#87 - Marcus Hummon - Wrote God Bless The Broken Road + Cowboy Take Me Away + More

and we're just kind of broad stroke. This at the beginning was like blessed the Broken Road, working with the Dixie Chicks, and I think that's probably what most people know, most people for their biggest, humongous But then once I started go, wow, this dude wrote plays. Yeah, yeah, I did a bunch of that for about the last ten twelve years. And it is funny because sometimes, uh, I find you know, it's sort of scary as you get older in the business and in instead of people saying like, hey,

have you written something great? You know, have you written a new song that you're really are you working with anybody you really love? They go, hey, do you have any new plays? And I'm believe it or not in Nashville, that's not good news. But yeah, I started. I did start writing after after doing records. I did a couple of records, you know, I did a record on Columbia and then I did a rock record out of London.

So when you say records, like you actually pursued a deal like and not a deal, you actually had a deal like you're gonna be an artist. No, I mean the only reason I was here was that I didn't come here to write songs for anybody, and um I wanted to. I had, you know, I had like five record deals signed, you know, five what they used to call development deals. And in the in the back in the day, as they say, in the late eighties and into the nineties, of course, the whole industry was different,

was much larger. The wave of the nineties was you know, there was like it was as you know, I'm as huge. I mean, you know at one time they like twenty seven labels in town. So you come to town to be an artist? Yeah, and from well I was. I was born in d C. My dad, uh was a

foreign service He was in the Foreign Service. He worked for called Agency for International Development, so it was the economic development side of the US government, on the Embassy State Department rather and so we you know, I had a crazy upbring. I was. We lived in Tanzania when I was a little moved to Nigeria when I was eleven and twelve. We were in the Philippines right when the marquess Is came into power and Ferdinand Marcus came

into power in seventy two or three. Anyway, we're there three years and then we went During the Carter administration, my dad switched from man i d. He was a political appointment and he headed up the Joint Economic Commission between the U S and Saudi Arabia. So we went to live in the most sort of conservative and by that I mean Islamics conservative part the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riad And I was sixteen, I was sixteen and then uh I. In fact, my oldest sister have three sisters.

My oldest sister went on to Colgate University in Upstate, New York, and then they didn't want both of us to go and and I was a tenth grader. And in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, they don't allow expatriot Americans to go to school. They didn't in the seventies. Anyway, they don't allow you to go to school there. What what ex patriot Americans? But well X an ex patriot, but X patriot be somebody from another country living in

your country, and in this case Americans. You know, there was of course there were you know, people from everywhere. You know, Saudi Arabia during that time had all this wealth, and you know, they were bringing groups like like j Core to join Economic Commission. My dad had it up where we were bringing in American know how and an education and you know, really helping out with building you know, highways, and the Saudis were you know, trying to use their

wealth to to create development. So that was Dad's area. I mean, he'd previously been in what we used to call the third World. Now they don't anymore, they called the developing world. I wonder, as a sixteen year old living in Saudi Arabia, it's gonna be so much different than a sixteen year living in the States where your driver's license and yeah, you couldn't drive. Yeah, there was none of that. Mr. Women couldn't drive. I mean in the seventies, like just recently, just in fact, I believe

it was last week. Actually amazingly, the Saudis um finally overturned their law and women can drive. But at that time women could not drive. And I remember there was one woman from the French embassy and she was a really interesting woman and friends with my mom and dad. And she was like, I don't care. You know, I am going to I'm going to drive almost okay whatever. Like I told you before, John, you can say whatever you want. Yeah, I'll probably be a little different than him,

but yeah, I know. She So she drove and and and she was you know, uh, she was arrested, picked up and they arrested her even though she was working for the French solutely and they got she was out of the country like twenty four hours. I mean, you know, you don't you do not fool around with stuff like that. That is like bye bye French lady. And I admired her. There's no protection, Like, there's no even though she's there and she's supposedly and France. Well there there's the protection

that she didn't end up in jail. You know, they they the embassy was able to get in there and say okay, like diplomatic immunity, yeah, that didn't happen. Well, the only again, like I say, the diplomatic immunity aspect of that is she didn't have to you know, sit in a in a Saudi prison. Well, I I you know, I don't know, this was a lot of years ago, but I remember that I would imagine that's diplomatic privileges. You get to leave and not come back, you know. Yeah,

so you're sixteen year old seeing this. Is it normal to you or is it like whoa, this is scary to me? Yeah. No, it's normal in the sense that it's normal, and that I every two years. I remember leaving two or three years, you know, you have a post and then you'd go to another country, you know, And that was just our life until I was seventeen. And actually I didn't stay the full two years in

Saudi Um. The first year I tried to take courses at school at home because we didn't want to lose two kids of the four, you know, like jan flew back to America and you know, we didn't have cell phones and back in those days, like you, that's a big separation. She was going to college anyway, but they didn't want a sixteen year old. Like the kind of families that I grew up with a lot more European, and it was not odd at all to send your kid off to boarding school, you know, at an early age.

Kind of a Harry Potter World, right, Americans, you know, we don't do that. We don't really do that that much. I mean some do in New England, you know, you have the andover choked grouten kind of schools. But that wasn't I mean, my parents from Midwestern like, they were clannished, they were huggers, they were like love, you know, so all about family. So we finally decided after taking some courses from the Universe. University of Nebraska had these courses.

They'd send it to folks who were in these kinds of posts around the world, you know, And I took them and they were just by road kind of memory stuff, and so there was nothing to it. So I had to choose the school. And the next year I went to Italy, and so I did go to boarding school. When I was sixteen turning seventeen, I went to Notre Dame International, which is a private school run by the same folks that run Notre Dame University. And even though

when I'm not Catholic, I went to that school. Is a big, beautiful school and it's only ten minutes out of side of downtown Rome and um, and so I spent that you know that that two semesters in it in Italy. Talked me through this then, just run me through all the countries that you remember living in up until you're eighteen years old. So yeah, so it was just it was, you know, the US and then Saudia. Well I think we moved to Tanzania when I was three. Do you remember the U S And at three? I

had no memories? At three, No, I don't really remember it. I mean I like to think, you know, because they say it's like a sign of intelligence if you remember things early. So I've tried, you know, you try to dredge it up, like it's like, I bare that's the case, unless there's trauma. Yeah, maybe that's it. At three, you moved. Walk me through it from Yeah. So we lived for a couple of years in Tanzania. Then we came home to the Maryland area of the d C. You know,

I always everything Virginia, Maryland. Every says d C. But we're living in Maryland. And then when I was twelve, we left for the Philippines and then we lived but we lived there more than two years, and uh, then we came back for a summer and my dad got this big post, this really exciting post in Saudi because he had to leave the Department State Department. This was all under the auspices of the Department of Treasury, and it was a straight you know, it was a diplomat.

I mean, it was a um an appointment, you know, from from President Carter, you know, so it was He's a Democrat and he had worked under primarily Republican administration, so this is kind of a big deal. And of course, you know, at that time, President Carter was all about if you remember Camp David Accords and manach and began an onword sadad, and he was trying to create this kind of you know, reproachment or whatever between in the

Middle East. He was trying to bring Middle East peace and our friends then and really now are the Saudis, you know, and so Dad, you know, that was a big job and it was a big chance. But I mean it was a wild place to be because you know, it's it's not fun time. It's not like a party in riads out here. Maybe now man I we you know, we lived in you know, you'd be in your we'd have you know, on a compound with really super high walls.

