by Gerry House
Where do old faith healers go, anyway? If they get decrepit or sick, can’t they just reach down and lift the arthritis out of their knees and keep goin’?
There’s a guy on television in Nashville I see every Sunday. He’s your typical TV preacher guy—motivational and slick. His only claim to fame before he became a religious man was that he killed some poor woman down in Texas and went to prison. How do those folks sit there and listen to him exhort them to do the right thing with that bit of personal history floating around the pulpit?
This is where Ray Stevens comes in. Ray, or “Moan” as we call him (short for RayMoan), took this whole business on squarely with “Mississippi Squirrel Revival”—a gentle and funny song about a lively rodent in a small church like the one I had attended.
Ray is a genius. He has recorded so many classic comedy songs and written such amazing other songs that he’s in his own category. I’ve sat with him backstage at the old Desert Inn in Las Vegas before his shows. We’ve played golf. We’ve had tequila and have sat through many a long night at music business functions. I love it that he wrote “Ahab The Arab” and “Gitarzan” with the same fingers that he used to write “Everything Is Beautiful.” He’s so tight he squeaks, but he’s a great friend.
He also played the piano on “Five O’Clock World” by the Vogues. I put that in for music trivia geeks like me. Ray is, above all, honest and direct. He says what he means and is somebody you can count on for the truth.
I wish more TV preachers were like Ray.
Roach
ROACH WAS IN HIS CRYPT. Or that’s what he called it—“the crypt.” It was the only crypt with a TV screen and a little fan in case it got hot, but it was a crypt. It was just like several others in the middle of a bus in the middle of the country, rockin’ down the highway. Some folks called them bunks or beds . . . or home.
Roach always thought of it as his last resting place. This is where he’d like to go out. This was his last ride; he’d had it. El Roacho was done with touring and roadie-ing and everything. It really wasn’t his choice, but the star he worked for was no longer gonna go on these grueling tours. Times were tough, and even in Roach’s world, jobs were getting hard to come by. Country music was changing, and so was Eldon.
That’s Roach’s real name. He hates it, so don’t call him that. His mother was the only one who could call him Eldon. He got the name Roach, as you can imagine, because he could crawl up under anything. When he was eight, he worked for an electrician who had Roach crawl into attics and “pull wire.” He was good at it and getting into anywhere. “Roach, go in there and see if them wires is hot.” Then, there was that one year in junior college when a roach meant something else. He sort of went along with the street meaning of “roach” at that point, when people had roach clips for the end of a joint. Either way, don’t call him Eldon.
The final ride—it felt like a movie. He rocked back and forth and usually would be asleep by now. A bunk in a bus was the only place where he found he could really get some quality z’s.
No road noises, no shake ‘n’ bakin’, no snoring, no sleep. He’d been a roadie for thirty-eight years of his life, and it was coming to the end of the road. It was the life he loved, but he was getting too old for this shit. He felt the bus shudder and heard a little thump. Probably hit either part of a thrown tire or some poor animal. Probably a possum.
He’d seen a lot of “sail” possums over the years. And sail cat, sail dogs—you name it, he’d seen the sail version of it. When something gets run over enough by buses and trucks on a steaming-hot asphalt highway, it sort of bakes down into a flat shape. You can pick up a sail possum and throw it like a weapon. Imagine death by sail possum.
Speaking of death, he remembered the time he tried to scare that guy who was hitting on his girlfriend, and laughed to himself. Roach just wanted to see if it could be done, that’s all. Death by biscuits. Roach and Wheezer grabbed this dude and told him he was gonna die by biscuits. A Pillsbury execution. It was a horrible way to go. Never saw anybody shake so much at the phrase “Death by Biscuits.”
Neither Roach nor Wheezer even knew if it would work. Besides, they weren’t really gonna kill the guy, just scare him gray. The idea is you get a small road case, about $300 worth of canned biscuits, and then you stuff the guy and the biscuits into the road case on a hot day. The biscuits heat up, explode from their containers, and slowly start to expand. Roach had heard that guys confessed to things they didn’t do just to get out of a self-risin’ execution. He laughed again, remembering the victim’s muffled shouts as the biscuits rose to the occasion. Pop! Scream. Pop! Pop! Scream. Roach finally let him free and told him to stay away from his girl. He was pulling biscuit dough out of his nose. Good thing it wasn’t Roach’s wife, or he would have probably let the guy die by dough.
