"My name is Joe Rose. I’m a sideman. In the music business that means I’m on the side. I’m not the lead or the star. Just an average Joe with a guitar.A few sidemen in Nashville get steady jobs touring with the Big Names; the rest, including me, eke out a living doing record sessions and holding onto their day jobs. My business card reads, “Sideman Investigations, put someone on your side.” There’s a little embossed picture of a guitar and a red rose by my name in the corner. Pretty corny, I guess. But I’m a little corny myself." from Blood Country
The mystery novel Blood Country has just been announced as a finalist in the prestigious Readers' Favorite Awards contest. According to Blood Country's writer, Dan Jewell, the winners will be announced at a dinner in Las Vegas, September 1, 2011.
In Jewell's novel, guitarist detective Joe Rose is hired by strung out country superstar Vern Hamlin to reopen a closed case--his famous father's murder twenty years ago. As he investigates the old murder, Rose interviews Hamlin's sexy ex-wife whose publicist claims she's country music answer to Lady Gaga. He also encounters a lovelorn professor who writes mystery novels, a crazed songwriter with a big gun, and Hamlin's promiscuous stepmother who's now married to the pastor of Nashville megachurch. As he delves deeper into the case, Rose soon realizes he's in Blood Country, a place not listed on the Nashville celebrity tour maps.
Jewell's book made it into the finalist category after it received a 5 star review plus further analysis by multiple Readers' Favorite judges.
On the surface, if a modern country music fan compared Ernest Tubb to some of today's stars, the fan might think Tubb was square, old fashioned, and someone who couldn't have achieved superstardom. But, truth be told, Tubb (1914-1984) had a wild side and was one of the biggest stars of his time. Born in Crisp, TX, ET was inspired to be a singer by the great Jimmy Rodgers.
Background. In 1941 (the year of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), his 6th Decca release "Walking the Floor Over You" made him a country music star of the first magnitude. It put him in the same league as Roy Acuff. By today's standards he would have been keeping company with Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw.
Musta been a good singer, right? Nope. Not really. ET even dissed his own voice. According to Wiki, Tubb "actually mocked his own singing. He told an interviewer that 95 percent of the men in bars would hear his music on the juke box and say to their girlfriends, 'I can sing better than him,' and Tubb added they would be right."
Maybe with average looks and a below average voice, he was one of those stars the average Joe can be comfortable with, like contemporary film star Kevin Costner (at least in the beginning of his career).
But Tubb's voice was very distinctive, and that was one key to his success. Another key was his penchant for surrounding himself with some of Nashville's best sidemen. The first sideman of note in his band was guitarist Jimmy Short; others were steel guitar masters Jerry Byrd and Tommy "Butterball" Paige.
Jazz musician Billy Byrd (no relation to Jerry) joined Tubbs' Troudadors in 1949. Here's a YouTube video of Tubb's most famous tune, "Walking the Floor over You." It was recorded sometime after Byrd joined Tubb's band. Listen as Ernest introduces Billy at the break with his famous "Awwwwww Billy Byrd now." And if you listen closely at the end of the break, you'll hear Billy's famous four note jazzy riff that became, as wiki says, "synonymous with Tubb's songs."
(Since I'm very interested in Nashville sidemen, here's a parenthetical side-man note from Wiki: "Actually a jazz [and classically trained] musician, [Billy] Byrd--no relation to Jerry--remained with Tubb until 1959.)
One of ET's most famous post WWII songs was "A Rainbow at Midnight." Recorded in 1946, I think you can understand why this song has been a favorite of military veterans since its release; it reached number 5 on the Juke Box Folk chart that year.
Probably about now, you're probably saying that you've had enough background, you want to know the story on Tubb's .357.
Ernest Tubb's Almost Nashville Shootout. In his book Ernest Tubb: The Texas Troubador, Ronnie Pugh says that the great country singer had serious difficulties with alcohol. When Tubb got drunk, he acted like stoned rock stars sometimes act today. He wanted to smash something. He would get so drunk and rowdy that he'd kick the windows out of his limo. His drunken violence was such a problem, that they hired a big husky country boy named Don Davis to wrestle Tubb down to the floorboard when he got drunk enough to start kicking at the glass. Davis, about 18 at the time, also played steel guitar as a sideman in Tubb's band.
Alcohol was also said to be a contributing factor to Tubb's divorce in the early '40s.
And it played a significant role in the Tubb incident that is our subject, the one involving his .357 magnum.
In 1957 Tubb had some kind of feud with producer Jim Denny. The singer, drunk at the time of the incident, walked into the National Life building's corridor in downtown Nashville and fired a .357 magnum. It must have sounded like a bazooka in that corridor. He apparently went to the building with the intent to shoot Denny. Denny, a big time Nashville producer and the gatekeeper at the Grand Ole Opry, was NOT in the corridor at the time. Tubb, however, apparently saw someone he thought looked like Denny and took the shot.
Luckily, Tubb's aim wasn't too good, or maybe he was just too drunk to aim the gun properly. Here's Wiki's note on this: "Tubb shot at the wrong man but did not hit anyone. He was arrested and charged with public drunkeness." A big country star, drunk and firing a gun in a public place! Got to be a big news story, right? Nope. You can find very little mention of it in newspapers and magazines of the time. Today, if we were talking about Tim McGraw or Kenny Chesney taking a drunken potshot at somebody, the redneck paparzzi and other bottom feeders would suck on this story for months.
