Tag Archives: Grand Ole Opry

Loretta Lynn

By Ed Reynolds

Loretta Lynn has always cherished her role as a rebel in the country music industry. In perhaps the oddest collaboration in Nashville’s storied history, Lynn’s newest release, Van Lear Rose, was produced by rocker Jack White of The White Stripes (the band dedicated its third album, White Blood Cells, to Lynn, and White has called her the greatest female singer/songwriter of the 20th century). The result is the most gloriously unrefined recording of Lynn’s long career. White’s signature guitar is evident throughout the CD, especially his red-hot slide work. He even joins Lynn at the microphone on “Portland, Oregon,” a charming duet about a drunken one-night stand, an endearing track since White is 28 while Lynn is 70 years old.

An afternoon telephone conversation with Lynn that took place before her new album was recorded reveals a woman completely unaffected by notoriety. Lynn sounds as though she were still a Butcher Holler farm girl, speaking in a rural dialect that contradicts her stardom. The singer doesn’t pull any punches. Hit her once and she’ll hit back twice. Her husband Doolittle’s (Doo) philandering and chronic alcoholism provoked more than a few violent episodes during their 48-year marriage. She knocked two of his front teeth out one night, pleased as she could be that his cheating was put to rest until he could get new teeth. Their marriage is tumultuously detailed in her second autobiography Still Woman Enough, an entertaining but brutally honest account of Lynn’s life as one of America’s greatest country music performers.

. . . Lynn told Sinatra it was the worst song she’d ever heard and suggested they sing “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.” Sinatra told her when she had her own television show she could sing whatever she wanted.

Lynn literally defines country. The names of her children read like a hillbilly sitcom: Betty Sue, Ernest Ray, Patsy, Cissie, and Jack Benny. Married at age 13 in Kentucky coal-mining country, Lynn and her husband moved to Washington State a year later so Doo could pan for gold and Loretta could pick strawberries. Though noting there were anecdotes in her autobiography that she couldn’t have written if her husband were still alive, Lynn is unwavering in her devotion to the man directly responsible for her success. Doo convinced Loretta to sing in Northwest honky tonks despite her severe stage fright. Lynn began to build a following in Canada but noticed that her most loyal fans were suddenly absent for a couple of months. When she finally confronted them about where they’d been, they explained that they had given up Loretta for Lent. The singer said the only “Lent” she was familiar with was the kind that gets on your clothes. Doo later chauffeured her on a blitz tour of radio stations around the country to convince disc jockeys to play her first single “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” And it was her husband who got her on the Grand Ole Opry after her first record entered the charts. She was invited to sing on the Opry for the next 17 weeks, receiving $18 per night (with three additional bucks if she sang an extra song).

Being an Opry star didn’t change Lynn much. She continued to slaughter her barnyard chickens for dinner and shop for material at the Salvation Army thrift store to make her own stage outfits. She was once chastised by a ranking Opry official who saw her coming out of the store. He told her it “cast a bad light on the Opry when local folks saw the show’s singers acting like poor people.” She didn’t know how to use a credit card until Conway Twitty instructed her in the late 1970s.

Influenced by nothing more than Saturday night Grand Ole Opry broadcasts and her delight in rhyming words with siblings as a child, Lynn displayed a remarkable ability for writing songs. “Doo got me a book that showed how you wrote ‘em. It was called Country Roundup, I think. I just looked at the songs and I said, ‘Anybody can do this.’ The first spanking Doo ever give me was because I rhymed a word. And it rhymed with door—you know what it was—and I didn’t know what it meant. It was raining and cold and he let the door open and I said, ‘Shut the door you little. . . .’ And I got a whippin’ for that—and he’d promised Daddy he’d never put a hand on me. And that was the next day after he’d married me. He throwed me over his knee and busted my butt.”

In 1963, the singer was asked by her childhood idol Ernest Tubb to record a series of duets. “I never dreamed I’d ever sing with him, ’cause when Daddy had that little radio, we’d listen to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night and the news, ’cause the war was goin’ on. But I’d start to cry when Ernest Tubb started to sing. And Mama would say, ‘I’m gonna turn the radio off if you don’t quit cryin’.’” Tubb was instrumental in establishing Lynn as a country institution. “When I come to Nashville, MCA Records, which was Decca at the time, they asked Ernest to record with a girl. And he said he wanted to record with me. He did so much for me. The last time I sang with him, it was like standin’ up by a big monument. I even went to Billy Bob’s [famed Fort Worth bar, the largest honky-tonk in the world] and did a show for him to buy medicine with, ’cause he had run out of money. He helped everybody in Nashville, but no one would go help him.”