I mean, I remember growing up. You know, some of the places we lived we had guys, you know, we'd have a guy a guard at the gate with a gun, you know, and we always lived in big compounds, you know. But that was this my childhood. I mean, that's just all That's what it was like. So how in the world do you want to be an American music artists

and country? That was always fun when I had a deal, Like when I was in Columbia, I'd go to the radio stations and they'd be like and they'd start in about you know, your up your upbringing, and and folks would look at you like like what you know, what the heck are you what? You know? It's as a as a joke, it's I used to say, Yeah, it's you know, sort of the the perfect upbringing for a country artist. You know, Um, it gets worse, you know.

I went to school in New England, and originally, like when I started out in school, I wanted to study Arabic and be it like an Islamic Islamic studies major that, you know, And I actually ended up political so I finished college and and it was a political science, you know, with a with an emphasis at Islamic studies, so you don't ever. So I actually got called in by the record company. I was at Sony and the record president

called me. And after one of these interviews with I don't know, the Chicago troupe, so there's some big interview and the and the guy had got kind of in depth about things, he started to read my bio you like, really look at it. And I remember the guy and the record president is saying, listen, you know, let's not talk about any of that. Like it's not helping you at radio at all. Like that's not helping you at

country radio. That's right, that's not helping you. I think, you know, like when I was on Columbia, I think the entire state of Texas never played a song of mine. And which is funny in a way because actually a family like from Texas like I have, I have kind of a weird connection. I have roots in Texas. But it meant you know, it meant nothing. I mean, I'm sure there were other problems, and why because of one

you're upbringing to your education. Why do you think they were, for lack of a better term, black balling you from radio. I think I was. I think it's it's funny now it's ironic now given um what again, these are all relative terms to what people talk about, what's country and what's not. I mean, you know, I got I got to Nashville in eighties six, and I mean this this the discussion we have today about broke county, broke country versus pop country, versus judicial versus what I'm listen, that's

been going on NonStop since. I mean, I've seen generations of these ideas people battling and talking about. So it's common that people are fighting about what's country. Yeah, we are more obsessed. I mean, I'm trying to think. The closest thing I've ever seeing to our obsession with what our identity is is like jazz, you know, you like sometimes you talk to jazz guys and that you'll say, oh, you know, I really like Jamie Column or something, and they look at you like you you just spat on

their you know, their mom or something. I mean, people get really wired about their identities in different in different genres, but weird, weird in the country. I mean it's kind of charming in a in a in a way, we're just obsessed with it. You know, people are always people talk about it all the time. It's funny to bring up the jazz comparison too, because for me and I'm not a huge fan of dance music, but dance, trance, house, dark trance, they do the same thing in their world.

They fight about and it's a very small difference between one and the other. But to them it's the world, at least to those who have an opinion or those who want to have a big boys, it's like here, if I have to hear what's country and what isn't again, people fight me about it. Well, and I got this thing too. I got a bound to pick because I live in kind of multiple camp you know. I mean, I like, I'm a guitar player, and I played on records on my stuff. I'm a piano player. I'm really

a roots based guy, and I played banjo. I love to play banjo. I love mandolin. Um, I don't do tracks. I don't know how. I wish I did, I don't know how. And so and I'm kind of too old a dog to, you know, to teach a new trick.

And I remember being told to your earlier question. I think it was the perception was, well, he's not really country enough, and that's you know, that's kind of the at the end of the day that when I look back and I think, well, you know, I had a number of songs on that record that went on to be one of them went on to the song of the year in country. You're talking about Blessed Broken Road. I mean it was the first piano recording of it. Yeah, this is cut. Yeah, long lost Dream? Let me too?

You that? So did you put this out as a single? Where were you when I needed I've been slamming it. I would have been yelling at my own people. I got it, So you cut the song? Now we cut it. I'll tell you. It was just the usual thing. Look, I went in there's a there's a saying in Nashville. Or maybe maybe I made it up. I don't know if if it's good, it's probably something I heard, but it was. You know, you get a record deal when you're when your friends become record presents, and I had,

you know, I just kept signing. Record deal was my first record deal was on Mary Tyler Moore Records, And that's correct. And I was two weeks or two weeks away from my first single being released and the company imploded. But you gotta we gotta take a step back. Mary Tyler Moore record like you're gonna make it after all? Right, So there wasn't Mary Tyler Moore Records. Did she own it? Well,

her corporation did. And they had great stuf off. I mean they had let me think now, they had Judy Rodman who had been who had been um maybe was the reigning and female vocalists of the year in country. They had Paul Overstreet who subsequently went on, you know, not only be one of the greatest writers in national history, but also had a you know, really uh significant artist's career. They had um gosh, they owned the publishing on Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd's what became the Faster and Louder,

that famous record. The the receptionist was Tricia Yearwood. And no, I'm not kidding, and that I remember, you know, she was so great and you know, she was really nice and beautiful. And then somebody said to me this is you know, they said, well, you you know you ought to hear you ought to hear her sing the receptionist, I'm not kidding where you were signed. That's correct, yes,

and that's right. And the and I may tell you how I got signed to because I had already you know, I've gotten into town and I had my first single, my first cuts. My first single was a song by Michael Martin Murphy called Pilgrims on the Way and that went to I don't know, it didn't go that high, but it broke the top forty and and partly because

of that, and then I got signed. But the way I got signed is the other guy that there was, the guy that was ahead of an r MTM Records MTMS what was called was a guy named Tommy West who produced Bill Crochy who you know that was more like the sound that I had, bad bad was listening bad badly? Roy Brown, Uh, you don't um to read your mind? What a oh my god? Yeah yeah, So I mean like, and that was your sound? You feel

like that was more was definitely more my sound. In fact, that was you know the I know that was the rap on me. When I had a country deal was like, man, he sees like a folk rock sort of you know, I don't know, I don't know what they thought, but I get it. I to get it. I get it in a way. But for Tommy, I literally had to stand there I didn't play in a club. I mean

I was playing in clubs. But I remember to audition for Tommy West and he he had a room and I just came into his looking room and he sat on a couch and he just said, you know, He's like, go ahead, and I played ten songs. I like, played an album. I just stood there right in front of just played an album. And he's watching you watching because you hear like the people that auditioned for SNL and they're up on stage and there are three people watching

and they don't really make a lot of movement. That's what it was like. Yeah, it was poker facing and he just sat there and you know, and I'm not saying it was creepy, because I really admire him, and he was and and look he got he listened to the whole thing. He goes, okay, let's do it. Let's

do it. And you know, in a way we started to go And then it just happens that the timing of all this was I got married right about that same time to be cut and and the thing was at the also at the same time that it was so to the end of the run of Pilgrims On the Way. So I remember on my honeymoon the first time and the only time I ever heard Pilgrims on

the Way on the radio. We were down at like you know, destoned of course, you know, because we don't have any money, so were like destin and we're out on the beach and the loud speakers and they're playing that Pilgrims on the Way, which was a percent or two. It was, you know, it was like some weird and I was a piano and it was like the eighties, so I had to have a saxophone on it. I mean,

it was really weird song. And when it was like my breakthrough, that was it seemed like I thought then I thought, that's it, you know, oh my god, and it sounded more like a Hornsby song. And if you listen to it now, if you ever check that out. Um anyway, So that was and I remember right the day I got back from my honeymoon, I went to Mary Tyler Moore, which is where Paul Worley studios now that building and uh and used to the old chapel building.

And I went over there and I walked in the door and they said, um, there's been illegal like there was a big premise. I think there was a criminal I think there was I don't want to go into because I don't know the specifics, but they Marry Tyler

and Company pulled the plug on it. And so in a way, it's one of the saddest things for for a lot of people because they got out just when the wave hit, like one of these one of the worst business moves ever when you think about you know nine, you've got something, and they really had something going on.

