Road Trip: Bowling Green

At a certain time in my life, I put many miles on my truck traveling to Bowling Green, Kentucky. I first went to Bowling Green to be part of a friend’s wedding in the mid-1980s. Little did I know then how one day in the not-so-distant future I would live there for a time.

Fast-forward a few years and a college friend (hi, Kelly!) was working in Bowling Green for a company that produced video yearbooks for schools. With her connections, I soon interviewed with that company. I was then hired to work there.

I moved to Bowling Green in the late spring. I had an apartment just outside the city limits of Bowling Green near the Chevrolet Corvette manufacturing facility. I worked evenings so I well remember looking outside my front window during the day spending time watching new Corvettes being test driven by my apartment.

For much of the rest of that calendar year, Kentucky became my home. I had a number of friends who lived nearby so it was good to see them on occasion. Nashville was an hour south and other friends lived there. I was often on the road visiting Music City, USA on weekends. A few times, friends visited me for a weekend in Bowling Green.

My day-to-day world then was in the town that is the home to Western Kentucky University, Houchen’s Grocery, the Greenwood Mall, and Beech Bend Park. One of the local radio stations was the Beaver, WBVR. Another friend (hi, Christi!) worked for them. It was always nice to turn on the radio and listen to her.

I also recall Kentucky had some incredible sunsets. I have lived most of my life where sunsets slide behind mountains. In Bowling Green, the land was flat, so experiencing the sun slip slowly toward the ground was a nice change of pace.

I remember during one friend’s visit from Nashville how we visited a restaurant named Quincy’s. It was a steakhouse and featured a salad bar. I don’t recall what we ate when we went. I do remember laughing so hard that my friend nearly choked on his food. I never went back to Quincy’s after that because I imagine they might have met me at the door to turn me away.

I was always amazed how when I drove outside Bowling Green into the countryside. Yes, there were cattle and farmland there, but there were also small oil derricks. It seems that section of Kentucky had oil underneath the ground in certain locations, so a few folks could have been considered Kentucky oil barons.

Later that calendar year, the company that employed me made drastic changes breaking promises they made to a number of us who worked there. It became time to move on for me. So, I packed back up and moved back to Georgia for a time.

That road from Bowling Green south then back north to Bowling Green was one I traveled frequently for a time years ago. On either side of Nashville, the drive was smooth and free from the congestion of Tennessee’s capital city. I have driven enough to think I could do it with my eyes closed.

Recently, we spent a few days in Kentucky. Jennifer has an aunt and uncle who live about an hour east of Bowling Green. We have been there through the years to spend part of the Thanksgiving holiday with many of her family. On this trip we ventured closer to Bowling Green but still stayed east of the town. One day we did drive to a dairy farm in Barren County. Getting that close to some old haunts made me a bit reminiscent of the time I spent there.

It made me remember one trip I made when I lived in Bowling Green. I stopped at a gas station in Nashville to fill up the tank. Inside, I spotted this giant black and gold mug with the WKDF logo on it. WKDF was one of the hotter radio stations in Nashville at the time. I bought that mug and still have it to this day. It is one of the few things that have survived the years from my short time in Bowling Green. That mug reminds me of my time in Kentucky. I no longer drink out of that mug. Instead, it holds dozens of pennies. Still, I can’t quite part with it as it seems connected to a time and place that remains a special time in my life, even if it was for a very short time.

Road Trip: Bowling Green playlist:
Kentucky Headhunters “Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine”
John Prine (with Marty Stuart) “Paradise”
Vince Gill “When I Call Your Name”
Loretta Lynn “Blue Kentucky Girl”
The Allman Brother Band “Good Clean Fun”
Bill Monroe “Blue Moon of Kentucky”
MC Hammer “U Can’t Touch This”
The Black Crowes “Jealous Again”
ZZ Top “Doubleback”
Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs “Close By”
Kentucky Headhunters “Dumas Walker”
The Everly Brothers “Bowling Green”

That Song Is Driving Me Crazy

As parents of a young child, Jennifer and I have experienced our fair share of songs from television shows and movies. We have "Set It All Free". We put that sunshine in our pockets so that we "Can't Stop the Feeling." Of course, we also "Let It Go." Times and moments, pardon the pin, frozen in time. Sometimes, we have seen these movies and shows so many times that the songs seem to play in an endless loop in our brains.

And, that is the true downside to all this. These songs are so catchy. These tunes are such delicious ear candy that one cannot simply hear them once then forget them. Risk devoting time coupled with the least bit of energy and soon you will find the song playing over and over in your head.

