On The Road With Merle CD
Headache And A Headache (May 2015) I wanted to write another man/woman duet and the idea for this song just came out of the air, which is rare for me. After composing several melodies, I came up with this and an Steel Guitar Intro I I'd had always had in my head. I have already recorded duets with 3 of Germany's finest ladies, but I really wanted to do one with the energetic and wonderfully talented singer-songwriter "Danny June Smith". Her father raised her on traditional Country Music! THINGS TO KNOW..We first sang this song together several months after we recorded it!!
It's Hard To Be Cool In A Small Town (May 2015) I saw a TV documentary from Bulgaria or Romania and one of the scenes was this young babe coming back home from the all-night disco, dressed like she was on Fifth Ave in New York...then it showed her walking down a dirt road going into her parents humble home. That scene confirmed a thought I'd had in my head for many years...You Can't Be Cool In A Small Town. My hometown of Stuart Virginia has 952 residents and I grew up 14 miles from town!!! As a teenager, there was absolutely nothing to do that wasn't illegal or immoral, at least in eyes of parents! Another reason I left for the Navy right after high school THINGS TO KNOW.. . Forty plus years later, nothing has changed, except for 2 stoplights and a Walmart!!
Mama's Front Yard: (2015) From my childhood home in the Elamsville Community of Stuart Virginia, there is a spectacular view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I used a picture from that view on a lot of promotional material. I went home in summer of 2015 and each night I would set out in the front yard and watch the sun go down over the mountains. THINGS TO KNOW: Country nights are not quiet..actually natures sounds are quite loud...which you hear at the end of the song. Up the road a few hundred yards resides a lone donkey belonging to my cousin and each night between 9 & 9:15pm he would start braying that would go on for 5 minutes, just like clockwork.
Moonshine Daddy: (1971). First song I ever wrote. Greatly influenced by the history of the illegal making of liquor in my county and neighboring Franklin county AKA MOONSHINE CAPITAL OF VIRGINIA. It was not unusual in my childhood to meet people who had been the State Prison for either making or transporting moonshine. My great-grandfather and my grandfather on my mother's side made moonshine, first legally and then illegally (before and after prohibition). A first cousin of mine got arrested just after we finished high school for making moonshine…which was also in his family heritage. THINGS TO KNOW: Homemade, illegal liquor has many names, Moonshine, Bootleg and White Lighting. Moonshine was based upon the transporters driving without headlines, gain light by the Moon. Also the origin of NASCAR or stock car racing, came from Moonshine Runners… White Lighting referred mainly to the taste which might be between 45-60 percent Alcohol. I’ll just say it’s GOOD!
On The Road With Merle (September 2016) Haggard's "Sing Me Back Home" is the singular reason I became a country singer. Merle was my main musical hero. I have almost every Album and CD that he ever recorded. I can play a four hour show of pure Merle Haggard songs, totally from memory. Although it was inevitable that someday "he'd be lying in a field of stone", I feared how I would handle the news which came on his 79th birthday. This song is my musical journey with the HAG, as if I was right there with him! THINGS TO KNOW..I composed several melodies on this song, finally settling on a shuffle...here's to you Merle!!
Remember the Alamo: (September 2001) The title came to me as I leaving work and I wrote the story of the song on the 20 minute drive home. It went thru some wild versions before I cleaned it up a bit. I had to have REAL Mexican’s Trumpets on it. At the time I lived in Stuttgart Germany and there was a group "Mariachi Acapulco” from Guadalajara Mexico that played in a local Mexican Restaurant . THINGS TO KNOW: Nothing about this song is true, but I’m singing about my guitar pickin’ bud, Dan McCoy as my friend that lives 60 miles from San Antonio. I’m proud of the line “they were 2 sheets to wind”. I thought if “3 sheets to the wind” is totally drunk so I made them a bit more sober when we picked them up!!” This song appeared on my "Daddy Was A Factory Man" CD in 2005
Texas Has Got It All (May 2015) This song started with a conversation with my wife about two of friends that had moved to Round Rock Texas during the same month. My wife went shopping and an hour later I had written to the song! THINGS TO KNOW..Google "Round Rock Texas" and the #1 attraction is the "Donut Shop"!
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