Wayne and Stan – take on Nashville

Chicken One Day, Feathers the Next
 
Show Business is my life…or when you gonna get a real job?  What every Hillbilly singer hears at some time in their life.
 
August of ’62, Si Simon signed me to a management contract to handle the transformation of a green kid into a seasoned entertainer/recording artist.  I don’t know how butterflies do their transformation from a grub worm, but man, my transformation was a real challenge. 
 
In October, Si scheduled a trip to Nashville for my first Columbia Records recording session.  He wanted to let me get used to working in a Nashville recording studio and to let Don Law hear me in a professional setting, working with studio musicians.
 
On this Nashville trip there was a young man, just eighteen years old, who would later become one of the greatest songwriters al all time.  He would write, “The Letter”, “Who’s Julie”, “Soul Deep”, “Slide Off Of Your Satin Sheets”, “Barstool Mountain” and the topper of them all, “You Were Always On My Mind.”  His name is Wayne Carson.  He was another protegee of Red Foley.
Wayne had more talent in that eighteen-year-old body than anyone I have ever met.  We were buddies – working in and around Springfield, Missouri at KWTO radio station and playing a few road dates with Red.  Wayne’s folks, Shorty, and Sue Thompson along with Sue’s sister Sally, were fine entertainers who pioneered live entertainment for radio during the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.  So, he got his talent honest.  Si was his manager too and his music publisher. 
 
Wayne was wild as a buck then and remained so throughout his life.   The older he got he just did his wild stuff a little slower.  So full of talent: a great singer, writer, and guitar player, and such a nice guy, you just had to love him.  Well, we were both riding high and bouncing off the sides of the car when we came up over the hill on highway 41.  We looked down on the Cumberland River valley and there lay Nashville just waiting for us.  Wayne said, “I’ll take half over there and Stan, you take the other half.” Sounded like a deal to me, so we agreed on it and that’s the way it has been ever since.  Trouble is that Wayne’s half made him a lot of money and I’m still trying to make payments on my half.  Oh well that’s life I reckon.  Chicken one day and feathers the next, as Ray Pillow would always tell me. 
 
Si checked us into the Allen Hotel, an old music gathering place, long gone, but pieces of it should have been put in the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Every picker, or would-be picker, stayed there at one time or another.  Wayne and I shared a room, (Si did know how to save a dollar).  The minute we got to the room Wayne stripped down to his underwear. Lit the incessant, never-ending cigarette, grabbed his old beat-up gut-string guitar, and started writing songs.  Man, he was so full of them, they just poured out.  It was like raw, untamed, and uncontrolled talent in action – something at that time, I had never seen before.
 
In years since, I have seen this manifestation of creativity in other artists, such as: Roger Miller, Mickey Newbury, Jerry Reed, ,Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson (in the ‘60’s), Jimmy Buffett (late ‘60s early ‘70s), Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and later Keith Whitley.  The creative energy was so strong, so powerful, that you could actually physically feel the current coming off of them and feel the charge until you realized how volatile, how powerfully driven these geniuses of American music were.  Those who knew Hank Williams best say that he had the same kind of constant, creative energy.  I never met Hank.  He died before I came to Nashville.  But like a car engine revved up past the red line, something is gonna burn up eventually.  It is tragic that those who possess this incredible gift, this overabundance of talent, so often are unable to handle the terrific strain that having such a gift carries with it.  However, Wayne would just barely survive those years of candle burning and is still today one of our greatest song writing treasures.  However, I still suspect he got the best of me when he chose his half of Nashville. 
Stan
 
Note:  Wayne Carson passed in 2015 at the age of 72.  Over 40 charted songs including Grammy Song of the Year and CMA song of the year.  Wayne’s widow told Denise and Stan that in organizing his things following his passing she is still finding songs – stuffed everywhere!