I mean, there was an article in the Tennessee and a few months ago talking about the guys that ran that company, Henry Hurt and Tommy West and others, and they're saying, man that you know, it was a stacked independent label, and they um, they pulled the plug. So you're on it. And when you did Broken Road, that was on ANTM. Now so Broken Run comes, you know, Yes, I mean, listen, my situation is was so bad. It's

funny that. I mean, I kept getting signed. I mean I got signed Timmy Blass, Sigmy Joe Galani signed me. Um U. I don't know. There was another label, an e M I label that signed me to a kind of a rock deal. Uh, Joe Glani was gonna move me at one point. At one point it was set up that I was going to work with the folks from Mellancamps in Indiana. It sounds like people were wanting to shift you over to a bit of that sound. Yeah, they're putting you with Mellancamp and they had well, I

thought that was gonna be great. And then um, when Glanni it was right when Glanni got moved over to New York to take over everything for our say, and then actually Josh Leo took over and he dropped me, and but Glani at one point from New York was going to move me to Indiana and let me do. There was a song I had that became an Alabama cut,

but it was called the Cheap Seats. Yeah, so that was a big I had a band called the Pretty Red Wing and I was I mean, my my big thing was I played live, I played on album like I know that song it was a single, it was. It didn't go number one or anything like that, but it went and you know, for years they played it. It was a big song in baseball because it's about minor league. That's that's that was such a big baseball in seven inning st atch in a lot of places.

For for quite a while, that was the song. I mean then you know, Fogerty has you know, center field, but a lot of places to be like the cheap seat. Yeah. God. And we used to play that in my band and we'd play the fire out of you know, we'd rock it real hard. Um. And I really thankful that Alabama did it because it was a significant break for me in what way. Well, for one thing, it was actually unequivocably even though it to me it was kind of like a folky thing, but really it was a country

song by alab you know. And if it's one thing, you know, if you get uh, Michael Martin Murphy, for example, walk the line is his whole career. Now he just cowboy songs, right, cowboy poetry and all that, but he was also a pop pop singer. And one of the first songs that I ever learned as a guitar player was drawn Hima's Cadillac. And that's not really a country song that really belongs more to the folk rock field.

But then he had a country career, so he was like walking that line, same line that I would walk, only unsuccessfully. Alabama's Alabama. They are like that it gets nor more country than Alabama. They get whatever they sing is now the country is on. Well yeah, now it's like it's like so country, you know, it's it truly feels almost like another time songs like hot Cotton, you know, like that's amazing stuff. So that was for me, that was a little bit. I mean, that's not the breakthrough.

The breakthrough for me was why not not only love that? That? That's where why I got to stand town. Let me do it commercially. I don't even stop you, but Mike's holding a commercial affair. Let me talk about Express pros. So for just one corporate job, only four to six people will get an interview for every two hundred fifty resumes received. Those aren't good odds you're talking about. I mean, your shot of even getting an interview aren't good, much

less get in the job. The fact is you need a real person advocating to a real employer that this is a real job, and you're a real person, you do a really good job. Right. That's where Express Employment Professionals comes in. Express is your local resource to help you get a new job. Express is more than Oh the dog jump right in the middle of my Express A little spot here, Dusty. Express has more than eighteen

thousand jobs that need to be filled right now. Find your nearest office at Express pros dot com and Express never charges a job secret to help find employment. Your locally owned Express office can help you connect with jobs in the community. Express pros dot com. How do you find jobs? If you're looking for a manufacturing job, accounting job, customer service, sales distribution, I keep going on you name it. Visit the nearest Express office today and speak with hiring

professionals connected to the available jobs in your community. Need a job, Visit Express pros dot com today to find the location nearest to you. Okay, So you're talking about the wine on As song. Yeah all right, So tell me about that and why that's your big break. Um, well, it's my big break because it went it went number one, and um it didn't go number one on Billboard. But back in the day, you know, build b my er Ask would throw you a party and give you a

one of those cups. You get a cup if it was on number one on either UR and R or Billboard records. Yetta, Yetta, take a step back for a second. So now you're writing these songs and getting breaks, but are you done pursuing the artist? No? No, no, gosh no, no, the whole time I'm and in fact I got one. So going back when MTM imploded, my publishing deal was

then tied in. I'd come from a different group, nineteen Avenue or Lorenz Creative Services, which is its own wild thing, because that's kind of where Randy Travis broke out with it. You know, arguably the record which kicked off the wave, the you know, the new Traditionalist movement was a lot of people have pointed to the album Storms of Life by Randy Travis and it comes at the same time as Steve Earle and Love It and Nancy Griffith and

this thing Dwight Yoakum. They call it the New Traditionalist movement. So I came to town right when that was happening. The company that signed me, this is just before the MTM thing, was a primarily Christian organization called Lorenz Creative Services and had thing called nineteen nineteen Reproductions. I think it was so Charlie Monks running the Countryside and he is the manager of at that time Randy Travis when

that record goes down. So that was happening right where I get signed and when I when I first come to Nashville, so I get this massive education on a not just country but like serious roots kind of and and really I looked to it like, hey, man, if I love it, Nancy Griffith and Steve Earle have deals. Someday I could have a deal because I live somewhere somewhere in that land. I'm yeah, was there you mentioned Randy Travis being the launching point because that record was

so big you kind of put that sound out. Now, he probably wasn't the first to do it, but his was so big that it made the movement happen, the success of it, I think. So was there an argument it's okay, this isn't country, Like was that was Randy Travis? It was the other way around, So okay, Yeah, so it's it's you know what it's like, I'll give you the to me, I'll give you an analogy. Um, Nirvana, I know this is really weird, like what you know,

how is this in ans? But like there were a lot of you know, hair bands and spandex and and exactly, and then Cobain and like to me to me overnight for people go like, well, what hell, well, that's rock listen that guy that's like like that's the end of the world. I mean he's rocking like and sure enough he killed I mean like he he had that thing and the grunge thing comes and you just go, mother of God, what okay? You know, So Randy Travis did that to or showed you what country really would bones

uming things. I remember going like exhuming, but yeah, not only that, but then you've got you know, then you've got buck Owen's would span you know, like with leather pants and and punk sensibility, Dwight Yoakum which was guitars cattle it, and then you have Love at the five and dime. Nasy Griffith wrote it, but Kathy Mattea, you know, so that's happening. And then Steve Earl sounds kind of like like Springsteen. You grew up in a holler, so

I don't know. It was so great and intense and like when I tell young writers, you know, if you'd been here in like right then on the wave it this is pre garth by the way, Like it was unbelievable. It was so exciting because you really felt like like the music coming out of Nashville that time, I mean

everybody was fired up. You talk about Dwight Yoakom. For me, I loved Yokom, still loved k I remember watching music videos being like, I don't even know, Like I was raised with the country music part of my life with my grandma, and it was an old school country from Arkansas, Kansas. So anybody so first of all, Johnny Cash was Johnny Cash. Uh. Anybody with an Arkansas pedigree was the biggest to us. And so I would see do I Yoko my TV? And like, what is happening? Like it's a rock star

with the cowboy hat who's dancing? Like yeah, none of the things matched and that's what made it so cool. And then the guitar playing like the electric you know that What was it as to why Yokam was happening? What did the industry think of him? Um? I think that they were, you know, I think they embraced you know, in the early in the late eighties and early nineties.

