Country Music Broke My Brain (2 page)

I was doing a radio interview with him in the '80s. He had on a white shirt and a bow tie. It was fairly early in the morning. I was wondering after a few minutes of talking with him,
Has this guy been up all night?

After leaving the interview, I told my publicist, Janet Rickman, “That guy won't be around very long.” Little did I know, not only did he stay in the radio business for many years, I would also be recording a fun, toe-tapping song he had written, called “Little Rock.” And I certainly didn't know we would go on vacations together, us, along with Gerry's wife, Allyson, and my husband, Narvel, and surprisingly enough, we all became close friends.

Gerry is a very talented writer with a cool sharp wit. I love to listen to his stories. They can hold me captive for hours. When I hosted the
Academy of Country Music Awards
, Gerry helped me with my scripts. I couldn't have done it without him.

In 2003, he scared me to death when he had to have brain surgery, but I think it helped. I love Gerryâalways willâand can't thank him enough for sharing his warped sense of humor with me, his lovely wife, Allyson, and their daughter, Autumn. They have always been a tight familyâa great example for all of us to learn from.

I invite you to sit back and read all the silly, funny, heartfelt things Gerry has to say. I know you'll be thoroughly entertained, as usual.

Love ya,

Red (aka Reba)

Introduction

IT BEGAN IN KENTUCKY in 1958. I was ten. At the time, I was little more than a life-support system for freckles. Looking back at pictures of that era, I had the exact physique of a praying mantis. All I really cared about was the Cincinnati Reds' batting averages and my pets, Petey and Thumperâa parakeet and a rabbit. Both were lost in tragic freezing accidents. I do remember Petey being more fun postmortem than when he was with us on Earth. I could hop him around easier.

My father, Homer, was an electrician. My mother, Lucille, was an electrician's wife. Dad kept the Kroger Co.'s lights on. He was good at his job except at home, where, for some reason, our lights dimmed when Mom started the washer. I was always being instructed about the ever-present dangers of electricity by my dad. “Be careful, Hoss,” he'd say, waving a pair of pliers around like a wild man. “Electricity is just like a snake. You never know when it will bite ya.” One time during an electricity lesson, he accidentally touched some “hot” wires with the pliers, and a ball of fire shot out of the wall. It sounded like a cannon went off, and it blew both of us across the room. My dad's hair was steaming and his eyebrows were gone. Good job, Pop! Love the danger demo. Actual fire and smoke!

Technically, it began on a summer day in 1958. We were going to take
the vacation
âthe one golden week of the year when my father wasn't avoiding electrocution. We would just “take off.” It was planned and discussed for months in advance, but we would just “take off” to the same place every yearâthe Smokies. The Valhalla of tourism. Yes, that special land of dreams 300 miles due south on the Dixie Highway. Don't you love that name, the Dixie Highway? It just sounds like the road to heaven, doesn't it? Sweet jubilation chilluns, we done got on da Dixie Highway. I should mention the Dixie Highway was pre-interstate. It was also pre-restaurants, gas stations, and rest stopsâjust one tiny burg after another, like an endless stream of stop signs and yard sales. But still, we were on our way to the Smokies! Gatlinburg!
The
home of tiny motels and cheap food and “beautiful vistas of mountain peaks and verdant valleys” that all looked exactly alike!

Now, my father's main goal in life on every vacation was to
make good time.
It was all about beating the previous year's record of pushing the Chevy Bel-Air toward Mountain Mecca. Hurry up and whiz and get back out here. We're behind on last year's good time. Good time meant that you hunkered down. We never actually did the “coffee can” pit stops, but only because Mom flat refused. So it was Dad driving, Mom in shotgun, and me clinging to the back of their seat perched on the hump that ran through the car floor. Our first objective was to make it to Renfro Valley, Kentucky, in time for breakfast. One hundred and thirty miles of back-rattling road that meant we left at Dad's usual “gettin' up” timeâfour in the morning. We rolled into Renfro like conquering heroes and had the same annual meal around 8
A.M
.âcountry ham, biscuits, and red-eye gravy. My father raved about how wonderful it all was. For those of you who don't know, country ham contains in one serving all the sodium you'll ever need for your entire life. The biscuits were usually lukewarm, and the butter, for some perverse reason, was kept on ice in little dishes. It's important to make sure the butter is like a tiny yellow brick in Renfro Valley. To this day, I have
no
idea what makes gravy “red-eye” other than that most of the people in the restaurant had 'emâI imagine from “making good time.”

