Shreveport was the home of KWKH and its Louisiana Hayride country show. Faron was enthralled with the show’s star, Hank Williams.
“A bunch of us kids went up to the Louisiana Hayride in a convertible one time. Hank Williams Sr. was standing out on the balcony there, out in back of the building. And I hollered up at him. I said, ‘Hey Hank! I’m gonna be on that stage with you one of these days!’ He said, ‘I hope you do, boy.’ After I came to Nashville, I got to meet Hank. I was surprised that he did, but he remembered the incident.”
Up-and-coming Shreveport singer Webb Pierce took Faron Young under his wing. Faron began making guest appearances with Webb’s band and on Webb’s radio broadcasts in 1951.
“Webb had that high, high, really country corny sound. At that time, that’s what country music was. I sang a little bit more mellow than he did. But what he was doing was happening. He was having hit records. And I wasn’t until I got to singing something like him and Hank Williams.”
Capitol Records producer Ken Nelson heard Faron singing on the radio when he was traveling through Shreveport en route to Dallas. Sensing an opportunity, the executive turned his car around and drove to KWKH. At age nineteen, the singer was too young to sign a recording contract, so his parents signed it for him.
One of his early records was heard by Jack Stapp and Jim Denny of the Grand Ole Opry. They invited Faron Young to come to Nashville and do a two-week trial run on the program in the spring of 1952.
“The first time I was on the Grand Ole Opry, I was so nervous I could have threaded a sewing machine with it running. I was scared to death. When I got through with the song, I ran off the stage. Ernest Tubb grabbed me. He said, ‘Get back out there. You’re getting an encore. Get back out there and milk that audience by bowing and bowing. I was off of a dairy farm, and I had never heard this. I thought, ‘What in the world is he talking about—milk the audience?’
“Then when I came off, Hank Williams Sr. came over and said, ‘Hey, boy, you know you just might make it in this business. You’re pretty good, boy.’ That was like Jesus himself saying, ‘Boy,’ when Hank told me that.”
For the trip, Faron brought along his girlfriend, the beautiful Billie Jean Jones. After Faron’s Opry debut, Hank invited the couple out for a night on the town. At some point during the evening, Billie Jean became Hank’s date, not Faron’s. That fall, Hank and Billie Jean were married.
“I was gonna quit the Opry and go back to Shreveport,” Faron recalled. “Roy Acuff called me into the dressing room and said, ‘I can tell by lookin’ at you that you are fixin’ to leave here and not come back, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, that’s exactly what I had in mind.’ He said, ‘You’ve really got what it takes to be a star, and if you go back to Shreveport and back into the clubs, that’s exactly where you’ll be the rest of your life.’ He was right. I’d still be makin’ $300 a week in Shreveport, I believe, if it hadn’t been for Roy Acuff talking to me.”
Not long after his third Nashville recording session, Faron Young was drafted into the army. He was in basic training in Georgia when a song from that session, the bopping “Goin’ Steady,” began scampering up the popularity charts. In early 1953, it became his first top-ten hit.
“I cried like a rat eating a red onion,” said Faron of his draft notice. “I had just went in the army when Hank and Billie Jean got married onstage in Birmingham, Alabama. I remember my company commander called me down [two months later] and said, ‘Faron, why don’t you take the day off? One of your good friends passed away last night.’ I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘Hank Williams.’ I thought, ‘My goodness. That’s two favors he did for me. He took Billie Jones off my hands, and he got me a day off in the army.’”
Actually, Faron Young’s time in the service wasn’t much of a hardship. The Korean War was on, but he was kept stateside to sing at recruiting shows in the South. His Capitol publicity photos pictured him in his private’s uniform. He appeared on TV wearing it in a series of recruitment programs. He also wore it when he returned to the Opry stage, often including a recruiting pitch with his appearances.
While in the army, he fell in love with German-born teenager Hilda Macon. They were married in 1954, while he was still in uniform. They eventually had four children together, Damion (born 1955), Robyn (1957), Kevin (1967), and Alana (1969).
