At the dawn of the ‘80s, as outlaws and urban cowboys staked their turf on either side of the country and pop fence, Kenny Rogers bridged the divide. A mere four years since he first attained mainstream solo stardom with “Lucille”—and after a string of subsequent smashes like “The Gambler” and “She Believes in Me” continued his good fortune—the former First Edition singer achieved the highest pinnacle of his career, topping not only the country charts but, for the first time, the pop charts as well with “Lady.” While he’d flirted with the pop charts before, with “Lady”—composed and produced by another proven hitmaker of the era, Lionel Richie—Rogers assumed the sort of stature otherwise reserved for music’s unmitigated superstars. Indeed, the rhapsodic ballad broadened his audience to an unprecedented degree, while at the same time heralding even more crossover collaborations to come, not only with Richie but also with likes of Barry Gibb (“Islands in the Stream”), James Ingram (“What About Me?”), and Richard Marx (“Crazy”), among others.
Now on the road for the final time, on a tour billed as The Gambler’s Last Deal, the 78-year-old music legend recently reflected on how his mainstream appeal—particularly how such crossover success hasn’t compromised his homegrown country music credentials—bears its roots in his earliest, most foundational experiences. In doing so, he reminisced on how his adolescent musical passion ultimately inspired one of the most celebrated careers in all of popular music. “When I was in high school I played guitar,” Rogers explained during a conference call with select music journalists, “and I met this guy [Bobby Doyle] doing commercials in Houston who was blind and he was about my age and he said he wanted me to come play bass with his jazz group. I said, ‘Well, Bobby, I don’t play bass and I don’t play jazz … I’m a country singer and a country player.’ He said, ‘I’ll teach you how to play bass and trust me, there’s more demand for bad bass players than there are bad guitar players.’ I thought about every group I’d seen. They’d all had a bass player; they didn’t all have guitar players.” Rogers was convinced, and the tutelage he received as a bassist began to serve him well in short order, manifesting in both practical and often surrealistically impractical moments. “We used to work across the street from the Shamrock Hotel in Houston,” Rogers recalled, “and people would come in—big names would come in to work there—and we had an after-hours job. They would come over after hours just to have a place to go. Tony Bennett used to come in and sing with us all the time. Every time he was in town he’d come across the street and sing with us and it was really something special.” Beyond reaping the benefits that often come with knowing how to play a musical instrument, Rogers said the experience of performing live with Bennett and various other artists of the day in turn facilitated the eclectic—and successful—career that lay ahead. “When people came in you had to learn to play their type of music,” he said, “and we would do that. We had all kinds of people come in, and each one of them was kind of different. Al Hirt used to come in and play with us. So that was another direction we had to go. It was just a wonderful life.”
It’s been more than a quarter century since “Too Cold at Home” introduced country music traditionalist Mark Chesnutt to the masses, and the many hits that have followed (including “Brother Jukebox,” “Bubba Shot the Jukebox,” and “Old Flames Have New Names”) have aged as well as the veteran singer’s homegrown Texas twang. For his first album of new material in eight years, Tradition Lives (Row Entertainment), Chesnutt doesn’t deviate from his signature vintage style. In truth, he doubles down on what his fans have expected all along. “I wanted to come back smokin’. I didn’t want to come back with a half-assed kind of song that didn’t have any direction,” says Chesnutt. “I wanted it to be as close to perfect as I could get it. I wanted to show the world that I’m not dead. I’m not retired. I’m still out there and I have been. I never stopped touring since 1990. I’ve constantly been on the road since then—26 years.” When you were choosing material for this new album, what kind of song typically stood out to you? What did it have to have in order for you to say, “Yeah, that’s a good song?” There’s no certain song I’m looking for. When I start getting songs to record, it used to be back in the old days I’d get cassette tapes—and I’d get thousands of cassette tapes—and then I started getting thousands of CDs, and nowadays it’s all emails. I still get CDs. But I don’t sit down and say, “Look, I’m gonna listen to songs today and I want to hear this type of song.” I’m not like that. I’ll just push play and just listen to it, and if it’s a song that catches me it’ll be immediately. I shouldn’t have to listen to the whole damn song and then decide. I should know within the first verse. A song has to be structured right, and if it has everything—if the verse is right and not too long, and then the chorus kicks in—then I know. Usually if I listen to a song all the way through and then listen to it again, that’s going to end up being cut and recorded. Before we went into the studio, we had the big meeting where you get together with the record company and your producer and your management and everybody and I’d play them all the songs that I picked. Usually there’s about 25, 35, 40 or more… I think I had around 50-something songs that I wanted to record for this album, and we had to narrow that down to about 12. So that’s when everybody’s input came in. That’s when I started listening to opinions. That’s when we had to start saying, “Well, now we need a ballad. Okay, we’ve got these.” Because you can’t have an album that’s just full of the same type of song.
