A final standing ovation; 'Brother George taught us all how to sing with a broken heart'

I was fortunate enough to cover George Jones' funeral service for Reuters. And because it was George Jones, the greatest singer of country music ever, they let me write longer than the norm. A very few things were changed by editors, but cuts were made by necessity (I turned in close to 1,000 words). So for those who want the complete version or simply for my blog archives, here's the untouched version cranked out in the hour after the funeral.

George Jones’ final standing ovation – after a career filled with such salutes – came, fittingly, Thursday afternoon at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.

And, equally as fitting, the song that drew the 4,000-plus fans and friends and media to their feet, was Jones’ signature tune, about love and death, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

Jones, who died April 26, was in a casket draped by a blanket of yellow flowers, just below the lip of center stage, when the audience leaped to its collective feet to applaud Alan Jackson.

The long-time friend and admirer of the man who so influenced his singing style, Jackson channeled Jones’ country traditionalism when he sang the robust version of that song, ending it by removing his white cowboy hat and waving it toward the heavens while he looked up, tears on his cheeks and said: “We love you, George.”

But Jones would be heard one more time at the end of this service that lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes, but only on the loud-speaker system. After Jackson left the stage, a spotlight was focused on the yellow-flower-draped coffin as the pall-bearers tended to their duties and the family began its exit, “When the Last Curtain Falls,” filled the home of the Grand Ole Opry.

The song, with the lines "When the last curtain falls with a final goodbye/And the bitter cold darkness of night/floods the days of our lives..." continued to play on the public-address system as the casket was rolled out the doors of the Grand Ole Opry House and into the waiting black hears for the ride to the cemetery. 

It was Jones’ final farewell to the Grand Ole Opry, the venerable radio show in which he had been a cast member since 1956, almost from the beginning of the career that was celebrated by musicians and politicians and other guests throughout the long service.

The service with its liturgy and levity – yes, there were the occasional “Yep, that’s ol’ George” stories told by the luminaries – focused on redemption.

For while the stunningly successful early years of his career were celebrated,  the focus really was on the last 30 years, the length of his marriage to the former Nancy Ford Sepulvado, who, Jones frequently said, “saved my life.”

During his career, which saw the kid from East Texas skyrocket to the top, Jones’ drug and alcohol abuse, and the incidents that accompanied them, often gained more headlines than his status as the greatest singer in the history of country music.

But country’s King of Broken Hearts – with the help of his wife – was able to chase away those demons for the most part and live out his career as a revered elder statesman of country music.    

Country superstar Brad Paisley -- who was among the performers to take turns on the stage that was filled with floral arrangements, photographs and a rocking chair (a salute to Jones’ “I Don’t Need Your Rocking Chair” classic) --  performed Tom T. Hall's “Me and Jesus” during the service that was focused on gospel songs.

But before he sang, he talked about this good fortune in getting to call the elder statesman his friend.

“I’m lucky enough to have met George when he had gotten right, beat the demons, found Nancy and found God,” said Paisley. “He’s an inspirational story to all of us. If that man can live to be 81, then all of us can fight against the things that bring us down.”

CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer talked about the voice and the songs and the dreams they fueled – the journalist is a part-time country musician by hobby.  “Nobody could sing like George Jones unless you were George Jones,” Schieffer said.

But he also put the spotlight on the latter years of Jones’ career.  He said while “He Stopped Loving Her Today” saved the singer’s career, “It would take a good-hearted woman to save his life.”

“We’ve had few sounds more lovely than the voice of George Jones,” said former first lady Laura Bush, who sat next to Nancy Jones during the service.  She added she heard that voice frequently during her White House years. “I heard ‘White Lightning’ as George W. worked out on the treadmill listening to George J.” she said, of the former president’s penchant for cranking up Jones CDs while exercising.

She too talked about the love of Jones’ live. “He was blessed to be able to walk through the last 30 years with wife, Nancy, by his side,” she said.

But of course much of the service focused on the singer, travails and all. “He was the voice of the common man,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Jones friend. “He sang the songs that cried for us.”

Tanya Tucker and The Imperials, Randy Travis, The Oak Ridge Boys, Charlie Daniels, Travis Tritt, Kid Rock, Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Chesney and Wynonna Judd all paid tribute to Jones during the service that all four Nashville TV stations carried live. 

 “George was and always will be the greatest singer of all time in country music,” said Barbara Mandrell. “He sang for you and me and now he’s singing in glory for the one who gave him that voice. Hallelujah.”

Vince Gill, who teamed with Patty Loveless to sing his song, “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” that has become a part of every country music funeral in recent years, added  “Brother George taught us all how to sing with a broken heart.”

 

In memory of a great man: Interviewing George Jones, a gentle and sweet human being

This story was published by The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville on Nov. 25, 2004. At the time I was senior entertainment writer for the newspaper.  Since George was buried today, I thought you might like to read this. It was not the only time I interviewed George, but it was (as I wrote earlier for CMT.com ... check out my first-person story for CMT at http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1706449/an-afternoon-at-george-jones-house.jhtml), one of the most glorious afternoons of my life.

Here is the story as it appeared in the newspaper all those years ago.

The original headline was: He still don't need no rockin' chair, with subhead: George Jones just can't talk himself into retiring; new compilation, TV special show why......
 

George Jones once turned down a chance to record with Frank Sinatra.

"It hurt me. It is one of my biggest regrets. But I told them I can't sing that way."

If there had been such a pairing - "I think it was gonna be London Town or one of those" - it would have been monumental. Jones has been referred to as ''the Frank Sinatra of country music,'' for a simple reason. He explains: "The Good Lord gives us all some type of talent. You do your best with it.

"If you use that talent doing what you really love to do, that's what makes you successful."

