A Guitar and a Pen

by Robert Hicks

  “We still have some money in the bank,” I said.“I’ll find a deal. I’ll have a hit. I’ll make it back! I was ranting. I knew I was, but I was not going to admit to being a loser, not after all those wonderful, glamorous victories.

  “This is a stupid business,” she snarled.“And we are stupid for believing in it. I am not going to see us lose the money we have left, then sell the house, move back into a tiny apartment with two growing kids. And I am not going to watch you lose your mind because we’ve lost everything else. Let’s go on to something else while we still have something left!”

  I knew she was right, of course, but I wasn’t ready. Eyes filled with indignant tears, I stormed out of the house, stopped at the first Krystal and gobbled down six Krystal burgers, then headed out to the Old Red Lounge. It was always Writers’ Night down at the Old Red Lounge.

  I suppose a part of me expected to run into Roberta, or somebody like Roberta. I don’t think she would have given me a second look if my friend Lex hadn’t introduced me to her.“He wrote . . .” and began the roll call of hits while I stared at her modestly. She nodded and studied me as if deciding whether my track record made up for my buffless body. She chose career over romance, allowed me to lead her to the table, and made a serious attempt at being attracted to me. I told her my wife didn’t understand and she understood. I told her I wanted to hear her songs and she did not have to feign enthusiasm. I had had hits. I must be connected. I was worth her time. That was good enough for her and good enough for me.

  It was her turn to get up onstage and sing. Her songs were not awful. In fact they were quite good. They didn’t have a prayer of being recorded, but, you know, they were good songs. And I told her so.

  “You really mean it?” she asked.

  “I said it. That means I mean it.” I sounded very sincere.

  Now it was her turn.“I didn’t know who wrote those songs,” she said.“They’ve always been among my favorites. You’re really nice. I’m sorry your wife doesn’t understand you. You have gorgeous eyes. Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

  She was working very fast, and her timing was just right. This girl obviously knew quality when she saw it. Tonight she was a ten. My wife was a one. End of story.

  There weren’t enough writers that night and she went up for an encore. While she was singing her song I was writing my own, about a guy who was such an idiot that he gave up everything he had won over the past six years. I pictured coming home and telling my wife I was leaving her for a young girl who understands. Pictured her tears. Pictured the kids’ tears. Pictured waking up next to my new torrid love the next morning. Were divorce songs selling these days? I hated the song and went no further with it. In fact, in the middle of her last chorus, I waved to her, smiled, blew her a kiss, gave her a thumbs-up, and headed out the door.

  I drove home and walked in the house, not guilty but gruff.“I’m not looking for work!” I growled. Her eyebrows raised. She knew more was coming.

  “Not tomorrow. You got any ideas?”

  “You could start by substitute teaching,” she said.“That’d get a little money coming in. I can work at Kroger on the weekends if you’ll take care of the kids.“I’m not giving up on your dream,” she said.“I just hope you consider that there are other dreams.” She smiled.“And we did get to live your dream—for a while. Most dreams are just like that. They last a little while. Then you wake up.”

  It was my turn to smile. I was wide awake, and I liked it fine.

  Michael Kosser

  Michael Kosser is a senior editor at American Songwriter magazine, where he has written a column on songwriting called “Street Smarts” for the past twenty years. He has also written seventeen published books, including, most recently, the award-winning How Nashville Became Music City, USA. His songs have been recorded by George Jones, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Barbara Mandrell, Charlie Rich, Ray Price, Marty Robbins, the Kendalls, Blake Shelton, Josh Gracin, and many more.

  With Gratitude

  First and foremost, the editors would like to thank the songwriters who ventured out into sometimes uncharted territories—writing something without music and longer than four minutes in length. This collection is the fruit of their labor and their passion. We would be remiss if we didn’t thank all their families, management, and staff who nudged them forward when we couldn’t.

  Our agent, Jeff Kleinman of Folio Literary Agency, ventured into a world he knew little about when he took on a collection of short stories by songwriters. Yet, with his signature passion coupled with wisdom and common sense, he became our advocate to find the perfect home for this collection. We are forever indebted to Jeff.

