Country Music Broke My Brain

by Gerry House

  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  Trombones

  AS LONG AS WE’RE TALKING about music, I thought I’d take a second to pass along vital, life-saving knowledge to the kids out there who might be thinking of choosing an instrument. It is important to remember the old adage, “You are what you toot.” Or pluck or bang or squeeze. (The last is to warn anyone thinking of taking up bagpipes for the high school marching band.) In my opinion, this choice can determine the rest of your high school career; your entire reputation and safety may depend on it. Let me explain.

  For some strange, unknown reason, when I entered the eighth grade and began discovering myself, I decided to join the high school band. I was really into sports, and the two usually don’t mix. My saving grace was delivered because our high school didn’t have a football team. Sad to say, as our band wasn’t required to show up for games because the pigskin was not part of our athletic program, we actually loaded up the band bus and played for another school’s games. For an ever-stranger, more unknown reason, I decided to take up the trombone.

  Please listen and learn. There is no surer way to get yourself assigned to the Dork Brigade than by playing the trombone. It’s really just a notch away from making music on plumbing. It is perhaps the unsexiest instrument in the world.

  It took me nearly four years to escape to bands and lead singing and guitar and keyboards because I spent most of high school carrying a huge trombone case. This is just like asking people to kick you. The trombone sounds like a wounded moose. It’s really only useful for a couple of stirring patriotic marches and/or stripper music—or to make that wah-wah-waaaah sound when a joke falls flat.

  At the time, I never really considered that no man in history ever got chicks playing the trombone. I hear that, in his day, Mozart got the girls by tinkling out a couple of sonatas or a concerto. Every skinny dude who ever carried a Stratocaster knows sooner or later a girl is gonna fall for him because he plays guitar. I think even the bass drummer translated his bang-bang-bang into something more romantic. Artie Shaw played the clarinet, for God’s sake, and as seemingly nonsexy as that is, he married Ava Gardner. The licorice stick got Artie laid by Ava.

  You are, however, what you toot. Trombones and babes? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. As in no action for the seventy-six idiots in history and song who chose, in a moment of delirium, to play something brass that looks like it belongs under the hot water heater.

  The single incident of any kind of attraction during my trombonist career was using the slide to poke Donna Stahl in the behind while performing a rousing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” during band practice.

  Walking the halls of high school as a freshman is difficult enough without carrying a large, gray, bulky, dorky, stupid, bothersome cardboard case. Everybody knows by the shape that a trombone is inside.

  Quick! Name a marching song that helped any guy get lucky. “Oh,” she sighed breathlessly, “when he plays ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,’ I just melt. He’s so sexy blasting some Sousa when we park late at night under the stars.”

  People, that never happened, and it never will.

  I saw President Obama giving a speech on CNN in front of a bridge in Cincinnati. He was plugging one of his shovel-ready programs and was cheerfully pointing out how this bridge was falling apart. Soon, thousands would plunge to their death into the frozen Ohio River unless we gave him another billion or so. I stood on that bridge the night it opened, which explains why I am now falling apart.

  It was twenty-five degrees out, and my high school band was “lucky” enough to be chosen to play during the celebration. (I always felt our bandleader had lost a bet.) We stood for several hours in the thirty-mile-an-hour Canadian wind to play one song, ready with our instruments prepared for the downbeat. I held the metal mouthpiece to my lips prepared to blast into musical history.

  The downbeat came. We bleated and honked our way through God-knows-what song ’til, mercifully, it was over. The moment of celebration was complete. And we were frozen.

  I prepared to pull my trombone from my mouth. If you’ve seen the film A Christmas Story, you know what comes next. You stick your tongue on a lamppost in icy weather, you got trouble. You play trombone below thirty-two degrees, you spend the next month with a raw, red, bleeding circle around your mouth.

  Kids, just say NO. Take up the triangle or get a blue corduroy jacket and become a Future Farmer. No mas el trombono.

  There is a reason you never hear trombones in church. It’s Satan’s favorite instrument.