Jones has been called things great and small during his 50 years in country music.

But the moniker of which he is most proud: "The Greatest Singer in Country Music." It is his pride. His joy. His God-given legacy. It also causes him most concern. Jones knows he's abused his gift.

"All them ol' barrooms and smokin' and drinkin'," he laments. "If you could only learn your lesson earlier in life . . . ."

Hard-living into middle-age robbed him of some range and power.

"People say that they wish they could live their lives over, they'd do it different. . . . I'd probably do the same old crap, but only do it worse."

Jones has lived to put his demons at bay while continuing to record and perform. He also has captured the admiration of generations. While taken for granted in Nashville - "They see me out everywhere" - Jones is "Johnny Cash cool" in New York and L.A.

He and Merle Haggard are about the last ones left. That's why it didn't take long to fill the talent roster with many of today's top stars when the word went out there was going to be a special Soundstage TV tribute to the Possum.

The show, to be aired tonight on PBS, is a two-hour special that celebrates Jones' 50 years as a professional musician.

Guests include the likely - Alan Jackson, Kris Kristofferson, Vince Gill and more country greats - and the unexpected - Harry Connick Jr., Aaron Neville and Uncle Kracker.

During the two-hour broadcast, they sing from the Jones songbook. Many of those songs also are featured on the breathtaking triple-disc George Jones - 50 Years of Hits just released by his Bandit Records.

The album came out Nov. 9, the day of the Country Music Awards. Jones did not spend his evening with the celebrated flock at the Opry House; he was signing "400-450 copies" of the album at the Cool Springs Wal-Mart.

"That's where I belonged," he says. "With my fans."

Even Jones was surprised by the turnout. "I expected maybe a dozen people. Here we signed for an hour and a half straight. It went a lot better than I thought."

He pauses to pop a small piece of gum in his mouth. "I'm chewing too much of this stuff. All the time. The other day, I bit my tongue. . . . Almost killed me." He pokes out his tongue to display the sore, red tip. Then he laughs.

"Ol' Haggard says country radio is doing him and me a favor. By not playing our stuff, it makes people have to come out to hear us."

It almost stunned this warhorse that the hastily planned 50 years of hits TV special took almost no time to populate with talent.

"I can't wait to see it," he says. "We had some wonderful artists out there who were kind enough to do it."

Occasionally, they are joined by Jones onstage. The singing wasn't Jones' favorite part. "I enjoyed just sitting there, in the front row, listening. It was refreshing."

He teases that the women, particularly Amy Grant and Martina McBride, chose drinking songs.

There were suggestions that the show only go an hour. And it will play that way in some markets.

But Jones bristled at the idea of cutting it to an hour. "It's something we were gonna do. I wanted to do it at least halfway right.

"I said I don't want anyone left out. We went full-blast. I said this is probably gonna be my goin'-out kind of thing."

This is but one reference to the fact Jones, 73, is aware of his mortality: "I'm lucky to be alive now."

He vows: "I'm gonna work another year or so on tour." Then he quickly recants: "I'm not going to retire from the road completely as long as I can get dates."

He sometimes ponders what he would do if he did retire fully: "I would fish and hunt and do things I want to do. Music takes up all of your time. All of your thinking. That's why a lot of us went way over the line, drowning in a sea of booze.

"Nowadays, it's more convenient for singers, with television and everything. They can work 20 days and then take three months off.

"I missed out on the real big money. If I'd have been born 20 years later, I'd have really cashed in."

Talk about retirement seems just that. After all, he has dates booked. He has a TV special. And there is this masterpiece of a career-chronicling album, one which delights even the legendary singer himself.

So many of these songs are gems the singer himself is rediscovering.

He has to search diligently through a half-century's memories to recall anything significant about particular recording sessions.

"I remember Why Baby Why? (his first hit and the opening track on the album). But as you go along farther, all of the years, it's hard to remember."

That first breakthrough session was held in a "living room in an old house (in Texas) that had egg crates on the walls and the ceiling for the sound. Every once in awhile, you'd hear an 18-wheeler go by."

Many of the later songs were recorded in Nashville, in Owen Bradley's Quonset hut. "Started out in this little-bitty room. Couldn't have been much bigger than this room."

He looks across the spacious TV room. "So many of my hits were cut in there it's unbelievable. White Lightning. Who Shot Sam. A bunch of the older stuff.

"Then we moved across the hallway to a bigger studio. But it's amazing what came out of that little-bitty room."

Jones chugs his White Lightning bottled water. "You know, you hear radio say, 'He's had his day. He needs to make room for the younger artists. ' Well, that'd (tee) anybody off to hear that.

"Country music is like a religion to me."

It's like a business to many of the newcomers. Jones recounts the visit by a TV reporter to the Wal-Mart while he was signing albums on CMA night.

"The reporter asked what do I think about the awards show?

"I said 'Hell, I'm not into that kind of music. I'm into country music.' ''

The reporter backed away before Jones could finish his thought. "I was hoping I'd be asked what I thought about the show moving to New York next year.

"I'd have said, 'You know something, that's the best thing I've heard. This new country, well, they ought to take it to New York and keep it up there.

"It's not country music. These new artists are too big for their britches. And that's what hurts me more, because I love it so much.

"And to see the breath being taken out of it. Well, you wonder if the kids of tomorrow, are they ever gonna get a chance to hear real, traditional country music again? I don't think so."

If tradition is the taste, there now are two important new documents. No. 1: tonight's PBS show.

More important is the 50-song compilation, where every stage of Jones' voice is sampled, from Why Baby Why? in 1956 to Amazing Grace from a year ago.

There will be more from the guy who sometimes regrets not singing with Sinatra. Any talk of retirement will be put off.

