Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: And I went out on the porch and I was still doing my social media stuff, but I went out on the porch and I remember I prayed out loud.
I said, God, it says in her book, the birds don't worry about what they can eat.
The wildflower doesn't concern themselves what they're going to wear. You know, I'm going to, I've tried to do it myself, my, my way for a decade now, you know, since I got out of college.
I'm handing over to you.
I want to step out of my own way and see what you got.
And like two or three days later, Tick Tock announced the Creativity Reward program where they were going to start actually paying me, which didn't mean much to me at the time because I was getting 20,000 views or something. So I, the most I could make on a video was $15.
You know what gonna change my life.
Two days after that, I put out a video about Hank Williams Jr. Falling off the mountain. And it got a million and a half, 2 million views. And I got like 7 or $800 off that one. And I was like, well, if I could do it once, I could do it again.
And I did it a few days later, got another million and some views. And that's whenever it took off.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: And swung a hammer since.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back to Code Red. My name is Zach Terry and I am your host. And on this edition of Code Red, I'm getting to just take a personal privilege and invite one of the podcasters that I enjoy listening to into the Code Red studio and pick his brain a little bit. Dylan Weldon is the host of the Drifting Cowboy podcast. And Dylan has become a country music historian and he just digs into the stories behind the music and the artist.
And it's one of my favorite podcasts to listen to. I'm sure you will enjoy it as well. And there's much to learn from Dylan Weldon. Welcome to Code Red.
All right, Dylan Weldon, welcome to Code Red.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate you having me out here and coming out here to Florida. We've really been enjoying it.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: First time this part of the state.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I've been to St. Augustine, but yeah, first time here north of Jacksonville.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: So we had, we brought you out here. I explained to you a little bit last night over dinner that I had most of what we do is talking about the intersection of kind of culture and Christianity. That's the nature of our podcast, but went through a season where kind of the low hanging fruit, the easy gets for interviews were Kind of getting more difficult.
And so we had a few months that I said, I want to just get some people that I'm interested in what they're doing and want to just talk to them about how they do what they do. And so you were top of the list when I shot you the deal on Instagram.
I followed your work probably over a year, ever since you've been doing it, and tell them a little bit. You do the history of country music, but you talk to some of the greats and tell us a little bit about what you do.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that. I always appreciate the support. But yeah, there's definitely going back to what you said, though. There's definitely quite a bit of crossover Christianity in country music that we can get into. But no, I.
I started doing the short form stuff about five and a half years ago during COVID when a lot of people started doing that because we were, you know, stuck at home. Right. So I started then more to get into songwriting than anything. And I wanted to build a community of country music songwriters because I like to write songs just to share with and work with.
And I ended up building on TikTok about 10,000 people pretty quick and started talking about. I'd be reading a Waylon biography or something, and I'd talk about, say, well, this story, these 10,000 people would probably like to hear this. I'd tell that story and it would do well, and it just kind of grew from there. And I did that for about three years, three and a half years, and it got up to probably 30,000, 35,000 people, and then it just took off like a rocket ship one day. I've been very, very blessed.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: They say most guys when they podcast, they get about nine episodes in. That's 90% of them only make it about nine episodes. And if you can make it past nine, you can make it to 90 is what I've heard.
At what point in the process did you get that cap?
Because to me, that's one of the sharpest business decisions because it identifies with your brand. When I see that cap and I'm just scrolling through, I'm like, oh, there's Dylan stuff and kind of camp out there.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: It's funny, I was living Smithfield, Texas, just outside of Austin, and my mind at that point became really focused on content.
And my wife and I were at a bass pro shop and we saw a shiner beer hat that was yellow and white.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Is that the text? Texas beer?
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm not a beer drinker or anything, but I Saw that hat that was yellow and white, and I said, that hat's gonna catch attention just because it was bright. And so I started wearing that hat, and I wore that hat for a long time and ended up becoming friends with the people over at Shiner and going and touring their facility and stuff.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: They like that. Free advertising.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
Then Waylon and Seager came out with this hat, and when I saw it advertised, I was like, I would rather promote Wayland, you know, than a beer come. Nothing against shot. I love those guys. And I still wear their hats every now and then, but I really love whaling. And so I got this hat, and it has kind of become my symbol.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: This really has. It's kind of like the big hat Abraham Lincoln wore. Man, I see that hat. I know it's your stuff, but there's something to that there. You know, there are guys, you know, you look at Churchill, you know, Churchill. If you. If you see a side shot of Churchill, you know who that is. You know, Abraham Lincoln. When you just get a glimpse of it, you know who that is. And so there's been something. I thought, if I were the hat company, I would have you sell them, because that would. You know, they're just associated with you.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: You know, there's been discussion of that with the Whelan campaign. They. They talked to me about maybe doing some ad stuff for them. And really, I wish I had a count on how many of these I have sold, because I get that message all the time, you know. Where did you get that? I send them over there.
I hadn't ever done that. I kind of slacked on my end on that.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Well, you save them up, because here's what'll happen.
I'm from Alabama, so back when I was a kid, Bear Bryant was known for that houndstooth hat he always wore. And he wore his last one out, and they didn't make them anymore.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: And he had so identified that with his brand. You know that.
So he got on. There's a famous clip on YouTube where he's begging people. He's like, if you happen to have a size 7 1/2 houndstooth hat, send it to me. I'll pay you for it.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Because I couldn't find him anymore, you know?
Now the Whelen.
Is he. Is he your favorite out of the people you've covered?
[00:07:31] Speaker A: He's up there.
His campaign is like his estate and shooter and all them. I love all those people very much. I work with them a lot, talk to them. They're. They're. I'VE made a lot of friends in that organization.
It's hard for me to pin down a favorite, though, because, you know, I'm a huge Haggard fan. I'm a huge George Jones, F. Gary Stewart, all these guys. It's hard for me to pin down just one guy that would be my favorite. But Waylon's definitely up there. You know, YouTube music and Spotify, all these deals. At the end of every year, they give you a thing that tells you who you listen to the Most, your top 10.
Waylon and Merle are always number one and two. Really, that kind of. Back for the past five years, was it.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Was it a certain decade that you focus in on with. With either one of them?
[00:08:25] Speaker A: I always say my favorite decade of country music is probably 75 to 85.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: If I had to pick a certain.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Decade, I could see that that's what I. I was born into it. I used to. Dad was a drummer.
And you know how you put in a bass drum, a pillow down to muffle a little bit? I would. When I was a little boy, I would crawl up in that pillow and go to sleep as he was playing drums.