Have you always been able to trust your integrity insofar as knowing which songs are the best ones for you to sing? Yeah, always try to. It was a little difficult to do that when I was on a major label because I had to listen to so many people’s opinions. And, I understand, again. I’m not putting down the major labels at all, but they have a business to run. They can’t take a chance. The purpose of a business is to make money—to sell a product, make money. Well, those companies are huge, man. There’s so many people that have to get a part of that album when it sells to make their paycheck, so they’ve all got a say in it—everybody on it. Now it’s a lot easier because I’m on an independent label. There’s not that many people there, and so I have complete control over the music…. I don’t have to worry about somebody saying, “That’s a piece of shit,” because first of all, I’m not going to pick a piece of shit anyway because I’ve been around long enough to know better. The last song on the album, “There Won’t Be Another Now”—which was added after the album proper was already completed—is a Red Lane song that Merle Haggard recorded. Sadly, we’ve not only lost Red Lane in recent years but this year we also lost Haggard. As someone who appreciates traditional country music as you do, what did Merle Haggard mean to you? Merle Haggard was the backbone of country music. Was, hell—still is. Merle Haggard is the backbone and George Jones is the soul. That’s the way I’ve always looked at it. George is the soul. Merle is the backbone. Without those two I don’t think country music would’ve ever been the way we know it is now. Being at the risk at being called sexist or whatever, I’m gonna say it: It’s a manly thing, that type of country music. But I can’t say that in reality, I can’t agree with that because when I think about Tammy Wynette or Loretta Lynn. They’re not manly at all, but they were strong women. Country music was made by people you didn’t want to fool with. You couldn’t push them around. You couldn’t push those people around. You couldn’t push around Loretta and Tammy. They’d kick you in the ass. They’d shoot you. The same way with Miranda Lambert. We still have strong women in country music. So to say it’s a manly thing is kind of wrong, but you know what I’m trying to say. It’s more of a “you don’t give me any shit, and I won’t give you any shit” [thing]. I think Grandpa Jones said that one time. He was quoted as saying, “We don’t give no shit, and we won’t take no shit.” That kind of sums it up, what I’m saying. Merle Haggard and George Jones pretty much set that tone, that mood, that toughness, that individualism. They’re the ones that really made that in country music. George Jones was so soulful, and then Haggard was the poet and had that strong voice and the way he presented and carried himself. You could hear his voice and you could tell that was a real man. What’s striking, though, especially with Haggard in his songwriting, was that he was vulnerable and he allowed himself to be vulnerable. Oh yeah, you’ve gotta be. He could do that. He could sell that softer side and the horrible side. So could George. George had a lot of songs where he was very vulnerable. I mean, man, he’d sing about drinking and getting his heart broken. “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” he was the narrator but at the same time you could tell he was singing about himself in a way. It takes somebody with some guts to do that. I don’t want to say “balls” because Tammy did it too. It takes people with soul and backbone to do that.
I had the privilege of interviewing Haggard once. I was star-struck, but he was the kindest man. I’d just assume sit and listen to him talk as listen to him sing. It didn’t matter to me. I’ll tell you the best memory I have of Merle was the time he invited us out to his house. I don’t know if you’ve heard this story or not, but I was out on tour. I was on tour with Tracy Lawrence and Joe Diffie—we were on the Rockin’ Roadhouse Tour I think in 2002 maybe, somewhere around there. Anyway, we did it for two or three summers. But we were out there during one of those summers, we were in California, up there near Redding close to where he lives, and we had a day off. Well, I got a call from our publicist that she had gotten a call from Merle’s people wanting to know if we were in town and if we wanted to come out to the ranch because he had his band there and they were rehearsing to go out on tour. Well, I mean, “Hell yeah.” We got the directions. I got to talk to one of the guys. We rented a van and we drove out there, me and Tracy Lawrence and Joe Diffie. You talk about a dream come true for us three rednecks. We were giddy. We were just like teenage kids going to a party or something. We just could not believe it. So, naturally we had to stop and get some beer. [Laughs] We drove up there, and they let us in. It wasn’t fancy or nothing at all. It was really cool, real nice, out in the country, a beautiful place. He had just a small house. I was expecting a big ol’ mansion, but of course, it’s Merle. We went up there and they were having lunch. We sat there and talked for a little while with him and he said, “Well, let’s go play some music.” So we walked right next door to the studio, they saddled up, him and his band, Merle called off a song and there they went. We sat there for two-and-a-half hours, Merle Haggard and his band playing for us. And he would tell us all about the song, how he wrote it [or] who wrote it, what it was about, and then tear off into it. That was the most unforgettable day I have ever had. We were sitting on the floor of the studio, drinking beer—we had a cooler of beer, and every once in awhile I’d look over at Tracy or Joe and I’d say, “Punch me right now. Make sure I’m not dreaming.” That was the best time. He talked to us for several hours. I’m the one who finally spoke up and said, “Well, we better get on out of here.” I didn’t want to overstay our welcome. That’s just one of those times you know you’ll never forget. He talked to us each for a long time. I remember looking at his boat. He had an aluminum boat sitting out there. I was checking it out, and he come over there and talked to me. We got to talking about fishing and hunting. I loved hearing that man talk. Same, really, with George. I loved to hear George talk. I spent more time with George than I did with Merle. George told a lot of stories. But they were different. They were two polar opposites. Merle was soft-spoken, but he had a lot to say. George, he liked to bullshit a lot. [Laughs]
Without either one of them, Haggard or Jones, what you do wouldn’t necessarily have been possible. It wouldn’t because I pride myself after them, and I threw in a little Willie and Waylon. Those guys had a lot of influence on me also. All of them did—Johnny Cash, everybody… Elvis Presley. All of them had a lot to do with who I am now. Hank Williams, Sr. and Hank Williams, Jr. a whole lot. Hank, Jr. and Hank, Sr. really were the first country singers that I ever heard. That was my daddy’s favorite. It was Hank Williams, Sr. and Elvis Presley, that was what I first remember hearing in my house when I was just a baby. I always liked something Johnny Cash said to Merle Haggard. “Merle,” he said, “you’re what people think I am.” Because Haggard had actually been to prison, whereas Cash had only written about it. Johnny was in jail, but he never went to prison. But if he kept going the way he was going before June got ahold of him, he’d have ended up in prison or dead. But you know the story of how Merle ended up in prison in the first place, huh? It was a botched robbery or something, right? Yeah, he broke into a restaurant that was still open. [Laughs] You know, George used to tell me stories…. That’s one thing I got on other guys. I got to hang out and be friends with these dudes, especially George. It’s a privilege that most people don’t get to enjoy. That’s what people like me, Tracy Lawrence, and Joe Diffie can say. We were around those legends. We actually knew them. I was around Waylon just a little bit, and he had a huge impression on my life after that. I always loved his music, but when I got to know him, he was another guy that had a whole lot to do with the way I live life and how I handle things. Guys like that, they teach you more than just about singing. It’s about life. It’s about living, how to handle problems when they come up, how to live your life and how to raise a family. Since my daddy died right at the start of my career, I didn’t have nobody to guide me. The only two people that did that were George Jones and my manager, Joe Ladd. I was only 26 when Daddy died and I was just starting out in this business. George Jones told me, he said, “If you ever have any questions, if you need to talk to somebody, you call me.” And I did. That’s why George and I were friends because he called me the day after my daddy died and told me that.