"Now, I'm not ready to go, but if the Good Lord takes me, well, I've been here a lot longer than I ought to be."

Rhinestone Cowboy tells Ol' Flap about the Queen Mum, family, Malibu and golf

Three years ago, I had the opportunity to spend time with the great Glen Campbell, prior to the Alzheimer's news, etc.  The magazine for which it was written never developed the web site for which it was intended, so it's never been published. Glen's still out there working, so I figured it's better to run this story now rather than as some sort of too-late remembrance. So, reaching back to a cherished hour or two in the spring of  2010, I thought I'd pull this story from my files and put it on the blog. After all, I believe at one point, Old Flapjacks may have been a lineman for the county. Or perhaps he was just running for the county line....   

Glen Campbell just has to look out his window to see the waters of the Pacific pounding at the Malibu shore. 

“It’s beautiful,” says the legendary entertainer, whose home is just across the Pacific Coast Highway from the sea. “I look out there and I see that God does some wonderful work.”

Clearly he appreciates his surroundings when he’s off the road. But he also loves to get out and entertain crowds. That’s his job, of course. And he’s particularly excited on this day because he and his new band – primarily made up of his children – are preparing to head to one of his favorite places on Earth: The UK.

The UK tour begins April 23 at INEC Kilarney in Ireland and ends May 13 at the Bournemouth Pavilion.

He’s played the UK often and he loves the people, who clearly love him right back.

“They really know their music, you know. And they sing along. It’s incredible.”

One of the people he was fondest of in the UK was the late Queen Mother, he says, reflecting warmly on what he still regards as a treasured friendship.

He views himself fortunate to have met the Royal Family, but he has especially deep feelings for the Queen Mother, who died in 2002 at 101 years old.

“She was wonderful,” says the singer, recalling how that friendship began. “She had kind of taken a liking to Glen Campbell and told the promoter that she’d like to meet me. And of course I wanted to meet her.

“I had lunch with her a couple of times. She was just awesome, just a breath of fresh air.  I’ll never forget that woman. I really loved her.”

One of his regrets is that he won’t be able to introduce her to the new band that has him as excited as he’s ever been about going on tour. 

You see, this time he’s taking his family along, not only to enjoy making new memories together in the UK, but also to share the stage.

His new touring band includes three of his children: Debby Campbell, singing harmony;  Ashley Campbell playing banjo, guitar, keyboards and supplying vocals; and Cal Campbell on drums.

“It’s great to look over and see three of my kids playing,” says Campbell. “It makes me proud of them.”

Tongue firmly in cheek, he says this family band saves him a lot of money. “I joke them that they are my personal slaves. I said, ‘what the heck is this: I’m having to feed them, so I might as well put them to work.’’’

While dad says being on stage with his kids “is really fun,” he also enjoys the fact that his wife, Kim, is always there on tour. “She loves it. She’s like a mother hen.”

While UK fans will hear plenty of their favorite Glen Campbell songs – classics like “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “Wichita Lineman” and “Gentle on My Mind” – they’ll also be hearing songs by a surprising array of artists who the singer covered on his most recent album, Meet Glen Campbell.

On that Capitol recording, producer Julian Raymond as well as the singer and others culled through songs by some amazing artists – among them Tom Petty, U2, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Paul Westerberg and John Lennon.

But Raymond didn’t want Campbell’s songs to sound like typical covers of those artists’ work.

Instead, the chosen songs were rewritten and “we recorded the songs to sound like Glen Campbell standards,’’ the producer says.

The critically acclaimed album pretty much set the tone for the upcoming Campbell project, again produced by Raymond.

Ghost on the Canvas, which won’t be released until 2011, is meant to be played front to back. The album is full of compositions written for the project that “tells” the story of the singer’s life and career.

Writers who contributed to this project include Jakob Dylan and Westerberg. Guest performers include Chris Isaak, Dick Dale, members of Cheap Trick and the Dandy Warhols, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and members of Lou Reed’s band.

“It’s a modern classic Glen Campbell record,” says Raymond, who became a fan of Campbell’s music while he was a child, listening to his parents’ 8-track tape player. “It sounds like all the stuff Glen did, but with a sound that’s a modern slant…. It’s got that acoustic-folk feel.”

That engaging acoustic-folk feel, whether in a Campbell classic or in a new tune, is just what people are looking for in concert.

Campbell has no doubts that his new family road band will be able to deliver the new stuff as well as his classics with equal ease. After all, he says his three children in the band are “the best” at what they do.

This devotion to family – whether while touring the UK or just hanging out at home -- is one of the reasons the Campbells relocated to Malibu from Arizona five years ago.

Ashley was bound for Pepperdine University in Malibu and her mom and dad wanted to be nearby.

“She just graduated. Made straight A’s,” says pop. “Can you imagine, one of my kids made straight A’s at Pepperdine?”

So he’s looking forward to showing her and the other children the UK, sharing them with his adoring fans.

Of course, he’s also looking ahead to the time when the UK tour is over and he’s back at his Malibu home.

He’ll still be basking in the joy of playing in his favorite part of the world with his children on the bandstand and his wife in the wings.

But he’ll also be calling his buddies and getting them to join him at nearby Malibu Country Club.

When he’s not on tour, Campbell plays that Scottish game just about every day.  Unlike show biz, it's one game that's gentle on his mind.

 

 (Note: since this interview, of course, much has been written about Glen's "farewell" tour,  and his self-admitted "forgetfulness" was diagnosed as Alzheimer's. In addition, the anecdote about meeting the Queen Mother has been repeated by the singer, but -- to all of his friends and family -- the first time he remembered that occurrence was during our interview.  I'm simply posting this because it was a good story. It remains good, even though it's dated. I did add the last line now, because it struck me while I was editing. Now that someone else can read it, I feel better. This very nice man went out of his way to spend time with me. Now I can rest gentle on my mind.)  

