The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show - Prater's Creek Gazette

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Arts and Music

The Prater's Creek Gazette

22nd Issue Summer 2009 Page #6

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An Interview with Grandpa of

The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show

Is songwriting easy? Sometimes, and some days I'm just beatin' my head against the wall.

What's the quickest you've ever took to write a song? 20 minutes. A couple of years ago, I gave a girl a Valentine, and she wasn't exactly bowled over by it. I was at work when she snubbed me and 20 minutes later had a complete song.

The longest time? We finally recorded one recently that it took over two years to finish.

What's the first song you ever wrote? One called "Freezer" about the janitor at our high school, who played the guitar, and had laugh that sounded like a deep freezer when you open it. Y'all did a story on him back a few years ago in the Gazette.

Do you ever copy anybody's song or songs? Of course! Everybody steals. At the beginning of The Drovers, I wanted to write a song with another song's melody, you know how there's about four songs with the "Blue Speckled Bird" melody? Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie certainly did it, so I took the melody from "Philadelphia Lawyer", a song they both recorded. I wrote "Song for an Angel", which was on the "Sunday in Prater's Creek" CD, for a girl named Angela.

That's the only song I've outright ripped off. A lot of times the feel of an old classic will influence me. I won't use the melody, chord progression, or subject matter of the other song, but the feel, the pace of it.

What are some of your favorite songs that you've written? Oh there's so many, but the song "There's Nobody Else but You" is really special, written about a woman I was in love with a few years ago, ah I still am. Whenever I sing that song, well let's just say no singer has ever given more emotionally during the performance of a song.

And there's the baseball themed songs that are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The first baseball song I wrote was "Baseball 94:Major Greed Baseball" written about the strike that season and the fact that we didn't have a World Series for the first time since 1903. In that song I talk about how my daddy would tell me all about his favorite players when he was growing up such as Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, and how disgusted my daddy would have been, if he had lived to see the players end the season the way they did out of wanting more money.

Least favorite? I don't really have a least favorite, and if I did I wouldn't name it, it might be somebody's favorite

Where do you draw your inspiration? Who knows? I do believe in that "muse" stuff, but if you're out of practice at songwriting, a visit from our muse is only gonna get you so far.

Once when our second CD had just come out and I was driving to Greenville to sell the record stores copies to stock and I wrote one of my favorite songs. We had a brand new CD out, so I wasn't desperate to write, but I had just read the USA Today sports page and they had an article on Michelle Kwan, the Olympic skater. She had been asked why she picked such spooky, haunting music to skate to. "Because I don't want to be your lullaby" she responded. "Wow" I thought, "great answer". I got on my car to drive to Greenville to deliver our new CD and by the time I reached the first record store I was going to, I had written the song "I Don't Want To Be Your Lullaby".

When Minnie Pearl passed away I was so heartbroken, I put my guitar in the car and drove and drove, ending up in the Smoky Mountains, where I eventually pulled over and wrote the song "Minnie Pearl" on the hood of my car on some scrap piece of paper.

Do you have a favorite place to write? Well, I write a lot of songs at work. But, I love writing out on the porch with a cold beer, or four, playing my guitar, and working on a new song.

And like to write songs when I'm taken a walk. When I was writing "There's Nobody Else Nut You" for Beverly, I was so head over heels in love with her and couldn't sit still. I'd go out walking and work on that song. I really wanted to get it right, to tell her how much I loved her. I think it's the most heartfelt lyric I've ever written. Unrequited love, is probably my main catalyst for writing. I think my best songs come out of misery, and that song sure fits that description.

Do you write every day? Nah, it seems to come in waves, I guess when the Muse strikes, or I'm open to the Muse, I might go weeks, or even a few months without writing a single note or word and then something will hit me, inspiration, lightning in a bottle, or the proverbial Muse, and the songs will come pouring out

To be cont'd next issue

Don Rich

He was the master of the silver sparkly Telecaster. His "chicken picking" was as important to Buck Owens success as Buck's songwriting and singing. He was Don Rich, known to all guitar players who know anything.

He was born Donald Eugene Ulrich on August 15, 1941 in Turnwater, Washington and was making a name for himself as a fiddle player, as well as guitar player. Buck Owens, who was working in Tacoma, WA as a radio DJ, heard him, and the two began playing music at local dances and TV shows. Rich graduated from high school and went to college, only to drop out after one year to join back up with Owens, who had moved back to Bakersfield, soon forming the Buckaroos in 1961.

Later, after Rich's untimely death, Buck Owens said that he'd lost his "right arm", and lost his hunger for being a musician. Their voices blended together perfectly on hits such as "Tiger By The Tail", "Waiting In Your Welfare Line", and dozens of other country smashes.

The Buckaroos were as were as an exciting a band that ever took the stage, playing perfect country songs with a KICK. And much of that KICK came from Rich's Telecaster. And what a Tele it was! Before they got the red, white, and blue ones made famous on Hee-Haw, they played matching silver metal flake Telecasters that were matched only by the band's suits. He did not like to rehearse, preferring to play most parts off of the cuff.

Rich would always pick up the fiddle for a couple of hot numbers, and recorded a fiddle album, "Fiddlin' Man" in 1972. But, after gaining weight, did not like to put down the guitar and pick up the fiddle because then you could tell he had put on a few pounds.

Don Rich was heading home on his motorcycle, in 1974, from the studio, to meet his wife and two sons to go on a fishing trip , when he struck a highway divider and was killed in the crash. He was 32 years old.

Movie Review: Vicky Christina Barcelona

Woody Allen comes through yet again. A great movie, great cast and Allen's hilarious dialogue. Starring Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, and the smoking hot Penelope Cruz, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role.

Filmed in Spain, the movie has beautiful scenery, and I'm not just talking about Cruz and Johansson. Johansson and play American tourists who both fall for a Spanish artist, Juan Antonio, played by Bardem . Cruz plays his fiery ex-wife, Maria Elena, an artist who was dubbed a "genius" as a child, and who enters back into her ex-husband's life right after Johansson's character has moved in with Juan Antonio. Juan Antonio is obviously still in love with Maria Elena, even though their tempestuous relationship led to her stabbing him.

The story line is very simple, but the actors and dialogue make the film extremely larger. If you didn't see this in the theater, or run out and rent it after it's Oscar buzz, please do so soon. Make sure you have a nice bottle of wine to drink, because wine plays such a large part in this film. This reminds me of reading Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises" the way it makes you want the wine.

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