But it was her series of duets with Conway Twitty that placed Lynn on the same “classic duo” pedestal occupied by George Jones and Tammy Wynette. “Yeah, I loved Conway. He was like a brother, and he would give me advice. If he thought I wasn’t doing things right, he’d tell me, ‘This is how you do it,’ and I’d say, ‘No, that’s how you do it. This is how I’d do it,’” she laughs. Their string of soap-opera-style hits included “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly,” and “Backstreet Affair.” In a strange twist of fate, Conway Twitty unexpectedly died with Lynn at his bedside in a Missouri hospital in 1991 after Twitty was overcome with a stomach aneurysm while touring the Midwest. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, where Lynn happened to be waiting as Doo recovered from open-heart surgery. She thought that Twitty had decided to drop by to visit her husband. “I watched Conway’s bus come off the exit. I run downstairs to let him know what room Doo was in, and they come draggin’ him in. Blood’s comin’ out of his mouth and his eyes was tryin’ to focus on me and he couldn’t. I almost fell out right there. The chaplain came in and told me that Conway would not live through the night, so he told me if I wanted to see him I should go on back there. I went in his room and patted him on the arm and said, ‘Conway, you love to sing, honey, don’t you leave me.’”

Staunchly defiant, Lynn was a fly in the conservative ointment of the Nashville music industry. She was the first to write and sing about women’s issues. “The Pill” was the first of several of her songs to be banned, but Lynn was smart enough to recognize a marketing opportunity as women flocked to her side. “It’s all because I’d get down and talk to the women. All of ‘em were taking the pill and they weren’t wearin’ bras [pronounced 'braws']. Everybody was taking the pill, why not talk about it. Everybody was havin’ kids just like I was, why not say, ‘One’s on the way.’ I couldn’t understand why the public was worried about my songs. And when ‘Rated X’ come out, just the title of it, they started banning the record. And they didn’t listen to it. It was about a divorced woman. Nothin’ in it was bad. When ‘Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin” come out, the big 50-watt [sic] station in Chicago didn’t play it, ’cause they thought it was dirty. It went number one, they started playin’ it.”
Loretta Lynn’s music was a stark contrast to Tammy Wynette’s songs that advised women to stick with their man, regardless. Ironically, Wynette went through five husbands, while Lynn’s only husband was Doo. “Tammy Wynette was outspoken about standing by her man, and I’d done hit mine over the head with a rollin’ pin,” Lynn laughs. “Tammy said, ‘I’d be afraid to sing that, afraid they wouldn’t play my record.’ But it didn’t hurt me. They’d ban ‘em and they’d go number one.” Lynn took Wynette under her wing when she arrived in Nashville, just as Patsy Cline had done for her when Lynn first moved to town as an unknown. “Oh, Tammy was my best girlfriend. First girlfriend I had, except Patsy. I never did get that close to all the artists. All of ‘em have their own way of doin’ things, and I think they kinda stayed away from me because of the songs I wrote. They shoulda liked ‘em, they might’ve rubbed off on ‘em. They could’ve wrote their own.”

Lynn also didn’t think twice about crossing racial divides. “When Charlie Pride won Singer of the Year, I was the one that was supposed to give the award. So they said, ‘Loretta, if Charlie wins, step back one foot and don’t touch him.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearin’ ’cause I’d been livin’ on the West Coast for 13 or 14 years,” Lynn remembers, still appalled. “Charlie is just another singer to me. When it comes to color, I’m colorblind, ’cause I’m part Cherokee. So when Charlie won, I stepped up and hugged him and kissed him. They got a little upset about it. I thought, ‘Well, Charlie shouldn’t even sing for ‘em if that’s the way they feel about him.’”

One of her champions in Nashville was the Carter Family, who at one time asked her to join the group. Lynn refused because she felt she couldn’t sing their harmonies properly. She remembers trying to get a sulking Johnny Cash on stage. “Poor little ol’ Johnny. They couldn’t get him out on stage. Johnny Cash has always been good to me. He was the first one that took me out of Nashville on a tour. Him and the Carter Family, we went to Toronto and Ontario [sic]. He was not having too good a night. Mother Maybelle, June . . . they were all mad at him. I said, ‘Come on, baby, it’s time for you to go on.’ He jerked his coat down and there was a bottle of pills—a hundred-aspirin bottle of pills, but it wasn’t aspirin. I didn’t know what they was ’cause I’d never seen a diet pill in my life. And they went all over the floor and they was all different colors. And Johnny said, ‘Don’t leave any,’ and I sat down on that floor and picked up every pill and put them back.”

Refusing to sway from her convictions, Loretta Lynn has remained her own woman. Her forthright honesty provoked a showdown with Frank Sinatra, who invited Lynn to duet on what had been his first hit, “All or Nothing at All.” She told Sinatra it was the worst song she’d ever heard and suggested they sing “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.” Sinatra told her when she had her own television show she could sing whatever she wanted.