Had the Too Cold at Home album come out yet? Yeah, it had just come out. It came out that summer. The album came out in August, I believe. I think the single was already out. And Daddy got to see me on TV do Nashville Now and he saw me do The Grand Ole Opry on TV. He wouldn’t go to Nashville because he wouldn’t fly. So, he had to watch me on TV. About the time the second single was released, that’s about when Daddy passed away. He passed away in November of ‘90, and that’s when George called. He said, “I’m not trying to take your daddy’s place. Nobody can do that. But I can help you if you need anything. If you need some advice. If you have any questions. Because he told me, “You’re getting into a business, Son, that you probably already know that [has] a lot of ups and downs.” And I said, “I know, my daddy told me all that.” He said, “You’re getting into something that’s gonna be tough on you at times, and I’ll be here when you need to talk to somebody.” And, boy, was it ever. It has not been easy. I’ve gotta be honest with you. There were some really strange, weird, trying times in this business. You got your first taste of that right when country music was— When it got all screwed up? Kind of when Garth Brooks was turning country into rock ‘n’ roll. Garth didn’t turn it into rock ‘n’ roll. I know you’re not, but we can’t blame Garth Brooks… A lot of people blame Garth Brooks for killing country music. That’s not him that did it. Garth Brooks was just a high energy entertainer. He was a high energy entertainer and he was influenced by George Strait and George Jones, Merle Haggard—same guys I was. And he also was a KISS fan and a rock ‘n’ roll fan. Well, so am I. It’s just that I chose… I stayed real country and Garth blended all that together. He put those elements of a rock ‘n’ roll show—that energy—into country music. Which, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. But when he started recording other things that weren’t really country, which I know it was just changing times… Everybody thought they had to be rock stars then. Everybody started trying to outdo Garth Brooks. They all tried to out-Garth Garth and that’s impossible. Nobody’s ever gonna do that. To this day they’re still trying to do it.
To an extent, before Garth Brooks was doing it, Alabama were turning their concerts into rock ‘n’ roll –feeling events. Oh yeah. You know what? Let me tell you this. I was going to see Hank Williams, Jr. back in the early ‘80s, early-to-mid ‘80s. Hank Williams, Jr. was putting on the best high energy country show I had ever seen in my life. He was really doing it up big. Boy, you talk about energy. He had a big stage set. He had it going on, that one—way before Garth or anybody else. Alabama were just getting started. So, what Garth did… He didn’t do anything wrong. Garth didn’t mess anything up. Radio started turning things around. When [Bill] Clinton deregulated radio, it wasn’t about going to this radio station and getting to be buddies with the program director, taking him out to dinner, taking him out to tit bars and shit like that. It wasn’t about sending him and his family on a vacation, the old-fashioned payola. It was about big business then. Then they hired the consultants, and the consultants came in. One consultant sitting up there in L.A. was consulting 200 stations. And they don’t know what in the hell we want to hear down here in Beaumont, Texas or in Lafayette, Louisiana or Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. But they’re telling the deejays down there what they can play and what they can’t play because the company that owns those radio stations hired this consultant egghead to tell them what to play and what not to play. So, it’s not Garth’s fault. He didn’t do anything wrong. He just did his own thing, which was great. I never do want people to think that I’m anti- Garth or anti- anything. I think what Garth did was great. Didn’t you record “Friends in Low Places” before Garth Brooks? Yeah, I did. I cut it and it was Garth singing on it—Garth Brooks did the demo. He did most of the demos that I listened to back when I was getting ready to record my first album, when I was listening to songs. In fact, for a lot of years in the ‘90s when we got song pitches it was Garth Brooks singing them because he did a lot of demo work before he took off. I had a lot of songs with him singing on [the demos]. That’s how I got “Friends in Low Places.” I liked it immediately, and I cut it because we knew we needed to finish the album. We were running out of time. So, the song was pitched to me, I loved it, I recorded it. They already had the singles picked before the album was even finished. It was gonna be “Too Cold at Home” and “Brother Jukebox.” They weren’t gonna release “Friends in Low Places.” Garth Brooks heard about it and got pissed off because he had it on hold at the same time, and I didn’t know that or I wouldn’t have cut it. So, Garth got all pissed off and confronted my producer … and started cussing him out and saying, “I’ve got that song on hold. I’m cutting it tomorrow. That’s gonna be my new single.” [My producer] Mark Wright said, “I didn’t know anything about that. Chesnutt didn’t know anything about that.” So the next day he went in and cut it and they put it out real quick. I guess they thought I was a threat. I don’t know why in the world they would think I was any kind of threat to Garth Brooks because I have not been and I will never be a threat to Garth Brooks. [Laughs]