Faron Young’s discharge in late 1954 coincided with his next big hit, “If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’).” The honky-tonk tune got a second lease on life when George Strait revived it in 1988. Faron’s first number-one hit came in 1955, “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young.”
His good looks made him a natural for the movies. In 1955, he was contracted to act in the low-budget western Hidden Guns. His part in the film led to the nickname “The Singing Sheriff” as well as to him dubbing his band The Deputies.
“I went out to Hollywood preparing for a six-month movie. Eight days later, the movie was shot, in the can, and ready to show in theaters. The girl who played my girlfriend in it was a young, beautiful girl. I kept trying to get them to write a love scene. They said, ‘Look, boy, this is a western. You might get to kiss somebody, but if you do, it’ll be that horse sitting over there. You don’t kiss girls in western movies.’ This was her first movie, a girl by the name of Angie Dickinson. And I sure wanted to have a love scene.”
Faron would go on to star in ten more B movies in the 1950s and 1960s. Back in Nashville, his recording career caught fire during the next few years. Successful singles such as “All Right” and “I’ve Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night” paved the way for his first hit as a balladeer, 1956’s “Sweet Dreams.”
“The way I found ‘Sweet Dreams’ is Webb Pierce had heard Don Gibson’s record of it. At that time, Don had not been heard of yet. Webb called me and said, ‘I want you to come over to the house,’ and he had this record. He played it. He said, ‘You need to record this song. It’s a hit.’ So when I cut this thing, it immediately went to number one. Then Patsy Cline cut it, and it went to number one again. Then Emmylou Harris cut it, and it went to number one. Don Gibson redid it. When I go out and do ‘Sweet Dreams,’ some of these younger kids will come up and say, ‘Boy, you sure did a heck of a job on that Patsy Cline song.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute! I had it first!’
“But I loved Patsy Cline. I think I loved everything about her. She took no guff off of nobody. She’d get in with a bunch of guys, and if somebody’d start smarting her off, she could smart you off right back. I remember her sitting backstage crying [when she had no hits]. I said, ‘Let me tell you something, little girl. I’m gonna carry you on some road shows with me.’ So I used to hire Patsy. Patsy worked for me at least a hundred to a hundred fifty times. When I first bought her, I could get her for $75 a day. Later on, $150. Then she got a couple of good things going and went up to $600, $700. I said, ‘I can’t afford you no more!’ She’s still one of the greatest girl singers that was ever in this industry. But she was tough. And I loved her for it.
“Roger Miller was always asking me for a job. I said, ‘Well, I need a drummer. You play drums?’ He said, ‘If you’ll get me a set, I’ll play ’em.’ I gave him some money. He went down to a pawn shop and bought a set of drums. Went on the road with me for two years.”
“The only thing bigger than Faron Young’s mouth is his heart,” said a grateful Roger. In addition to carrying him in his road band, Faron Young boosted the struggling songwriter’s career by making hits of “That’s the Way I Feel” (1958), “Last Night at a Party” (1959), and “A World So Full of Love” (1961).
Songwriter and future Opry star Roy Drusky got his first breaks when Faron recorded his “Alone with You” (1958), “That’s the Way it’s Gonna Be” (1959), and “Country Girl” (1959). Faron made hits of early songs written by future Opry star Bill Anderson (1959’s “Riverboat” and “Face to the Wall”). He hired Kris Kristofferson to work in construction at his office. He hired Johnny Paycheck for his band. Most famously, Fa
ron Young gave the struggling Willie Nelson his first big hit.
“When Willie Nelson came to this town, he was just about penniless,” Faron recalled. “We had a little watering hole called Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge where me and all the guys always hung out. Willie came down, and he was singing his songs. He come and told me, ‘You and George Morgan are two of my favorite singers,’ because we sang behind the beat. He says, ‘I’ve got a couple of songs I want to sing to you.’ And he sang me ‘Hello Walls’ and ‘Congratulations.’ I said, ‘I’m recording in a couple of weeks. I’ll just take ’em both.’ He said, ‘Are you kidding me? These songs have been turned down by everybody in town.’”