So it was literally hammered into me, those rhythms. I could still hear the Stantler Brothers playing over our stereo. His dad sitting there keeping time, you know. And I think you said you were one when you went to your first Haggard show.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah, my mom and dad took me. I think it was Contraband Days or something down in Lake Charles. It was definitely in Lake Charles, Louisiana, but one of those festivals or something. And Haggard was playing. Of course, I don't remember it. I was one year old.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: But what year was that?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Would have been around 94.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: 94, okay. So, yeah, that I'm trying to figure, would Gordon have been with him at all at that point?
They did a few shows as late as 94, but it would be a rare. Just kind of guest appearance type thing.
I remember Haggard kind of picked up and started traveling again around. Around that time, seems like.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a. Interesting time in Haggard's career, the 90s, because he signed in the early 90s with Curb, and it was not, you know, it was not a good relationship. What.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: What songs was that. Was that when he was doing a lot of horns or what? When was that?
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it was kind of jazzy stuff.
I wish I could remember the name of those albums. I can't remember them off the top of my head. I think it was three albums he did there. But Haggard felt like Mike Curb had signed him just to get his name and use them to get younger artists. And then basically didn't promote his album.
And so it ended very sour. Very sour deal. But, yeah, that he was doing a lot of touring, though, through the 90s. But the albums wasn't doing great because.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: That deal with Kirby driving over today, I just happened to have it on XM and on the Elvis radio channel. And it hit me, driving over today, how well his estate and his name has been managed because of Priscilla's trademarking everything. And, you know, somebody somewhere along the way realized that this man made history and somebody has to manage that. So they've got Tom Parker managing him from his 20s on, but somebody now that he's in glory, somebody's got to manage it after that, if it's. And his impact can be sustained.
So things like the movie, the Boz movie that came out, and now they've got a new one that he's taken a lot of footage and a concert that never been released before they put together that's supposed to be out right now. If you've heard about that. I just. It's not been marketed big, but the same guy that did the King, the big movie, recently took a lot of footage that they uncovered and put.
Put a new kind of docu series together that's coming out in theaters, which. I'd love to check it out, you know.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Oh, wow. I didn't know about that. My friend, though, who we talked about last night, who owns the cash farm, he works with the Sailors brothers, Kyle and Kenny Sailors, and they just put together a documentary on Elvis.
Something. I wish I could.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say it could be the. We could be talking about the same one.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Same thing. But, yeah, they put it together and it just got picked up by Angel Films.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: And it's gonna be. I guess it's gonna be going out to theater. So it's. It's.
Their documentary, though, is pretty much about Elvis's faith.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
Which was huge.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: I look at the management of his estate and his name, his history, all that that they've done such a good job with.
And then we were talking about last night whether it's. I hate to use somebody who's still living.
If you think of some of the greats that have. That have passed on that. You know, I've got a son who's coming up in that field now that he should know their name, he should know their stories, you know? But it's like when I tell him that, he said, well, dad, where do I find that at?
[00:12:48] Speaker A: You know?
[00:12:48] Speaker B: And if you're not doing it, you know, you can't record them now. You can't go back and interview him now. So we. We mentioned, like, Bobby Bear, you know, last night.
A lot of the guys coming into the industry now have no idea the impact that man made.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: You know, and not to mention writers. And, you know, as I. As I was leaving today, there was a Town Van Zant album laying out on the table.
And I wonder if you went down Music row, you know, maybe those guys know who that is and the impact that he made. But if somebody doesn't own that legacy and capture it and retell it, it's going to be lost to history. And that's a lot to lose, you know?
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's kind of the importance of what I've got going on. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I started the podcast to capture those stories and legacies and never expected it to be anything that I would even do consistently. Just.
I thought it was important to capture those stories. And there's a lot of guys, like, Town Van Zant has kind of become.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: A cultural urban legend.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: And.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: But you got guys. I was talking to songwriter Jesse Alexander. She wrote I drive your truck and the Climb for Miley Cyrus and a bunch of songs. I was talking to her last night because I'd posted Jake Owen just came out with a version of Middle Aged Crazy, and I'd post it to my thing, and she messaged me asking for the backstory of it. I said, I don't really know it, but it's a. It's a Sonny Throckmorton song.
And I got thinking about it. I was like, I really need to track down Sonny Throckmorton if I can and get him on, because he wrote Middle Aged Crazy the Way I Am by Merle Haggard.
Several. A few of the Oak Ridge Boys songs. Trying to love two women.
He incredible writer.
And to me, the writers, they have the stories.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Because they lived it.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And they had to sell it.
You know, we were watching. Cole and I were sitting out on the back patio last night watching Highwayman concert and looking at Kristofferson on stage with Cash and thinking about him landing that helicopter on that property. Probably some of it we were talking about last night, you know, have you heard that story?
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: So he's trying to pitch one of his demos and did what he had to do to.
To get the music to the man, you know, and then they became just such good friends. Throughout time, you know.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Gary Gentry, who's a good friend of mine, wrote the ride in 59 and stuff. He's always told me to be bold. Y' all be bold. And he is.
Oh, yeah. Kristofferson was bold.
Gary has a similar story. He didn't fly an airplane, but he. He wrote the Chicken in Black, which was.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: For Johnny. He wrote.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: That's a great. That's an underrated song.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you the story of why it's underrated soon, but before he had that cut with Johnny, he was coming through Madison or Hendersonville and got behind Johnny's car at a red light. Had cash, one, you know, big black Cadillac. And so he gets out and runs over and knocks on Johnny's window. And he had actually gave Merle Kilgore a song to give to Johnny, and he just wanted to make sure Johnny had got a hold of it. So he goes and knocks on it. And as he was walking away, Johnny said, I'm glad this was about a song. I thought I had a flat tire.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: There's a great story. It's not. Not in the same genre, but one of the. One of the guys. Comedians that we were listening to, I think it was Cat Williams. I think it was Cat that talked about living in the same neighborhood as Prince. Have you ever heard the story?
[00:16:44] Speaker A: No.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: And he said the only time you met him, he said one day he was flying in one day and a hubcap came off of his wheel. And he said, well, that's kind of cool. I'll go get Prince's hubcap. Picks it up. He's just sitting there looking at it. And Prince comes back by, rolls his window down and said, that's my hubcap. He says, yes, sir, Mr. Prince. Here you go.
You know, just stories like that and you rattle off names. Merle Kilgore. My goodness. Who all did he manage and write for?
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Well, he wrote Wolverton Mountain, which was the Claude King hit him. And June Carter wrote Ring of Fire.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: I didn't realize Merle was a writer on that.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Yep, Merle was a writer on that.
And then he. Merle was always trying to have his own music career.
And the story I heard is that Hank Jr. Came to him after the fall, or it might have been right before the fall, actually, and told Merle, I want you to met, because Merle was a very personable person. Everybody that I've met that knew Merle loved Merle Kilgore and told Merle that He wanted him to manage his career. Merle was trying to do his own thing. And Hank had it written down, a number and maybe a percentage, I don't know, on a piece of paper and slid it over to Merle, and Merle looked at it and said, well, do you want my guitar, too?