Considering the kind of traditional country music you make, was there any difficulty in finding well-written songs for the new album, maybe because they’re not being written as much now? No, I had no trouble. I went through a lot of songs. I had thought I would have trouble, because I didn’t think anybody would be writing these songs. I was worrying if the guys that wrote that kind of music were dead or if any of them cared about writing like that anymore. Well, it turns out, a lot of them do. It’s just like the musicians. When I went into the studio to track this album, I used guys like [guitarist] Brent Mason and [drummer] Eddie Bayers and these guys, I’ve used them on every album since the very first one. I used the same guys. They were so happy to work with me again and to see old friends and they were so happy to be playing country music. That’s what they were all telling me…. They were so happy to be able to do what they came to town to do. It was like a reunion with these guys to play this kind of music. Of course, that’s the only kind of music I’ve ever done, but this time it was all new music. It was all freshly written tunes. All the guys that had written songs before for me, boy they were writing… They were sending me stuff that they wrote 10, 15, 20 years ago that they couldn’t get cut. They were sending me songs they’d just written within the last four or five years that nobody cut because that’s not what they’re looking for. So they sent them to me. Man, I had thousands of songs. Of course, I had some I had in the can myself that I had written with Roger Springer years ago, and of course Jimmy Ritchey being the songwriter he is, and I even have one written by Jamey Johnson and several other guys that surprised me. Randy Houser is on a song too. So they’re still being written. It’s just they haven’t been recording them or they’ve been recording them, but nobody’s been playing them. But it just so happened that I’ve been doing this at a time when I think people are really wanting to hear that kind of music again, which I never quit doing in the first place. A lot of other artists have quit doing it. A lot of the younger artists want to do it, but they can’t because they have to do what’s selling. They’re in the music business, man, and it is a business. I understand it. Like, I had to record “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” not because I wanted to, but because my label wanted me to do it. If I didn’t do it they weren’t going to fool with me anymore. So, I wanted to stay on the label. Well, I cut the song, it went number one for four weeks, but it’s not me. That wasn’t a Mark Chesnutt song; it wasn’t a Mark Chesnutt record. That’s not what I do. I don’t go around doing remakes of pop hits. I’ve done remakes of country hits, but it’s time for me to do my own stuff again.
Back when Kris Kristofferson used to take the stage alongside his comrades in the Highwaymen, he was the relative young gun of the group, his stature overshadowed by the outlaw legends of Waylon and the Red Headed Stranger and the Man in Black. Sure, he’d written songs that each of them had recorded and performed, but he hadn’t yet put in the years, the hard time and bitter tears it took to become such a larger-than-life figure. Well, now he’s 80. And in listening to him sing a batch of his own classics on the newly released double-disc set, The Cedar Creek Sessions, it’s clear he belongs in their rarified company. Recorded over three days in June 2014 at the album’s namesake studio in Austin, Texas, these performances reflect Kristofferson’s craft and bone-dry conviction with the sort of integrity that can only be achieved when such a seasoned songwriter revisits his own history. His voice, grizzled with age and hard-won experience, imbues these songs new character and insight, his gruff inflections now revealing flashes of stoic resignation. He wrings more pathos from “For the Good Times” than have seemed possible in the classic’s countless other incarnations. He delivers “Sunday Morning Coming Down” like a dirge. And when he aches out the opening lines, “Busted flat in Baton Rouge…” in “Me and Bobby McGee,” the enduring image is of man down to his soul’s last ounce of will and resilience. Thankfully, Kristofferson’s maverick spirit still thrives.