One of the things that was so you know, particularly before deregulation, and um, I think what happened in Nashville the I think what people will write about the explosion that was Nashville and particularly in the I mean the nineties in a way if you look at it broadly speaking, when you know it goes from in the mid eighties,

the perception of countries. I think it's about the size of I don't know, jazz again, would I go back to like, you know, some more niche kind of thing, right, and then you know, country music it's just taken over the world, right. And I think when thing like that happens,

it's almost like a religious movement. It requires a car some charismatic elements after then explode and then it creates waves, and then concentric waves and more waves, and eventually you have the you know, things slowed down and and a lot of things that are beautiful about a movement change

and then gets you know, structured and stratified. But I think what happened was that people were allowed to be many things that the diversity of country music if you look, you know, into the early nineties, is extraordinary because you have Yes, Randy Travis, you have Verned Gosden, you know, like you want to talk about you know, damn country,

you know, like wow, But then you'd have. You know, you'd have Vince Skill coming up, and you know, and then the new Grass Revival and there are things that were percolating from a blue grass standpoint that were really getting really and we're really creative and moving. Then the emergence of the mega stars, the rock stars led by you know, Garth, who I don't know outsells the Beatles in eight years or whatever. Know it's will that ever, anything like that ever happened again in country music. I

don't know how it'll. It'll take a massive paradigm shift. But you know, you think about all of that, and then the folkies, you had how catch him, You had Mary Chapin Carpenter winning you know female Vocus of the Year of ninety three or whatever it was. You had, uh, you know, all of these things lived and they lived together and they profited together. So and pop country then

emerged too in a different way Shania Twain. You know, like that's like what happened with that, Like when it would take over, it would take over, and as the water rose, all the ships went up with it. That's yeah. I mean I think it was like the big big boat, as they say, you know, it could carry a lot of things, and it really to me, it doesn't change until the Chicks, when the when the you know, when the when it all goes down with the President and

the Chicks. To me, that was the beginning of the of a of a kind of a It was sort of to me where we began to stop allowing things to sort of expand and remain extraordinarily vital and diverse,

which is healthy. It's like a democracy. It's like, it's really better when we have a lot of ideas from a multiplicity of this is I mean, this is just my I'm just I'm just talking off the cuff, you know, on trying to to make music theory or music popular music theory coincide with some ideas about culture and politics. But I think you know, the many is is more

powerful than the dominant few. Do you feel like now with the landscape and you have artists not even sonically but philosophically that have the brothers Marin Although they do sound slightly different than what's considered traditional, they aren't in that hey, we just fall into the mold and believe what everybody in countries starting to believe. Do you feel like that type of thing is what it was happening

back then too. He started to see it again a bit with some of these again, as you're describing all these people in this multicultural movement. Yeah, and I'm right in the middle of it here. I'm starting to finally see it again with people having voices and ideas and differences and staying the same but being different, because it sounds like as you're describing events and as you're describing people, like we talked about Dwight Yoakum, he wasn't. I mean,

he's started California. Yeah. But when I was an artist, I met by Collens, you know, and and he was really nice to me. Um, you know, he played my record and he was just you know, he and anyway, I did a little bit of, you know, research on just because I didn't grow up listening to about Ohens a man, I didn't. I mean I wish when I was that, believe me, when I was at a country radio, I wish I had all kinds of records in my background, But you know, it wasn't. The only country stuff that

I really heard growing up. Was my dad loved Johnny Cash, and I know that there's a period of time when he wasn't considered country, and there was all that going on, which is again you talk about the cycles and now you saw like again with me and my grandma, it

was the gospel stuff too. It was Johnny, but I remember her telling me that she went to see a cash show and he played a lot in Arkansas, especially early, and there are people pickinging out front because this wasn't that's not country, and like the person that we hold as the most screw yes is wasn't. They were so angry that that wasn't a country music show? So why are you calling the country music show? Like? That's the same thing when I say, brothers, everything is a cycle.

Everything's how we are. That's literally, that's just we like we're like eating or young or something, you know, like we're really we're funny. It's funny. It's vibrant and powerful and funny and then kind of sad sometimes all the like I did a show. I won't say who was the other night, but I did a show and you know, um, I mean ironically when I play now, I sound like I think people think I'm as you know, I've literally had people come up to me and say, hey man,

thanks a lot for keeping a country thank you. And I think that's you know, because I play Cowboy, Take Me Away, and then the way I play Born to Fly and stuff like that, you know, now that's really country sounding. And then um, and then I always had a gospel thing in me anyway. That's just that that actually helped me stay in Nashville because you know, that was sort of genuine. I did grow up singing in church,

even though it wasn't evangelical or this or that. But I mean, like I still I sang in church my whole life, and I like to sing in churches to this. You know, it's a big part of my life too. Um. Even that though was sort of on the wrong side

of it culturally, but nonetheless I did have that. Um. But oh God, whilst the trying of thought, I got thinking about the gospel and you were playing with somebody, and I think this person you being country, you sounding country, that was your thing that people are like, hey, yeah, yeah, that's right, I do remember now. Yet so I'm playing with this guy, we're like we're down in like a like it was during one of the like a cmf

cmafest thing. And I play so many writers things now that I can't even remember while, but I remember this night because it was recent. Um it's like truth, I don't know three or four months ago. In anyway, this particular writer is very successful writer, and he's very country. And he got up there and he said, and he says to the audience and audience he's like, I'm just glad he said that, says, I tell you what, I'm

not gonna play any goddamn Sam Hunt record. He says, I'd like anything, as long as not a goddamn in pardon me for like Sam Hunt. And I'm like, I'm thinking, what the hell do you care? First of all, Sam Hunt is unless unless you're just deaf, dumb and blind like that guy has lots of talent. I'm honestly, I mean I can't. I can't write that stuff. I mean i'd like to. I mean, I'd love to sit in the room with I've heard, by the way, from other

writers that he's just an outstanding writer. And he's and he's even kind of old school, meaning he doesn't everything doesn't have to be done in two hours. Oh he's notoriously slow on purpose. Yeah, we'll see. That's the generation. Look, I came up in the generation where you know, you you would sit around and talk about where to put a comma so that the page would look right, you know, like it wasn't. So there's there's so many things that have changed, But the larger point for me was, Okay,

let's talk authenticity. If you if everybody wants to talk about authenticity, let's take a moment and just step back for a second. Imagine you grow up in your you grow up in America, in your in in the nineties, your teens, your early teens are in the nineties. Let's just imagined that. And so that was that's like almost everybody that were who's sort of listening to all of this. If you grow up at that time and you fall in love with some country acts, and why wouldn't you?

They were it was amazing time, right, and amazing writing community, vibrant, vibrant, vibrant. But you live in America, so what's even you know. The the other thing that's incredible and emerging and and really muscular is urban music and rap. Right, So as you move into the early two thousands, if you're not listening to rap at all and mixed in with your gumbo that has some country acts, right, then I just don't know what country you're in, because that's how it is,

That's what it was. I mean, you aren't going home to Mary maybe RFD and sitting and just only listening to a few little records and you're not gonna know that's that's not culture. So of course, Sam, like a lot of people you know, like including my son, who has this real pop country sound, as artists, they naturally integrated these sounds, and that is by definition, honest to me. That's always been my biggest argument is it's no one kicking at country regoing I'm going to change it. It's

everyone using the tools they've grown up with. And again, I was born in the eighties, so I was in nineties teenage kid. And it was also when Napster happened, and I then realized I could have every song that started with L. All I had to do was hit it and and I had every kind of no. I grew up in Arkansas, so if it wasn't Glenn Campbell or Andy Grafs Gospel Records, or Johnny Cash or Ray Charles, then it started to be mcgrawl and Garth. Then it

started to be Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Then it was hip hop, and so at my core I'm a country music fan. But if I acted like I wasn't a hip hop guy or an alternative guy, it would be a lie. You be, we want and to your point of authenticity, do we want people lying? Isn't that the purpose of this entire format is that it's supposed to be real. And if you look with the people Sam reach like there's a reason that he sells out amphitheaters

every single time instantly because he's actually reaching human. Yeah, and isn't at the point and here's the thing of twenty years, people are gonna go a man, I wish it was like the little Sam Hunt days. Yeah, It'll be like, boy that was country, that was country back then. This guy over here with the bike horn. You know this is not country. So look I make i'd be. At the same time, I gotta say it's I'm not

talking about both sides of my mouth. But you know, like as a musician, I mean like when I do demos, now I get a couple other guys like me who play a bunch of instruments. There's no money for demos anymore. You know. People don't do like they used to. It was like you know, he used to it was every every six weeks we just do a big old session and just put it on the card, and everybody was those days are not that's not where we're at right now.