And, I mean, they made history together.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: He was a character, though. He would have those rings on all his finger. If you ever go to his grave in Hendersonville, it's a big bronze plate over his grave with his face on it, and it's got his hands with rings on it.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: And it said, I just made the deal of a lifetime.
Because that's what he would always say, that I just made the deal of a lifetime.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's like Hank. Hank Jr.
As he has said himself, he is an icon, and he's going to say what he wants to say when he wants to say it.
Merle spoke for him so much, you know, and built that career. And of course, it was just an uncontainable talent, but people don't know that. People don't realize what's behind a lot of these things, you know, and.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Yeah. What it.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: What it requires.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Yeah, he was a great businessman from. From everything I've heard. I mean, I think it was. Gary told me that he asked them how much they were making in one month. They brought in, like, $3 million. And this was in the 80s, you know, that was. That's insane.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Oh, totally. Yeah. And the guys that really can sustain it over the course.
There was a story about Jimmy Buffett that in one of his books, somebody wrote a biography on him. And they come up in the hotel, knock on his door, and he opens the door, and it's got the little chain on it. It's like, what do you want? You know the story. You hear this? He says, what do you want?
The guy says, I just want to go over the set list for tonight. And he says, anybody with you?
No. He said, okay, I'm gonna let you in here, but you can't tell anybody what you see, okay? He says, okay. So he opens up the little chain, lets him in. The guy's thinking, drugs, women. What's he got going on in here? He has all of the bills laid out on the table, and he says, I'm count. I'm doing the books and making sure all the bills are paid. He says, but if people. If this gets out, it'll ruin me, because people won't think I'm cool anymore.
But somebody's got to do that.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: How many people have been robbed in country music because they just didn't know what they were doing with the money?
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Or hired, you know, crooked accountant. I mean, that's that farm I was telling you about. Johnny Cash is he got that because a crooked accountant was buying properties. I guess he was buying them in John's name, though, but without Johnny's permission, and had bought something like 30 properties.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: And John, when he found out about it, he went to all the properties and sold most of them. But he saw that one and he fell in love with that one and kept it. I think he might have kept one down here in Florida, maybe, but.
And then Willie Nelson, the whole IRS thing, a lot of people think that's just because Willie wasn't paying his taxes. That's not the truth. Willie had an accountant who wasn't paying his taxes, and Willie didn't know he wasn't paying his taxes. And he was just putting it off year after year for something like a decade or 12 years. And that's how he ended up owing, like, $23 million or whatever it was to the IRS.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Unreal. And a lot of those guys, they get where they get through just relationships and trusting people and assuming that, you know, we've all got each other's best interest at heart, you know, and it just takes one to kind of screw you over, you know, and you're in the ditch after that. You know, I was thinking about that. That era, when Cash, when they did the Unearthed series, was that you were a kid, I guess, when that was coming, coming out. What years would that have been?
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that would have been in the 90s.
So, yeah, I was a kid. I do remember it well. I remember my dad getting that and listening to it. And I remember even as a kid thinking, this is incredible.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Special. Yeah, that was really. Because it.
So much of, you know, production had robbed something from his sound that brought back in a neat way. And so when Wayland's. When this new Songbird album came out, I was glad you were a part of that, that you push that.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I was like anybody else. At first, I had my doubts of if it was going to be great.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: And then Shooter invited me out to LA to listen to it early back in the summer. And when I went out there and listened to it, which I'd already pushed it just because I love whaling, I knew it was gonna be good.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: I wondered if you got an early listen to it.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I got to go in the summer and listen to It. And when I heard it for the first time, I knew it was gonna be special.
It's only been out for maybe a week now. I GUESS it's number one on iTunes. Country charts, which Shooter messaged me night before last saying that that's probably a good indicator that we have a good chance to be a number one on the Billboard country album. So that's what we're hoping for, to see wayland at number one in 2025. It's gonna be really awesome.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Well, and he. And I was glad to see. Did Shooter have creative control over that or.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. Okay, so Shooter, he actually.
When his dad passed away, you know, he had all this stuff, and it was.
It had all been digitized already, but something about the way they were digitized. You had to have a special card in your computer to read it.
And he didn't have that until, like, 2014.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Shooters was kind of a computer buff, isn't he?
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So he gets this computer in 2014, opens it up, and it's just a bunch of unnamed computer, hundreds of unnamed files, and he starts listening to it and realizes, hey, there's some stuff here that hadn't been heard before.
And pretty immediately after that, something went wrong with that computer. So he didn't get back in him. And he was doing his own thing, you know, he was doing his own music at the time and stuff.
And then Covid came around, and that's when he decided, okay, I need to get back into this.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: There's a lot of unforeseen blessings in Covid.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Isn't it?
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: But people just had time to kind of pursue things that they knew they needed to do, but they never got around to it, you know?
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Thinking through that. That set list, did I hear you say there were three coming? Like, there's this one and a couple of more.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Yeah, there's two more.
I've been told that this next one is better than this one.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Really?
[00:24:35] Speaker A: And the third one, Shooter said the third one's going to be different than the first two. And my hypothesis on this, I haven't. I have no information. So this is just. My pure guess is that it's going to be a duet album.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Oh, that'd be cool.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: That's what I hope. I hope it's some old. Maybe something Waylon and Hank Jr. Or Waylon and, you know, whoever. Right.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Yeah. That. That the Songbird cut was.
It was.
There was a time when he was doing stuff similar to that. I'm guessing late 70s maybe. I wonder when that song was cut because Production sounds like late 70s, maybe early 80s. But what do you do?
[00:25:15] Speaker A: You know, I would say that one's late 70s. It's old Fleetwood Max song.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Oh, is it? I didn't realize that.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: A lot of the songs on there, a lot of my covers at the time, I doubt they were covers. Okay. You know, at the time, they probably. Somebody pitched, he was probably going to cut them and be the first. But then after, you know, some. After he didn't cut him, somebody else did. That's what I imagine, because, you know, you have.
I don't have any more love songs, which is a Hank Jr. Song.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Hank.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: And here I go down.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Here I go down that wrong road again Crystal Gale. Did I?
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Well, you know. Yeah, now that you mentioned. I do remember that.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Then there was a Cash song. Yes, that was a good song.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: I hadn't heard that one before.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a deep cut cast on. But there's so many great ones. And I'm really excited to. To see what's going to be on this next one and the third one. So.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Yeah. It's funny how. How songs will kind of have a second life. I was telling you last night, I got to looking through Gordon.
People watching may not know who I'm talking about. It's my uncle's, my dad's brother, and he had a big career in music, but he.