Now and then though, you win one.

I drove Hannah to school recently. During the ride, she and I mostly talked. This was great as I love hearing her carry a conversation. As we drew nearer to school, the conversation grew quieter. Maybe Hannah sensed we were near the school. Maybe we had exhausted what we had to say.

In the background, I had on the car radio. At any given time, that radio could be set to any type of station. Mostly though, the radio is set to some type of music from back in my day. It could the "hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s". It could be classic rock. Some days it is classic country.

This particular morning, the station was a classic country music station. Softly, in the background, the early 1980s hit, "You're The Reason God Made Oklahoma." was playing. As the silence continued, I slowly increased the volume of the radio.

Looking in the rearview mirror, I could see Hannah eyeing me

realizing the music was becoming louder. Then, at just the right moment I began singing along with the song. Glancing back in the mirror, I could see Hannah laughing.

As the song continued to play, Hannah began singing along with the radio. We laughed as we finished the song. As the song ended, I turned down the radio. From the backseat, Hannah spoke up, "Great, now that song will be in my head the rest of the day."

Her spoken realization made me laugh. For all the Disney songs that have infiltrated my brain during the last decade I felt like I had won one for all the mom and dads who find themselves during some quiet moment mindlessly humming something from "Beauty and the Beast", "Toy Story" or "The Lion King". For all of you who have endured such moments, "You're Welcome." Sorry, I know, that's from "Moana".

Row D, Seats 2 & 4

I’ve never been one to think if I don’t see a certain performer live, no matter how much I enjoyed their music, that my life would somehow be lacking something. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy live music. There is nothing like the feeling of the power a good group of musicians harness when working together. Some performers also have a tremendous charisma and presence that just can’t be ignored. Unfortunately for me, it is the totality of the event experience that wears me down. I dislike fighting through traffic then through crowds. Finally get to where you have rented a seat for the show’s duration just to cram your body into a seat in a row along with other folks who have crammed their bodies into seats. You also never quite know what to wear. If it is any kind of large venue, the place will be cold just because there is too much open space to keep the whole place warm. All this means you drag a coat to the venue only to have to take it off to fit into the seat at which time you end up having to hold your coat the whole show. And I could also talk about how some folks just don’t know how to behave in public but I am coming to the slow realization that fewer and fewer care about how they behave in public because they no longer know shame or no longer take pride in being decent to others so I’ll just keep that to myself.

There is also a certain understanding that my musical tastes probably went out of style a good twenty years ago, at the very least. Still, when the opportunity presents itself I will suck up my eccentricities to go to a live show. Recently as a birthday gift, my wife bought us tickets to see Emmylou Harris. So, on a Saturday night, we left our daughter with her grandparents and kicked out the jams in our own laid back way. Knowing how I dislike the whole event experience, Jennifer found just the right seats as we were seated at the end of an aisle.

You should know I have been a fan of Emmylou Harris’s music for many years. I recall much of her music from early in her career. It though was her bluegrass gem of an album “Roses In The Snow” that irretrievably made me her fan. My mom and dad were in a mail-order music club where they could purchase eight-track tapes at a reduced price back in the day. One selection that came to our house was this album. I would play it over and over and over. To me there is not one bad song on the album, from the plaintive “Wayfaring Stranger” to the lively “I’ll Go Stepping Too” to the yearning of “Miss The Mississippi and You” right down to the quiet hopefulness of “Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn”. Somehow all ten songs connected to me in some way.

Of course that album opened me up to the rest of her musical catalogue from her folk days to her days with Gram Parsons then into her country music career then into her forays where she has explored stretching her own musical boundaries after country music drifted far away from it’s own roots until it is in the unrecognizable pool of goo it wallows in today. As we took our seats on an autumn Saturday night I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. After all, Emmylou’s performing career stretches over parts of six decades and the selections she has recorded and performed in that time reach back much further.

She took the stage without introduction armed with her voice and a guitar then started singing “My Songbird”. Her five-piece band, the latest version of the Nash Ramblers, as cohesive a group as I have ever heard, joined her a song later. What followed was a sampling of her career and the music which has influenced her and in some way infiltrated my own life. There was Townes Van Zant’s “Pancho and Lefty”. There was “Shores of White Sand”. There was “If I Could Only Win Your Love”. There was Merle Haggard’s brutally sad “Kern River”. There was "Love and Happiness", her duet with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. There was “Red Dirt Girl”. There was her duet with the late Don Williams, “If I Needed You”. There was “Goin’ Back to Harlan”. There was “Making Believe”, the classic once popularized by Kitty Wells, my dad’s all-time favorite female singer. There was “Wheels” from the Flying Burrito Brothers, a song penned by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons, Emmylou's lasting influence. And there was “Green Pastures”, one of those songs from “Roses In The Snow”.