  Then there is Rolf Zettersten, our esteemed publisher at Center Street, who was willing to buy into our belief that songwriters were, as Vince Gill called them, “the ultimate short, short story writers.” We are forever aware that without your faith, no one would be reading this now.

  We want to thank Chris Park, briefly our editor, who convinced the folks at Hachette that we were not crazy. We are forever indebted to her for leaving us in the capable hands of Christina Boys, our amazing ace editor whose hard work and superior intellect makes us all appear much smarter than we are. Like Rolf, she “got it” and has run with it ever since. Then there is Meredith Pharaoh, our assistant editor, for helping with the seemingly never-ending work load we dumped upon her and all the rest of the Center Street/Hachette gang: Lori Quinn, who has added her passion for a job well done to the mix along with Harry Helm, Jana Burson, Preston Cannon, Jody Waldrup, and Dylan Hoke. Not to mention anyone and everyone else we really should be thanking, but haven’t. Thank you.

  Thanks to Amy Grant and Vince Gill, Tamara Saviano, Jay Jones, Ellen Pryor, Robert Clement, and Doug Waterman of American Songwriter magazine, John Carter Cash, John Allen, Koz Weaver, Bob Sullivan, Doug Howard, Terry Moran, Bart Herbison, Judi Marshall, Angie Gore, and Paula Szeigis.

  John would especially like to acknowledge:

  August Christopher Bohlinger, the most inspired and inspiring person I have ever known. To Aug’s mamma, for giving me this beautiful son. To Megan Mullins, my proofreader, cowriter, muse, and much more. To my parents, John and Bette Bohlinger, who are the salt of the earth, living out their lives to make this world a better place for those in need. My partners, Robert Hicks and Justin Stelter, who took a simple idea, developed it into so much more, and tenaciously ran with it for over five years.

  Unending gratitude to my loyal friends at Nashville Star, particularly Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, Jon Small, Jeff Boggs, and Don Lepore; my sibs/support group: Jeanne Cox, Jan Osborne, JoLynn Sommers, Mark Bohlinger, and Nick Bohlinger; Dave Goodwin, my brother and partner in “A MAJOR CONGLOMERATE”; 262five’s Kyle Gustie and Brinson Strickland; Eddie Tidwell: great friend and music encyclopedia; the Mullins family; Donnie Fritts; Larry Boothby; Michael Spriggs; Tracy Gershon; Katherine Lepore, Billy Block, Bob Kirsh, Jonah Rabinowitz, and Lynn Adelman of the W. O. Smith School; Randy Owen; Ray Scott; Trent Summar; Shawn Pennington; Tracy Gershon; Arthur Buenahora; Clay Bradley; Loretta Fellin; Ashley Ray; Judy Bell; Brooke Lee; Stan Moress; the Richmond Organization; and all of the musicians and artists who, for nearly a decade, have employed me, thus keeping me safe from engaging in any activity that even vaguely resembles work.

  Justin would especially like to acknowledge:

  First and foremost, Robert Hicks and John Bohlinger for including me. Without them I would never have been a part of this amazing project. However, most importantly, I’d like to thank Olivia Stelter, my lovely wife, for her compassion and patience through all these years. I’d like to thank Keith Stelter, my grandfather, and Imogene Bolin and Tom Neff for setting the standard of pursuing life with passion; Kevin Stelter, my father, for constantly inspiring me to be a better person; Mark Stelter, my uncle, for unending encouragement; Dena and Tim Wilson and Sherry and Bill Bolin for reminding me to have faith; my two sisters, Shae and Skye Stelter; and all other fami
ly members, including Great-Grandma Naomi Draggoo, Kay Stelter, Gracia and Dennis Draggoo, Audrey and Bill Fields (who first introduced me to Western literature when I was twelve), Horace (one of the bravest men I know), his wife, Willa Dean Dunn, and Jodi Stelter.

  Tom Strawman has been a source of steady guidance since my first writing course in college. To Travis Billings and Danny Cunningham, two of the best friends anyone could have. To Robert Hicks, Adam Goodheart, Duncan Murrell and Jill Robinson, all great writers I’m fortunate enough to call my friends.