Her simple approach to life and refusal to bow to showbiz expectations also left a lasting impression on Dean Martin. Martin had been so taken with the Carter Family’s performance on his show that he asked them to recommend another Nashville artist. They suggested Lynn, who refused to sit in Martin’s lap, as was customary when he sang duets with female performers. Instead of being offended, Martin decided her spunk was the perfect ingredient to spice up the “Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roast” show featuring Jack Lemmon. Lynn picks up the story in her autobiography: “Well, I’d never heard of a ‘roast.’ I thought Dean Martin was inviting me to dinner with his Hollywood friends. So I dressed up real nice. They made a special dress for me out of material flown from Paris, France. I couldn’t understand why they wanted me to eat in that fancy dress. They made me read from a Teleprompter and I told Dean I was scared to death and didn’t read so good. But I didn’t have a choice. I was stuck. Making me feel worse, I started in saying the most awful things about Jack Lemmon. I didn’t know they was jokes. So each time I said something, I turned to Jack and said, ‘I didn’t mean that, honey. I don’t even know you. I’m just saying what’s on that there card.’” &

Loretta Lynn performs at the Blockbuster stage on Sunday, June 20, from 8:40 p.m. to 9:55 p.m.

Editor’s note: After this issue went to press, Loretta Lynn cancelled her tour due to back problems. She will not appear at this year’s City Stages.

Wax Country Music Stars Face Homelessness

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2004-05-06 Culture

Wax Country Music Stars Face Homelessness

Someone in Nashville is moving a ton of wax, and they’re not selling records.

By Ed Reynolds

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“Nobody’s ever tried that in their life, to sell a whole wax museum!” laughs John A. Hobbs, his booming Southern drawl reminiscent of Looney Tunes rooster Foghorn Leghorn. Hobbs currently has his entire 55-figure Music Valley country music star wax museum in Nashville up for auction on eBay. He’s asking $750,000, but will settle for $450,000. The current leading bid is $200,000 as of press time. The auction ends May 7, after which Hobbs will consider options to sell the stars individually. “We were trying to sell the whole family at one time, to keep the family together. But if we have to, we’ll deal them one at a time. Some of the stars wanted to buy their own, some of the managers of the stars wanted one . . . [television comedy host] Jimmy Kimmel wanted to buy Minnie Pearl.” Hobbs says that the individual figures should fetch $3,000 to $15,000 each.Music Valley Wax Museum, the last wax museum in Nashville, will shut its doors for good on July 31. The city’s original wax museum, The Country Music Wax Museum, closed in 1997 after 26 years. “We had a big tourist attraction back then, but now we’re changing our whole look in Nashville,” grumbles Hobbs. “It’s not that much toward country music, it’s more toward conventions and football. And they put country music on the backburner. The other museum closed up ’bout several years ago. This ‘un done pretty good [Music Valley] but the land’s too valuable to leave a museum on it.”




Wax likenesses of country music artists Minnie Pearl and Alan Jackson. (click for larger version)

Hobbs also owns the Nashville Palace, a swanky nightclub where real live country music legends, as opposed to wax figures, can be spotted almost nightly. Many of the young stars got their start there, according to Hobbs. “Randy Travis washed dishes for four years; Lorrie Morgan worked there at age 16. Alan Jackson sang there for free. Vic Damone and the Smothers Brothers worked there. George Jones used to be there nightly, where he’d often hop on stage,” laughs Hobbs. “I’ve seen George at his worst and at his best. I’ve seen George when we wouldn’t let him go on stage!”

Most of the museum’s figures were made in California by wax artist Rio Rita, who created the replicas of film stars in the Hollywood Wax Museum. Hobbs sent Rio Rita four photos of each country star’s face, including a facial front shot, two profiles, and an angular shot combining face and profile. Each figure is garishly displayed in shiny, waxy living color on the eBay web site, with “Dueling Banjos,” the theme song to Deliverance, casting a surreal pall over the macabre auction. The stage outfit worn by the Ernest Tubb mannequin is the same one he wore throughout his career, as is the flowing gown adorning Loretta Lynn. Lynn’s figure also includes a plate used in her famous Crisco commercials. The Chet Atkins figure includes one of his original guitars, while Buck Owens is wearing the actual hillbilly overalls and straw hat that he sported on the “Hee Haw” set. The cornfield where the buxom “Hee Haw” babes popped up to shake their breasts and deliver ridiculous one-liners is also included. While a few figures resemble their breathing—or once-breathing—counterparts, most require an observer to use some imagination. Willie Nelson looks more like hobo singer Box Car Willie, who in turn looks like NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Roy Acuff favors crooner Andy Williams, while Minnie Pearl is a dead ringer for the puppet Madame from the “Waylon and Madame” ventriloquist act.