I got to look into his discography, wondering what was the last thing he cut or what was the last song of his that was cut. And he had a song by Norah Jones that was recorded that he and Cash had written at some point. What's the name of that song?
Yeah, Little at a Time.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Okay, You.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: If you hear her do it, you think. That doesn't sound anything like a, you know, Johnny Cash song, but his versions, completely different, you know, but she just absolutely killed it, you know, Did a fantastic job. Was she in Nashville at one point, do you know?
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I'm not sure. I'm not 100% sure.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: They had a cover band called the Little Willies that they would go out and do a lot of COVID songs in their own way before she made it big and then. And she just always had that jazzy voice, that really cool voice, great pianist, and. And I'm thinking last night when you and I were talking over dinner, I asked you who was the one person that you would like to interview, and you said Willie.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Why is that?
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Well, I mean, as far as people.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: He'S probably Mount Rushmore. I Know why that is, but I'm just asking.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: As far as people who are alive that have lived, I mean, he's lived the longest. Well, him and him and Manuel. Yeah, Manuel and him are like a couple days apart in age, both 92, which. Manuel's a great friend and I will have him on.
But Willie, Willie's style, his jazzy style, his style of guitar picking. I've always loved his songwriting.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Who was the guitar player that influenced him so much?
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Django Reinhardt.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, Django. He and Haggard both. Was he the one finger, two finger?
[00:28:09] Speaker A: He had two fingers. He got polio or something and it messed up his hand, so he could only play with two fingers. And if you. There are videos of him on YouTube, you watch. And it's incredible what he could do with two.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Right? But you can hear that. You can hear that influence and I guess, I don't know, big band jazz, maybe. I don't know what you. What genre you'd put him in, but. But you can hear it. And to me, the depth of study that. That guys like Merle Haggard who just seem like, you know, your next door neighbor, you know, that. That they could capture that.
You see Haggard and it just seems like he just. Man, he. He might be out on work release for all, you know, but these guys are geniuses.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: You know, and they're. And it's not just a natural genius that a person who doesn't have to study. It's. No, they were autodidacts. They went deep dives into, you know, style and genre. And, And. And I heard them in an interview one time, Haggard and Willie talking about Reinhardt.
And I was just sitting here, I knew who Reinhardt was because I knew some.
Some classical musicians.
And I thought, wow, they. They really know their craft, you know, and. And just went deep down that rabbit hole to dig up those records and learn that style, you know, which is now influenced country music.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: I think Jamie Johnson said it best. He and I were talking and we were talking about Willie, and he said, willie is the biggest country music fan you'll ever meet, because he's actually out there doing it and living it and studying it, you know, and to me, that made a lot of sense because you'd have to be country music's biggest fan to give your life to it.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Like Billy has somebody asked one day in college, I told you a little bit about going to college and, you know, commercial music degree and all that.
They asked. They said, well, what makes country music country music?
And I want to hear what you say what? What. How would you define country music? I'll tell you what I said, but how would you answer that question?
[00:30:22] Speaker A: That's a very tough and probably polarizing question for today.
I like to go back to what Harlan Howard said, three chords and the truth. You know, I think things are a lot over complicated today and a lot less truth. I think it's more.
I think country music in the mainstream today, and it's getting better. It's getting better, but for a long time has been more pandering towards certain crowds and pop beats than three chords in the truth. It's gotten away from three chords of the truth, and thanks to guys like Jake Worthington and Zach Topp and girls like Belle France, who are bringing back that old sound, it's making a comeback, which really I'm really excited about. But to me, that's what it's all about, is seeing your truth.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
He asked in that class, what makes country music country music, and I always said, I totally agree with you, the simplistic nature of delivering a real story, the true story. But my answer was the singer.
Because you give Willie anything, and it's country music.
And some of the guys that are in that genre, I don't mean it personal. I don't mean it to, you know, God bless them for what they do, but it'll never be country, you know, because it's. They're not country. They don't under. They don't understand where we're coming from.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: What country music does is very similar to what a genre like hip hop music does for the inner city.
It makes it cool.
It's not cool. Anybody who lives in the inner city will tell you that's not. That's that in and of itself.
If you live in. In a difficult part of the city, it's. It's not fun. It's dangerous.
But you listen to hip hop, and it sounds kind of cool.
Trailer parks aren't fun, you know, anybody. I was born in the single wide. I know what it's like. And they're not, you know, just.
They're tornado. Tornado magnets. I mean, they're not fun, you know, but. But you listen to a Haggard song, and it kind of sounds cool, you know? And you've got guys who could do other things, like, man, I want a pickup truck. I want. You know, I want to. I want to live this life. And guys like me and. And I assume like you that grew up in that stuff, it's like, it's kind of nice to have somebody Championing the things that people we knew were dealing with and going through.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think that's why a lot of us got fatigued on country music in the past decade, decade and a half, maybe even 20 years with the whole bro country thing.
Because a lot of us who grew up in the woods, like I come from Sugartown, Louisiana, population 174 people, if you look it up on Google, out in the woods and big jacked up trucks and all this, that's not what we live. Most of us driving, beat around, hand me down trucks that.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: You had to work on to get to start.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: We ain't driving sixty thousand dollar jacked up trucks. You know, that's not real. That's not real, and it's not real.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: And when you hear the music, you want something that just represents in a cool way, in a way that makes you proud of your upbringing, you know? And that, to me is what. What traditional, authentic country music always got to.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: I'm gonna throw you a curveball.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: And I started to prepare you for it, but I'm just curious if, you know. Okay, Jessica White, does that ring a bell?
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: You know the story.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Okay. My family doesn't understand my fascinations with the wonderful whites of West Virginia.
What somebody. And I'm thinking it was public television that captured all that video footage back years ago.
What somebody did. It was before podcasters. It was before you were interviewing people.
Whoever this producer was, he goes out and he films this family. And Jessica is kind of the center of it. And he's a tap dancer. And it became a cult classic. People were copying these VHS tapes and spreading them all over the South. I don't know if people outside the south know what I'm talking about, but it, as a result, it influenced. Like, there's songs written about. Oh, yeah, these guys. Tell me what you know about it.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Oh, I tell you every time I.
I walk in the kitchen and my wife's cooking eggs.
Oh, if you go and cook them.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Sloppy, slimy eggs.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Oh, they're so sick of hearing that.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: No, just go.
A character. I'm surprised he's still living.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Totally, totally. But you talk about the real deal.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think Hank. Hank.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Hank the third.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: He had some songs about her song. I think they were friends, actually.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: He was on a couple of videos with him.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, dancing. I actually told a friend of mine because I.
Those videos really blew up when I was in high school. I remember me and my buddies watching them and laughing at this Guy.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: And I told him my buddies a while back, I was like, I should strike down Jessica White.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: You know, that would be a good one. That would. That would be. It's probably a heavily edited podcast, but I. I'm trying to think it. Kentucky Headhunters did a song with Jesko.