Merle Haggard never said he was immortal. Still, the country music icon, who died this week on his 79th birthday of complications from pneumonia, knew as well as anyone that his music would endure. He’d lived not only to see so many songs he’d written be appreciated as classics, but to perceive his influence on succeeding generations of artists who, frankly, owe him everything. In 2010, Haggard was riding especially high with a new album, I Am What I Am, his first since beating lung cancer the year before and one of the most optimistic works of his entire career. Drawing on themes of love and trust (with moments of uncertainty along the way), the album is the unsparing testimony of a man humbled by his blessings. Calling from his Northern California ranch that year, Haggard (73 at the time) echoed much the same sense of positivity. Still, as he proved throughout the conversation—unpublished until now—discontent had by no means eluded his thoughts altogether. This album could have gone in a completely different direction. You know, I’m glad you pointed that out. I hadn’t really thought about it. I haven’t written any “poor me” songs, but you’re right. It could’ve went in that direction. A lot of artists have had health scares and their subsequent works were kind of dark. It’s easy to fall off to that side of things, but it really don’t do no good. As bleak as it may look, coming out of lung surgery with your life and no chemo and no radiation is quite a joy if you look at it from the right perspective, I think. In the overall themes of the album it seems you’re not only expressing love and gratitude, but also relief—relief that you’ve found this contentment. I think that if you believe in yourself and if you believe in love and happiness, then the assessment of my life would be that I’ve come pretty close to that mark. In a sense, you also seem like a man still learning about love. Or is this just something you’re more willing to admit now, that you still have things to learn? Well, I think that love is something that you give. I’m not sure that love is something that you get. Are you still learning about how to give it? I don’t think you have time to worry about getting it. I think you have to give it and it has to be unmerited. There’s no judgment on it. There’s no saying how much you’ll give, how little you’ll give. You’ve got to just keep giving. If you ever change your attitude about that and look around and start looking for something to come back in your direction you’ll probably leave, throw your stack and start writing blues. I’ve heard people say they’re only so many chords and, after a couple hundred years of people making music, to find something original to say lyrically as well as musically is a challenge. Well, there’s three main chords. From there you can go anywhere, but you’ve got to come back sometime in the future to those three chords. It’s what you do in between that distinguishes you. I guess so. I don’t think there’s any end to it. I don’t think that there’s a time when we’ll use it all up. I think there’s just as much available… Ah, man, there’s more available than is being used. I’ve found that the melody depends on the story, and the attitude of the story. That’s where I come with the melody, in trying to present that. As far as your songwriting is concerned, is everything you experience fair game for you as a lyricist? Do you fear giving away too much of yourself or of those you may write about? There are songs that I write that are too profound to release. And they’re good and they’re probably hit songs, but because of better judgment I don’t release them. I write into an area that I’d be too involved with my belief and probably shouldn’t get into that area too much. Then again my belief says I should be overflowing with that. There’s a lot of illness with a person my age. I’m 73 years old and I could tell you some sad stories. I had a friend die yesterday at five o’clock, a buddy I’ve had here the last three or four years, Sonny Langley, passed away with stomach/liver cancer yesterday. Ex-pug, had 141 professional fights, lost one fight. He fought people like Willie Pep, some of the greatest fighters of all time. He died yesterday at five o’clock. God, it’s just everywhere I look. My best friend died last May. It’s in that period in my life and to find something happy, you really grab onto it and if it’s a subject worth writing about you’d just kind of write too many songs probably. It’s a harrowing experience to endure. It is. And everybody has to. And everybody has to have two sides to their life. You’ve got to have this business side and go on and if you intend to succeed you probably should portray a positive attitude. When you’re not going through positive or uplifting times, do you owe it to yourself as a songwriter to convey that? Probably do. Probably do. And when I die there’ll be an archive of material that will come out that will be probably more personal than this album here. It may not be as happy, but it’ll be more personal. I think that’s one element of the reason why this album’s doing well is because of the personal. It gets down into the part that most people don’t talk about. In “Bad Actor,” for instance, you convey a lot of self-consciousness. When you're in love you’re not always cocksure and confident. When you’re in love it’s a fight to stay afloat. It’s something you’ve got to work on every day. People are so different and people change. Life’s a bitch and then you die, really. [Laughs] Do you approach songwriting with the feeling of, “I have something to prove,” or perhaps, “I have something to say?” I write from all perspectives, from all urges that you might have, but I usually eliminate things that I regard as out of the realm of usability. You know what I mean? There are some things that are too sad, some things too personal, some things overbearing, that with good sense after evaluating you just discard. What perspectives do you bring as a songwriter at 73 that you didn’t have at, say, 43? At 73 you bring more wisdom than arrogance, and at 43 it’s the flip-flop. That reminds me of an interview Bob Dylan gave on 60 Minutes during which he said there were things he couldn’t do anymore as a songwriter, but that there were also things he could do that he couldn’t have done when he was younger. That sort of says what I said about arrogance and experience. One’s on one side when you’re 43 and it flip-flops when you’re 73. I’m a little older than he is, but I think he’s more intense about his writing than I am. He’s Bob Dylan—he’s number one. He’s very serious about his writing, I can tell you that. He’s very much to himself. He doesn’t do anything except work and write. Work and write. As songwriters you each present your aesthetic in different ways. You write in rich, almost literal narratives and Dylan uses a lot of metaphors and obscurities. I’m not sure there’s any paragraph to describe what he does different, but I understand what you’re saying and we both know what we’re talking about. But there may not be a way to sum him up. [Laughs] What was the original catalyst for you to write your own lyrics as opposed to being a musician who covered other people’s songs? I don’t think it was any intelligent thing that I developed in my life. I think it’s a gift. I know in my conscience I can remember realizing that Johnny Mercer wrote “On The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe” and