  Sleep, Gretchen, and Charley Pride

  I HAVEN’T REALLY SLEPT since Jimmy Carter was president. (I miss Billy Carter, by the way.) I have sleep apnea. Everybody I know has sleep apnea or sleeping problems. My problem was that when I could have been sleeping, I was up getting ready to work—every morning around 3:40 A.M. for thirty years. This is almost two hours before the chickens. I don’t know why chickens are known to get up so early, but they’d be racked out when I’d get up.

  I had an early job, just like a lot of people. I loved it once I was at work. I can also tell you nothing good happens at three or four in the morning. The highways are filled with nutty drivers and people coming back from having too much fun. I got pulled over by the cops quite a bit because normal people aren’t out doing things at that godforsaken hour.

  Sleep is a good thing and, overall, I haven’t had much. So I went to a sleep clinic. A sleep clinic is where they attach electrodes and wires to your head and body and watch you sleep. You don’t sleep normally when you have electrodes and wires stuck to your body and your head. And you have to have all the electrodes and wires removed if you gotta whiz. Then they hook you back up and tell you to have a good night’s sleep. The next morning they tell you, “You have sleeping problems.”

  Amazingly, it turns out it’s difficult to get any z’s hooked up like a lab rat to some sleep gizmo. But they told me I needed to get a CPAP machine. So I got one. It’s to help you sleep and works just fine if you don’t mind sleeping with a vacuum cleaner on your face. I use it part of the time, and the rest of the time I think about jokes and world peace and lingerie models.

  Most of the recording artists I know don’t get enough sleep. I don’t want to get into “life on the road,” which is one of the most overdiscussed and stunningly redundant topics in conversation history. However, I will say that I’ve talked to my share of singin’ stars who stand in front of a microphone and need a CPAP or something.

  Gretchen Wilson is a fabulous chick. She is one hell-raising, singin’ sumbitch. I love her. Gretchen was scheduled to appear on my show bright and chipper in the morning to discuss something or other. When Gretchen showed up, she announced she’d just spent the previous evening and most of the night “hangin’ out with Kid Rock.”

  Gretchen was slightly green. You know the look—that “no sudden moves” look. Overserved. Have to get better to die. Just before we were about to start yakkin’ (a term that has two meanings), she announced she’d be right back. She dashed from the studio. I felt sorry for her, but what a trooper. My producer told me later he could hear someone in the ladies room yakking ’til it sounded like her shoes were gonna come up.

  Did Gretchen Wilson bail on the interview? No! Was Gretchen Wilson actually wishing to heaven that she could go lie down with an ice bag on her head? Yes! But she got through it. I meant to send her a lifetime supply of Alka-Seltzer afterward, but I didn’t. It hadn’t even been necessary for her to be on the radio that morning, but she was lovely and funny and pure Gretchen. I’ve had many worse interviews with well-rested, sober hillbillies, which reminds me of Charley Pride.

  He is a star of the Grand Ole Opry, a Hall of Famer, and has made some wonderful records. As the Statler Brothers once said, “Get a gimmick like Charley Pride.” Charley is an African American from Sledge, Mississippi.

  Charley is also very cheap. We used to play golf together, and after an errant shot, he would look for a ball for two
hours ’cause “that was an almost new ball I bought just a couple of years ago.” You need a shave by the time you finish playing golf with Charley Pride.

  Charley sang “Kiss an Angel Good Morning,” and everybody in the world loves him. He’s just a great guy. However, if you happen to be hosting a live, one-hour Sunday-night show across America, make sure you don’t plan on filling the hour with any of Charley’s history. I know; I did it.

  The problem is that Charley is bored with answering the same old questions. I also get bored asking them, but if you’re live on the air and introducing a legendary singer to a new generation, you gotta cover a little history.

  When the guest doesn’t want to talk, an hour stretches to eternity. You know the ticking stopwatch on 60 Minutes? If the guest is monosyllabic, the clock sounds like this: Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. It’s flop-sweat city.

  I asked Sir Charley about life in Sledge. He said, “That’s in my resume.”

  “Charley, you played a lotta baseball.”