His father was one, and square dancing, you know, in from the Civil War days. Square dancing was where it was at back then. And then you go up through, you know, 60s in the south, you would have these tap dancers that would add percussion to bluegrass music.
And his dad was kind of top of the line, you know. And then. And then Jesko came along and inherited that and said, you know, he's going to carry on that tradition.
And so a filmmaker. I don't know how it got on his radar. Do you know anything about the.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: I'm not real familiar with the background of all of it.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: So it was a. It was a public television. You know, public TV would come out with content that, you know, just kind of told the stories of the Deep south, whatever it was.
And so if I understood it correctly, this. This filmmaker went in and wanted to just capture the story of the Whites. And so then Jessica just starts talking and. And he's talking about, you know, I told her, you know, I'm gonna take that butcher knife and, you know, goes in and tells the whole thing. And. And then he's got his Elvis collection, so he'll get him sitting there telling stories in his Elvis room, and it's just hilarious. You know, they. He did a cameo in one of.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: The.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Game station, like, PlayStation games. It was one of the ATV off road. If you. If you got to the right Easter egg in the game, there's Jesco dancing in the middle of the woods somewhere, you know.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: So it's just this cult icon that pops up all throughout, you know, culture.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: And Kentucky headhunters. Hank 3. Somebody else did a song.
I don't think it was Dwight Yocum. That would make sense for Dwight, but he's. He's kind of a. He's kind of a history buff too, isn't he, Yocum?
[00:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I don't know a whole lot about Dwight.
I hear stories from Manuel every now and then because Manuel made a lot of his clothes. But I'm not super familiar with Dwight. He.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: He's got. If you check out his. His station on xm, he goes down rabbit holes that. That in my opinion, people like me and you would get into. Oh, yeah, but it's. It's the Average listener kind of probably zones out on it, but he's got a channel called Bakersfield Beat. And so he's. He's talking about the California influence on country music.
And, you know, Dwight grew up, I think, in Eastern Kentucky, and he.
One of the prettiest songs, if you can find it, was him singing at Buck Owens funeral.
And it was just him and a guitar. And Dwight grew up church, Christ. Which church? Christ is no music in church. And so he takes a moment, apologizes to his mother before he does it. You know, it was real sweet. And then he sang a hymn over Buck, and it was one of the coolest moments.
But just to see the influence, you can't miss the influence that a Buck Owens had on an artist like Dwight Yoakum.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: You know.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: And by the end, by the way, today, the only time I've heard Willie was with Dwight, and that was a. That was a heck of a show. Yeah, he's. He's going back, he's touring. We're going to get to hear him up in Savannah here in November. So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm trying to think when it comes down to that Hee Haw era, you weren't around for that.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: No, but I've seen probably everything.
They did, the reruns, you know, back on CMT or whatever back in the day. We watched it growing up. My mom and dad did.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: I wonder, I wonder if that. Something like that, because right now, you look at. In the 80s, you had Hee Haw. Coming into the 90s, you had CMT.
Nashville now was one of the biggest shows around in its day.
And sometime in the 2000s that the. The television show Nashville came out, and it kind of. It did pretty well.
I'm wonder what is there right now, what's happening right now to. To kind of just tell the story of country music?
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Well, honestly, outside of what you're doing well, tv, I mean, if we're just. If we're being honest, TV and radio and traditional media is dying. It's in a bad way because of this kind of stuff.
Do you know what the number one platform on television is right now? Out of Netflix, DirecTV. All the platforms on television for the past two years has been YouTube.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: Really?
[00:40:42] Speaker A: YouTube had beat last year, beat Netflix by 2%, which, I mean, that's a pretty big margin when you think about it. YouTube is the number one thing being watched on TV right now.
People enjoy this. People enjoy real conversation and the stuff that you can get independent.
Independent creators are more passionate about like, you have a passion for these kind of conversations and I have a passion for these kind of conversation. And that.
That pours out whenever people watch it. And people love that. I think that's why YouTube is as big as it is.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: It makes sense.
[00:41:20] Speaker A: I think that's where it's going.
I've tossed around the idea of maybe doing some kind of a series that not like he haw, but something different.
And I've tossed that idea around and I really think it's something I'm going to do soon.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: I saw that this morning or last night that Taylor Sheridan that did Yellowstone. And that, of course, brought a whole new crop of country music artists onto the scene.
Huge influence in that world is partnering up with Blake Shelton. Have you seen this?
So they're doing a show called the Road, I think was the name of it. And they're gonna follow a lot of traditional country folks on the road, which, you know, that's where the best stories are at a lot of times.
But they're somehow making a game show out of it. I couldn't really wrap my mind around exactly what they were doing, but. But I thought. I'm glad that Sheridan, everything I've seen him do has been really good. So I'm hoping that it'll be a good thing for the genre.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure it will be. He's done a lot of great things for country music, Put a lot of musicians on the map in a big way with Yellowstone and Landman and these series. So that's interesting to see again, though, like, those shows are big on streaming platform. I think, like cable and stuff. I think that's going out, fading away.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: It's a strange time. I know radio because of what I do. We have the maximum life radio program and all radio has held its own. So terrestrial radio, AM is actually doing better than fm. Really, in a strange way, because of talk.
You're not worried about. Sonically, AM radio is not going to sound as good as fm, but if you're just listening to it for talk, it's. It's fine, you know. So we'll take a program like this, take the audio and put it mostly on fm. But our. The strange thing about it, what we put on AM does better as far as people calling in, making donations, all that.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: AM has a better audience to engage with than FM does.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Well, that makes sense. That makes sense because what you said being talk, because it really is the same thing. It's. It's. They're just listening to what they would see on YouTube, it's, it's real. It's, it's what it is.
I would be interested to see the numbers on music program, like just country stations with Spotify and YouTube music and stuff.
Honestly, I hadn't listened to the radio in years.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: I assume people didn't.
I assumed when we started paying for radio time because it's pretty expensive, I'll pay for a 25, 26 minute program, which is the length of one of our shows. It's on average like 120 to 150 a day to do that, which sounds like it's not bad. But you add that up five days a week over a year, it's a lot of money.
And I don't want to pour that money, those resources into something if people aren't listening to it. And I'm like you, I will listen to XM occasionally because they can have some stations that focus on the genre I like.
But FM radio, I'm. I'm typically building a Spotify playlist or whatever.
And so we check the numbers before we invest in it. And it's like, you look at television, so NBC, abc, you look at terrestrial radio, they're not going up, but they're staying steady.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:57] Speaker B: And so that's just been interesting to me. And I wonder for young artists coming up.
You know, it used to be the radio station would get the CD that had like 20 songs on it that they were to play.