But because I mean, I'm really a roots guy, I really am, you know, and I mean what I really love to listen to is still I mean, I still love a Patty Loveless record like crazy, you know. I still love New Grass Revival, I still love you know, I love Jimmy Webb's song sung by Glenn Campbell because I'm I'm a piano player and I just the harmonic ideas and those songs that really was as much as anything that kind of brought me to the genre. I love, you know, the way you know, the people that are

really who play acoustic guitar beautifully. I try, you know, my whole life. I'm always trying to stretch as a musician, but I don't really I don't really dig a lot of digital information in terms of my aesthetic, in terms of you know, I'm I'm an old dog, if you will, and happily so. At the same time, I really feel like as long as I've been in this industry, I've been hearing this stick since the day I got here, and I'm tired of damn, honest to god, I mean,

I'm sick of people. You know. It's just it's so it's so nonproductive, you know, because yes, thank God for Zach Brown and you know, and and the earthy whatever, the roots side of things that still and I definitely hope that it makes a comeback also because if it does, I might have a job as I get older, you know, you know, because more and more I find the stuff that I'm doing. It. Yeah, it just sounds like it's hopelessly in another world. But these things do tend to

work in cycles. And the song is at the end of the day, it is the king, the queen, it is, you know, the court. Eventually everything does return to the song. I know that. And eventually everyone has to be able to play such a song like that somewhere with a guitar or a piano in a room. And that's the classic thing. And that and most songwriters and artists, you know,

that's really what they want. They want to have a song that you can play and it just immediately is transformative that you know, that's what they refer to as a copyright and it's not just money, you know, it isn't. It isn't. I'm not not the same, you know, pure as a driven snow or anything. But for those of us who are crazy songwriter musician types, we are. We are like like odd religious devotees and and pilgrim souls. I mean, we really are. You know, It's it's a

strange bunch. You know. I think you might be the smartest person I've ever talked to. I'm sure. I'm like, I'm I'm listening and I'm understanding everything you're saying, and I'm just like wow, And it's crazy that, you know, there have been a couple of people I brought in you talked to and you go, okay, there it's a familiar level level they're thinking out with me. Not that I'm right, but it's a familiar level and you're talking on a familiar level that I thinking, but so much smarter.

Like I want to go back and listen to this, go this is watched the same next time I get to argue because I have the same like to me, there's room for everything. Is there's room for everything, and there's no definition inside of art. As soon as you start to put walls around art, then it's not what you wanted to know. And what do you want out of people? You know, you say you want artists, you say you even know what that means. And then you you know the nature of those kinds of people is

they're sort of explosive. They they move in directions, they go to the river, moves in a way that you didn't see it coming. You know. I'm like, that's what that looks like. And like my son, for example, is so Levi is you know, making his way in music right now, and his sound is more pop country, but then he has two or three different gears and I'm always telling him maybe he gets sick of hearing it.

We just literally got off the road from two weeks together and we shared a room, which I'll tell you what. That's something, you know, because he's twenty six and got a poor guy. You know, we're in like Amsterdam, he's he's sharing a room with his dad. Think about that

for a moment, just let that settle in. But we had a great time, you know, and we're out and we're playing with a lot of people and and uh, you know, we're doing you know, a country week in the UK, and and I've been playing in and out of the UK for years. I mean that it's just give a following there. I wouldn't say I have a

following um in the UK. I mean that when I was on Columbia the one great tour, I had one just unforgettable tour well, and then I was signed my my rock deal was was out of London, So I guess I have all kinds of UK connections. But um, I got to open for Alison Kraus and Union Station and they did like the Royal you know, um, oh what's right there in the Times, the Thames, the Royal Festival Hall or whatever. When we did like Ulster Hall, in the Gaiety Theater and double like the best places,

and I could take one musician with me. I was allowed one side man. I took Darryl Scott, who I had just met, and we septs to be k He's one of my best friends in the world. It's like a brother to me and he's my longest to this day, longest running co writer. Do you know Darryl at I don't, Oh you know, do you know who he is? Though I know who he is? People talking about him. Yeah, I've never met him. Yeah, well, he's one of the

best ever. And he's taught me more about what is country what isn't than probably anybody, because I don't know anybody who knows country music the history of it more. And can do you know, you can do anything, you know. It's a guy can play literally everything. But anyway, he's

my sideman, you know. Uh. And we would go into these places and and I would do my forty minutes and with Darryll, you know, and then we would sit and we would watch this greatest, you know, one of the greatest of all American musical forms, you know, like just her, you know, just Alison, you know, and then to Minsky and you know the band, you know, Jerry Douglas. And we literally would sit night after night and then we then we'd get in our car because they had a bus we had to follow on a car. We

drive in through Ireland, you can imagine. And it was it was just as romantic as it should be. It was a great thing. It was extraordinary, you know, And that was like the greyest thing I ever got to do. And I remember I even when I flew back from the UK um I literally had to get off the plane and went right to playing like a holiday in

you know, on my radio tour. And I think I got drunk, you know, and and like the record President game, and like he got drunk too, and and I felt sick the next day, and I thought, oh my god, you know, I mean, it's kind of a great thing to do. It's a great American thing to do. But now my son, you know, like our son, not mine, but our son, aren't We have three sons. The oldest boy, Levi's out there and he's already had like great sort of ups and downs and and uh, and he is

teaching me about a new paradigm which is occurring. And you know, there's always a new paradise, something's always coming, of course. And it was interesting because this past year I helped co produce a movie called The Last Songwriter. And in this movie, with the directors director Mark Barsor Elliott, we looked at what has happened with streaming and the like severe attrition in the songwriting community in Nashville, like the Wall Street Journal says, of our uh, making a

living population is lost. You know, there's only like it went from four thousand or four d eight years and so, and my job and it was to score it, but also my job is to pick songwriters to talk about it and to talk about what, you know, like what the art form is really like. So we got some

major stars. Garth Brooks was agreed to do it. Jason Isabel, you know who's just extraordinary he did at Emma Lou Harris and then the the and yet the main event in a way is I picked Matresa Berg, Tony Rata, Tom Douglas down Shamblin to be this sort of internal dialogue in the movie. It's just an hour long movie and it it premiered at the Nashville Film Festival and got in a you know, like Appreciation Award or whatever

whatever they have there. And it's a beautiful movie, um, but a lot of what it says in it, you know, it's sort of talking about streaming, so you know, streaming comes along, and it doesn't really include writers and publishers as we know, and the deals are really made the with the people that own the sound recording, which is usually the record company unless you're Taylor Swift or your Kanye or whatever, and you own your own sound recording.

And so we know the reality and the course the growth of streaming is off is off the chart, and so consequently, you know, Lomana tone Poll is a songwriter. So that's all true, Like that's all just happening. And in the midst of that, I see my son Um. He's on you know, Big Machine, and they have a

really amicable parting of the ways. And he's got this great management company, Iconic, which is really a label, and they just start putting out you know, songs, singles as streaming singles, and he kind of has showed me that how great really streaming is in a lot of ways, and it's it's entire it's really bringing about this kind of democratization of the form because people who aren't just the four or five labels that's all that's left now, right,

who get their little corporate push. You've got people like you know, he's got the first song that Don't Waste Tonight. You know, he's got you get two million streams from somebody that nobody knows and next single, the song called Stupid. In a week, it was like a hundred and something thousand, and he's explaining to me, you know, Dad, this is great. Do you see that it's great. And what I'm realizing is that it is great. It's great. The problem isn't streaming.