I knew that Hank Williams either stole or wrote the songs that he claimed he wrote. Over the years it’s been debatable about some of them. I feel certain that Bob Dylan has written all of his songs. Then there’s other great writers. Paul Anka comes to mind, and then Hank Cochran and Fred Rose and Tommy Dorsey. Somebody said to me, “Merle, singers come and go, but writers live forever.” Other than your memoirs, have you ever had the desire to expand into other areas of writing like prose or poetry? I’ve written a lot of poetry. I’ve written some really good poetry, I think. Probably come to the surface when I’m gone. I had a little old book that I stole on the road, don’t know what happened to it, but it’d be wonderful to have around now on the website. That you wrote in? Yeah, I remember writing something about catching a big bass. It was all about this fight between this bass fisherman at night and he had this big bass on and he fooled him with a live waterdog. He had him hooked deep in his throat, and with one minor lunge he was gone and pulled him about half out of the boat. And it goes on like that. Then there was a thing that I was involved in writing, this really poetic—I guess poetic’s the right word—called The Four Dogs. It was where I impersonated an Irishman. I said [in thick, Irish accent], “Hi, lassies and laddies, I’m the man in the hills with four dogs, and recently in from the old country with different speech and we make customs and all. Makes me appear strange when they see me on the mountainside with me four dogs.” That thing’s nine minutes long and each dog... One dog is Love, one dog is Hell, one dog is Hope, and one dog is Faith. Faith is blind, and he doesn’t use much Hope. Finally Love goes away and Hell is the only thing that’ll stick around. That’s kind of chilling. Hell stuck around. That’s not one of the ones you lost, is it? No, I have that. It was recorded less than perfect. It’s nine minutes long and it’s a classic. It’ll come out someday. They’ll have some magic way of fixing it all. One of my favorite songs of yours is a duet you did in the ‘80s with Ray Charles, “Little Hotel Room.” Oh yeah. It wasn’t a hit but it was an interesting recording. Did you record that in the same studio with him? We were together on that, as best I remember. Things run together. I’ve been in the studio a couple times with Ray and I don’t remember whether it was when we’d done that. We might have done it at two different places and still been together a couple times in the studio. I’m not sure. Seems to me like we were together we we’d done that. We’re talking about thirty years [ago]. That song as well as your early Epic hits were when I first discovered your music as young kid. On a personal note, you’ve been my father’s favorite artist since the ‘60s, and as I grew up I learned to appreciate your music through him—and it’s been so rewarding. You’re such a wonderful talent. Well, it’s a wonderful gift, and I just try to maintain. I have this wonderful family and I have this wonderful career, and they don’t mix very well. I have a son graduating June 4th [from high school], and I’ve got this beautiful date that they want me to play, this spa down here in Santa Barbara. They want to give us all golf games and facials, all that stuff. It’s one of the greatest spas in the world. They want me and Bennie [Haggard] to come down and play for them. I said, “No, we can’t do it. It’s his graduation.” He’s got things two days in a row. He graduates on the fourth, and on the fifth we’ve got a party for him. Then the Prairie Home Companion wants me on the fifth. They don’t want me on the eighth. They want me on the fifth. Both of them are extremely prestigious jobs that people would kill to get, and I’ve had to turn both of them down. When you have to draw a line between the two, your kid’s going to win over another gig. You bet. I’ll never be sorry that I did that.
Country music maverick John Anderson anticipated changes in the industry long before they came to pass. The veteran singer/songwriter recently recalled, “I told people on different boards and different committees back 20 years ago, ‘You better figure out a way to split the genres and call one of them traditional country and one of them new country or whatever, or else you’re going to run into problems.’ Of course, they wouldn’t listen to someone like me.” Why not? Since hitting the big time with “Swingin’” in 1982, Anderson has not only forged a first-rate career (with such hits as “Seminole Wind,” “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal,” and “Straight Tequila Night”), but maintained his artistic integrity while doing it. He continues to invest that same craft and conviction throughout his latest LP, Goldmine, writing or co-writing 12 of the album’s 13 songs while, with the flirtatious “Magic Mama,” recording a Merle Haggard original. How did you get to cut a Merle Haggard song that Merle Haggard hadn’t even cut? Well, actually, he ended up writing it for me. I could tell you the story, or the basics of the story. He called me one day and said, “I’m writing this song and the more I write it the more it sounds like you.” He kind of chuckled, and I said, “Well, man, just finish it and I’ll do it, no questions asked.” I mean, what do you say when Merle Haggard says he’s writing a song and thinking about you? I was very flattered, to say the least. Indeed, I saw him about six months later, and I said, “Did you finish that song?” He looked at me, smiled, and pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket. It was that song, “Magic Mama,” the lyrics. He called for a guitar and played it for me. That was one of the highlights of my life, just having Merle play me that song that he’d written with me in mind. You wrote or co-wrote all the other songs on Goldmine, and a lot of these songs are story songs with characters and narratives. I like those kind of things. As a songwriter, how do you find your way into those kind of songs? Part of that is just writing country music, and doing it for a long, long time. To me, that was… Those songs used to be a big, big part of country music.... Things have changed, is what I’m trying to say. Actually that kind of writing — that kind of song — is virtually on the way out, I’m sad to say, because I still like it. That’s why Goldmine sounds the way it does, because I still like that kind of music. And, you know, we still have several fans that still really like it. So, indeed, when they tell me, “Well, those 17-year-old kids don’t like that. They said it sounds old.” Well, I really ain’t playing it for those 17-year-old kids. I’m playing it for the people that want to hear it, because I like it. I’m not doing it because somebody else might like it. I’m doing it because I really enjoy it, and we still have enough fans to sustain us while we do it. Right there is the answer to all the questions in the music business: Can you go out and draw a big enough crowd doing your songs to pay the bills? And yeah, after 40 years, I can say that we already did. Of course there are also younger generations, too, that appreciate your music. We do have that, and again, I’m very flattered. When the young people do come out and enjoy the shows and enjoy the records, that’s always a wonderful feeling. There again, for the folks that don’t care for it or don’t like that kind of music, with a very simple apology, we don’t play anything else.