  Then there are Catherine Anderson, Danny Anderson, Angela and Porter Calhoun, Duke Ellis, Diana and Gary Fisketjon, Mary and Winder Heller (the happiest people I know), Kay and Rod Heller, Lark Foster, Kathy and Justin Neibank, Annie Owen, Mimi and Sokrates Pantelides, Ann and Aaron Reed, Beth and Peter Thevenot (tied for the happiest people I know), and Rick Warwick.

  Robert would especially like to acknowledge:

  My parents, who gave me a passion for words, for stories, for music. Anything I’ve done in this life, of any real value, begins with them. Likewise, my brother, Marcus, his wife, Candy, my niece, Nova, and Danny, her husband, continue to remind me about how far passion, kindness, and curiosity really can take you in this world.

  I’d like to thank John Bohlinger for sharing his idea for this collection with me. I’d like to thank Justin Stelter for his hard work and persistence to see it to completion. I want to thank both of them for letting me be a part of this partnership.

  I would like to thank my dear friend, Hazel Smith, who has spent years reminding me that Country Music is like Our Lord in that it must be in our hearts to be real.

  My coeditors have already covered many of those who I would be thanking here. I can only hope that those already listed know how much they mean to me. A few more of the support team of friends that have cheered me on over the years, not mentioned above, are Julian Bibb, Kelly and Bo Bills, Joe Cashia, Mary-Springs and Stephane Couteaud, George Ducas, Jim Duff, Amy Einhorn, Becki Foster, Matt Futterman, Andrew Glasgow, Monte Isom, Curt Jones, Evan Lowenstein, Riley May, Martha Otis, Tommy Peters, Jamie Raab, Charlie Snow, and Karen Torres. Finally, there is that very long list of bookstore folks who may be the best demographic of men and women I have ever had the privilege to know. Your encouragement and friendship are not long forgotten.

  An Interview with the Editors

  Robert Hicks, John Bohlinger, and Justin Stelter

  1. How did you decide to put together this collection?

  JB: I grew up writing songs, making them up before I could write. I pounded them out on my family’s tragically out of tune upright whose sticky keys hit me right at eye level. I smacked my dad’s Tijuana gut-string, holding it like a doghouse bass and hollering out impromptu lyrics about my dog, cat, shoes, brother—a childhood stream of semi-consciousness in rhyme. Haunted by these melodies and lyrics that woke me up at night, I’d forget where I was going, where I parked my car, what I was supposed to be doing. So I set out on a quixotic journey to Nashville to be a songwriter. I waited tables at night, wrote songs on bar napkins that morphed into hard paper balls in my pockets, woke up early and wrote all day as my son and I played pirates or cowboys in the strip of grass outside our little crappy apartment. I pitched songs all over town to every publisher, artist, plugger, record executive, or poser I met. Eventually I parlayed hard work and average talent into a good little career. (What a delicious scam.) The driving force behind my preoccupation remains the power of a song. Today, just like when I was a kid listening to the radio in our ’72 Microbus, a great song hypnotizes me, taking the entire roller coaster ride of emotions that you feel in a week and squeezing it into a few compact minutes where time stops.

  In Nashville, songwriters strive to find that magic marriage of lyrics and melody that says the ineffable. Sometimes the lyrics alone, like the melody alone, can give you that feeling. I started hunting for short stories by Nashville writers, devoured what I found, and began writing my own stories. I talked to my songwriter and publisher friends and found many of them were writing prose as well or collecting short stories by songwriters. I contacted my longtime friend Robert Hicks. Robert and I met through songwriting and share the same passion for the craft. We joined forces to record short stories by Nashville songwriters, like John Lomax chasing the blues of the Delta to share with the world. Robert brought in Justin. We plugged away for six years, searching for songs and a home for the project, and lucked out with Center Street.

  2. How did you come to know the contributors?

  RH: In 1969 I came to Nashville to go to college. All I knew about country music was that I didn’t like it.

  But somehow, through proximity, or happenstance, one night I stumbled into the briar patch of country music: the alley next to the historic Ryman Auditorium—“the Mother Church of Country Music”—which, back then, still housed the Grand Ole Opry. In those days, the alley served as a de facto back stage of the Ryman, which had been built as a church and hence didn’t have a back stage.