I mean, yes, it would be wonderful if the folks that created the form, the Pandora's, the apples, the Spotify's, if they had just gone like, well, you know, it's just morally wrong to to cut out. But the thing is that because the nature of the laws that govern intellectual property in America, we are held under compulsory licenses, which means that we can't negotiate in this you know, in this society, this capital society, we cannot negotiate for

you know, for our worth in business, songwriters. So we're we're screwed unless Congress has to go ahead and say, hey, these are laws, there are kick. This digital revolution is upon us. Music is being played more than ever. Let's find some way to you know, to in a fair way to monetize it. And before we lose this one of you know, one of America's greatest assets is it's songwriters.

But it's really been interesting with LEVI because I've you know, when I was doing the movie, I kept thinking, you, oh, you know, streaming bad evil, you know, And I've come to realize it. Really, that's not where the fight is. The fight needs to be fought in laws need to change. But but streaming itself is just you know, who doesn't want to have access to all these songs? I've always felt with streaming and right now it's the wild West as far as laws, meaning no one's breaking it. There

just aren't them yet. And just like the wild Wit, eventually there's there'll be a sheriff it comes into town that actually regulates what's happening in the town. And until then you a lot of people running crazy. There are no the rules are so old school. Yeah that they're not they're not real time. They're not real time. But what's happening with with a lot of my friends and songwriters, A lot of my friends will testify and talk to Yeah, and when you're now new friends and now another friend

that goes up. We go up to N S. We do the N S A I thing and you know, thank God for Bart and Krista and and those folks. You know, it's funny when you do them because you realize that you're really there to play a couple of songs, and you know it's something's gonna have to happen, and I don't know, Uh, I just don't know when I believe it will. I mean, I know that it will happen, but I know that the laws will change eventually. I

just hope they do, you know, before too long. But and a lot of that is because I feel for younger songwriters that you know, it's just it's really good to be able to make a little bit of money. You're not talking baseball money here. We're not talking about hey, you know, let's you know, like we're talking about just make enough money that you can do what it is that God meant you to do, which is to write this poetry, to try and become Jimmy Webb, to try

try and write Galveston. That's what you want to do. You want to write American Pie. I mean, you want to write fire and Ring, you want to write damn You're anything Carol King wrote. You know, like, that's what you want to do. And and but to do that, you've got to be able to apply your trade all

the time. And it it, you know, will will great writers emerge that One of the interesting statistics that we found, I mean this is is that even though less people are making a living, at songwriting that it's still kind of like the same general number of songwriters are floating around this town. So the true hearts, the real believers,

they're all out there. They're all out there. And frankly, if streaming gives people a chance to be unique and exciting, and you know, maybe John Marcus the gate keeper, you know, if he is, he's he's pretty groovy as far as I can tell, you know, I mean, I know, at least maybe I'm speaking as a father, as a dad,

you know, like he's been good. You know, he he digs leavey stuff, and and it's not just the it's its own thing, right, And I just think you have to be thankful for folks like that too, that are you know, that want to hear something new, that are willing to take some chances. You know, I think you're speaking as a dad. Okay, really, okay's got their own opinion. Um here's there because I like LEVI yeah, I feel like this has been a college course and now I

want to shift it a second. I want to here's my here's my theory on streaming and why it's all something's also gonna happen to it because it's becoming out of control to where these streams are so inflated, to where if somebody's gotta have friends that have songs have been stream ten million times, yea, they can't sell it a bar. You're gonna tell me ten million people have listened to this song, but you can't get to people

to buy tickets. But I can tell but I can show you the opposite side of that, the other side to that. And again, I'm again it sounds like I'm just sitting around your pitching my son, But I mean, I just I'm telling you, like he goes out and he plays, He's three days away from going out with eighteen Days with l a young band, and he gets goes out with you know, I mean, you know, Kip takes him out, and Dan and Shaye take him out, and Kelsey takes him out, and he goes to Chicago

and he hard tickets clubs. Now he's put almost two years in and he's got followings in pockets, and I even know, I couldn't believe it. I'm in London right with my kid in the same room. What we're going to do in shows, right, And I'm playing the show and I'm watching the audience and he's up there, you know, and he's singing, uh, what's the first one? Um, not stupid the uh, don't waste the night, don't wasten night,

Come on, come over. I'm looking at the audience and they're singing it, and I'm thinking, well, okay, I mean, you know, that's that's trippy to me. You know, let me not be a dad for a second and talk on the other side. And I do believe that it's reaching more people than anything since Napster. It's we're back to that where people. First of all we need is people to pay for the premium services. That's a thing.

So that will in the end trickle down to the songwriters at least for a bit until we're able to change the laws. But paying for the premium services is actually a big deal, So we need more people to buy the premium services. I don't care if it's Spotify, Apple Music. I heart radio, Spotify with it's no commercials, Pandora.

You know, everybody now is doing on demand music, and there's no doubt that people are hearing these songs and if someone's coming to town, they're able to check them out easily because they have access on their phone to um or. People can develop a fan basis too, with social media also a big part of this. I'll give

you an example. I took Laura Lane out and she opened for us for ten shows from my band UH and Lauren was like, I'm fifty million strange and I'm opening for you, And I'm like, you're right, that's crazy because you're so much better than I know. And it is reaching the mass more so. But what's happening is people are seeing these inflated numbers and going that's not real.

So it's ruining it for everyone. And so when someone comes up and they go, now, I'll just give you a normal conversation inside of because for me, everything is digital like that the days of transmitters going into cars. There's probably three to five years of that being really strong, and that's going to start go away. So I've already shifted how I do my job. I'm playing to the phone.

Like everything I do place to the phone, because everybody's got there's all the time I do my radio show, and I got three to five years of really strong that really strong, especially in country, which is a couple of years behind. But I'm playing to the phone already I have five million that listen on normal radio and another five million that download my podcast. So I'm looking at pretty much at split and who's taking my content.

But I can tell you sitting in these meeting from people come and go, I have this artist and he's got three million streams, and I go, somebody just playlist? Did you? And they're not showing us the algorithm and how these things are getting tracked, Like, let's have a little bit of transparency here on. At least with sound scan, when albums were bought, there was some transparency, and know when this many records came from this store, it was deep.

There's not that in the digital landscape. So it makes everyone seemed full of crap because you have people that are just putting songs on playlists and nobody knows it. And because you bought the guy at dinner or took, you know, took a nap at his house, you all of a sudden get playlisted. And it doesn't happen with everybody, but it is happening like that. But at the same time, radio has its problems, streaming has its problems. Everywhere has

a weakness, Satellite has its weakness. Higher end they don't know how people are listening either, much smaller audience. Everybody's got its weakness, but everybody has its strength too, And so I could sit here and I often do it, pick radio apart, and boy do I get in trouble for that, because I mean, that's who pays me when I go on the radio and talk about how radio is failing me. It's dying how and not even that

it's done. It's shifting, its shifting. But I go, hey, why aren't we working on some of these new initiatives that we know? Regardless, I yell at my own people, and I get in trouble, so I feel safe and yelling at everybody else too. I did tell everybody, but I think that's my When it comes to streaming, that's the issue. These inflated numbers are making everyone look at and go, well, this is absurd. None of it's true because you can buy You can buy ten thousand streams

very easily, and people are doing it. Labels are buying streams like crazy. And it's like YouTube views. You can buy YouTube views, no problem, that still happens, but that was a two years ago. A thing really where you're buying YouTube views now people are buying streaming numbers as well. Right, so I'm gonna pay and I'm gonna get fifty streams and I'm gonna look that much cooler. Okay, Well, you pay ten thousand dollars, all of a sudden you got a million streams, and it helps you go, well, I

got now I got a million streams. This guy should come play here. Too many people are doing that. The oversaturation of the person with ten million streams is happening, and people are starting to roll their eyes at it. Yeah, does all that make sense? It does make sense, I mean it does. And yet I'm I have to admit, I mean I'm not. I don't feel like you know, I'm in my fifties and I think I resemble my own generation. You know, a lot of this stuff is

kind of it's like mystifying to me. What's not mystifying is the idea once something starts to take streaming, and it's always it's funny because it's always happened. Something will take and then you find some way to pay for it.

