Regretting that my last 'Dance with The Guitar Man' has ended, but celebrating long conversations with twang-master Duane Eddy

 When I learned that the great man Duane Eddy finally had succumbed to the cancer he had been fighting valiantly -- his wife Deed always by his side -- for so many years, I rubbed at my eyes.

I’d always figured we’d have another phone call, and then another.  He could regale me with tales of Beatles and Wilburys and the sound of a guitar inside an Arizona sewer pipe.

I would likely ask him again about his friend, Richard Boone, who was Paladin in “Have Gun -- Will Travel.” Duane performed “The Ballad of Paladin” and even appeared in a few episodes back when he was making his minor dent in Hollywood.

Boone’s friendship was precious to Duane, and – as a fan of both men and a friend of the latter – I knew that by mentioning it, we could veer off into all sorts of fun and off-the-record (figurative and literal) tales about Hollywood.  He would tell me about being a guest on the set of The Shootist, John Wayne’s last and best movie.  His pal, Richard Boone is one of the guys dispatched by J.J. Books in the 1976 film’s blood-spattered climax.  

When I told Duane I had that movie poster framed and on the wall of whatever house I’ve lived in since the Clarksville, Tennessee, movie house operator, Johnnie Harper, gave it to me 48 years ago, he was impressed.

Whenever I added that 1963’s “Dance with The Guitar Man” – with “Stretchin’ Out” on the B-side – has been a part of my life since it was released 61 years ago, I could hear the smile in his voice.  That 45 rpm disc sits in front of me as I write this.   

This 45 rpm recording has been with me since 1963, except for a few years after I gave it to my late, great friend, Peter Cooper, also a friend of Duane and Deed Eddy. Grimey's gave it to me after they collected Peter's records to sell for the estate. 

No more opportunities for conversations now, and it sucks at my soul. I just want to make one last call to check in on my hero. None of us ever gets that “one last call” before the Grim Reaper settles in for the kill on anyone we love. It doesn’t seem fair.

But I also smile when recalling the number of free-flowing conversations – Duane was as interested in my life as I was in his – that weren’t so frequent once the disease began to sap him even more, forcing him to rest and try to recover.

The pandemic limited us to phone calls, because we couldn’t risk me dragging a deadly virus into the home of a man whose body was immunocompromised by cancer treatment.

The last several times I called him, the answering machine – with Deed’s voice on it – would be all I could reach, and I’d leave a quick message of hope, love and my gratitude at calling this man a friend.

Other times, I get Deed herself, a wonderful and kind woman, who would tell me Duane was resting and for me to call back later. Perhaps he’d be feeling more like talking. Those follow-up calls were either too late or somehow missed.  And I’d think, well, Timothy, just remember to call him again.

Deed Eddy is by her husband's side through glory, illness and, now, in her memories. Photo provided by Americana Music Association for my book, Pilgrims, Pickers and Honky-Tonk Heroes.

And I did. No one answered.

Duane was one of many musicians who I considered as something much more important. I considered him a friend.

When I constructed a book featuring those friends, Pilgrims, Pickers and Honky-Tonk Heroes, a chapter on Duane was critical to me.  The book is about musicians I befriended, most of them dead, but who I thought the world needed to appreciate in this era of disposable music.

The fact a guy like Morgan Wallen is packing three nights of shows at Nissan Stadium is evidence of how far the music world has fallen. Or perhaps the world in general, if you follow the news. (I could understand it when Taylor Swift had her long stand, but, to my knowledge she neither ranted racist words nor threw a bar stool from a sixth-floor rooftop bar, nearly hitting a police officer on Broadway below.)

Friends like Duane, Bobby Bare, Mac Wiseman, Kris Kristofferson, Perry Baggs, Earl and Louise Scruggs, Tom T. and Dixie Hall, Billy Joe Shaver, Frank Howard (and the Commanders), Waylon and Willie and the boys and a score more are featured in that book’s chapters.

Few of them remain on the right side of the grass. I talk with Bare frequently. Willie remains one of the world’s true forces of good, Kris is trying to enjoy life in Hawaii as his memories of glory fade, but his love for Lisa and the kids keeps him strong.

The book took a year to write.  It started from a list of musicians I loved and knew belonged in this elite company. I am not a musician, so my appreciation for these people is as just that, people … human beings whose hearts and souls somehow connected with my own.

Several of them died even as I was in the process of writing, rewriting and editing of that book – all told a three-year process.

Duane lived to read the book, especially his chapter.

Instead of sending it to him, I simply called and asked Deed to make him comfortable. I wanted to read it to him. I figured it would be easier for him to listen to it and offer any corrections on the phone.

Then I sent him a copy. He only found one error (I had Deed listed as his fourth wife, but she was  his third … and she was the love of his life), and said he wasn’t worried about it if the publisher couldn’t correct it. I got on the phone to New York or New Jersey or wherever the Rowman & Littlefield Backbeat Books editors were located and made sure that correction was made.