Two hours and an encore later, we made our way toward home discussing the show. My wife, not really an Emmylou fan, seemed to have enjoyed the show. I was able to answer some of her questions about Emmylou’s career and music. What I didn’t know would be found later on the internet. Even later, I reflected on the show realizing what a wide swath of musical history we had heard that night. She had performed songs which covered her whole career. A few of them were her own. Others had been written by or performed by The Carter Family, the Louvin Brothers, Merle Haggard, Kitty Wells, James Taylor, Dion, the Stanley Brothers, Don Williams, Mark Knopfler and others. It was not just a career retrospective it was a doctoral study in a truly uniquely American art form that few have the experience to teach.

Honestly, I would have loved to have heard some of my other favorites. Maybe the guilty pleasure of 1989’s “Heartbreak Hill” or her very personal “Boulder to Birmingham”. Hearing her sing what I consider to be one of country music’s five greatest songs, “Together Again”, would have been tremendous. It would have been good to have heard some lost gems like “Drivin’ Wheel” or “I Don’t Have To Crawl” or “Till I Gain Control Again” or “Satan’s Jewel Crown” or “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues” or “White Line”. Some of her more recent songs like “Moon Song”, “Back When We Were Beautiful”, “Her Hair Was Red”, “This Is Us” and “If This Is Goodbye” would have been fun to hear as well. With Christmas nearing a verse or two of “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” or “Christmas Time’s A-Coming” would have fit right in considering some people in our neighborhood already had their Christmas trees visible through their living room windows before the Halloween pumpkins had been removed from their neighbor’s front steps. Close it all out with a verse of  the gospel chestnut “Angel Band”. Of course I could list a dozen more songs if I tried. But, I know, she can’t sing all night. There was a bus ride ahead for her to the next show the next night in Birmingham. Still, I found it all very satisfying. And all those songs I would have loved to have heard her sing I can listen to most anytime as I have for decades, in my car, at my desk at work or through any other number of ways.

It’s funny isn’t it how we often gravitate to a performer. In today’s musical world, Emmylou Harris is yesterday’s news. Her time to churn out hits and stage massive concert tours passed by years ago. I often feel that way with the music I listen to when I can. Still, when she takes the stage her voice is as clear as it was forty years ago when she was the hottest thing country music knew at the time. Her music still resonates with me more than any performer churning out the hits today can. The distance time has put between then and now only makes what's left behind more timeless, more treasured. Those decades and the fickle nature of the taste of the public when it comes to music may be why a Billy Joe Shaver-penned song that she performed near the end of her show rang so true to me as it often feels the music I like, and time, in general, is passing by so quickly.

“It's taken me so long but now that I know I believe
All that I do or say all that I ever will be
Too far and too high and too deep ain't too much to be
Too much ain't enough for old five and dimers like me”

Now excuse me, I need to find an eight-track tape player.

I’m Just Going To Leave This Right Here: The Holiday Edition

Here we are, smack dab in December between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. By now, many of us just get tuckered out. Family get-togethers, school and work events and high-impact shopping just seem to overwhelm each of us. We have been swamped with Christmas displays in stores right after children went back to school in the lingering days of summer. Radio stations began playing holiday music after a double play of Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “Spooky” and Bobby Pickett’s “Monster Mash” on Halloween night. Add all these things together and a person just might wish to have the world stop so a break can be taken, even if just for a short time.

This year has been additionally brutal due to our national election. The fact that we, as a society, have allowed every nook and cranny of our lives to be immersed in the dirty water of politics has meant there is nothing enjoyable about the things we all used to enjoy. Now, nerves are frayed, friendships strained and uncertainty has become the norm. Throw in the holidays, mix in the stress it can bring and we can quickly get burned out over every little thing.

So, right now, if the preparation for the holidays is wearing you out, if the idea of an upcoming discussion with your uncle Albert about the merits of the electoral college, if the Chia-Pet display at K-Mart looks inviting on your fourth pass through the store and if you find yourself humming “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” then maybe you need a short break from all that is happening.

I am here to provide you with such a break. When I need a break from things I like to eat but since there is no way for me to provide you with an actual chocolate cake I will have to think of something else. I do know though that music can make things better sometimes, especially if you have the right song.