After some research, I still haven't been able to determine the nature of Tubb's beef with Denny (if you know what they were feuding about, I'd like to know; put your info in the comments, and I'll credit you and add it to the post). But several statements others made over the years about the producer suggest that Denny, a hall of fame member himself and as noted, a powerful record producer at the time, was the kind of guy who had made a few enemies in Nashville as well.
According to one source, "Denny was a hard-nosed businessman whose charismatic personality and devotion to his acts and songs earned him respect and devotion— sometimes tinged with fear— from artists, writers, and others with whom he did business ."
What kind of man was Jim Denny? He was the one who called Hank Williams, Sr. at home in 1952 to tell he was fired from the Opry.
Denny also booked Elvis Presley on the Opry in '54, and after his performance told the young man he wasn't going anywhere and he ought to "go back to truck driving."
To cite another example, Johnny Cash biographer Michael Streissguth reports that Cash had a very humiliating experience with Denny. It occurred soon after Cash's 1956 hit "I Walk the Line" reached #1 on Billboard; "I Walk the Line" stayed on the charts for 47 weeks. This song was on Cash's first album (and Sun's first LP too), "Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar."
Like all country music singers at the time, Cash wanted to get on the Opry. He was riding high on the success of "I Walk the Line," and so he set up a meeting with Denny, hoping to get a booking on the biggest country music radio show in the country to cement his country music superstar credentials. He said he'd dreamed about being on the Opry since he was a kid.
But his encounter with Denny wasn't the culmination of a dream; it was more like a nightmare. First, Denny kept Cash waiting for two hours. Can you imagine that? Ten years later, Cash would have probably gone in and turned over Denny's desk and broke a lamp or two, and maybe Denny's nose. But those were different times and Cash was a newcomer and didn't want to do anything to jeopardize his career at that point. And Denny was recognized as a very powerful man in the industry.
Finally, Denny let the young Cash come into the sacred chamber of his office. Cash, when talking about this later, said that Denny didn't even tell him to sit down. But Cash eventually took the initiative and sat down, although not invited to do so. Denny was busy with his papers for a few minutes more, ignoring Cash, not even acknowledging his presence. Then he looked up and asked Cash why he thought he deserved to be on the Opry. Cash reminded him of the success of "I Walk the Line," and Denny said, "Be here Saturday night." He didn't ask Cash to come on the Opry, he told him.
Stars in those days didn't have the clout that they do today.
Exactly why Tubb tried to shoot him, I'm still not sure. But Tubb's temperament, especially when influenced by alcohol, and Denny's treatment of other artists just might hold a clue.
There's a great blog calledCountry'sChatter that I check on a regular basis. It gets a lot of traffic so it was one of the first places I advertisedBlood Country. I also sent "Country" a copy of the book in hopes that she might review it. Well, she did review it and, I'm pleased to say, liked it. After you read the review here, go check out her great blog for the latest info on country music and its stars. CountryChatter's Book Review
Since I started writing Country’s Chatter, more than 3-1/2 years ago, you have all seen
me review concerts, and albums, and even the artists themselves, and a movie or two.
But something I have not yet done is review a book. Now, I’m going to.
The book is called Blood Country: A Nashville Sideman Mystery. The author is Dan
Jewell. It’s a fiction novel, obviously about a murder in Nashville – a 20 year old murder
that needs solved. Whenever I’m deciding on a book to read, I open the cover and read
the inside leaf, to find out a little about the story – this one has it on the back of the
book. And, I’m going to get you interested by letting you read the back of the book:
In Nashville, it’s conventional wisdom
that if you’re looking for work in the
music business, you’d better have a
steady day job. Guitarist Joe Rose
has a day job–he’s a private detective.
Rose is hired by strung out country
music superstar Vern Hamlin,owner
of Great Axe Music, to look into his
father’s two decades old murder.
Hamlin has received an anonymous letter
suggesting that the man convicted of the
crime, who was killed in an escape attempt,
was not the real murderer. Because of Hamlin’s drug and alcohol problems,
his uncle Claude, CEO of Hamlin Enterprises, doesn’t approve of his nephew’s plan
to reopen the old murder case; he thinks it will jeopardize Hamlin’s present sobriety and
interfere with his work at Great Axe. But Hamlin’s personal assistant, Jessica Apple, thinks
his father’s death is actually the cause of his substance abuse and that pursuing the
investigation will help him get closure. After Rose interviews a Desert Storm Vet with PTSD,
the man is found dead. Is it suicide or murder? Along the way, Rose
encounters a rogue P.I., Hamlin’s sexy ex-wife (Country’s answer to Lady Gaga),
a Professor who writes mystery novels, Hamlin’s promiscuous stepmother–now married
to the pastor of a Nashville megachurch, and a songwriter with a big gun. Rose’s
investigation takes him deep into blood country, a place not found on Music City tour maps.
The book is well-written, the story is good, and it definitely keeps you interested from the first
page to the last. While it is not one of those books you just can’t put down once you pick it up –
it is the kind of book you are anxious to get back to every opportunity you have to sit and read.
And, for me, it is one of those books I’ll be reading again.
The book is available on Amazon, so if you are shopping for Father’s day, or have any
readers on your Christmas gift list, you might want to jump over and order a few of these
books. Especially if your avid reader friends are also country music/Nashville fans.
They definitely won’t be disappointed.
Hope you are having a good Memorial Day Weekend. I’ll talk to you tomorrow!
Country
