issues combined with my crazy schedule with
my other jobs, I began to become a little burned out. It’s tough sometimes to
hold people’s interest. You wonder sometimes if anyone is listening or not, and
the radio business often becomes about many other factors besides why you
wanted to do it in the first place. Let me say that many of my best friends and
supporters in the radio business have been people who have been sponsors of
programs I have been associated with – I appreciate them then and now. That
being said, I didn’t grow up wanting to be in radio so I could sell spots.
Having worked in sales, I have long hated the feeling that if someone doesn’t buy
what you’re selling, it’s a personal knock. That, combined with feeling like
being successful in radio is dependent on beating your competition to a chair
in a press box before they get there, has just made me a little blah on that
aspect of what I do.
I needed to freshen things up a bit. So, that’s what I am
trying to do. Since April of 2009, I have hosted Crazy Chucky’s Country Classic Corner at WNKX in Centerville.
Beginning with the June 3 edition, I am going to change the format just a
little. I’m still going to feature many of the classics from the 20s forward –
with quite a little bit of the obscure and forgotten……but each week I am going
to feature an album that influenced me and made me a deeper fan of music. After
all, that’s why I wanted to do anything in this business in the first place –
the music.
In starting this series, I have to admit there is only one
album that I can start with in this Music
That Built Me series – The Gambler by
Kenny Rogers.
I was only four years old when this album was released, but I
have vivid memories of my parents’ 8-track tape in the car on trips to see
family or Saturday morning runs to Nashville. Though I didn’t fully comprehend
what the lyrics were about – something about each song painted a picture in my
mind.
First, there was the title cut – which is the song that
Rogers is most known for. What Don Schlitz was thinking when he wrote the
lyrics I don’t know, but this song has been a mantra for me for longer than I
realize. I take it about being true to yourself and going against the grain –
doing what makes you brings you happiness, regardless of what it might look
like on paper or what people say. The chorus helped to sell the song to my
four-year old years, as well.
In 1978, I had no idea what the lyrics of “I Wish That I
Could Hurt That Way Again” meant. I just knew it sounded sad. As I got older,
and relationships came and went – the lyrics of this one – “In between the
sorrow, at least there was tomorrow, and long as there’s no tomorrow, there’s
no end,” hit me like a hammer. Though T. Graham Brown recorded this one to top
ten perfection almost a decade later, in my opinion, this is one of Kenny’s
finest moments.
Another great moment on this album is the poetic “King Of Oak
Street.” Originally recorded by Kenny during his First Edition days, the
starkness of this song set itself apart from most of his recordings at the
time. Whenever someone wants to paint Kenny Rogers as a singer of mushy love
ballads where everything is sweet….I point to this ballad about a man begging
his significant other for one more chance after an indiscretion. I’ve got to
say I prefer the original, but this is still pretty good – and maybe the best
all-around song in the Rogers catalog.
“King” was written by Alex Harvey, who also enjoyed two other
cuts on the album – “Makin’ Music For Money,” which I remember singing along to
at the top of my lungs – and “The Hoodooin’ of Miss Fannie DeBerry,” about a
witch in Mississippi. It’s kind of a freaky cut, especially if you think of
Rogers as a ballad singer only, but the cut always intrigued me. Combine it
with my early crush on Elizabeth Montgomery and her character on Bewitched, and it is a good indication
of my weirdness. Harvey was so great at writing Southern Gothic type songs –
“Delta Dawn” was another – Someday, I want to take a trip to Brownsville, TN
and explore some of Harvey’s haunts. There is an Oak Street there, and there
are a lot of DeBerrys, so I am told….though they probably don’t want to be
thought as the relatives of a witch!
At the same time, there were some great love ballads here –
“She Believes In Me” being the other hit from this album, and the dreamy “Sleep
Tight, Goodnight Man,” which I would pay Rogers $10 himself to hear in concert
– a reference to his giving money to “bored” male audience members for each
song of his they can remember (I would love to be on the front row one night –
I’d come up with some he might have forgot!)
Sonny Throckmorton’s “A Little More Like Me” is by far one of
the most strange songs Rogers ever recorded. I wish I could tell you that I
even totally understand it, but aside from the fact that the lead character is
possibly Jesus in a modern-day setting, I really don’t. Joe Bonsall from the
Oak Ridge Boys – who also recorded the song – tried to explain it to me once,
but I’ve got to say I’m still in the dark. But, I still remember the chorus –
“He was a little weird, and we all feared he wasn’t one of us. He didn’t drink,
he didn’t smoke, and he didn’t even cuss” – to this day. The Gambler comes to a close with the story song “Morgana Jones,” a
song from the First Edition days that is definitely not “You Decorated My
Life.” Rogers is singing the praises (?) of a lady of the evening who
apparently isn’t Playboy material.
She doesn’t even seem nice, as she tells him upon leaving that he’ll never
measure up to one of her other ‘clients’ – someone that he knows very well.
Though he recorded other great albums like 1981’s Share Your
Love or 1983’s Eyes That See In The Dark,
in my opinion what Larry Butler brought out of Rogers on The Gambler is every bit as memorable as anything he ever did…..or
anyone else at that time. Nearly forty years later, I still listen to this
album occasionally and still sing along!
Over the next few weeks, I am going to shine the spotlight on
a different album each week that I will be featuring on the show. Tune
in……Wednesdays at 1pm on WNKX 96.7 FM!