I forget what they're called. There was a name for it and I was trying to come up as an artist and I would go talk to these DJs and it's like, hey, will you play my song? He's like, zach, I'll play it, I'll play it. One Armitron was Armitron, I think was the name of it.
He said, I'll throw a song of yours in there, you know. He said, but for me, I get this CD and I put it in the player and I just hit play. I worked some commercials in, set up a song occasionally for me to go over and take that CD out, put your CD in and play it. He said, that's a little more work than I want to do.
So I wonder today even how you've got some of the stations owned by some of the labels. And how do independent artists break in now?
How has the industry, you're in Nashville, how is the industry like or unlike what was going on when, you know, the Louisiana Hayride was taking place and things like that?
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Well, I think streaming and social media has Completely changed the game.
I think I was just talking to Craig Campbell about this. I think that artists now can build their fan base a lot quicker.
BlackBerry Smoke. I was talking to Charlie Starr and he was Talking about in 2000, they started doing 250 shows a year and grassroots, building that fan base all over the country for years.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: So were they. And that's a good example.
Did they go on the road to build that fan base? I'm comparing them to, like, Luke Combs, who was, like, just cranking out stuff in his baseball or whatever, and his followers built up that way.
That seems like that approach to it is difficult to do because so many people are doing it now.
Do you go and do small venues and build the audience that way, or what are they doing?
[00:47:06] Speaker A: That's what BlackBerry Smoke was doing. But of course, that was before social media.
Now you can build a following on social media just by pumping your songs out. Of course, you got to be creative with. You got to be good for one.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: You got to be a little creative and do it that way. And a lot of folks have built massive followings just online and never left their house. You know, the game has changed, and it actually changed during BlackBerry Smoke's career because Charlie was talking about MySpace coming along and getting on MySpace and that being big for them, getting a lot of followers on MySpace.
So I think social media, more than anything has really changed the game. Streaming has, too, because they can kind of control what they're putting out stuff. The. The dark side of streaming, though, is they don't pay artists what radio pays at all. Not even close.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: We watched with some of Cole's stuff, he had a little distribution contract with Sony and it was, you know, they were getting more listens than we were getting on our own.
But people look at it, they're like, oh, man, he must be making a killing. It's like nobody. No, it's not what you think it is.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Not at all. Yeah. Millions of streams might only pay you a few hundred bucks.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: He'll owe money when it's all said and done, you know.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: What kind of. What kind of horror stories speak to him for a moment? Just a young up and coming artist who's.
They can't not do it. It's in them. They're going to do it whether they make any money at it or not. They've got to get this stuff out, you know, these songs out.
Singer, songwriter, coming up, early 20s.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: What.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: What do you think the men and women that have spoken to you?
How would they. What Would they warn them about and what would they say to lean into?
[00:48:58] Speaker A: I would say, number one, find the best entertainment lawyer you can find.
Don't ever sign anything without that entertainment lawyer looking at it. A lot of these record deal, record label we know is a bank, you know, they loan you money and some of those deals you might be getting of everything you earn, you might be getting 5% or less. And everything else goes to the record label until it's paid back. And then when it's paid back, you're getting 10% or 20%. You know, it's not good. A lot of these deals are not good deals for the artist. You might be looking like, well, I'm getting a million dollar deal. And to a young person, that's probably really exciting. And they sign it and now they're stuck.
And sometimes a record label might sign you just because they want to shut you up.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Explain that.
I know you've been told that. You mentioned it last night. Explain what you mean.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: So say a record label has Joe signed and Joe's doing really good.
[00:50:03] Speaker B: They're investing in him, they're pushing him.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: Bob becomes along, and Bob has a sound similar to Joe, and he's really moving up the ranks. So this record label says, we don't want Bob competing with Joe. Let's sign Bob.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense and.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Not promote anything he's putting out so Joe can continue up the ladder.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: You know, I've heard those kind of stories.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: What I think you've spoken to it. So I'm not trying to get you to repeat your content, but tell me about this feud that's going on between Zach Bryan.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: It's really, it's disappointing to me. I know Gavin.
I've hung out with him a couple times at some events, briefly.
I hadn't hung out, just spent a day with him or nothing. But I've been at some events that he was at.
Nice guy.
I don't know Zach Brian, so I can't speak on his care. I know a lot of people are speaking on his character right now. To me, it's unfair to speak on someone's character if you don't know him.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: I'm not even that concerned about, you know, who they are as people. I'm trying to figure out, you know, Zach just had the. Was it the largest show in history?
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: And packed out a, you know, stadium that nobody else could back out.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: The largest ticketed show in the U.S. yeah, history.
[00:51:23] Speaker B: And so it's. And both of them, their careers are just booming. Right now. So right, wrong or indifferent as to the motive behind it, it seems to be working for both of them. And that sounds like a really brilliant plan. Is it that, or is it just a couple of guys kind of that don't like each other going at it?
[00:51:41] Speaker A: I think it's pretty genuine that they don't like each other.
Where it's disappointing to somebody like me is country music's in a lot better situation than it was five years ago and ten years ago.
Zach Ryan has written some great music. Totally some great music. Gavin has some good stuff out, too.
Neither of them are bro country, which I despise.
And it seems like the genre is moving forward in a great direction. And then to have two of these names, big names, but heads and all this drama, to me, we're. Now we're taking a step back.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: You know, and that's what's disappointing about it to me. I wish everybody could just get along. I get that.
[00:52:27] Speaker B: Maybe. Maybe they can come on your show and you can kind of reconcile the two of them. That'd be kind of cool.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that'd be cool.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: Yeah. My God. I want to get. I want to add to this podcast. I want to help get you in, maybe in a room with those guys and Willie on your show. Yeah, we're going to. Whoever's listening, it can pull those strings.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: I'm going to be having Mickey pretty soon, which has been. He's been with Willie for harmonica.
[00:52:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: Years and years, so that'll be a good one.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: Well, in that sound. And of course, he can tell the stories, but that sound is iconic in itself.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And he's. He's out with Chris Stapleton now. And of course, he plays with Lucas now and then, which we. I had Lucas on a while back. Love Lucas.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Some of these. Some of these next generation, the sons of I. You know, I'm trying to think back when maybe when I was in college, you never really saw a good example of a kid growing up in an entertainer's household that, you know, could. Could hold a candle to him. But I like that Shooter really kind of leaned into who he was. He didn't try to be his dad. He leaned into who he was.
You take Lucas, man. Lucas and Ben Haggard, man. I'll be honest with you, man. Ben. Sometimes I'd rather hear than Merle.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: I mean, he's great.