  “That’s in my resume.”

  “I know you worked with Chet Atkins.”

  “That’s in my resume.”

  Can you sense the exciting direction of this nationwide gabfest? I got through the unending hour by asking Charley about his favorite golf balls. Because he still has them all, he chirped on and on about great Top-Flites he had known and missing a putt and losing a quarter bet. I just remember being in the weeds with Charley Pride for an eternity.

  Then there’s Mary Chapin Carpenter, probably the most intelligent artist to ever wander the streets of Music City. I know for certain she was doing calculus or pondering Greek literature while she was singing. We’ve had a long and wonderful friendship. For many years, we’ve exchanged back and forth at various birthdays and award events a velvet painting of a bullfighter. I think I gave it to her first, she regifted it to me, and so on. I’m not sure who has it now.

  Chapin could have also been a great monk. She’s not Ms. Yakety-Yak. I’ve seen a lot more excitement on a hostage tape. Let’s face it, people, she’s quiet.

  Chapin has had a lot of great songs and made many hit records. I also know she nearly had a nervous breakdown because her record company made her record with Joe Diffie. Why? I don’t know, but for some reason it didn’t fit into her career plans. I can’t remember the record. Joe probably doesn’t remember the record.

  In conclusion, I have some helpful sleep tips. These time-tested and easy-to-follow methods of dropping off to SnoozeTown will help if you’re sleep-deprived.

  1. Take an overnight flight to Milan from Nashville. Try to arrive about 8 A.M. at your hotel in Italy. Make certain your room won’t be ready for five or six hours. Then just do as Allyson and I did. Lie down by the pool on those warm deck chairs for a quick nap. You’ll wake up refreshed and peppy around sundown. You’ll still be wearing your street shoes and a jacket. Your wife will have her purse clutched to her chest. Italian tourists will be standing over you asking, in Italian, if you are dead.

  2. Have two glasses of Champagne before going into the theater in London. London isn’t as air-conditioned as America. The theaters are just below baby chick incubator temperature. Settle into your $250 seats. As the orchestra strikes the first note of the overture you’ve waited to hear, you’ll drop off like a baby in a rocking chair. I’ve done this about ten times. I even once slept all the way through Stomp—the one where they bang on garbage cans for two hours.

  3. If all else fails and you just can’t get to sleep, do what Burl Ives did. Burl was one of America’s greatest actors. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and East of Eden made him a star. He also sang one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time. “Holly Jolly Christmas” still makes me feel full of the holiday spirit.

  I think Burl was about 100 when he was on my Saturday Night House Party, a middling effort I hosted for several years to rev up radio on a Saturday evening. I had Burl on as a guest, on the phone from Los Angeles. I could hear his wife prompting him about my name and what he was plugging. We were ready.

  I did quite a lovely and glowing introduction of Burl for the audience. I mentioned the movies and the writing and the singing. I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Burl Ives.”

  Ten seconds of silence were followed by one of those snorts you give when you’re so asleep you forget to breathe. You wanna get to sleep? Listen to me on the radio.

  Ol’ Burl had no sleep problems at all.

  Who actually said this to me: “I ain’t scared. I once made love in a canoe standing up”?

  A) Trace Adkins

  B) Betty White

  C) Carrie Underwood

  Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?

  I WORKED, AND I USE that term loosely, for a couple of years on the biggest country station in Los Angeles. It was tough, a real slog. I won’t go into detail, but some of the folks I worked with were great, and some were a royal pain. It was always fun, however, seeing the stars out buying groceries and having their teeth fixed. In Nashville, you are likely to see Keith Urban driving through Fatburger or Martina McBride buying asparagus at Kroger’s. Betty White is one of the national treasures I saw several times in L.A. She was and still is a huge animal lover. Our little peezers who live with us, Lucy and Desi, are part of the family. Betty always turned up at any event to help a little stray.