“Marty Robbins liked his wax figure so well he used to come down there ’bout once a month, and he’d bring a beautician and get her to comb his hair.”

Hobbs’ personal favorite is one of the newer figures, country singer Alan Jackson. “Alan looks like he could just walk right up and talk to you. Marty Robbins liked his so well he used to come down there ’bout once a month, and he’d bring a beautician and get her to comb his hair and everthang . . . Ernest Tubb wouldn’t even look at his figure,” remembers Hobbs. “He’d say, ‘My God, I’d think I was dead. I don’t want to go and look at that damn thang.’” &

The web site address for the Music Valley Country Music Star wax museum auction is: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15825&item=2393694283&rd=1

The Set List — Hank Williams, Jr., .R.E.M., and others.

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2003-09-11 Music

The Set List

By J.R. Taylor, Ed Reynolds




	Hank Williams, Jr.

Hank Williams, Jr.
Though he first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry at age 11, performing his late father’s tunes, Hank Williams, Jr., later chose to rebel against the expectations heaped upon him as the son of the greatest country music singer of all time by cranking up the electric guitars and extolling the virtues of smoking pot while sipping Jim Beam. Never mind that his dad had been shooting up morphine long before Hank, Jr., puffed his first joint. Maybe the real reason he chose to rebel was that his father nicknamed him Bocephus, after a dummy used by a Grand Ole Opry ventriloquist. Regardless, Hank, Sr.’s devout legions didn’t quite know what to make of Junior’s version of a hillbilly, but his undying allegiance to the Confederate flag had them in his corner in no time. Originally viewed as an embarrassment by hardcore country fans, Williams Jr.’s, crass songs were merely caricatures of the plaintive, stark beauty of country music. For the past decade, however, he’s been more or less a saving grace in a world where Shania Twain and Tim McGraw are revered more than Loretta Lynn and George Jones, though he’ll never live down those jingles that promote “Monday Night Football.” (Saturday, September 13, at Oak Mountain Amphitheater, 7:20 p.m.; $10-$39.75. R.S.) —Ed Reynolds

Jay Farrar
It’s been hard times for those who prefer Son Volt to the suddenly-sanctified Wilco. Jay Farrar didn’t even rate a mention in the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (despite his long history with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy in Uncle Tupelo), and then Farrar’s first post-Son Volt project got swamped in the wake of Wilco’s lousy Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Fortunately, this bought Farrar the time to record ThirdShiftGrottoSlack, an EP on which he finally ditched Americana and started exploring his avant leanings. Now, all of his visions have come together with Terroir Blues, a 23-track collection of gorgeous, quiet compositions augmented by noisy interludes and assorted reprises. Neil Young couldn’t have come up with a better mix of ambitious indulgence and genuine talent. The critics, naturally, aren’t pleased. Farrar probably couldn’t be happier. (Wednesday, September 17, at WorkPlay, 10 p.m. $20.) —J.R. Taylor

Hayseed Dixie/The Kerosene Brothers
Or Bill Dana opening for Jose Jimenez. Hayseed Dixie has been more successful than they could have hoped by playing bluegrass covers of AC/DC and Kiss. Now it’s time for the Kerosene Brothers to tour on Hayseed’s coattails—and those are mighty short coattails since The Kerosene Brothers are Hayseed Dixie in their purest form, before an indulgent side-project kinda took over their careers. Choose Your Own Title shows the Kerosene Brothers bringing that Hayseed energy to their own fun originals, with no hint of any deep insight having been buried by their successful alter-egos. It’s simply one good joke after another, and it’s not their fault if the joke has become more believable than most acts’ sincerity. (Wednesday, September 24, at The Nick.) —J.R.T.

R.E.M./Sparklehorse
They should be calling it the “Sorry About the ’90s” Tour since Michael Stipe can no longer tell the executives at his record label that questions about sales performance are “mean-spirited.” There have even been rumors of advance money being handed back, although that remains unconfirmed.




	R.E.M.

Let’s concede that some people out there are looking forward to buying R.E.M.’s recent best-of compilation, even after hearing the crappy new single. Meanwhile, the vast majority of fans haven’t really cared about anything R.E.M. has recorded since 1992. The fans haven’t missed a thing, either. Pete Buck still drinks and plays too much, Mike Mills remains the only talented member, and none of them know how to produce a rock album. The Michael Stipe co-produced American Movie, however, was a pretty cool film.