[00:53:40] Speaker B: He's really, really good. And when I first somebody. First you need to check out what Ben's doing. I'm like, I really don't Want to hear a second rate Merle Haggard? I really don't. And, and I listen to Ben stuff. I'm like, man, I'd go, I'd pay to hear him. He's good. You know. And of course, Lucas, he's. He's his own thing now, you know, and that's exciting to see.
[00:54:01] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah. And a lot of those guys I'm fortunate enough to. To call friends and.
And like you said, I've dealt with a lot of children and grandchildren of country musicians.
I really respect Shooter Lucas being those guys who have you take. Shooter specifically has went out and become a producer. One of the most sought after producers right now, I'd say in country music.
Just has his own career. Lucas, he did the stuff with Star is Born, you know, has his own career, does his own thing.
Like you said, isn't trying to be something that he's not. He just is what he is. Right. I really respect those guys for that. And they're. They're great, great human beings too. Really good people.
[00:54:53] Speaker B: So I'm assuming I could probably guess a little bit of your playlist, but if you were. If you're listening to new stuff, who are you listening to?
[00:55:04] Speaker A: Jake Worthington just put out an incredible album.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: Do you listen to albums when you listen?
[00:55:11] Speaker A: I try to. Especially when it's somebody like Jake and Zach Top who just come out with an incredible.
My favorite new album out right now is Waylon Jennings.
But no, I just. The people who are keeping it real country, I try to support and push them. Jake Owens coming out with some. He just put out Middle aged crazy. Like I said, he's coming out with some stuff that Shooters producing. Shooters producing some greats. Charlie Crockett's Dollar a Day album. Just incredible.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: It's been. I heard. I heard a good. Have you had Charlie on?
[00:55:48] Speaker A: I haven't, but I want to.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be interesting. I heard him talking about comparison to Ernest Tubb and. And I hadn't thought of that until I. Until he mentioned it. And it's like, yeah, you know, I can kind of see that.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
What's your take on kind. The influence. That's a little bit, you know, as somebody who just follows the industry. A Sturgill Simpson coming in. What's your take on his influence on country music now?
[00:56:13] Speaker A: Man, when Sturgill came along, he blew me away with that really. I discovered when he came out with the metamodern Sounds of Country Music album, which was fantastic album. Then of course I dug into the two before it Sturgill's an incredible talent. I love his songwriting. I love his singing.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: And I think he. He doesn't really. He's not fond or. He seemed like he may have embraced it now, the comparison to Waylon, you know, but I don't. You know, according to him, he wasn't trying to sound like that. That's just how his voice came out.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: Sturgil did one of the coolest things I've ever seen anybody do in a long time in country music. It was the most outlaw thing. People talk about outlaw stuff, you know, and I think of people doing wild, crazy things, which. Sure. But outlaw is really going against the industry. That's what the outlaw movement was. And Sturgill did it when he won a Grammy for Sailor's Guide to the Earth. He won a Grammy for Best Country Album.
Didn't get invited to the AC Moores. It's like, okay, I won the Grammy for Greatest Country Album. I'm not even invited.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: He not get invited. Was it because of his other stuff or.
[00:57:29] Speaker A: He's independent.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: Because he's independent.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: Wow.
Not part of the club.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: You would think they would embrace that.
[00:57:34] Speaker A: But now I think we're getting there. But at that time, you know, this was eight years ago, probably six or eight years ago, maybe a little longer. At that time, he was not part of the club.
So he goes outside of Bridgestone arena, opens up his guitar case like a busker and sits his Grammy inside of it. Starts busting outside of the award show. And I thought that was. I said, that's the most outlaw.
[00:57:59] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: I've seen in a long time.
[00:58:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we.
I followed for a while.
Who's the. Who's the bluegrass band. The Travel With Lumineers, did the Dylan song that everybody did.
You know, the country one, Old Crow.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: What's going on with them right now?
[00:58:29] Speaker A: They're still rocking and rolling. I see them at Opry every now and then.
[00:58:31] Speaker B: They're still touring?
[00:58:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. They're still out there doing their thing. Cat Secor, lead singer, he was just. We were just at the WSM's 100th birthday party there at the Opry, and he played that.
Yeah, they're still rocking.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: Catch is an interesting guy. Yeah, I love to hear interviews with him, the way his brain works.
And that song in particular, I think they picked it up from a Dylan scratch book or something.
[00:58:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that movie, the Jesse James movie that Bob Dylan was in with Christopherson.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:07] Speaker A: He wrote music for it. And Wagon Wheel, he had wrote. I think it was just the part of the chorus, or maybe it was the whole chorus he had wrote. And he made a little work tape for it, but then ultimately decided to scrap it. And it got leaked out of one of those Dylan tapes, you know, that floated around and catch had it and ended up finishing the song, developed it out.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: And then, you know, you go back, if I heard the story right, he went and talked to Dylan about it, and Dylan said, yeah, you can cut it. You know, thank you for the credit for it. But really, wasn't it like an old.
Another blues artist had had a version of it. Have you heard this?
[00:59:46] Speaker A: Yeah. A blues artist had something.
Maybe it was the rock. Hey Mama Rock, something like that.
[00:59:53] Speaker B: And what I'm getting at, whether you've got Hank Williams, who was. Who was the black man, the blues artist that influenced him so much, Teetot looking at, you know, we're both sons of the South. We grew up in this environment.
And looking at the influence of the black south, the white sharecropping south, the church that these streams that are flowing together to produce a type of music that's just American music, you know, one of the most authentic, authentically American products that there is around the world.
What have you noticed to kind of. To kind of tie it all together.
What have you noticed as it comes to the influence of church music, country music?
How have they influenced one another?
And have you. Have you found that to be a big part of the people you've talked to? I know you. Larry Gatlin very much talks about his faith.
Cash was a turning point in his life.
What have you. What have you seen in that regard?
[01:01:11] Speaker A: Almost everybody I talk to artist wise, you.
I like, start my. My podcast from the beginning of their career.
Almost all of them. Yes. I grew up singing hymnals in church. My mom played piano.
[01:01:27] Speaker B: Right.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: My dad was song leader. Yeah, Right. So we grew up in a house that was always singing hymnals.
I think gospel music, gospel and black blues from way back in the day has really shaped country music.
[01:01:45] Speaker B: It's had a huge influence. And. And it's.
I don't know who to talk to about that as far as, like, that could bridge that gap. I heard the one you did with the Oak Ridge Boys, William Lee Goldman. Yeah, with William Lee.
He really probably understands it in a unique way because they were a gospel band, top of the line gospel group and went country.
But you could vividly hear it if you were listening to gospel music back then. You can really hear the harmonies are unique.
And then the influence of the Blues I told you about when my uncle came to the Lord.
He comes in and he's playing what a friend we have in Jesus, but he's doing it in that honky tonk style. And it's just a beautiful, God honoring rendition that showed who he was, you know, I don't think the Lord wants you to sound like me or me to sound like you.