That says something about your integrity, that you’ve remained so consistent. Oh yeah, we have to be true to what we do because, like I say, it’s been true to me. We do pretty good out there on the road each and every year playing these old songs as well as the new ones. But there again, it’s that type of country music that’s causing us to grow in popularity instead of decline because folks know they can actually come and hear real country music when they come and hear myself with the band or even me by myself. Considering the climate of country music today, do you still see a place where you and your music can fit in? Well, it seems only on the classic country stations as far as radio, but as far as social media and YouTube, oh yeah, there’s many, many places where we still fit in. And like I say, we have a wonderful young crowd also. I sure don’t think anything against any of our young fans for listening to other young folks. Music changes, and it should. But over time you’ve found a way to combine rock and traditional country into your own voice. Yeah, and it is what it is. It was a heartfelt thing, and we weren’t joking. It was serious. Our music was then and has been since then — pretty much my whole life — writing those songs and performing them. So, what was meant to be was meant to be. We were coming up with “Swingin’” during the same kind of time that, for instance, the Eagles were doing “Lyin’ Eyes” and such. There was a lot of people wanting to be country-rock musicians at the time. And me, I was just country, but some of our rocking stuff sounded a little bit on the edge for them. But looking back, what would you call “Swingin’” now? It sure wasn’t too rock for country. It’s not too rock for country now either. Not at all. And it wasn’t back then or it wouldn’t have sold three million copies… or four, whatever.
Speaking of the Eagles — and in light of Glenn Frey's passing earlier this year — you recorded a version of “Heartache Tonight” back in 1994. Yes, indeed. How did that take shape? Of course the Eagles, a very influential American music group, and of course Glenn Frey was a big, big part of that as far as the writing and vocals. On their earlier hits he did most of the singing, and I believe he’s credited as a songwriter on just about everything. In this particular case, though, on the Common Thread project — of course I always loved the Eagles — but when I got the news that this was happening, that they wanted me to be on the project and they sent me a list of songs, “Heartache Tonight” was on that list. Conway Twitty had had a Number One record, I believe, on “Heartache Tonight” in the country field. Back when they had a rock hit, he had the country hit. And when I got the news about the Common Thread record, it was at a time when Conway had just passed away a few days prior. So when I saw “Heartache Tonight” I thought, I’m going to do that in honor of Conway and the Eagles. Because it already was the song that that whole album was talking about, the Common Thread. Actually, if Conway Twitty could have a Number One record on it, and the Eagles could have a Number One record on it, surely it was a common thread. I think it shows that good music is just good music. I think so too, and that’s like the song “Swingin’.” I’ve heard “Swingin’” now really rocked up and over, I believe, five or six different languages. So, music is music. You know what I’m saying? It’s all depending on each one’s different take of it.
“To me,” Gene Watson says, “the songs are everything.” For more than a half century, the country music legend has cultivated one of the most venerable catalogs in the business with such classics as “Love in the Hot Afternoon,” “This Dream’s On Me,” “Farewell Party,” and “Nothing Sure Looked Good On You,” among many others. What’s more, whether in his leanest years playing in bars and nightclubs throughout his native Texas or in more recent ones performing on the most prestigious stages around the world, Watson has always heeded the integrity of his songs as well as, at the same time, his audience. “I’ve never taken music for granted, never have,” Watson said recently, on the phone from his Texas residence. “I never took the people for granted, and I always tried my best to give them what they asked for.” In striving to consistently live up to his audience’s expectations, Watson acknowledges the ongoing struggle that inevitably ensues in his efforts to live up to his own — particularly when seeking out new material to record. “The writers that are trying to write these songs haven’t lived,” he said. “They have not lived. You can’t write it if you don’t know about it. If you haven’t lived it, if you haven’t seen it, it’s impossible. That’s one thing that makes it so tough when I start looking for material to record because very, very, very seldom you find anything with any substance from a modern-day younger writer.” That’s why Watson’s latest LP, Real. Country. Music. (due 2/26), includes songs by such songwriting stalwarts as Kris Kristofferson (“Enough For You”), Larry Gatlin (“Help Me”), and Dean Dillon, Hank Cochran, and Keith Whitley (“She Never Got Me Over You”). “I have to go back to the traditionalists when I’m looking for material,” Watson said. “That’s the only way you’re going to find the quality material that I look for. That’s where I’m at.”
When you’re searching for a song to record, do you have any certain criteria or is it more instinctual — either you like it or you don’t? Well, I listen from several points of view. Naturally, it’s got to hit me, but more so than that it’s got hit you when we deliver it. I look at it this way: If I can tell a story and it seems true to life — something that might have happened to you or someone you know, something that you can relate to, a story that you’ve heard, something you’d told, something that’s real life that you can really get your teeth into — that’s what I look for. I’m not one of these guys that’s recording about “getting stuck in the mud” and all that stuff. That’s not what I look for. I look for things that could be truthful, some things that might’ve happened or more than likely happened; because if I pick a song that you can relate to, I automatically got your attention. Then it’s up to me to sell it to you. Is that something you’ve been able to refine over the years? Of course, nobody can predict for sure if an audience will connect with a song, but you’ve been very reliable with the material you’ve chosen to record as far as whether it resonates or not. I’ve always said that the good Lord above gave me the voice. He can take it away any time he wants to. But I always figured that if I personally had any talent — or the best talent I had — [it] was picking the right songs for Gene Watson. I’ve always been that way. I’ve never deviated from that, and I never will. If I don’t feel the song, chances are it’s not going to be recorded by me. Do you ever consider fact that you have so many hits and fan favorites when you’re picking songs? In particular, do you wonder how well they’ll fit in with your other songs — in the sense of quality — when you’re singing them on stage, whether they’ll complement your classics? That’s a good question. I’ve never been asked that. I really haven’t thought that much about it because it seems like my train of thought seems to go from A to B along the same lines. By the time I get through [with a new song] — even though the song, the tune, the melody, the tempo might be a little different, I want it to be the same criteria and meet up to certain standards before I record it — I feel like if I succeed in that while I’m staying within the confines of what I do and what I’ve been successful at. That’s a great question you just asked. Actually, when I get through with a project, I immediately start looking forward to the next one. ‘What am I going to do? How am I going to change it and yet make it stay the same?’ which is a pretty hard point to reach. I guess I’ve just been lucky at picking the right kind of songs that my fans can relate to, and thank goodness for that. A lot of times, when you go to see certain artists in concert, the new songs don’t stack up to the most famous ones. Yours do, though. That’s a great point. Of course, when I’m working the stage show, I try my best to keep the audience in mind. If I get off the track of what got me there, I’ll immediately go back to ones that they made hits out of. You don’t dilly-dally with the audience too awful much. You’ve got to play what they want, because they’re the ones that pay the bills. They paid hard-earned money to come see you. They could’ve gone anywhere they wanted to, so you better keep them on your side. So anytime that I think I’m getting a little bit shallow with the show, I’ll reach back and get one of those gut-busting hits and do it and it never fails to bring it right back around. It does mean a lot, I think, to stay within the confines of what made you famous or what you are, to be able to reach back and communicate that way at any given time. And I certainly try to do that.