But I have to say that I think that where the rubber meets the road a little bit is any form of if you get any kind of saturation or any kind of that may not be the I don't even know if I know the term the terms any traction and you and if you play live, if they're if you notice a relationship, if there relays a relationship between being a really vital live musician where you go and you know you're you're really building something, you have a sound, then I think you've at least got some

building blocks to work with in this very strange time, which it feels like an interim time to me, it's an it's a niche time. This this is what I'm seeing, is I can for me, technology is huge and getting all my messages out. See now you seem like the smartest guy I've ever met. But I have to eat, so I have to pay the bills. So I've got to figure out how to use all of these areas

and you get my message out whatever it is. Everybody has a message, So I've got to learn how to use my Twitter in the in the correct way, my Instagram in the right way, what music I put up, what music I promote to put So there are all these things, and what I've determined is that we're becoming a niche celebrity society, meaning the days of just having three channels and Mash gets twenty million viewers is over. By the way, I wasn't even I don't even know

how's a live one match was on. But that's my example of everybody watched the finale and match. There's a reason it has the record. So there are so many options out there. It's like a high It's like the interstate and all these cars are going by, and so you gotta quickly catch one because there comes another, here comes another. If you build your niche and you find your small audience and you super serve the crap out of them, that's where the success is going to start

coming from. Because there are a thousand different things to do. That's why people are putting out songs so quick, because it goes from one of the other one or the other one or the other. If you find your little group of people in you serve them. It's Thanksgiving dinner to them every single night. You give them cranberry sauce and turkey, and you serve them like crazy, and you build that niche out instead of throwing the big blanket up and hoping you catch as many as possible. That's

not working anymore. It's about zeroing in and spreading instead of going hey, everyone, I hope you like me. Boom. And I've seen the change happen even in my dam I mean I started as a teenager in the late nineties doing radio. It's changed dramatically since then. When you would just put out a record and go, everybody love it, that's just not what happens. Even in country music now it's not. It's starting to be niche on the major side of things, even with how you know, I want

to hear traditional country. We have radio stations that are now breaking apart inside our format. Yeah, which they always used to talk about remember the nineties. In the late nineties, people started talking that. Now they do it because so it's a very niche. If you super serve your small group, that small group gets a little bit, bigger gets. This podcast started with one thousand people listening. It's like a million. I never thought any able to listen to this crap.

I love it. I'm I'm counting. This is a big I'm counting on my career. Pick up. Sure you can we talk about hard tickets. You'll be able to go anywhere and just talk but yeah, this has turned into an entire music theory. You have wrote so many so we didn't even get the song. Let's we have like a few minutes, let's talk some stuff here because and let's just get right down to it, because I feel like I just got a degree from Home University all

right now. I feel like I just learned something, although it's so hard for me to follow. And again, I see you. I'm seeing a lot of what you're talking about really through kind of through my son's eyes. And I know Fletcher Fosters manager and like, um, we're really you know, really close family friends and um and then and you know, and we and and actually the guy that you know helps finance Iconic is lair back within me. And I love to talk to him, you know, because

they you know, and they care. They care about their Yes, they care about their artists. Is only you know, three of them, but they and they're thinking about this stuff all the time, you know. Um, and then it's just very it's an extraordinary time. And again, as a dad, you know, it's not just that I have a I have two dogs in the game, if you would, you know, like I'm trying to kind of stay vital or involved in the business. Vital is a separate issue, by the way,

in my opinion, you know. But the other thing I'm trying to do is I'm also watching you know, my son and who I you know, make music with sometimes, but also you know who I just love and he's trying to you know, I see him going into these waters, the very thing that you're talking about, and I'm excited for him. But sometimes I also feel like, oh gosh,

it's so tough for artists today. I mean, I think when I was an artist in the nineties, like when I had a couple of record deals I had, and you know, you would think about, oh wow, I get to do an interview. That six great, and I'm gonna you know, I'll reach a lot of people. And I see artists today and you know, if they don't do three four selfies a day and and do you know, you're you're you know, Twitter feeds and all this other stuff.

You know, you're you're trained to do that, and of course it makes perfect sense you you kind of have to do that. But think about the generation before you They said that about you, like, I can't believe what they have to do now. Again, we talked about cycles that people were saying the same thing about from the sixties. I really didn't we really didn't have to do anything too much during the day. I'm like, I just think you have to be on a you gotta be on

your phone. It's just you know, if to compete. And and then the Twitter thing, you know, you're like, we got a president who's commenting seven eight times a day. I don't even have Twitter, you know, Like I had Twitter briefly, and I was like, I can't believe I'm commenting on my own life. I can't believe it. Like that's something is separate from President Trump, because I just talking about me in that way. I just I find

it that's a separate issue. But the the this generation that is filming itself and commenting on itself as they live their lives, you know. And I've done, you know, and I was just just two. I did two weeks in Europe with a c m A right into the Songwriter series, and I've you know, I've took pictures and you know, Stockholm and you know, two funky places and sculptures and and uh and Leavi. You know, like we would be we'd be at summer and he'd go, Dad, Okay,

you know, take a picture. It's I gotta do a shot for you know, get this out. And I'd be like, okay. So then I'm the cameraman, you know, so I'm like part of the team. All of a sudden, I'm like doing the shot and then we're checking out and he's like I like that when I'm like, okay, we'll use that one, and I'm thinking wow. So so that's sort of the amicable, positive way of looking at But the other side, it's just the pressure for these young people,

you know, like, oh my god, it's trained. It's it's the only thing that I know. Yeah. So to me, it's like if I never had a television, what I missed television. I've never not known that I had to digitally be on the forefront. Yeah, that's always been a constant. So to me, it's not weird. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I hear what you're saying, and I mean and I get it, and I know, I don't think leeve I

think it's weird, you know. And and and it's funny too, because there's a kind of a there's a fellowship too within there, like the way that you like other people's things, you know, And I do have Facebook, and I'm you know, I definitely liked. I mean, I want to like if I'll see something, you know, people who put out a record or they've done something, or they're playing and their picture or their their dog or somebody. You know. I

you know, I'm enough a part of it. I'm not completely out of it, but I'm I feel a little bit out of it. You know, you feel generationally a little bit out of it. I think at some point we all should start to feel generationally a little bit out of it. That's probably an actual, isn't it. It is?

It is because I remember, like with my mom and dad, you know that when they would listen to my music, and they were huge fans and they were so supportive, and when they could travel, they came to everything, you know, and they love music so much, and they've made music, you know, and and but they you know, what they

like was the ballads. And I could play Born Fly, Ready to Run or you know or whatever, and and they would go, that's cool, you know, like yeah, that's yeah, yeah, And I could tell they were like kind of getting it.