Because we always left on Monday, I will assume it began on a Monday in the summer of 1958. Dad turned on the radio. I saw his eyes light up as he lit up his fifteenth Winston of the morning. Here is how it all started:

Smoke was coming out of his mouth as he exclaimed without turning his head to me, “Hoss,
that
there is the greatest song and the greatest singer
ever!
”

Whereupon Mom chimed in, “Honey, that's Hank Snow.” She sorta glanced back. “Your dad
loves
Hank Snow.” I wasn't sure if she was in the fan club or not, but it was started now. I could feel it begin to tickle the back of my lizard brain. Something was happening (not as much as puberty that would later rock my world), but I was making a decision! And before I could stop myself, I blurted out the words, “Dad, turn that
down!
”

It was country music. It was the Singing Ranger and his huge smash “I'm Movin' On.”

(Not to be confused with the Rascal Flatts song “I'm Movin' On,” to which I would also have a connection years later.)

At this age, I was vaguely aware of Elvis and a few other songs, but this was definitely
not
anything I wanted played near me. The Hankster had a certain vocal quality that would make any goose proud. He had a bleating honk so pronounced that flocks of his fellow vocalists would follow the car if you turned the radio up loud enough. This was
not
for my ten-year-old taste. Homer House loved it. I did not.

I should explain my three musical influences up to this point.

First: Church.
I played the piano every Sunday at the Banklick Christian Church, starting when I was seven and had to sit on a phone book. Across the aisle was Lily Mae Scott, a large-boned woman who wrestled with some contraption called a pump organ. She worked the pumps with her feet and forced air through the tortured instrument 'til the choir could kick in and really nail “Bringing in the Sheaves.” With Lily Mae pumping away like Lance Armstrong and me struggling to remember what the dots on the music meant, we were a force to be reckoned with. I'm certain it sounded like a train wreck, but nobody seemed to complain. The choir was usually about half a verse behind us.

Second: Pleasure Isle.
Pleasure Isle was neither a pleasure nor an isle. It was a massive concrete swamp that measured 100 yards long and 175 yards wide. The water was pumped right out of the creek beside it and was purified by the Iranian owner riding around in a motorboat pulling a bag of chlorine. In the '50s in northern Kentucky, it was the Riviera.
The
place to be. My mom and all the moms and kids went there every day. Now, remember, this was before they invented skin cancer, so we all slathered on baby oil and iodine and roasted in the summer sun 'til we looked like minstrels. Pleasure Isle had a jukebox that blared the same twenty-five songs over and over through the worst speaker system in America. Those songs are seared in my brain with a musical branding iron. Elvis. The Everly Brothers. “Volare.” Ricky Nelson and something called “The Purple People Eater.” I still
hate
that damn ditty.

Third: Mrs. Riggs.
My third musical influence was my piano teacher. I don't remember exactly when I started lessons. I've blocked it from my memory like abductees and people married to Madonna do. All I remember is I could never play my weekly assignment to her satisfaction. Mrs. Riggs was an imposing woman. She dressed in Early Librarian in a house that always smelled like mothballs. With her glasses on the end of her nose, she endured my keyboard technique and clucked signals of disapproval. I still haven't recovered from those sweat-filled afternoons. Grunt, hmmph, tsk, tsk, tsk. “Young man, did you even open your lesson book?”

Looking back, I'm certain Mrs. Riggs trained with the SS and had barely escaped through Poland to hide out in Covington, Kentucky, disguised as a piano teacher. To this day, I can barely read sheet music. The dots are connected to Mozart somehow, but it “don't come easy,” as they say. All I remember was the “Eyetalian” musical word for slow was
lento.
I swear she said
lento
a lot when she talked about me to my parents.

Thusly formed, I decided that Country & Western music, Ã la Hank Snow, was not to be my musical preference. It didn't speak to me. I didn't “dig” it. It damaged me. My drain was bamaged.

Today? I love to hear a good Hank Snow record. If I do, I'm back to being a little peezer in the backseat of an old Chevy “making good time” with Mom and Dad on the way to the glorious Smokies.

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