Willie offered to sell him the songs outright. Faron refused and instead loaned the struggling songwriter $500. Years later, Willie paid him back by presenting Faron with a $50,000 prize bull.
“So we get in the studio, and everybody started making fun of the song. You know, ‘Hello guitar. Hello microphone.’ I said, ‘Well, y’all go ahead and make fun of this thing. I think it’s a hit record.’ So I put it out.”
In 1961, “Hello Walls” sat at number one for nine consecutive weeks. It became Faron’s biggest pop-crossover hit and is now in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Hotter than ever, Faron Young was courted and signed by Mercury Records. He continued delivering hits through the 1960s, including the classic country drinking song “Wine Me Up” (1969), which was revived by Larry Boone (1989), Gary Allan (1996), and other young stylists. Faron was also delighted with George Strait’s 1988 revival of “If You Ain’t Lovin’.”
“It’s a real shot in the arm to me,” he said. “I don’t mind seeing these young kids come into the business. I’m tickled to death to see someone have success, because if you can’t enjoy someone else’s success, you can’t enjoy your own. The U.S. Mint is printing money twenty-four hours a day, and there’s plenty for us all!”
“I’ve helped a lot of kids,” said Faron nonchalantly. “It don’t hurt. It didn’t cost me a nickel to help ’em.”
He could afford to be generous. Faron cofounded the successful country magazine Music City News, built the profitable Young Executive Building in Nashville, owned four song-publishing companies, founded a booking agency, and made real estate investments.
But redneck Faron wasn’t exactly a socially enlightened individual. When African American Charley Pride appeared on the country scene, he was advised, “If you can make it past Faron Young, you’ll be okay.” So Charley tracked Faron down at a bar and sang to him. Soon, they were trading tunes. “I can’t believe I’m singing with a jig and don’t mind it,” blurted the blunt Faron. “I was waiting for you to call me worse,” Charley replied. “And if you did, I was ready to call you a pucker-mouthed banty rooster son of a peckerwood.” One of the great friendships of country music was born. Faron Young became Charley Pride’s champion and defender.
“When he first started, I carried him as part of my road show,” Faron recalled. “I always told him if he was gonna ride in my bus, he had to get in the back. He said, ‘It ain’t like that no more, you little banty rooster.’”
One radio station threw out Charley’s records when the station manager found out that Charley was African American. “Do you have any Faron Young records at your station?” asked Faron. The radio man assured him that he did. “Well, throw ’em out along with Charley Pride’s, then,” Faron snarled. “If I ever hear of your station playing one of my songs again, I’ll come back and burn the damn place down!”
Faron was reported injured in a poolroom brawl in 1966, but most of his wild-and-wooly behavior was hushed up. However, a late-1969 car accident was too serious to keep quiet.
“I know a thing or two about comebacks,” Faron said. “In fact, my career was almost over in 1970. I had a head-on collision in my car that practically ripped my tongue off. Even after four different operations, I still talked with a lisp, and I figured I would never sing again.
“But I gradually got to the point where I could sing reasonably well. Jerry Chesnutt wanted to write me a song. I said, ‘Just don’t write one with a lot of S’s, because I lisp on S words.’ He came up with ‘[It’s] Four in the Morning.’”
In 1972, “It’s Four in the Morning” became a number-one smash in the United States as well as a giant hit overseas. The waltz topped hit parades in Ireland, England, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. His European bookings soared. Hits such as “Some Kind of a Woman” (1974) and “Here I Am in Dallas” (1975) carried Faron Young through his third decade on the charts.
But things began to unravel in the late 1970s. In 1979, he shot holes in his kitchen ceiling. Hilda and their daughter locked themselves in a bedroom and called the police. Faron entertained them when they arrived. He later wisecracked, “I figure it’s my house; if I want to shoot holes in it, I can do it.” Hilda separated from him.
“I was miserable during those years,” he admitted. “Me and my wife was having a squabble, so I moved out for the time being. I broke up with her for five years. Later, we went back together. We were together three years. All of a sudden, we think it ain’t workin’ out again, so I took off again. We get too used to each other. When I slowed down on my travelin,’ that’s when we started havin’ our trouble. The more I was gone, the better we got along.”