That’s not to say you can’t challenge yourself with something new, but you have to find a balance. And you really can’t go one-hundred percent off of what you think is great. What you’d better do is — when listen to music, when you record music, and when you’re doing a show — make sure that this is the type of music that is going to accomplish what you’re setting out to do career-wise, just like you said. I could not [envision] myself going out there and saying, “Well, I don’t give a damn what the people think. I’m going to do what I want to do.” I could never be that way. To me that’s nothing more than arrogance. I just couldn’t do that. Was there a moment early on, while working in the bars and clubs around Texas in the ‘60s and early ‘70s before you signed your first major contract, when you recognized that what you weren’t just acting out a passion but that — all modesty aside — you possessed a talent worth pursuing as a professional career? I think there was. I’m not particularly sure, but I noticed right away that it was worthwhile when you can say something that makes people laugh and sing something that’ll make them cry and then turn right around and reel them back in with a smile. It’s something you have to study. It definitely takes experience, and you have to know what you’re looking for to be able to do this. I strive to do that, every show. Every time I sing “Farewell Party” I want to go down there and jerk their hearts out, make the tears roll out their eyes. On the other hand, when I do a different kind of song, I’d like to make them smile. To have the talent to change that disposition off and on of those people is so much. It shows from being in the business for as many years as I have, you’ve got to know how to do that, when to do it, and at the same time be honest not just with the people out there but [with] yourself. You worked quite a few grueling years before you scored your first nationwide hit, and so you must’ve have something perhaps in your subconscious that made you continue to do it and not be disillusioned by the harshest parts of that early experience to the point of quitting. Well, I think I’ve been confronted with just about every situation as long as I’ve been in the business. I’ve always tried to just play a song the way I felt it. Forget about who you sound like. Forget about any kind of punch lines or signatures or anything. Reach down and sing that song from the gut. When I say that, I mean that you don’t have to see a video to know whether somebody is sincere and good at what they’re doing. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I still do. When I leave that stage, I’ve left it all out there. I don’t take nothing with me. I leave it all on stage. And I’ve done that all my life, as far back as I could remember. I’m just thankful that I can communicate with the audience as well as I do. Right, because you were not some overnight sensation. You put in some hard time before you got well-known. That’s true. Back when I started out it was called “paying your dues,” and Lord knows I’ve been paying them for fifty-something years. So many of the great country singers and songwriters are, sadly, no longer with us — and they seem to be going at a greater rate these days. Do you feel, at this point, like you are carrying the banner for traditional country music? Yes. You hit the nail right on the head. I do feel like that’s what I’m doing. I’m so proud to be doing it. It’s exactly what you said. We’ve lost so many great artists and we’re losing them at a whole lot faster right nowadays. I mean, who’s going to carry the banner? I’ve got to. Well, Merle’s still alive, but there’s not that many left. I feel like if I don’t carry the banner, well then who is? I can’t take a chance on country music not getting a right shot of it being carried on. The song that Jones had out, “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” it’s never been more apparent than it is right now.
To what do you attribute your enthusiasm for what you do today? What keeps you interested and eager to keep making records and playing for people? Of course, I love music. Every member of my family were singers [although] I’m the only one that took it up professionally. I love music when it’s good, and I’m not saying that what I do is the only kind that’s good. There are good kinds of music in a lot of forms and different styles. But I love music. And, you know, I’m a blue-collar kind of guy. I have to make a living like anybody else. I’ve always said that I’m no better or worse than whoever I’m talking to, so I approach everything with pretty much a common style. Even though I’ve sung these songs thousands upon thousands of times, every time I enter from backstage and walk out in front of that microphone, I’ve got to pretend that that song is brand new. I strive so hard to do it a little bit better than I’d done it the night before. Every audience is different and this song means so much to so many people, and I try to give them the best I’ve got. I feel like that’s the least I can do. You never want to get complacent. That’s right. We have to repeat a lot of songs because they’re what people come to see, but I don’t write a show out. I’ve never got a planned show. The guys in my band, they have to listen close to what I’m saying, because what I say to the audience automatically sets up whatever song I’m going to do next. That’s the way I’ve always done it, just played it off the cuff unless I’m doing a scripted thing on TV or something like that. But [at] a regular stage show or anything like that, if you asked me what I’m going to do I couldn’t tell you because it comes straight off the top of my head. It’s strictly for that audience right then. Every audience is a brand new audience and they deserve the best that Gene Watson’s got.
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