Somebody got up to go to the head. It was one of the first squeamish things you got over real quick on the road. Nowadays they got grinders so you can do more than whiz on a bus. Thank God! No more dashing for the can at a truck stop. There are places in Bangladesh that have better johns than some truck stops.
Roach could play guitar and bass. He also could sing and even once had a recording deal with a private label out of Texas. It was owned by a guy who’d made a fortune selling fake cow pies in a box. They looked as fresh as the real thing, and you could have them delivered to somebody you wanted to either impress or tick off. But Roach lost his deal when the owner went broke ’cause he got sued by a family who ate one of the cow pies, thinking it was a snack. They were likely to have died, and so did Roach’s record career.
Roach played bass in a couple of bands. The most fun he had was with Manny Sanchez, the Mexicali Mover. Thirteen dudes onstage in big hats and sparkly outfits. Trumpets, accordions, and one of those giant guitars. Those guys were so much fun ’til the immigration police took them away one afternoon in a big black truck.
He gave up depending on a paycheck from a band when the “OK Chorale” broke up. The OK Chorale was a great band, and Roach thought they were on their way. Wrong again. The drunken lead singer took a swig out of a bottle of Liquid Plumr left on the bar. The poor guy sang like a dying cat after that, and Roach decided on a leave of absence from performing live forevermore.
He drifted for a moment. In that space between awake and asleep, he always thought of his third wife, Mylene. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a woman who could open a beer bottle with her butt cheeks? Oh my Gawd, Mylene! She could dance. She could sing. She could cook. The only thing she couldn’t seem to do was avoid dating the local high school football team. She was a world-class nympho, and it was tiring after awhile. Not for Mylene, of course, but for Roach. The last time he saw her, she was standing on I-40 with a sign that said, “Last Girl Before Expressway.” Ahh, My My Mylene.
Roach woke himself up snoring. He did that a lot. The guys on the bus said he sounded like a chainsaw that needs oil.
This was it. The final ride to a home he didn’t have. The end of the trail. The last round-up. He winced at the thought of his bank account. He’d made some decent money, but between the wives and his “business” investments, it was gonna be tough sledding. But understand, he never put his earnings into anything stupid.
The prescription windshield was a great idea. He’d met a guy workin’ for Tim McGraw’s road crew, and they’d partnered up. The guy would run the business, and Roach was to provide the operating capital. The concept was brilliant. If you wore glasses, you could have the windshield of your car made to your prescription! That way you could drive even if you didn’t have your specs with you. So simple.
They were on their way to a fortune ’til some idiot stole the test windshield car. The new driver didn’t need glasses at all and promptly drove off a cliff in the Smokies. Some people just don’t have no sense.
Now Roach was upset and awake again. He started to calm down when he considered maybe being a roadie in his “extremely late fifties” was not such a good idea anyway. He wa
s really sixty-two. Time to hang up the ponytail, although he’d actually ditched the ponytail years ago after the ceiling fan incident. That hurt like a son of a bitch.
Being a roadie was tough, especially that tour he’d done with the rich TV comedian. Roach’s job was to play and guard a cowbell for forty shows. Good money, but he couldn’t decide which drove him nuttier, the comedian or banging that cowbell every night for two hours.
What else could he turn to? He had a few years to go before he could claim Social Security. He’d certainly tried other honest ways to make a living. Blimp pilot. It had been a good job, and he would be on Easy Street now except for the flight incident. Sure, he’d sorta fibbed about being able to pilot a blimp, but it was like his mother had said, “What a stupid place to put a building.”