Frankly, it’s hard to not like “Love Train” by the O’Jays. It’s an upbeat song and has a positive message. Let’s go there. So, if the holiday stress has you down, click the link below and sing along.

Love Train karaoke 

If you prefer to just listen to the O'Jays version, click below.

Love Train by the OJays 

I’ll just leave this here in case you need it. Join hands, and have a happy and safe holiday season.

Oh, What Mel Tillis and Ricky Skaggs Wrought

From time to time we all get a song stuck in our heads. Maybe it’s the rhythm of the music that sticks there. Maybe it’s the lyrics. Maybe it’s the way the singer gets into the song. Whatever it is sometimes we all find ourselves running some part of a song through our mind on some endless loop so often that we feel we could burst into insanity if that loop starts up one more time. We might hum the song. We might even softly sing along with it. Or we might just sit in stunned silence while the only thing we process is those words, that melody, that song eating up time and brain cells. I believe I have passed this human experience on to our daughter Hannah. And I blame Mel Tillis and Ricky Skaggs for doing this. Let me explain.

When we are in our car, the radio most likely is playing. Sometimes, a CD may be playing. Usually though the radio is tuned to some local radio station. Since “modern music” abandoned me when I left a specific age demographic years ago, I find I enjoy the songs I remember from days gone by. This means I fit into the overweight, middle-aged white guy demographic that enjoys music labeled with the word “classic” in front of it. So, if I want to hear Journey or the Rolling Stones or John Mellencamp, somewhere on the radio dial is a local station that is pumping out “the songs I grew up with”.

In our particular radio market, there are at least two stations that play “classic” country music, although I slowly see even this slipping away from how I would label such because I seem to hear less and less Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, Johnny Paycheck and Johnny Rodriquez from them and more and more Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks and Jo Dee Messina. Despite this subtle shift away from the music I like more and toward the music I barely stomach, the radio dial in my car is often on one of these two stations.

One morning, it was tuned to one of these stations when the Ricky Skaggs’ hit “Honey, Won’t You Open That Door” began playing. In the backseat, Hannah caught on to the bouncy tune, I noticed this, so, when the chorus hit, in a rather cheesy voice I began singing along…

“Honey, honey, honey won't you open that door
This is your sweet daddy, don't you love me no more?
It's cold outside, let me sleep on the floor
Honey, won't you open that door?”

Hannah laughed and wanted me to keep singing. So, I did. From that time forward, we would hear the song play again enough times so that the simple, catchy refrain would stick in both our brains. It stuck there enough so that I began to sing variations of it to Hannah. As I would try to wake her up in the morning, I might sing, “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, won’t you open your eyes, this is your sweet Daddy, it’s time to get out of bed…” I may have even tried to get her to eat something at the dinner table while singing, “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, won’t you open your mouth, this is your sweet Daddy the broccoli ain’t all that bad…”

The point is we heard the song enough, and wailed along with it enough that it began sticking in not just my memory but also in Hannah’s memory. So, much so that on one recent day driving to school, Hannah started singing the song even before we left our driveway and proceeded to sing it nonstop for a good five minutes. She would sing it in her regular voice and then modify her voice and sing it another way. She would add silly words to the lyrics and giggle. Meantime, I am trying to get us on our way, trying to navigate through our neighborhood to get us to our destination and all I hear are words written by Mel Tillis and performed by Ricky Skaggs over and over. That song, those words, that music quickly found my last nerve to the point where I was ready to scream if I heard it all one more time.

So, Mel, Ricky, I blame you two for all this. It’s your fault the whole thing is just so memorable and catchy. It’s your fault I sang along the very first time. It’s your fault I am hearing this song over and over in my head and am now hearing it from my daughter from the backseat of the car for what seems like hours on end. I hope you two are happy.

And, well, I guess I should really thank you two as well. Thanks for writing and performing a song so memorable and catchy that I just had to sing along in an attempt to make Hannah laugh. Thanks for this song that just sticks in my brain like gum to the bottom of a shoe on a hot summer day. Thanks because it has made memories I can hold to as Hannah grows older. And, maybe, it is enough of a memory for Hannah to one day download the song onto some device that plays back music so she can have it to listen to whenever she wants. And, maybe, she will play it back from time to time, so she can smile, sing along and remember when her sweet Daddy sang it to her.

Ricky Skaggs “Honey Won’t You Open That Door”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTGiD8W57ZU