A Conversation with Shaw Wilson of BR549 (continued)

PM: What was it like flying in the studio without an outside producer this time, doing it just yourselves and with Cowboy Keith Thompson?

SW: And Paul Gannon.

PM: And Paul.

SW: Yeah, at the Big Ears Studio.

PM: Because Paul wasn't just engineering, I mean, he's a musical dude. And so he was kind of co-producing as well?

SW: Yeah, and he knows his way around his studio, so it helped with the time, the hourly rate or whatever. And it was a learning experience, like they all were, but--well, it's Chris Scruggs' quote. He said, "It's funny what you can do when you're left to your own devices..."

PM: [laughs]

SW: This time we didn't have anybody telling us "You have to do it for country radio. You have to comp all of your solos." I'm like, "Why don't you just get a drum machine, sample some sounds, and I don't even have to show up?" And that's what it felt like, "This isn't me." Even though it was, it was just--they always had to tamper with it. And I understand now why. And I'm mostly thankful for the opportunity. I mean, I know I was probably difficult to work with, but...

I have to be appreciative and grateful for the opportunity to learn. But I always hated going in the studio. I mean, I just hated it. So when we got to the studio at Big Ears, I still had some heebee geebees. But I got over them a little bit, and kind of fell into a groove. Oh, hey, what do you know, that's what we're talking about, grooves on a record, it's the groove that the needle follows, it's the groove of the music, it's the feel of the people in the room, that's what we were going for. We'd never been given that opportunity before.

PM: Wow.

SW: And so from now on, that's how we're going to do it, because it seems to be working.

PM: Who was Chuck's co-writer on "She's Talking To Someone," and "Movin' the Country," A. Murphy? Who is that?

SW: Who is the mysterious Alan Ricky Dean Murphy?

PM: [laughs] Is he all those names?

SW: Well, his real name is Alan Murphy. He's my old singer. Back in the Kansas days, Chuck and I played in different bands together, and Ricky Dean Sinatra was the one that I was in. And he was the front man for that, and a right corn dog, and just--he's a real gem is what he is. And Chuck and I talk about him a lot. And I'll talk to him quite a bit, too. And we agree that if it was just--if things were different--if he was just like ten years younger right now, he would be able to really do something. And as it is, he's a real good soul. He called Chuck the other day and said, "Hey, man, I just wanted to call and thank you for putting me in USA Today." And I thought, wow, what a cool thing to say, and what a weird thing for him. Because I'm jaded, I'm used to it, right, because we got good publicists.

PM: Sure, you get great press.

SW: But for a guy who--he's living in Camden, Missouri right now, and he's in the USA Today.

PM: [laughs] It's a beautiful thing.

SW: Yeah. And he's just a songwriter.

PM: So how did those co-writes go down? He sent Chuck some tunes and he banged them around or...?

SW: Well, at the time, he was still living in Lawrence, Kansas. His father was ailing and getting older--he's passed away since. And then he had to move to Camden to set his dad up in the final stages. But before all that, he was still in Lawrence. And Chuck goes back every year for Christmas, so they get together. And he had the hook already from Carl Perkins, where--a photographer friend of ours, you know Jim Herrington?

PM: I've met him, quite a person, helluva shooter.

SW: Yeah, he and Chuck were over at Carl Perkins' house. And Chuck was trying to call his to-be wife, and the line was busy, and he said, "Well, she's talking to someone, and she ain't talking to me."

PM: [laughs]

SW: And Carl says, "Well, there's your hook." And so he had the hook, and he went up to Ricky Dean's, and they were just working it out, and that's what they came up with.

PM: I love those stories. I was reading It Came From Memphis recently. Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham had been up for three days and they were in a diner and said, "Well, we better get some sleep." They were trying to write a follow up to "The Letter." And one of them said to the other, "Yeah, let's go home and get a little sleep. I'm so tired I could cry like a baby." And the other one says, "Let's go back to the studio."

SW: Wow. It's amazing what sleep deprivation and near insanity can do to you.

PM: [laughs] It's true. [Co-incidentally, on our Listen page where you'll find clips from BR549's Tangled in the Pines, there are Box Tops clips for a piece in last month's issue, with "Cry Like a Baby" among them.]

Hey, how about your Don Herron. Talk about a string king, oh, wow. Is the steel that he's playing pedal steel? Some of that sounds like lap steel.

SW: No, it's all lap steel.

PM: Ah. Because the credits read "Hawaiian steel." I didn't know exactly what was denoted by that.

SW: That would be Chris's input there, because he is such a steel freak. He was saying the other day--right before we went on the show, we were all warming up in the dressing room, and he says, "You know what really burns my ass?" I said, "What's that?" And he goes, "When people say in the credits or in a article or something, when they say pedal steel, and it's not, it's a lap steel, it's a Hawaiian steel guitar. It's a guitar. They make it sound like it's all the same thing--even if it doesn't have pedals." And he's getting all pissed off about steel guitars. I'm like, "It's okay, Chris. It'll be all right."

PM: [laughs] That's excellent.

SW: But it is an instrument brought to us through Hawaii, and that was its contribution to country music, thank God. And actually, people used to come up to Donnie after the shows a long time ago, they'd go, "What's that keyboard thing you're playing?"

PM: [laughs] With the bar.

SW: Well, just like people used to come up to us and say, "I don't like country music, but I like you guys." That being the difference is that they were too young to know what we know, and they'd never heard steel guitar before. It's bizarre, because to me it's like, "Give them a break." I'm somewhat obsessed with all those instruments as well, so I know how to identify them. But as long as they like it, that's what matters.

PM: So there's no pedal steel on the record?

SW: No. Donnie played pedal on the Sony record, and he does own one, and it's a whole other monster.

PM: Oh, yeah, truly.

SW: And I like those contributions, but for now he's just playing his two-neck Gibson Consolette.

PM: Yeah. I'm a lap steel freak, or as Chris insists, Hawaiian steel.  continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips     puremusic home