Hammering Henry Aaron may have been impatient with a lot of folks, but he had plenty of time for a damn nice News Brother

"When Newspapers Mattered: the News Brothers & their Shades of Glory" is a fine book that isn't just for journalists. It goes far beyond "inside baseball" of the death of newspapers. There's some real baseball -- and a lot of great (and some not-great) people we meet along the way. Here's a snippet from one chapter featuring Hammerin' Henry Aaron, a hellluva guy, and me, a damn nice guy.

 

Few of the people I’ve met left as strong an image in my brain as Henry Aaron.

I remember him as kind of surly, at least on first meeting. I mean I liked him and he liked me.

Of course, I guess I didn’t blame him for coming off that way. After all, here was the greatest ballplayer of all time having to pimp himself out to sell Magnavox televisions in a small Southern city.

And anyone who knows anything about Henry Aaron knows he often had less-than wondrous times in Southern cities … including, of course, Atlanta.

I think it was the autumn of 1976, after he finished up his short “homecoming” stint with the Milwaukee Brewers.  The new Magnavox dealer, out on the south end of Clarksville, called to say “Hank” was coming to sign autographs, I believe for a grand-opening.  

Of course, the great home run king was getting paid by Magnavox.  Still, it was kind of disconcerting to me, as a guy who went to Atlanta to see his last game in Fulton County Stadium a couple years prior, to see this rather unassuming fellow in a sport coat standing over glistening walnut-cabinets containing the best TVs on the planet … or at least the best ones he was hawking.

Still it was Henry Aaron, and I called him “Mr. Aaron,” when I approached. I was unprofessional in that I had a poster, with its illustration of him arm-in-arm with Babe Ruth – “Brotherhood of Excellence” was written beneath the illustration – out in the car.

His surliness went away as my old smile and interest in humans, particularly home run kings gained on him.  At least while he was talking to me, he could ignore the fawning line of autograph seekers and local corporate hotshots.

I realized he liked that. Kind of making “the man” wait for him. Anyway, after I wrapped up my 45 minutes or so with him, I asked “Mr. Aaron” if I could go out and get the poster in my car for him to sign.

“They gave these out at Henry Aaron Appreciation Day down in Atlanta,” I said, offering the poster that on this day hangs in my son’s room.

“They didn’t appreciate me in Atlanta,” he said, or words to that effect. “I don’t remember that day.”

Still he signed it, simply: “Best Wishes, Henry Aaron.”

He rolled it up and handed it back to me.

“Thanks, Mr. Aaron,” I said.

At which point the great baseball player smiled, nodded and said words I’ll never forget:

 “My name’s Henry, Tim.”

My tribute to Pogley: A Vietnam radar man who knew how to live, knew how to die (a friend who liked to fish & roller-skate against the wind)

(Note: I was commissioned by the friends and family of Lance Bell to write this memorial tribute for his service.  They have given me permission to share it here.  He was a good guy.)