Sparklehorse, incidentally, is an R.E.M. tribute band, in that leader Mark Linkous’ rote sound collages—occasionally containing a good melody—are a tribute to how so many lame art-rockers have been able to limp along thanks to R.E.M.’s support over the years. Thankfully, that’s pretty much over, too. (Wednesday, September 24, at Oak Mountain Amphitheatre, 7:30 p.m. $15-$60 R.S.) —J.R.T.

The Polyphonic Spree/Starlight Mints/Corn Mo
Redefining both cult-rock and the cult of Mitch Miller, Tim Delaughter’s (former singer for Tripping Daisy) traveling band of white-robed glee clubbers sounds like an honest big deal on Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree. They also do a fine job of burying the lame Sunshine Pop scene that came skipping out of the 1960s. Unlike their hippie forebears, this 24-piece ensemble plays off orchestral arrangements and fun synth touches to create truly entertaining pop masterpieces.




	Corn Mo

There’s also the occasional artistic misfire. But the only real problem is that nobody seems to remember how to actually produce a record by a big choral group nowadays. You have to see the band live to appreciate some of the delicate touches that are wiped away in the album’s traditionalist rock mix.

Starlight Mints are a proudly trippy act in their own right, getting past their dull power-pop roots and now indulging in a lot of privileged quirkiness on Built for Squares. And it’s left to Corn Mo to represent the Great Spirit in his role as the Heavy Metal/Prog-Rockin’ God of the Accordion. (See feature, this issue.) (Thursday, September 25, at WorkPlay, 8 p.m. $15) —J.R.T.

Caitlin Cary/Mimi Holland
College begins, and this former Whiskeytown girl stays on the road, and that’s pretty good news for fans of both country-pop and spoken word. There’s simply no live act that better captures the simple charm of a witty Southern gal—except maybe Rufus Wainwright. And the band plays up the jangle-pop subtext that makes I’m Staying Out such an impressive recovery from Cary’s lousy debut album. (Cary only, Friday, September 12, at Laser’s Edge CDs, 5:30 p.m. Free admission; Cary and Holland, Friday, September 12, at WorkPlay, 9 p.m. $15.) —J.R.T.

Blue Rodeo
Remember how stupid those Brits looked battling it out between Oasis and Blur? Canadians were reduced to taking sides between Blue Rodeo and The Tragically Hip—two interesting, brooding bands that each took their time compiling an album’s worth of decent live material. Blue Rodeo gets some bonus points for being a lot more Canadian, though, slowly compiling an epic farmland rock opera. In the process, they managed a few masterpieces and a lot of pleasant minor tunes. They’re still a big deal back home, but it’s always enjoyable to see Blue Rodeo working small clubs and pulling out greatest hits for an audience that’s never heard of them. (Friday, September 12, at The Nick.) —J.R.T.

Leon Redbone
It’s funny how quickly Leon Redbone has been forgotten in the midst of the continual O’ Brother mania, despite his having a long-standing set list that could’ve passed for a rough version of the film’s soundtrack. He’s certainly contributed to his own low profile, too. A night at the local public library seems like a step up from touring kiddie shows, but at least it’s one less tax dollar being spent on a professional storyteller. And though his Panama Jack routine was thoroughly tired by the ’80s, he’s spent his old age priming himself as a blues guitar god capable of replicating lost artists. Redbone’s death will be like losing Tiny Tim, taking a good section of the Great American Songbook with him. (Friday and Saturday, September 12 and 13, at the Hoover Public Library, 8 p.m. $15.) —J.R.T. &

To Hell with the Grand Ole Opry

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To Hell with the Grand Ole Opry

A visit to a Montgomery memorial for Hank Williams, Sr., yields an encounter with the guitarist who backed Williams in the 1940s.

By Ed Reynolds

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“Well, Hank, we hope you’re gonna be around with us for a long, long time,” quipped singer Red Foley as he introduced Hank Williams at the Grand Ole Opry in 1949. “Well, it looks like I’ll be doing just that, Red,” replied the singer with weary confidence. Three years later the Opry grew tired of Williams’ unpredictable no-shows and drunken performances, so they fired him. Within a year his lifeless, 29-year-old, morphine-addicted body was discovered in the backseat of his baby blue Cadillac by Charles Carr, who was driving Williams to a New Year’s Day show in Canton, Ohio.

Fifty years after Williams’ death, Carr stands beside the singer’s big, gaudy tombstone in a Montgomery, Alabama, cemetery on a cold, windy New Year’s Day. The former chauffeur autographs miniature replicas of the Cadillac, lending an eerie touch of the commercial as a hundred fans gather to commemorate the anniversary of Williams’ passing. Carr recalls that fateful trip, his first driving Williams out of state to a show. “I was home for Christmas holidays. My dad and Hank’s dad were friends-that’s how I got the job. I can’t tell you much about Hank’s life, but I’m an expert on his death ’cause I was the only person there.” He dismisses rumors that Williams died of a drug overdose: “Falstaff and a half-pint of liquor were the only things involved.” Next to Williams’ grave stands the equally ostentatious tomb of first wife Audrey. Red roses adorn Hank’s grave, yellow grace Audrey’s. Between the two lies a small marble slab erected by Williams, Jr., after recent vandalism of the family plot. It reads: Please do not desecrate this sacred site.