And then you'd sit down at the piano, and if I get the piano and I'd played Blessed the Broken Road or um or over my Shoulder or something, you know, and they would go, yeah, that's it because they came from an age of ballads, you know, where the ballot, you know, and all the singers you'd have a song, and the song you'd have a song, and like you'd have a Burt backrock song for example, you know, well, I do know that's what I'm thinking of a Karen,

But there's what's a good Burt Back correct song? Is he saying rain drops keep falling? But let's say that. Let's take that song, okay, rain drops keep falling on my head, and you'll have um ten different pop singers like Sinatral do a version, and then you know, Karen Carpenter will do version, and they do have you know whomever,

and the songs you'd have songs like that. They just had this breadth and and I just think that was a generation that looked at you know, you might call it crooning or um and so certain kinds of things like rhythmic ideas that were real specific to a particular period of time that I think, my think for my folks a lot of that, which is sort of they just wouldn't catch it. I've never done this before. But what I want to do in a few months I

want to have I've never anything back again. I want to have you back, and I will have to come back because for me, this has been it. I never know where he was going, but I feel like philosophically, we've talked about a lot of things. Yeah, I just want to run these songs real quick and we'll get to all this at a later points. So you wrote, first of all, you put out Bless the Broken Road yourself. Yeah, well I didn't put it out. I put it out on an album and that album also had one of

these days, which but you put the album out. I mean it was out there people, Yeah, they could consume it. How did the flats get it? I just to this day. I mean that that and the song moving On or like two of my absolute favorite. The simplicity of the way they did that song, it was just killed me. You know a lot of people did the song. You know, Melody Crittenden did it on her asylum and she actually put out as a single. And I died in the forties and I thought that was the end of it.

And Jeff Hannah and I, you know, well, you keep pitching it. It got pitched by a lot of people. Tracy Gershawn and a woman be the name of Michelle Berlin at BMG kept put pitching it and and then Jeff and I would pitch the song all the time to different people, and I think, I think, you know, Brooks and Donne took a stab at it. I believe one own it took a look at it. A lot

of people looked at it. And the you know, in early on, I used to write a lot with Flats, the guys when their first three records, you know, and I had a number of songs on their albums um and they used to always say to me, Okay, we love that Blessed the Broken Road, because the thing about Blessed the Broken Road is it. And this is when I suddenly realized that it was it was going to

have a life of its own. Was that, you know, my wife's a minister, okay, and then and I, you know, and pretty well known, and she does lots of really interesting stuff. She's the founder of Thistle Farms, and and she actually does more touring than any of us now by the way, she's far more involved, she's going far more national than anyone in the family. But um, you know, for years and years I was I was playing weddings. I realized, I mean, she would do weddings, but I was.

I can't tell you how many weddings I was doing. And I got an award in the mail for like sheet Music Song of the Year, and I realized that we hadn't without meaning to we pop. We dropped it into a nerve people getting married later and you're going through a second marriage, third marriage, you know, or even you know, I got married. I was twenty seven years old, you know, I'd had relationships, She'd had relationships, you know, and reclaiming love what that is is is something of

our time. It's different. It's not what my parents are, you know, as we all know folks, would you know, get married out of high school, certainly get married right out of college, and and that I didn't mean to write that song in that sense, but I realized, oh damn, we've really hit a vein, you know. Um, and the that song kept getting pitched. And my understanding is the Flats Guys on their last record with the Management production

team that they had. They did an album called Feels Like Today, which I believe, I don't know if it's not, it's close. It's probably now there biggest selling record. I would think they were. The first song went out a fantastics on Fields Like Today that whatever. But and that song didn't go like number one or top five even and it was considered a massive, you know, setback. And I understand um because I was out of the country at the time that summer that that that the label

was thinking of maybe trash and the record. That's what I've been told. I don't know if that's true. It might be apocryphal. I'm not sure. And I believe the label said, let's let's cut two more songs, Let's try that, Let's try that Blessed the Broken Road. You guys said you like oh, because they used always say, oh man, we're gonna do that song. And they would never do that song. And I would, you know, I'd be like, come on, guys, you know, and they would never do

the song. And I remember I got back revisiting my family was living in uh my parents at that time living in Botswana where they worked for a long time, and so we remember getting back, and I remember Michelle Berlin running out of the doors of BMG and she says, they did it. And I'm like, they did what? Who's they and what do they do? She said, they did it, and they're gonna put it out as a single, and I'm like, what. Blessed the Broken Road? And I remember

the first time I heard it. I mean I literally hair went up my arms, you know, and you don't you don't always feel that at all, but it was so pure and beautiful. It just was outstanding. But that's, you know, that's the story that I heard about it. So the Dixie Chicks to that one? How about this one? How did you get with the chicks? As you called them, I wouldn't call chicks the chicks the Dixie Chicks. They I mean, I was I was kind of being let go. I was being let go by Sony and then they

were coming in. So one of my guys, I have to two guys that during that period of my life, I had two guys that were really my champions, one with Scott Simon and the other was Paul Whorley. So one time Scott and Paul ran Sony and that's when I got signed. They you know, when my friends became record president. So Scott was a great publisher. Of course he subsequently was a great manager, has is a manager RPM,

you know, Tim mcgrawn, um. And then of course Paul really is one of the greatest producers that ever worked in this town. And while I was being flushed out, they had moved on and someone else had come in to take over Sony. But they're still my friends. And so when the Chicks, the Dixie Chicks got signed, um, they that's really how I got set up to write with them, because the Dixie Chicks told me they knew my record, which although it didn't sell very well, um

it did. We did a weird campaign where instead of putting a single out and then following it with press, we did six months of press, giving the album to people and then we did so it was really kind of an ask backwards kind of approach. But what it did do is it was like it got me a lot of publicity and promotion for the songs, many of

which subsequently went on to get cut and um. And so I really look at it like it was like the most expensive publishing demo ever, you know, in a weird way, because That's why I got I got to play with them, because if you listen to songs, some of the songs on the record all in good time um their real roots, banjo grooves, folk meets soul meets you know, and that really is what the Dixie Chicks did, only they did it much better and in a way that was about to be eaten up by the country,

and nobody saw it coming like I never caught a way before. And the first time I wrote with them, I wrote with Marty and I met her at Fido's in the village and she had a few hours in their back and their first single was out the cost of song of I Can love You Better than that

I can love you Baby, I love you better. And that was when I and I. The thing is, I knew the dix Chicks because my cousin was a comptroller and Irvine and she had used to hire them when they were more of a writer's in the sky, you know, frills and cowboy hats, and they had that other singer, So I actually knew who they were, right And when I wrote with Marty, we were the first time we wrote, we wrote ready to run the first day, and I

by the way. I eventually wrote with all of them, but Marty and I wrote many songs they only recorded too. But I wrote a lot of songs with her and uh and play it on the record. I played guitar and Ready to Run like that. It's a fine guitar playing up. I do say so myself. I wish I could say I played the band on that because that's a really killing Now from and this is a we'll do another hour in a few months. What's you come

back over to the house if you don't mind something. Um, what we've learned from this is if you go hang out with enough satellite streaming a radio people and take them wine and give them massages, they'll play your songs. And that's running all And that's what you taught us. Yeah, that's yeah, but that's you know what that's been happening. It's like you know, they just they still do it just has to be. It's just different. Everything, everything's always

there's always a thing. I really appreciate the time. Yeah, thank you, Bobby, thank you, congratulations on everything and um that you've done. And it's sometime when we do if we do get to talk again, I want to ask you some questions. I think that'd be a fantastic because I want to the answer. I want sign you're a smart as you. But I love to answer questions that way. I don't I don't even think of the question you're you're good though. Yeah, next time we'll do that. That's

been interesting. Let me interview you a little bit. I just got a couple of things that I was doing some reading about you, and you've got some pretty there's some pretty interesting stuff. I just want to ask some questions. But I think that's that's fair. All right, Hey, thank you very much, thank you. There there is wow. I look at this guy here episode eighty seven. That is Marcus Humming And uh, I just flew in from Europe and hopped off planned and came over to the house.

So uh LEVI for us in the shout out, buddy, I'll see around. We'll see you guys next time. About