Roach dreamed and rocked to the rhythm of the road. It was peaceful now. Peaceful was good. Things hadn’t always been so peaceful. Lord, there was that tour with the rock star who had decided to go “country.” What an idiot. They were doing fairs and “soft ticket” dates, and his old rock fans showed up with their kids to see him—a middle-aged, slightly pudgy white guy in Spandex, singin’ his “country” songs. Oh, he had fiddles in the band, all right. But he just couldn’t let go of the rock star moves. Country people get moody when you bite the head off a baby rabbit.
Brandy floated through his mind. Not the liquor, Roach’s second wife. She always said, “My daddy said I was made ’cause of brandy, so he named me that. Good thing they wasn’t drinkin’ Kahlua!” Then she’d give that high-pitched scream of a laugh. She was a good ol’ gal. He’d met her at a club, where she shot ping-pong balls out of her coochie into the audience. She had great distance.
He’d always enjoyed women with talent. They were in love right up until she ran off with that TV evangelist who had a private plane. Last Roach heard, she was strippin’ for Jesus at the end of his tent revivals. Good for Brandy.
He had to get out of roadwork. It was a good, solid life with good friends, but he’d been at it too long. How many times can one man be shot in the ass with a nail gun? Or have a case of M&Ms dropped on his foot? Or get third-degree burns from a parrot carrying a lighted road flare? We’ve all been through things like that, but enough is enough. This was where he was getting off the crazy train.
Thinking of getting off made him recall the really good times. He’d had his share of fun with women. Yeah, it was quite a week with those deaf-mute Vietnamese twins.
That ended when he woke up screaming. They were breaking his fingers so he couldn’t tell anybody about his “Bangin’ on a Mirror” trick. His right pinkie still points left more than it should.
It was always easy to slip back to the good nights. The Cheese-Eating Contest on that Brooks & Dunn tour in Switzerland. The Moose in the Tent night. The Unlucky night. He’d been warned by his bunkmates, “Don’t hold a fart-lighting contest with a welder’s torch,” which was almost as bad as the “scooting across hot coals” moment in the Bahamas.
Roach knew he wasn’t gonna have any more kids. He’d met a couple of young peezers who sidled up to him outside a Reba concert and announced they were his offspring. He didn’t buy it. People just lie to get backstage. He also knew his baby-making days were over after that nut-lifting contest anyway. You tied a rope around your nutsack, and the first guy to lift a truck rim was the winner. The moment he heard something pop, he knew his days of being a pop were over.
Why wouldn’t somebody want the Roachmeister for one more tour? Sure, he’d left that star’s attached microphone turned on before the show as the star went to the can battling Montezuma’s Revenge. Sure, he’d accidentally opened the floor lift bringing the singer up onstage while a fan was kneeling in front of him. That can happen to anybody. And for cryin’ out loud, what kind of a roadie job is putting police tape on the floor—from the bus to the stage—just because the singer was always so hammered he needed the tape as a guide to find his microphone? Come on, man, it was funny when Roach put the tape leading to a Dumpster out back. Who knew that cowboy would follow the tape right into the garbage? Is that a reason to fire a man?
Roach knew the rules. Roach was a team player. He told that bass singer not to inhale when you’re practicing with a blowgun. Wasn’t Roach the one who ran out and lifted the motorcycle off Travis Tritt when he dumped his Harley onstage at the Derby? I mean, it was hilarious. You don’t fire somebody for laughing.
It’s not like he cost the backup singers that much money when he started the company that specialized in potted chipmunk. He still had a lot of life and great ideas in him. False teeth for dogs was a killer concept. A golf course with ball returns like a bowling alley had promise written all over it. There was so much to plan and live for.
The bus groaned and started to slow down. This was it. They were back in Nashville. Suddenly, dreams and plans felt foreign to him. His bones ached. His back hurt. The bus smelled like a locker room in the Philippines. He waited for a moment. He was gonna rise from the crypt and walk away. Say good-bye to his buds and the driver. The star had gotten home seven hours ago on her plane. He’d send her a note. She was terrific.
This was the long good-bye. The boys always said Roach got out of his bunk like an octopus falling out of a tree. He stood, stretched, and headed toward the door. He stepped off and grabbed his duffel. He tried to remember where he’d parked his car.