  “Liked to fish & roller-skate.”
Paging through the memories of the friends and family of the guy I first called “Poontang” – I couldn’t remember his nickname was “Pogley” on our first e-mail acquaintance – I had to smile.
Here were pages of memories of the school kids Lance Bell mentored.
And the deep-war memories of his old hitch-hiking and hemp buddy Terry Kirkwood (“Captain Kirk” to me).
Then there is the page of basic obituary information that his sister-in-law Sue Bell begins with “Here are the facts on Lance.”
DOB: 11/12/1949. DOD: 11/06/2012.
Parents: William (Ty) Bell (deceased 11/15/2007) and Ginger Lee Spina of Barrington, Illinois.  Born in South Bend, Indiana. Brother: Micky (Sue) Bell of Mishawaka, Indiana. Sister: Billie Bell of Portland, Oregon. Nephew: Nicolas (Kate) Bell of Chicago, Illinois. Great niece: Audrey of Chicago, Illinois. U.S. Navy: 1969 to 1971. Formerly of Lakeland, Florida. Liked to fish & roller-skate. Mentor to kids at Rolling Prairie Middle School. Donations to VA Hospice at Hines VA Hospital, Hines, Illinois.
That’s something like 80 words, mostly names and basic facts summarizing, quickly, the sometimes belligerent little man who died of lung, bone and brain cancer after for too long ignoring his own health concerns while helping to take care of his mom and enjoying his time with the school kids.
“Lance enjoyed going to school, helping where he could and the friendships he found with you kids,” wrote his old friend, Kim Zahrt, a teacher, on a Facebook posting to let those same young people know he had died.
“Some do not understand why he did it for no pay,” says Kim.  “He valued the experience above money and felt it was where he should be. I’m so glad he had you to call his friends at his departure.”
No sense listing every Facebook comment from the kids who Lance had voluntarily mentored the last couple of years of his life.
But here are a few: “Lance was a good guy,” writes Ronnie Braman.
“He always pushed me to do my best,” says Brenden Bashore.
“Thank you for bringing him into our lives. He is missed and loved,” writes Brian Meadows.
Or perhaps this one from Steven Jacobs sums it up best:  “Lance was an awesome guy. He has done so much for so many people.  But we must keep our heads up. That’s what his hard ass would want.” I have to admit that Steven used asterisks to self-censor “hard a**), but today isn’t a time for self-censorship.
That hard ass wouldn’t want it that way.
Gotta say I didn’t know Lance. Never shook his hand or hugged him. At least not physically. Perhaps with words, as we were brothers running against the wind.  Yeah, Captain Kirk used that song to help describe his late friend. “Against the wind/ We were runnin’ against the wind/We were young and strong, we were runnin’ against the wind…”
Course that old Bob Seger tune goes on to have a little bitter loneliness in it, the price of “living to run and running to live.”
Captain Kirk plays that on his harmonica in memory of his old Vietnam buddy. He also plays Jimmy Buffett’s “We Learned to Be Cool from You”: “Maybe I can parlez a little Francais/Maybe I can write a whole page a day/Do a crossword puzzle in a second or two/But I learned to be cool from you….”
All the sudden, I’d be working in my basement, where I try to hammer out a living as a writer after being run out of the newspaper business for being too old and principled, and a note would pop up on Facebook: “Hope you’re having a good day, Mr. G.”  And I’d smile. Because of that note, I would at least have a better day, knowing that old Pogley was thinking about me.
Other times he’d write that he was going up to Jamie Waldo’s lake house.  To fish.
Maybe he’d write: “I had a great day at school today. Love these kids.”
Other days, he’d write that he was enjoying working with the students, but he needed to find work for pay soon. Problem was, well, it wasn’t a problem. Duty was that he was helping to take care of his mother. And that came first.
 Not false nobility here, folks, but there was something special about this stubborn little man and his devotion to doing right by his mom. We get one mother. And Lance spent the last couple of years putting her first. Just as she put him first back before that DOB all those years ago.
As I go through these pages of memories about a guy who was a brother I never met, I keep coming back to that one line in his “obituary information” that Sue wrote. “Liked to fish & roller-skate.”
Somehow, while I read Captain Kirk’s memories of the shared time as radar men on a guided missile destroyer in the Tonkin Gulf during the Vietnam War, I keep thinking about that.
The two old salts turned into hippies when they came home, quietly, to no parades, from a war they didn’t start and didn’t finish. Hitchhiking like Kerouac, across America, forth and back.  “We experienced many things,” writes Captain Kirk.  What those are, he leaves to the imagination.
“Lance was a brother I never had biologically,” the good captain continues.
Pogley was twice divorced. He was owner of a pool maintenance business in Florida. He loved the Sunshine state and he liked to deep sea fish and snorkel. And perhaps roller-skate?
“He, Bill Michael and Captain Bruce (Dunsmore) were tight mariners,” Terry writes, adding that his “dear friend from South Bend, Linda Baumgartner, came to live with him in Florida until Lance returned to South Bend a few years ago to take care of his recently widowed and homebound/now bed-ridden mother, Ginger.”
Bill says it was tough to see Lance leave Florida. “I hated to see him move to Indiana, but he felt that was what he needed to do. His Mom and family needed him, so he left Florida.”
Yet there are those decades of enjoyment Lance had with his pals in the Sunshine State. “I met Lance back in the early 1980s. He was my next-door neighbor in Sarasota, Florida,” Bill recalls. “Back then he had two loves: A 1966 Mustang coupe and an old Harley he called ‘Jesse Belle.’
“He was a tough, old bird, didn’t take any shit off nobody, came on to you like a mean old snake, but deep down he was as gentle as a lamb. I can remember many times I told him to his face: ‘I’m glad you have my back.’
“If he liked you he would die for you.”
Bill goes on to recall Lance’s patriotism, his love for the U.S. flag, which he flew on all patriotic holidays, including one Memorial Day when he accidentally hung it upside down. “He immediately had to correct his mistake,” says Bill. “Of course, he was not drinking???”
Lance, he says, loved the pure white beaches of the Gulf Coast and “the babes tanning on the boats.”  If not on a boat, he would wade out in the sea and fish, sometimes late at night.  Later, he lived on the state’s Atlantic Coast and took his 16-foot canoe everywhere, both in the rivers and out to sea.
“He showed no fear,” says Bill, elaborating that the two also loved fishing with Captain Bruce. “Every time the boat went in the water, Lance wanted to be on it.”   
Lance’s influence on young people is apparent. He fathered no children, but he’d have been a helluva dad. Florida housemate Linda Baumgartner’s grandson, Ben, called him “Grampa.”  Lance promised the kid he called “Ben Jovi” that he’d be around when he got older.  He’ll be around, Ben, not physically but forever in your soul.
His ability to relate with young people gave him a reason for living in his final years.  As Captain Kirk says, after he went to take care of his mom, “Pogley couldn’t find a job in South Bend, so he volunteered to become a high school mentor in his old friend, Kim’s, physics class.”
He drank too much and he knew it. Heck, I even knew him well enough to give him a hard time about that on the telephone. He had been a biker, complete with the Harley and the streaming hair.
He looked like Jesus when he went in the hospital. He was bald, hairless and 70 pounds when the hospice’s job was done.
 Gotta say, I liked the guy a lot. And I didn’t know him. I called him a few times in the hospital and hospice, wishing him well.
“Too much morphine, Tim,” he’d say. “Call me back when I’m not nodding off.”
Other times he was in pain. One day when I called he was anxious for his brother, Mick, to show up at the VA hospice. “Hope he hasn’t forgotten about me,” he said. “Nah. He’ll be here. Right now, I gotta sleep. Gimme a call back when you get some time.”
Mick made it and that made Lance’s day. After all, he loved his brothers, living and dead. Pat OD’d in 1974. Lance found the body and never got over that.
But he sure loved Mick.
 “Terry was trying to kidnap me or something,” Lance said, during one conversation. He described a planned intervention that his old Navy pal had tried to engineer to try to save his soul and perhaps his body last summer.
“I don’t know. Terry keeps talking about this Jesus stuff. I guess it’s all right,” said Pogley.  “I can’t take it all the time.”
But, according to Captain Kirk, Lance was happy for the “intervention” from above.  Had found his peace with the Lord at the time of his death.
On his final day with Captain Kirk, after he had prayed with his pal and said he was all right with the idea of finding out what’s next, Lance fell asleep.
Captain Kirk didn’t know what to do. He’d come from Des Moines, Bible in hand, to spend time with his friend before he died.  Yet here was the slight and exhausted former hitchhiker and biker -- streaming hair long-gone victim to the cancer treatment -- no longer conscious.  Sleeping. Or dead.
The mournful silence was interrupted.  “Man, Terry, you are a big, ugly fucker, you know that?” Lance whispered.
Terry almost passed out as the dying friend and his pal gut-laughed.
OK. It’s probably time to wrap this up. After all, I didn’t really know this guy. But I loved him, because we were of the same time, sharing the same experiences. We’d run against the wind, for sure.
I liked his little notes: “Mr. G, hope you’re having a good un. “
Mr. G didn’t have a good day a couple of weeks ago. I’d been unable to get through on the phone to the hospice room for a few days.
So I sent out an e-mail note to his friends, asking for an update on this man I liked but did not know.
And then the phone rang. It was about 9 at night. “Lance died at 3 this afternoon,” said Captain Kirk.  “He’s in a better place now.”
So when it was first asked if I’d write a tribute for him, I didn’t know if it was appropriate.
 Do I talk about his teaching for free?
His Vietnam experiences?
His apparent lifelong passion for the sea?
His love of his family, despite his own crankiness?
The fact he found enough trouble in his life to make it both good and bad?
“How should I remember this man?” I asked myself one evening as The Rolling Stones version of “Not Fade Away” and other classics blasted from my record machine.
 The more remembrances I read, the more I liked the little Vietnam radar man (I actually had “little MF” uncensored in my first draft. He probably would have liked that.)  Lance had plenty of woes in his life, demons he chased, fought, occasionally vanquished. But – according to all accounts – the little (guy) went out a winner.   He was a lot of things, mostly pretty damned good, to a lot of people.
How do I do him justice? 
That’s when the line in Sue’s obituary information made me smile and I knew what I wanted to say: Lance Bell “liked to fish & roller-skate.”