In the early 1980s, he was arrested three times for driving under the influence. Women charged him with assault. His records no longer made the top of the charts. The concert bookings began to fall off.
He signed with MCA Records in 1979 but left the company bitterly in 1981, with three years remaining on his contract. He said the label wasn’t interested in promoting his records properly. In truth, he was still singing magnificently.
“I smoke cigarettes, but I drink very expensive whiskey,” he said of his voice’s remarkable endurance. “That’s it, I think. I remember tellin’ George Jones one time, ‘If you ever quit drinkin’ and smoking, you won’t be able to sing a note.’ And I believe that’s the same thing with me. I never did fool with the pills or the dope. Thank God. Because I am really too weak of a person. If I’d ever got started, I’d-a been hung.”
In 1985, his old friend Willie Nelson contacted him about doing a duet album together. The result, Funny How Times Slips Away, temporarily lifted the fading star’s spirits. He appeared that summer at Willie’s gigantic Fourth of July Picnic in Texas.
“He’s such a sweet person,” said Faron of Willie. “We’ve loved each other for all these years. I know if I ever really needed anything, I could call Willie. When I was a big star and he wasn’t, I was always good to him, and he’s never forgot it. Now that he’s a big star, he could fluff me off. But he doesn’t. He treats me just like the day we met.”
In later years, Faron Young appeared in public less frequently. But on the occasions when he did take the stage, he invariably proved he could still entertain with the best of them.
“When he was clicking on all cylinders, there were few acts that could touch him,” says Bill Anderson. “He could take an audience and hold them in the palm of his hand.
“I learned a whole lot of what I know about show business from watching Faron Young. I would stand over to the side of the stage and just marvel at the ease with which Faron Young could entertain. He could be funny. He could be warm with the audience. He could really, really sing.”
Charley Pride was another who studied at the feet of the master showman. He remembers, “When I was starting out, I had a lot of help from established singers, who took a chance by taking me onstage with them. . . . [Faron Young] was one of my best supporters in the early days, and that helped break some ground for me. When someone who is considered a die-hard redneck stands beside a black man and says, ‘I like this guy,’ it disarms people who might have been reluctant to associate with him.
“Young invited me to parties at his house, took me for rides in one of his old antique cars, and introduced me to a lot of people in the industry. We had some good
times together, and I’ve always appreciated what Faron Young did for me.”
In 2000, the two newest inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame were announced. They were the late Faron Young and his lifelong friend Charley Pride.
22
The Houston Cowboy and the Hollywood Star
If it weren’t for show business, one of the Opry’s sweetest love stories never would have happened. Lisa Hartman attended a high school for the performing arts, then became a pop starlet and a famous Hollywood film and TV thespian. During the same period, Clint Black dropped out of high school, went to work in construction, and performed in Lone Star State honky-tonks. Although both were raised in Houston, Texas, their paths wouldn’t have crossed at all.
Fortunately, Clint Black was discovered and brought to Nashville in 1988. His career exploded in 1989. By the end of 1990, he was a superstar and headlining a huge New Year’s Eve show back home in Houston.
A friend had given Lisa a copy of Clint’s debut album. She liked it and as a lark decided to attend that New Year’s Eve concert.
“I was in Houston promoting a movie,” Lisa recalls. “I knew his music. It was New Year’s Eve, and Mom and I booked a dinner, and then we went to see the show. And I was blown away.”
“I didn’t know anything about her at all,” says Clint. “When I was introduced to her in Houston at the show, I was told she was on Knots Landing and everything.”
Friends who knew them both played matchmakers. It was a Nashville music manager who’d given Lisa Clint’s album and urged her to listen. A television executive gave Clint Lisa’s phone number on the condition that the singer call her. He promised he would.
“Next time I was in L.A., I did,” he remembers. “I was doing The Tonight Show. I had one night off, so I called her and took her to dinner at Gladstone’s at the beach. We sat across from each other and yawned the whole night. She did six movies that year, I think. I was on the road constantly. We were both pretty tired.”
Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain Page 25