He felt a sense of freedom and panic at the same time. Maybe it was time. Roach was turning the corner for a new road. There were some other drivers and buses parked nearby. He gave a quick wave. And he walked.
A voice called out over the early-morning parking lot. “Hey, Roach! ROACH! It’s me, Brandon. Been out on the road with Blake Shelton. Hey, man, I know your girl’s hangin’ it up. You have any interest in takin’ a ride through Canada starting Friday? We’re gonna have a lotta fun and we’ll drink Canada Dry!”
Roach smiled.
Roy Acuff and Opryland
THE KING OF COUNTRY MUSIC goes way back. He was a singer with medicine shows in the 1930s and was a true pioneer. I spent a year working at Opryland doing a morning radio show from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. Roy showed up quite often because he lived there! Yes, you read correctly. He had a house right there on the Opry property. Every so often, he wandered over with a cup of coffee and watched me stumble around doing my radio show. Kind of like when you look up and discover your neighbor is watching you clean out a litter box, or catching you running out to get the paper wearing one sock and a pair of boxers.
I should interject that the show I was doing was called The Waking Crew. It was live radio with a live band and a semi-live audience. It was early, and they were usually sleepy or from out of town and had no idea what was going on. I found both true sometimes. This was a long-running and beloved radio show that went back to the 1940s, carrying the grand tradition of great live radio and entertainment. Look up “The Breakfast Club” or “The Arthur Godfrey Show.” A host, a band, an audience made the show. I hosted it for about a year and drove it straight into the ground. When I left for L.A., they canceled the show.
Now, to be fair, there were problems when I got there. The band had been the star, and some of them didn’t want me to tread on their comedy territory. I didn’t learn that for quite awhile; I thought they were just mutes. It was like I was the mother-in-law on a honeymoon—not a good fit.
I always like to think it was canceled because I left, but it’s probably closer to the truth to say they were so worn out watching me struggle to keep it afloat (literally “afloat” because we sometimes did the show from their General Jackson Showboat) that they just couldn’t muster up the effort to find somebody else to host it.
Each daily show had two live singers. Often, a beautiful blonde named Lorrie Morgan came in. Other times, a whip-thin guy named Alan Jackson from the mailroom shuffled in. I’ll never forget seeing this gorgeous creature, Lorrie Morgan, standing offstage in full regalia looking like a movie star. We were in
a commercial break, and I walked over beside her. She fired up a Marlboro Red and said, “Wow, look at all these sleepy sons of bitches. Is that an audience or an oil painting?” I fell in love that moment.
What was I talking about before? Oh, yeah, Roy Acuff. The Royster only sang once on The Waking Crew with me present. “Great Speckled Bird” was one of his showstoppers. He was a real pro and a man of the people. I got kind of excited when my neighbor dropped in to sing, which brings me to the Roy story.
One day, a security guard at Opryland told me what had transpired with the Opry Master. Now, understand that Opryland was a theme park and a tourist Mecca. There were people in sandals and black socks wandering around for days like mental patients. I don’t need to remind you they loved country music and were thrilled to poke all over the park. Gawkin’ and snappin’ pitchers and generally taking it all in. They were good folks, but tourists. Country tourists are the only people in the world who will drive 700 miles to a destination and have their picture taken with their car.
One summer morning, a gaggle of them got loose and wandered into Roy’s house. Yep, front door is open. Let’s go in and gawk . . . through Roy’s kitchen . . . down the hall to ol’ Roy’s bedroom . . .while ol’ Roy was in it, asleep! They gathered ’round the bed and watched Roy snort and snooze. He was all tucked up in the covers, talkin’ to the Sandman, and these folks from Michigan or Ohio were workin’ the Polaroids and snooping through his sock drawer.
Now, this is what you call a real country music theme park. Not only do you see the stars onstage, but you can also view them with their mouth open, snoring in bed—a place where tourists and Opry legends share a special moment.
A guard noticed Roy’s front door was open and went in to check. When he discovered the “visitors,” he told me he was afraid “Mr. Roy would wake up and think he was dead with these people gathered ’round staring down at him.” It would be like waking up at your own funeral, I guess.