In my past as a newspaperman, the “rule” was that you never let the subject of a story read it ahead of publication.  I, though, am not much of a guy for rules. Never have been. Paying for it, but hell, I am me. Besides that, the rules of book-authoring are different and more flexible. And the newspaper world didn’t want me anymore, ever since the guards helped carry my memories, mugs and personal paraphernalia to the parking lot at 1100 Broadway back in 2007. There’s not even a newspaper there anymore.

On the day Duane died, I had been in an e-mail exchange with Professor Chris Cooper, multiply honored political science and public affairs dude at Western Carolina University.  He was the baby brother of my friend Peter Cooper, a great fellow whose ugly disease pursued him for years before it captured and killed him in 2022.

I was simply sending Chris something I had written a month ago when my own big brother died. I knew he would appreciate it. Different cause, but death just the same.

And there is that impenetrable baby brother loneliness of having no one alive who shares the same family-unit life experiences.

I have tried to compensate by calling my friends. There aren’t many still alive. Duane was on my list to “call soon.”

When I found out that Duane died, a loss that was all-but-ignored by Nashville media, I went down to my record room, where 68 years of record collecting fills every space. 

Many of them are CDs, of course, as the CD era hit hard in my “early” adult years and, while slowly vanishing, will return to prominence when younger people rediscover the value of an album rather than a streamed song. There are countless LPs as well, most from my elementary and high school and college years until the CD era hit when I was in my 30s. And others I’ve picked up more recently. The last LP I bought, before CDs killed that form for a few decades, was Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”

I passed my Bruce collection the other day.

I knew exactly what I was looking for: “Dance with The Guitar Man.” I bought it when I was in sixth or seventh grade. It has been with me ever since, through life changes, college years, lives and deaths.

I find solace in this collection, even though the stereo system I can afford is battered, old and lonely. Like me.

This 45 rpm was not in my collection for almost 20 years, though.

After I brought Peter Cooper to Nashville to write about music on my staff at The Tennessean (a local Nashville daily), a deep friendship grew.

He was much younger than I, and he reported to me. But when he wasn’t working, and even later when he was a big shot at The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, we spoke of things like marriage, children, life, death, brown liquor and music. Often, all of those elements combined.

Perhaps 20 years ago, Peter first met Duane, for a story in the newspaper.  It became one of those emotional stories he “wrote from home” for me, always with his wiener dog, Russell, in his shirt. 

On the following Christmas Eve, I went down to my record room and rescued this old 45. I drove it over to the Cooper home – my wife, Suzanne, had wrapped it – and I gave it to Peter for Christmas. There was not yet a young Baker in the house, but Peter played the 45 loud for his wife and Russell. I’m sure passersby on Fatherland could hear it.

When Peter died, I didn’t think about that record.

But my friends Doyle and Mike, the think tank that is Grimey’s, the most-human record store in Nashville, purchased all of Peter’s music collection from the estate. 

When I learned that, I called them, and asked that, when they got to sorting through that collection of CDs, tapes and vinyl, if they found the “Dance with The Guitar Man” 45 rpm, complete with my grade-school scribbling signature on it (we used to take records to each other’s houses, so it was necessary to tag them to make sure you got them back), that they pull it aside and I’d buy it from them.

Mike called me to tell me he found it and would put it away for me. It was mine. No charge. “Peter would have wanted that,” he said.   

I did buy some other stuff when I went to the store – music from The Band, The Byrds and Tom Petty – but I didn’t have to pay for the old 45, on which my old signature is still there. Just fading, with life and time.

The record was on a shelf with Beatles, Stones, Elvis and other notable musicians’ work. So I fished it out, played it on my crackling system and brought it here for inspiration as I write this.

I should add that my friendship with Duane came long after I first interviewed him.  I was entertainment editor at the newspaper, and I found out that Duane had just released a new record, in the UK, where his star never faded. I think the information came from Deed, proudly calling to tell someone that her great husband had a hit overseas…. And ask why no one in America was interested.

I spoke with Duane – and Deed – for a story about a great man, a great artist, who can hardly be heard in the States, but who continued, then, to pack them in over in Swinging England. Even in his most-ill years, Duane entertained going back over to the UK, where he remains an iconic figure.

We spoke a few times over the years after that story, and when I became a freelance writer (after being aged out in the daily business), I knew that a story on Duane, his history, his continued relevance, his pure humanity, was worth doing.

I posted that story, published when I was a regular contributor at Nashville Ledger, on my Facebook page Wednesday.

With that 2018 story came a lasting friendship, and it included many conversations.

And, of course, there was the chapter in my book.

The fact I’d been able to not only write about, but befriend this man, a humble and honorable man whose twang changed music, is the stuff that has made a life in journalism – unfortunately abbreviated by age and by the steady demise of newspapers – worthwhile.

I looked at the 45 rpm record the whole time I’ve been spitting this reflection out, from my melancholy heart.  

Then I called Deed and left a message. The words were halting in delivery, harder on my heart. I wanted to ask her to have Duane call me back.