A couple of miles from the cemetery the gathering reconvenes at the Hank Williams Museum, a morbid shrine that features Williams’ legendary Cadillac and the clothes he was wearing when he died. The automobile is on loan from Hank Williams, Jr., who drove it around Nashville during his high school years (Dolly Parton reportedly offered Williams, Jr., $100,000 a year to exhibit the automobile in Dollywood, but he lets the museum display it at no charge.) Country Music Television’s new documentary about Williams, portraying him as a drunkard and a junkie, is screened at the museum. Those close to Williams are not pleased with the film. Jimmy Porter, Hank’s original pedal-steel guitarist, registers his disgust. “Why do they have to paint the dark side? Is that where the money is? I never saw Hank ever take a drink.”

Two nights later, one-time Opry star Stonewall Jackson (a direct descendent of the Confederate general) plays the Guest House Hotel in Montgomery to conclude three days of Williams tributes. Only 30 or so fans bother to attend. Jackson spends more time talking than singing as he recalls starting at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 “when I was too broke to pay attention.” The beefy singer has seen his Opry appearances dwindle to very few, and he doesn’t hesitate to voice displeasure. “If I owned the Opry, I’d start firing people,” he mumbles. He reflects on Williams’ influence in his life. “If it hadn’t been for him, I’d still be in south Georgia somewhere, pickin’ cotton. Hank was more of a poet to me than anything else.” Backing up Jackson is Williams’ main pedal-steel guitarist, Don Helms (1943 to 1953). At one point, Jackson turns to Helms and says, “I wish we had some of those pills with a smiley face on it. I think George Morgan [the Opry star who had a hit with 'Candy Kisses' and father of current Opry member Lorrie Morgan] always had some of those.”

Don Helms’ regular gig for the past decade has been playing pedal-steel guitar for Williams’ long-lost daughter Jett, who had to fight Hank Williams, Jr., for her share of the Williams’ fortune after discovering who her father was in the early 1990s. Helms was asked to play the Opry with Jett on the same Friday night he usually works with Stonewall Jackson. He skipped the Opry to be part of Williams’ 50th anniversary tribute in Montgomery. The 75-year-old Helms sits down on a plush couch in the Guest House lobby late that evening after his set with Jackson to reflect on his decade working with the greatest country music performer of all time.

B&W: So are you going to be in trouble for not playing with Jett tonight at the Grand Ole Opry?

Don Helms: I didn’t know she was going to play until the past week. When I worked with Jett last, which was a couple of weeks ago, we said good-byes and we were off till February. So I told Cecil (Jackson, head of the Hank Williams Museum) I’d come down here. I said, “I’ve celebrated the observance of Hank Williams’ funeral for 49 years in some other city. I’ve always been somewhere else. And this is the 50th anniversary, and I want to come to Montgomery.” I said I’d pay my own expenses and I’d come down there and if you’ve got anything you would like for me to do or be a part of, you have it lined up when I get there.

B&W: Jett does a lot of her dad’s music, doesn’t she?

Helms: Yeah, but she won’t sing “Cold Cold Heart” ’cause that was Hank’s favorite. She, being a woman, I have to play every one of Hank’s songs in a different key than he did-(Suddenly Stonewall Jackson walks by on his way to his hotel room.) Stonewall, I enjoyed it, brother. It was good to see you again. (Helms turns to me and grins.) I always used to call him “Gallstone.”

B&W: I wanted to ask you about a song Hank did called “No, No Joe.”

Helms: He didn’t record that in Nashville, and I didn’t record it with him. But what the song was about was Joseph Stalin, the Russian leader. I don’t even remember what the problem was, but it was some kind of political thing he was trying to do. He was trying to shaft the United States and this song was written about that. I’ve never played it far as I know, ’cause it’s not something he featured on stage. And, too, when the political problem was over, it was out of touch anyway. All those situations. Once the problem’s solved, you ain’t got no need to play it (laughs).”

B&W: Was Hank political at all?

Helms: No, I mean, like we all gripe about elections, and if your man don’t win, you bitch . . . I mean gripe (laughing). . . . An entertainer is a fool to declare in public his preference in religion or his politics. Because the first thing you do, whether you mean to or not, is divide your audience right down the middle, at best.