  That night, a bunch of folks lounged against the walls of the alley, smoking cigarettes and laughing. A beautiful woman, overdressed, began to argue with a man. As their fight grew louder, it seemed to amuse everyone else. They were married, I realized. The argument escalated with accusations of infidelity; she shoved him, and he pushed back; and just as it all seemed to be transforming into a bizarre scene from a Robert Altman movie, a kid came bounding down the side steps of the Ryman and yelled, “You’re on in five minutes, Ms. Anderson!”

  The woman stopped, turned to her husband, said, “Help me with my makeup.” And just about five minutes later, Lynn Anderson stood on the stage of the Opry singing “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.”

  Somehow, at that moment, I fell in love with country music. These folks wore their feelings like they wore their rhinestones. Everything shone, and nothing was hidden. It seemed like a good way to live.

  A few years later, after finishing school and still a bit directionless, I sat in a bar with an old friend. Our discussion was part of that unending discussion you have at that age about what to do with your life. For whatever reason, he turned and said, “I think you should be a music publisher.”

  “Really?” I asked.“What do they do?”

  “I don’t know, but I think you’d be good at it—it’s a good title.”

  I was looking for answers, and thankfully he wasn’t in a cult or I guess I might be chanting in an airport somewhere today. Instead, the next day I ended up at a bookstore, reading about music publishing—and I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life: be an advocate of and believer in the songwriter. These were people I wanted to cast in my lot with. It’s now my world and a world I believe in very deeply.

  Nashville is a small town in many ways; even more important, it’s one of the most accessible places on earth for the creative. Many of the contributors in this book are not only colleagues but also life-long friends.

  3. Was there a particular story that you related to?

  JS: There were so many stories I related to. But maybe Tim Putnam’s “The River” is as near and dear to me as anything in the book. I grew up on Westerns. My passion for reading is born out of them. They took me beyond the world of my childhood and taught me about honor and justice and manliness. My reading taste has expanded a bit over the years, but I still have a heart for those stories. When Robert and I joined forces with John, I had no thought that a Western would ever show up. Yet, there it was one day. Somehow it had all come full circle for me.

  JB: Louis Armstrong said, “If they act too hip, you know they can’t play.” Nashville songwriters carry that same philosophy about writers. The emperor’s clothes bit may work in pop where listeners fear that if they don’t understand they must be stupid or square, but not in Nashville. Country music is the poetry of the guy who changes oil at Wal-Mart all day, or the girl behind the cashier’s register, worried about raising her kid alone. Nashville writers say what we have
felt. Like Harlan said, “Three chords and the truth.” Tom T. epitomizes the best of these Nashville writers. His story, “The Day Jimmy Killed the Rabbit,” pulls you in like his songs do and sucker punches you in the gut at the end, leaving you gasping for air and wishing you could have fixed this kid’s problems because that could have been you—or your cousin, spouse, mom, son, somebody you love.

  4. What story most surprised you?

  JS: Every single story in the collection confirms our theory that these men and women—and all the rest of the songwriters in Nashville—really are some of the best storytellers there are. Yet, that said, I have to admit that there was always a bit of genuine surprise every time I finished reading a story, since another songwriter had just proved us right again. As far as a surprise within the story itself: Well, I hate to admit it, for I should have seen it coming from the beginning, but I guess that would be the end of Bobby Braddock’s story.

  5. Which story particularly reflected the person who wrote it? Which did not?

  RH: This is a tough question for me to answer—not because I don’t know which stories reflect the people who wrote them, but because so many of the folks are friends, and I know how close to home they were treading.

  You know, on second thought, I think I will plead the Fifth and move on.

  6. Robert and John, how did you come up with the ideas for your own stories?

  JB: During my earlier years in Nashville, a series of bad breaks left my son, his mamma, and me living in our van for a week. It tore me up to think my stupidity had put them in such a mess. My sweet son had no idea we were poor; he thought we were camping. Getting through that opened my eyes, gave me empathy for our brothers and sisters who struggle with poverty. I saw first hand the emptiness of some charity that benefits the giver rather than the receiver.“A Big Batch of Biscuits” isn’t fiction, it’s a retelling of the experience a friend of mine went through.