Country music songwriter Bobby Braddock has written or co-written 13 no. 1 hits, including Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Braddock will be signing copies of his memoir, Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter’s Youth in Old Florida, at Alabama Booksmith on May 9.

B&W: In the 1960s, many people viewed the Nashville crowd as the heavy drinkers and the rock crowd as the drug addicts. But things weren’t as clear-cut as that, were they?

Braddock: Oh no, they weren’t. At Sony ATV, which was then Tree Publishing Company, back in the ’70s, we would regularly sit around listening to each others’ songs and, at the end of the day, smoking pot. I never got into cocaine because the speed screwed me up so bad. That left me with a lifelong fear of anything that was like an upper . . . I remember at one publishing company [in Nashville], there on a table as you got off the elevator—and this was atypical but it did happen—was a mirror with cocaine on it.

B&W: Of the hits that you co-wrote with Curly Putnam, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” who wrote the lyrics and who wrote the melody?

Braddock: Well, I almost hate to answer that question, because of the way it comes out . . . For instance, on “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” I had written the song and nobody had recorded it. And it had been around for several months. So I asked Curly Putnam, “Why isn’t anybody cutting my song?” And he said, “I think it’s sounds a little bit too happy for a sad song.” So I asked him what he would do. He said, “Well, it’s that one line at the end of the chorus, ‘I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.’” I had it happy, sorta like a detergent commercial. Just too happy sounding. So he sang this real mournful sounding thing and I said, “God, let’s get that on tape.” I took it to [producer] Billy Sherrill and he cut it right away [with Tammy Wynette].”

	Bobby Braddock (click for larger version)

B&W: Tell me about your song “Did You Ever?,” which George Jones and Tammy Wynette recorded in the 1970s.

Braddock: Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood covered that, and they did it almost exactly like the [early 1960s] Charlie Louvin and Melba Montgomery version, and it was a huge hit in the United Kingdom. I got to hang out with Paul McCartney in 1974, and the first thing he talked about was “Did You Ever?” He acted like it was a really big deal that I had written that song, and I was thinking, “Shit, man, all the songs McCartney’s written, and he’s impressed with that song.”

B&W: How did you meet McCartney?

Braddock: One of my publishing company’s attorneys was Lee Eastman, who was Linda McCartney’s father. And he told Buddy [Killen, of Tree Publishing] that Paul was wanting to come to Nashville and spend the summer. He wanted a really nice house, so they somehow convinced Curly Putnam to take a long vacation around the world with his wife. Apparently, Paul paid a lot more than somebody would normally pay someone to leave their house. Curly’s name is Claude Putnam, Jr., and Paul referred to Curly as “Junior,” and that’s what “Junior’s Farm” was about, it was about Curly’s house. Paul cut a few things in town while he was here, like “Sally G.”

B&W: In 2004 you said “George W. Bush may talk ‘country’ . . . but he’s more himself when he’s yukking it up with rich corporate types who don’t give a damn about middle-class folks.”

Braddock: Yeah, I think my foray into politics was probably a bad idea because you get branded with that partisanship. . . . But yeah, I think country music was hijacked, especially over the war issue. I have to be careful or else I get all worked up about it and say shit that I shouldn’t be saying . . . I’m on the left in some areas and on the right in others. I came away from the 2004 campaign and the main thing I got out of it more than anything else is just people yelling at each other. I do blame Bush for a lot of that. But I don’t have a problem with Republicans; there are a lot of Republicans that I really respect. I just hate the polarization—red state, blue state. Everybody getting mad. It’s crazy.

Braddock, at far left, in one of the many bands he played in prior to his career as a Nashville songwriter. (click for larger version)

 

B&W: Don Helms, Hank Williams, Sr.’s steel guitar player, once told me that Williams believed that a performer shouldn’t talk about religion and politics, because the performer is in danger of losing half his audience.

Braddock: Marty Robbins [who gave Braddock his first piano-playing job in Robbins' band] used to get on stage and talk about Barry Goldwater. Back then, a lot of blue-collar, working-class country music fans were staunch Democrats. Marty didn’t care. There was a time in country music that people would take a stand that back then might have been perceived as left, and get by with it as long as it didn’t involve the racial issue. I don’t think people were split up in conservative and liberal camps.

B&W: I’ve read that George Jones initially didn’t like “He Stopped Loving Her Today” because he thought it was too sappy or too morbid.

Braddock: Too morbid . . . Yeah, he did. I don’t know if Billy Sherrill had to talk him into doing it, but I don’t think George was totally on board with it being a single. George made a bet with Billy for a $100 whether it would be a hit or not. Billy said George told him, “Nobody’s gonna play that morbid son of a bitch.”

I have mixed feelings about the song anyway. I didn’t know it was all that good a song until Billy played me George’s cut of it. I heard that and I thought, “Oh, man. There’s something here.” I think that’s an instance of the artist and producer elevating it to greatness. I’m not saying it’s not a good song, but what they did with it turned it into something that was really magic.

B&W: Did you spend much time with George and Tammy when they were recording your songs?

Braddock: Not a lot socially. It was more like business stuff, running into them at things. Tammy invited me to her house a few times. I took care of George one day when he was drunk [laughs] . . . Somewhere along the way, probably in the past 15 or 20 years, I think George probably finally got it through his head that he is a great singer and is perceived by everybody as maybe the greatest country singer of all time. But I can remember when he was pretty self-effacing and didn’t really have a lot of self-confidence. He was almost apologizing when looking for songs, saying, “Well, I don’t wanna bother y’all,” and I said, “You’re George Jones, what are you talking about?” When he was recording “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” he was looking right at Tammy. Billy Sherrill recorded the singer live with the band, and that would be the keeper track. George sang it once and Billy said, “Jones, you need to sing this one more time.” And about that time Tammy came in with her new love, George Ritchey. And she sat down next to Billy Sherrill’s chair behind the console and the light in the control room was illuminating her face. And when George sang that, he was looking right at her. &

Bobby Braddock will read from and sign copies of his book at the Alabama Booksmith on May 9 at 6 p.m. Call 870-4242 or visit www.alabamabooksmith.com for additional details.