B&W: Was the Opry a fun place to play in the old days?

Helms: Well, there was always some kind of bull goin’ on, some guy tellin’ jokes, playin’ tricks. It was just a fun place to be. . . . It was a happy place to be. It’s not quite like that anymore. It’s a little more subdued. The camaraderie’s shot to hell. I don’t think anybody has any fun at the Grand Ole Opry anymore. Maybe the audience does. And I don’t work there anymore, so I can say what I please.

B&W: When I watch old Opry clips, I’m always drawn to the interaction between Hank and June Carter. Anything special about their duets that you recall?

Helms: June Carter was that way with everybody. She was just a vibrant, silly little girl that everybody loved. She wasn’t necessarily that way in person, but on the stage she would come across as the lovable little girl with pigtails that could kick her shoes off and make you laugh. There was a certain magnetism . . . Hank was much more attracted to Anita Carter than he was June. So was I. . . . We worked a lot of tours with the Carter Family when they first came to the Opry.

B&W: What did Hank think about people like Tony Bennett making pop versions of his songs?

Helms: He thought that was the greatest thing in the world, for anybody to do his songs. He aspired to be a writer, not a singer. Even up to his death, he would rather listen to somebody else’s record of his song than he would his own record. He aspired to be a writer . . . and I think he made it. &

Just Like a Woman

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Just Like a Woman

By Ed Reynolds

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	Loretta Lynn is coming to Birmingham to sign copies of her new autobiography, Still Woman Enough, an entertaining but brutally honest account of Lynn’s life as one of America’s greatest country music performers.

An afternoon telephone conversation with country legend Loretta Lynn reveals a woman completely unaffected by notoriety. Lynn sounds as though she were still a Butcher Holler farm girl, speaking in a rural dialect that contradicts her stardom. The singer doesn’t pull any punches. Hit her once and she’ll hit back twice. Her husband Doolittle’s (Doo) philandering and chronic alcoholism provoked more than a few violent episodes during their 48-year marriage. She knocked two of his front teeth out one night, pleased as she could be that his cheating was put to rest until he could get new teeth. Their marriage is tumultuously detailed in her second autobiography Still Woman Enough, an entertaining but brutally honest account of Lynn’s fascinating life as one of America’s greatest country music performers.

Loretta Lynn literally defines country. The names of her children read like a hillbilly sitcom: Betty Sue, Ernest Ray, Patsy, Cissie, Jack Benny. Married at age 13 in Kentucky coal-mining country, Lynn and her husband moved to Washington State a year later so Doo could pan for gold and Loretta could pick strawberries. Though noting that there were anecdotes in her autobiography that she couldn’t have written if her husband were still alive, Lynn is unwavering in her devotion to the man directly responsible for her success. Doo convinced Loretta to sing in Northwest honky tonks despite her severe stage fright. Lynn began to build a following in Canada but noticed that her most loyal fans were suddenly absent for a couple of months. When she finally confronted them about where they’d been, they explained that they had given up Loretta for Lent. The singer said the only “Lent” she was familiar with was the kind that gets on your clothes. Doo later chauffeured her on a blitz tour of radio stations around the country to convince disc jockeys to play her first single “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” And it was her husband who got her on the Grand Ole Opry after her first record entered the charts, by convincing Opry officials to let his wife audition. She was invited to sing on the Opry for the next 17 weeks, receiving $18 per night (with three additional bucks if she sang an extra song).

Influenced by nothing more than Saturday night Grand Ole Opry broadcasts and her delight in rhyming words with siblings as a child, Lynn displayed a remarkable ability for writing songs. “Doo got me a book that showed how you wrote ‘em. It was called Country Roundup, I think. I just looked at the songs and I said, ‘Anybody can do this.’ The first spanking Doo ever give me was because I rhymed a word. And it rhymed with door — you know what it was — and I didn’t know what it meant. It was raining and cold and he let the door open and I said, ‘Shut the door you little. . . .’ And I got a whippin’ for that. And he’d promised Daddy he’d never put a hand on me. And that was the next day after he’d married me. He throwed me over his knee and busted my butt.”

In 1963, the singer was asked by childhood idol Ernest Tubb to record a series of duets. “I never dreamed I’d ever sing with him, ’cause when Daddy had that little radio, we’d listen to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night and the news, ’cause the war was goin’ on. But I’d start to cry when Ernest Tubb started to sing. And Mama would say, ‘I’m gonna turn the radio off if you don’t quit cryin.’” Tubb was instrumental in establishing Lynn as a country institution. “When I come to Nashville, MCA Records, which was Decca at the time, they asked Ernest to record with a girl. And he said he wanted to record with me. He did so much for me. The last time I sang with him, it was like standin’ up by a big monument. I even went to Billy Bob’s [famed Fort Worth bar, the largest honky tonk in the world] and did a show for him to buy medicine with, ’cause he had run out of money. He helped everybody in Nashville but no one would go help him.”