 

                 

    

 

 

 

 

      

Jason remembers Perry Baggs, an essential Scorcher; Funds sought to bury his drummer & co-writer who is Gone, Gone, Gone

The guy who made a name for himself as one of world’s most colorful front men, a Whirling Dervish in buckskin fringe, a man who liberally mixes hillbilly sensibilities with punk-rock aggression, sits back in his hotel room in the UK.

Jason Ringenberg, the Jason in the legendary outfit Jason & The Scorchers (and family friendly Farmer Jason in his “calmer” times) is pondering the news about his one-time drummer, harmonizer, sidekick, co-writer. Perry Baggs is dead.

“Perry had a magic, elfin-like personality that drew people to him,” says Jason.  “There would have been no band without Perry. Period.”

It’s about 5 a.m.  in the UK.

Probably the same time he and his friend, Perry Baggs, would sometimes find their muse to fashion some of what came to be called “cowpunk” music, but was really just music. From two hearts. 

  “White Lies” and “If Money Talks” may well have been formulated at this time of day … late night, really, at day’s end. After a show. As the adrenaline wears off. Before pulling the blinds and resting up for the next night.

Back when Perry Baggs was alive.

Perry, 50, a friend of this writer and so many people, a damn nice guy, was alone when he died in his Goodlettsville home Thursday.

His beloved Katrina Cornwell and friends from his church missed him. Perry, the longtime rock ‘n’ roll hero, never skipped church.  Well, at least not in his non-Scorching years.  Sure, he may have joked  he was a “#&%*ing Christian” … but that counts too, you know.  Or at least so they say.

 While drums were his claim to fame as a Scorcher, bass was more his thing in church.

When police went to do a well-check, they found Perry’s body.  Renal failure and diabetes had taken their final tolls on this vibrant “elfin” fellow.

Just a kid really when he climbed with Jason,  guitarist Warner Hodges and  bassist Jeff Johnson – the best of the Scorchers’ lineups – to within eyeshot of superstardom about 30 years ago.

Didn’t really make it past under-appreciated legend status. Occasional breakups and regroups with sometimes different personnel resulted.

But the churning, pounding heart of the Scorchers was fashioned not just by Perry on drums but by the songs he and Jason wrote together.   My friend Andy McLenon compares them to Richards and Jagger, with less success, but as much soul.   The Glimmer Twins are pushing 70 though and talking about playing the world for what may be the last time.  Perry fell far short.

No one really was surprised that the ailments finally got Perry, I guess. At the same time we all were surprised. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

He was only 50. To be truthful, my own friendship with Perry had more to do with my former career in daily newspapering, before, well … you’ve all read that story. Anyway, my years there ended about five years ago.

In fact, Perry had a lot to do with my hiring music writer Peter Cooper, who remains one of my dearest friends. When Peter came to interview for a job as a music writer at the daily newspaper, he stopped and looked at the guy in the library.  “Gee, Mr. Ghianni,” he said, his aw-shucks Spartanburg, South Carolina, charm in perfect order. “That’s Perry Baggs of Jason & The Scorchers…. Working in the library? Please hire me, Mr. Ghianni... please.... please.....”

Actually, it was a little more straightforward than that.  Peter called me “Tim” as I insisted and I’d already decided to hire him. But having Perry – drummer for Peter’s all-time favorite rock band -- in the library didn’t hurt.   

Perry’s layoff from his job as an “archivist” at the daily newspaper came a little later. By the way, back when newspapers really mattered, archivists were called librarians and the archives themselves were called morgue files.

 Anyone ever try to get health insurance on their own with pre-existing conditions like renal failure and diabetes?

Medical bills kept piling up and Perry kept dreaming of new songs, old friends and his own peculiarly rockin’ high lonesome harmonies that were essential to Jason & The Scorchers at their damned best.