I think he wants to hear us right. And taking who they are as individuals and. And channeling their faith through that.
I know. Even today, one of the things I appreciate. Appreciate about country music is they will typically tip a hat at some point to their gospel roots, like Elvis did in his shows. But. But, you know, to this day, yeah, most.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: Most of the older artists, you couldn't go to one of their shows without there being a gospel medley thrown in there.
[01:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:16] Speaker A: From.
[01:03:17] Speaker B: And the crowd goes wild for.
[01:03:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. The crowd loves it.
And a lot of those older acts still, or probably all of them, are still doing it today. I just saw John Conley a while back, and he was singing gospel.
[01:03:28] Speaker B: Yeah. When John does the Opry, he'll invite people to church on Sunday.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: You know, as a matter of fact, when my son's up there on Sunday, I said, man, go check out.
What is it?
What's. Where's the church you went to last?
[01:03:41] Speaker A: Long Hollow. Long.
[01:03:42] Speaker B: Long Hollow. That's where John Connolly goes.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:44] Speaker B: And I know that because he mentioned it in a. In a Opry episode, you know, but it's interesting to see. And I. And we talked about last night, the perspective of the church or of a pastor. You're watching these, these. You're watching country music.
You know, you're watching a family come together, fall in love or fall apart, or dreams come true, dreams be lost, you know, and. And I think the weird thing about it that people may not understand is I know the authenticity of the music because I see it.
And I think probably, whether it's a pastor or a bartender, we probably have two of the best perspectives on life as far as what people are really going through, you know, and it's not that different, you know, as far as the perspective goes. You see the winners, you see the losers.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I'll tell you, country music, country music, just like anything else in the world, the devil's at work, you know, God's at work, too.
You hear both sides, you hear. You hear those horror stories like we talked about. But I'll give you myself as an example. You talked about last night when we had supper, about God pushing you out of country music towards ministry.
For me, it was the opposite. God pushed me further into country music because, you know, I started doing the social media stuff in around Covid a little bit before, maybe whenever it was, did it for a few three and a half years and never got paid or anything. I just did it because I love country music and I talk about country music and started building that following and stuff and got up to about, like I said, 35,000 right there in 20, beginning of 20, 23.
And I was living in Austin, Texas at the time, right outside, and a guy from Houston that I knew called me and he said, hey, if you come to Houston and work for me, because I was a project manager at the time for a construction company. So if you come to Houston, work for me, I'll pay you 20% more than what you're making in Austin, which is. That's a good deal. Yeah. So we packed up and we go to Houston, moved into a rent house that luckily my wife's mom owned.
But we get into this rent house and moved in.
He messages me, hey, job fell through.
And I was like, man, we just moved, sit. You know, moved three hours across the state to come work. You gotta have something. He said, man, I'm sorry, but was all going well and it just fell through, I don't have anything.
And I had a decent saving from working in Austin. So I told my wife, you know, I'm gonna take a month off, apply to some places, see what I can get and try to find something that a good fit. Whatever times going by, I've applied to some places, never hear back from anybody or get denied, you know, we've already found, spotted that kind of deal. And a few weeks had passed by, maybe even a month, and I start to get a little bit frustrated and I went out on the porch and I was still doing my social media stuff, but I went out on the porch and I remember I prayed out loud.
I said, God, it says in your book, the birds don't worry about what they're gonna eat.
The wildflower doesn't concern themselves with what they're gonna wear. You know, I'm gonna.
I've tried to do it my way for a decade now, you know, since I got out of college, I'm handing over to you.
I wanna step out of my own way and see what you got.
And like two or three days later, TikTok announced the Creativity Reward program where they were gonna start, actually, which didn't mean much to me at the time because I was getting 20,000 views or something. So I. The most I can make on a video was $15, you know, wasn't gonna change my life.
Two days after that, I put out a video about Hank Williams Jr. Falling off the mountain, and it got a million and a half, 2 million views. And I got like 7 or $800 off that one. Well, if I could do it once, I can do it again.
And I did it a few days later, got another million and some views, and that's whenever it took off.
[01:08:19] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[01:08:20] Speaker A: Swung a hammer since.
[01:08:22] Speaker B: Well, I'll say this. I thank the Lord that he. That he blessed you that way.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:08:26] Speaker B: I'm glad you're in the business, and I'm glad that you're telling these stories and capturing them for our kids, you know, that they'll hear them down the road and know where they came from. They'll know the background. I've always said it like this.
In my church, I've been very transparent. I don't want to be somebody different on Sunday morning than I am on Saturday night or whatever.
And so I've been very transparent about my love for music, and I tell a lot of stories about it along the way.
Truth is not always pretty, but I would rather hear an ugly truth than a pretty lie.
And to me, that's kind of the heart of country music, is three chords and the truth.
And it's not always a pretty truth. But if they'll tell it from the heart and deliver it honestly, it does something for people. It really impacts their life. And so if somebody, you know, a lot of our audience probably knows who you are already, but if they don't, how can they learn more? Where can they find your stuff?
[01:09:31] Speaker A: Oh, if you just look up Dylan Weldon, you'll find me. I'll pop up on just about any social media platform there is out there.
[01:09:40] Speaker B: Watch for the cap.
[01:09:42] Speaker A: You'll see the Whaling Cap. Look up Drifting Cowboy Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and see some of those longer conversations with some of these legends.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: But, yeah, never seen a bad episode. They're all interesting.
You kind of tee them up and just let them go. And it's. It's fascinating. If you're into just stories of life in general, it's fascinating. But if you're into the music, you'll never hear the song the same way again. Yeah, there's a couple. I'm trying to think that Oak Ridge Boys song, the Saloon.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: Y' all come back Saloon.
[01:10:22] Speaker B: Y' all come back Saloon. It was one that was about that. And I'm not gonna. I'm gonna ask you if you really know this. I'm not gonna ask you to tell me who it was, but the John Anderson song that about can you catch a fallen star, you know who that's about?
[01:10:38] Speaker A: I'm one of maybe five people in the world that you really know who.
[01:10:42] Speaker B: That'S about, who it's about. All right. And then the Merle Haggard song about Tommy Collins, Leonard. Is that. Was that the name of it?
[01:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:10:56] Speaker B: People who know me and know somebody that was kind of really going after Nashville and then felt the call of the Lord, go back and listen to that song. That's just a great story of, I think, Haggard tipping his hat to Tommy. You know, that was just a beautiful story of honoring this guy who just was trying to figure it out, didn't always get it right, know. But there's just so many stories like that in country music.
[01:11:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Some incredible ones.
[01:11:27] Speaker B: Dylan, keep telling those stories, and we'll keep listening, brother.
[01:11:30] Speaker A: I appreciate it.