But it was her series of duets with Conway Twitty that placed Lynn on the same “classic duo” pedestal occupied by George Jones and Tammy Wynette. “Yeah, I loved Conway. He was like a brother, and he would give me advice. If he thought I wasn’t doing things right, he’d tell me, ‘This is how you do it,’ and I’d say, ‘No, that’s how you do it. This is how I’d do it,’” she laughs. Their string of soap-opera-style hits included “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly,” and “Backstreet Affair.” In a strange twist of fate, Conway Twitty unexpectedly died with Lynn at his bedside in a Missouri hospital in 1991 after Twitty was overcome with a stomach aneurysm while touring the Midwest. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, where Lynn was waiting as Doo recovered from open-heart surgery. She thought that Twitty had decided to drop by to visit her husband. “I watched Conway’s bus come off the exit. I run downstairs to let him know what room Doo was in, and they come draggin’ him in. Blood’s comin’ out of his mouth and his eyes was tryin’ to focus on me and he couldn’t. I almost fell out right there. The chaplain came in and told me that Conway would not live through the night, so he told me if I wanted to see him I should go on back there. I went in his room and patted him on the arm and said, ‘Conway, you love to sing, honey, don’t you leave me.’”

Loretta Lynn’s music was a stark contrast to Tammy Wynette’s songs about sticking with men, regardless. Ironically, Wynette went through five husbands, while Lynn’s only husband was Doo. “Tammy Wynette was outspoken about standing by her man, and I’d done hit mine over the head with a rollin’ pin,” Lynn laughs. “Tammy said, ‘I’d be afraid to sing that, afraid they wouldn’t play my record.’ But it didn’t hurt me. They’d ban ‘em and they’d go number one.” Lynn took Wynette under her wing when she arrived in Nashville, just as Patsy Cline had done for her when Lynn first moved to town as an unknown. “Oh, Tammy was my best girlfriend. First girlfriend I had, except Patsy. I never did get that close to all the artists. All of ‘em have their own way of doin’ things, and I think they kinda stayed away from me because of the songs I wrote. They shoulda liked ‘em, they might’ve rubbed off on ‘em. They could’ve wrote their own.”

One of her champions in Nashville was the Carter Family, who at one time asked her to join the group. Lynn refused because she felt she couldn’t sing their harmonies properly. She remembers trying to get a sulking Johnny Cash on stage. “Poor little ol’ Johnny. They couldn’t get him out on stage. Johnny Cash has always been good to me. He was the first one that took me out of Nashville on a tour. Him and the Carter Family, we went to Toronto and Ontario [sic]. He was not having too good a night. Mother Maybelle, June . . . they were all mad at him. I said, ‘Come on, baby, it’s time for you to go on.’ He jerked his coat down and there was a bottle of pills — a hundred-aspirin bottle of pills, but it wasn’t aspirin. I didn’t know what they was ’cause I’d never seen a diet pill in my life. And they went all over the floor and they was all different colors. And Johnny said, ‘Don’t leave any,’ and I sat down on that floor and picked up every pill and put them back.”

Her simple approach to life and refusal to bow to showbiz expectations also left a lasting impression on Dean Martin. Martin had been so taken with the Carter Family’s performance on his show that he asked them to recommend another Nashville artist. They suggested Lynn, who refused to sit in Martin’s lap, as was customary when he sang duets with female performers. Instead of being offended, Martin decided her spunk was the perfect ingredient to spice up the Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roast featuring Jack Lemmon. Lynn picks up the story in her autobiography: “Well, I’d never heard of a ‘roast.’ I thought Dean Martin was inviting me to dinner with his Hollywood friends. So I dressed up real nice. They made a special dress for me out of material flown from Paris, France. I couldn’t understand why they wanted me to eat in that fancy dress. They made me read from a Teleprompter and I told Dean I was scared to death and didn’t read so good. But I didn’t have a choice. I was stuck. Making me feel worse, I started in saying the most awful things about Jack Lemmon. I didn’t know they was jokes. So each time I said something, I turned to Jack and said, ‘I didn’t mean that, honey. I don’t even know you. I’m just saying what’s on that there card.’” &

Loretta Lynn will be signing copies of her latest autobiography Still Woman Enough at Books & Company on Tuesday, June 25, at 6 p.m. Call 870-0212 for details.

She will also be performing at Looney’s Tavern on Saturday, July 13, in Double Springs. Tickets are $17-$30 for the 7:30 p.m. show. Call 205-489-5000 for details.