Right now, Katrina is trying to see if Perry qualifies for  Metro Social Services indigent burial.  Meantime, she is rallying people to contribute to his Pay Pal account at perrybaggs@yahoo.com. His desire, Katrina says, is to be buried next to his mother at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens.

She’s also floating ideas out there for perhaps a fund-raising concert. Or some such tribute.

Jason is aware of this as he sits in his room.  I tried to contact him the day Perry died, but he sent a note. He was in the UK and his hours were crosswise. “Of course I’d like to talk with you about Perry,” he said in a note, encouraging an exchange at a better hour .

“Warner brought Perry into the band the fall of ’81,” says Jason. “At the time we were using Barry Felts on drums and he quit. Perry came to my house to jam with us. From the first measure of ‘Gone Gone Gone,’ an old Carl Perkins song, we took off on, I knew Perry was the missing piece.”

It wasn’t just the drums but the spirit of the little guy who Hodges treated like a little brother needing protecting and nurturing.

“Perry’s impact on the band is incalculable,” says Jason. “He wrote some of our best songs, played drums, sang harmonies and was a huge part of the arrangements of the songs. There would have been no band without Perry. Period.

“I actually think of Perry more as a great all-around musician rather than a great drummer, although he was that as well,” Jason continues.  “Perry was a volcano of ideas. The job when writing with Perry was mostly as an editor. His creativity drove the sessions.”

And Jason missed him when the band began to fracture. Or when it fractured. At different times. For different reasons.  Perry missed Jason. And Warner, too.

“Me and Perry were quite close in the ‘80s and ‘90s, both as music colleagues and friends,” says Farmer Jason. “The last 10 years we drifted apart, although there was never any serious breakup. He left the band in 2002 to go solo. I respected that and supported him the best I could.”

 Perry and Jason did get back together, though. For a fund-raiser for the ailing drummer and again for an Americana Music Awards tribute.  Perry knew he was dying at the time. He said he’d just as soon die playing with Jason & The Scorchers as die quietly.  There was nothing really quiet about the guy.

Ever hear him laugh?

“The last shows with Perry will always stick in my mind. We all knew how hard it was for him to play drums like that with his poor health,” remembers Jason. Actually, when the Scorchers put together their latest album, “Halcyon Times,” Perry joined them. Too weak for the drums. But “he sang those brilliant harmonies on four of the tracks. It was a wonderful experience to be with him again.”

It also was the last time Jason saw his old running mate.

“I will always consider Perry one of the most naturally gifted music people I have ever known,” says Jason, from his UK room.

Sure, there was a little “acrimony” at times but “all bands have that.” All brothers, too.

“I spent 25 years with Perry. We had our good times and our bad ones. However, I count myself a fortunate man to have made music with him.”

Like he said: “There would have been no band without Perry. Period.”    

  

Please bang the drum slowly for Jesus' (and Scorchers') beloved cowpunk percussion wizard

Bang the drum slowly….

One of the greatest drummers in rock ‘n’ roll history is gone, his frail and battered body apparently finally giving out on him.

To be fair I didn’t know Perry Baggs (or Baggz, as his rock ‘n’ roll persona was occasionally spelled) best as a drummer.

He was the librarian at The Tennessean who liked Van Halen and admired my Hawaiian shirts. He liked to talk about music and faith.

And he liked to laugh if I quoted Dylan, Kristofferson, Lennon, Jagger or George Jones.

Oh sure, I knew who he was and I loved his band, having first seen Jason & the Scorchers way back when they were a sensation, playing at Cat’s or Kat’s or whatever that record store was just below Vanderbilt.

My good pal, Michael Gray, a music expert, scholar and genuine nice guy who spends his work hours at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, tells me that show was “legendary. I’ve been hearing about it for 20 years.”

There are a few of us left, I guess, who actually were there.

Andy McLenon was there, of course. He's been about everywhere Nashville rock has been fashioned.

He and the late Jack Emerson and their Praxis International – a mighty big name operating out of a basement – pretty much took Jason & the Scorchers to the world.

“I don’t know why I’m shocked, but I am,” says Andy, when reflecting on the death of his old friend, who joined up with front man Jason Ringenberg, guitarist Warner Hodges and bassist Jeff Johnson in the first (and best) version of the outfit.

McLenon says he remembers Perry as nice “kid,” a 19-year-old, who auditioned for the band that for awhile had the proverbial “Next Big Thing” moniker written about it everywhere.

“He was a soulful little guy. He was really focused, really sweet, a joy to be around,” McLenon says, adding that the medication Baggs had to take “would affect his moods” and perhaps influence the tension that sometimes existed between him and the band.

“But I know those guys love him. Jeez, Warner was like his big brother and protector from the real world. Perry was very lovable. He just got confused about reality sometimes.”

Then McLenon, who is one of Nashville’s truest rock scholars, reminds us that Perry was not just a drummer (although that was plenty.)

  “If you look back and look at the songs he wrote early on. It’s interesting. He had this musical melody thing. “He was really melodic in his writing,” he says, remembering how “Jason would write the lyric and Perry would add the fetching melody on some of the great early songs like ‘White Lies’ and ‘Money Talks.’

“Jason wrote a lot by himself, but the ones that Perry was involved in tend to be the more catchy ones,” says Andy.

Then he draws a straight line between the Ringenberg-Baggs pairing and another little rock pairing of writing and singing partners.

“When you listen to Jagger and Richards, you know those are two guys whose vocals are not technically great, but when they are together with Richards making harmony …. Well, I loved when Perry would sing with Jason. It was very soulful and very distinctive and very melodic.”