  I agreed to do my show live from the Palamino, one of the few “country” venues in L.A. It shut down a few years ago, but at one time, it was the place for up-and-coming country acts to visit. So, here I stood behind the bar at the Palamino at five forty-five in the morning. It was obviously a bar and smelled like it. I saw a little figure making her way toward the bar through the tables full of upturned chairs. She hopped up on a bar stool and grinned at everybody. It was Betty White.

  All those TV shows, games, series, movies, interviews, and appearances sat on that little bar stool. We might raise a few bucks for the Adopt-a-Pet Foundation. She absolutely glowed. I handed her a microphone and said, “We’re going live in a few seconds, are you scared?” Her reply was hilarious; it was vintage Betty White, and wasn’t for anybody but me. As she said during the show, “I love dogs because they are just as excited to see you coming back from getting the paper as they are when you come back from Europe.”

  I jump up and down whenever I see Betty White.

  The Woods and the Sticks

  I LOVE THE WOODS. Heck, I grew up in the woods. OK, technically, I grew up in the sticks. The difference is that the woods are where chipmunks hop and frolic. You can smell honeysuckle and jasmine in the air. Soft modern jazz plays in the woods. Snow falls gently in the woods. The rain caresses the lovely green canopy of the woods. It’s what you see in Disney films. Rabbits kiss and fawns nuzzle while bluebirds sing overhead.

  The sticks are the rednecks of woods. The sticks are great but usually populated with guys pointing guns while takin’ a chaw of tobacco. The sticks smell faintly of old socks. Nothing good happens in the sticks. That thing from Alien won’t go into the sticks by himself.

  You get slightly lost in the woods. In the sticks, you step into an old well or a huntin’ trap. If the sticks were people, they would be that guy who catches turtles with his bare hands. The sticks have that same grin. Wild hogs come flying out at ya in the sticks. You never hear banjo music in the woods. Quite often while crashing through the sticks, you can hear the faint sound of Deliverance. Ba-da-BUM-Bah-BUM.

  Here is the main difference between the woods and the sticks: in the woods, a young girl dressed in an L.L. Bean outfit, wearing a ponytail and ball cap, walks hand in hand with a guy wearing chinos and a white shirt. They pause at a stream. They can walk gazing into each other’s eyes for miles and meander past a pond with lilies. In the background, you can hear “Wind Beneath My Wings.” The woods are where you picnic. The woods are nature’s theme park. Mary Poppins has a summer house here.

  When you enter the sticks, on the other hand, you are immediately, almost magically, covered in burrs
—those things that stick on you like Velcro that you can’t pull off your clothes. Ticks, which sit waiting patiently like people waiting on the five o’clock bus, find places on your body you’ve never seen. Chiggers, God’s revenge on the sticks, begin their work. Chiggers have something in their jaws that can cause misery for weeks. Thorns the size of ten-penny nails reach out at you and draw first blood, or whatever’s left after the ticks and chiggers have done their work. Poison ivy grows like kudzu, and kudzu grows like kudzu. It’s a scientific fact that nearly all of Alabama is covered in kudzu. If you fly over Alabama, it looks like green shag carpeting was installed overnight.

  It usually starts raining when you are in the sticks. Actually, it starts pouring—what they call a real “frog choker.” I’ve been in the sticks and actually heard frogs choking. It’s not pretty.

  The usual trip in the sticks, for whatever purpose—hiking, hunting, or looking for Sasquatch—begins at the end of a country road. Off the country road is a gravel road. The gravel road leads to a dirt road. The dirt road leads to a path. The path then leads to the sticks. You hear a banjo strum. Another frog chokes. You are now 100 miles from the nearest Stuckey’s. Your phone doesn’t work. You hear Ned Beatty scream somewhere in the distance. There is nothing now . . . nothing but the fierce wilderness of the sticks surrounding you like Indians on Custer.

  You wander aimlessly through blackberry brambles and poke sallet. Civilization is just a rumor. You crash and turn and search for even the most remote clearing. Stumbling forward into the green, itchy oblivion, you are now officially classified as a missing person. No one has ever been here. Not Lewis. Not Clark. Not even an Indian. This is untouched land. Then, as you feel the overwhelming remoteness rise up from the kudzu, you see it.