One thing that many people probably don’t know is the country side of Baggs. No, not the raucous hillbilly rock (aka “cowpunk”) of the Scorchers – which has been honored with a display in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

“One of the interesting things is that in the ‘80s, before it was cool to do such things, Perry created this alter-ego, Austin Taylor, who would record these really country demos, things like ‘If Heaven’s Just a Fairy Tale, Then What’s the Story Here.’

“He would sing it so intensely. Seriously, they were very strong vocals. Before the hipsters – and Perry was never a hipster – thought George Jones was cool, Perry Baggs instinctively knew he was and tried to emulate him in his alter-ego.”

He adds that Baggs, who was raised in the Southern Gospel tradition, never really left that.

Later in life, after fashioning different lineups of country-fried rock efforts, Perry found his truest calling in his church. “Perry never really had a rock ‘n’ roll heart,” says McLenon.

“He had a big heart.”

Tommy Womack, who admits his love of Jason & the Scorchers and that his own band, Government Cheese owed a debt to that group, today lamented the loss of his good friend.

“Perry was one of the best drummers in one of the best bands ever. His health issues in the second chapter of his life shouldn’t obscure that.

“He was one of the greats with a big heart and huge talent. I’m privileged not only to have seen him play many times, but to know him as a friend.”

My own encounters with Perry were less musical, as mentioned a few paragraphs above. Perry worked in The Tennessean library in my final decade in daily journalism.

Before I got too old… But that’s another story.

Perry not only was a devout consumer of my writing, he was a big fan of my Hawaiian shirt wardrobe and of my curly hair.

He liked to sit down by my desk and talk about everything from Van Halen to the Scorchers to God in either lightning manic speed or a slow tired drawl, depending on where his health was taking him that day.

He would describe his own musical dreams, his latest effort and, even though it was obvious his health wasn’t good, he would thank his God for all that he had and all that he had experienced.

Even in physical distress, with his rockstar dreams dimming if not dead, he didn’t complain.

Sometimes he’d talk about Jason & the Scorchers regrouping. He’d talk about getting together with his old mate to write “the best songs yet.”

Other times he’d talk about Jesus & the boys and their impact on his life.

 And he would give thanks. He had obviously found peace.

The Scorchers, of course, are regrouped and back out there playing.

  But Perry had to step away, about 10 years ago.

His body frail, though his spirit strong, he no longer stand those randomly long nights in a van and didn’t have the strength to sustain those marathon drumming sessions that helped punctuate the Whirling Dervish antics of the front man in the buckskin fringe or the churning and explosive guitar work of Warner Hodges.

Perry Baggs’ body was discovered by police when loved ones were worried because he didn’t show up in church at Scottsboro First Baptist Church the other day.

Katrina Cornwell, also a former colleague at The Tennessean, was the one who sounded the alarm.

“We were very special to each other,” she said.

“I loved him very much. I appreciated him for the larger-than-life individual that he was.”

Her concerns about Perry first showed up on Facebook a few hours ago, when she asked for prayers because she couldn’t get in touch with him.

“For our mutual friends, please pray for Perry. Neither my friend Kay at church nor I can get in touch with him. I am EXTREMELY concerned, and if I don't hear from him pretty soon, I will take action to make sure he is OK.”

Later she wrote me: “I was praying for him initially because he didn't come to church and wasn't answering phone calls or texts from me or other church members. We sent the police to do a welfare check, and they found him inside dead. I don't know the cause of death yet."

"The medical examiner is doing the autopsy this morning.”

Katrina wrote the following obituary for her beloved drummer and soul mate:

    Perry Armand Baggs III, 50, was born in Nashville March 22, 1962 to his parents, Perry Armand Baggs II and Betty Grace Baggs.

He was raised in the Sylvan Park area and went to Cohn High School. Perry's family attended Park Avenue Baptist Church during his childhood and adolescent years.

His mother and father were talented singers, who played a key role in the church's musical program. Perry has a daughter, Faith Elizabeth Baggs, El Paso Texas; three sisters, Grace, of Nashville, Kelly and Rachel, both of Knoxville; and several nephews.

When Perry was about 19 years old, he got an opportunity to audition as a drummer for the Nashville-based, country-punk band Jason and the Scorchers.

He spent the next 21 years as the band's percussionist. Jason and the Scorchers were on major record labels.

They had music videos on MTV and toured with some of the best in the business, notably REM and Bob Dylan. Jason and the Scorchers garnered critical acclaim in the early 1980s for its unique blending of the country and punk rock musical genres.

The critics loved the band, and in 2008, Jason and the Scorchers earned a lifetime achievement award for best musical performance at the Americana Music Awards, held at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

Perry also worked as an archivist in the library of The Tennessean newspaper for 17 years before he was offered a buyout as part of a massive, company-wide reduction in staff at that time.

 He then sought disability because he had already been on dialysis for kidney failure for two years.

He began receiving a disability check within six months of the initial filing.

Since that time, he has been an active member of Scottsboro First Baptist Church.

For the past three years, Perry has been a dedicated soloist and bass player at church. For a few months, the church has been paying him to play bass. Before that, he donated his time. Perry's contribution to the Scottsboro First Baptist music program helped the worship services to come alive, to touch someone's heart for Christ.

Perry was kind, compassionate, funny, generous, loving and high-energy.

  He was someone who enjoyed life.

Perry loved home-cooked meals, movies, music, surfing big waves at the beach and to spend time with people he considered family: blood relatives, church members, friends and his significant other.

  Most of all, he loved God, and he lived his life for Jesus Christ every day.

Of course, that obituary is written from the perspective of a broken heart, of one who has loved deeply and whose loved one has died.

And as just an old freelance writer who sometimes enjoys music, I really can’t add much to that, other than to say that the young fellow with the country-flavored heart who climbed to the near-heights as a rock star is at peace.

Bang the drum slowly.