Exploring Nashville's Music Scene: Geoffrey Himes on Willie Nelson, Country Music and Storytelling in Songwriting

Hi, this is Sarah Harrelson and you are listening to Take In A Walk Nashville. Today on Take In A Walk Nashville, I have with me Jeffrey Himes. He's an American music critic who has written for publications including but not limited to The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Paced the Nashville Scene, and has even written linernotes for albums. He is one the Deem's Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers four times. And he's here today to talk about his latest book, Willie Nelson, All the Albums. This is an I Heart Podcast. Garenseed Human Welcome to Take In A Walk Nashville with your host singer-songwriter Sarah Harrelson. Jeffrey, thank you so much for being on Take In A Walk Nashville today and you are joining us from Maryland today, correct? Correct. Well, thank you for being here. Can you just tell our listeners on Take In A Walk Nashville what initially sparked your love for music and initiated a career in music journalism? Sure. So, I'm old enough to, that the first record I ever bought with my own money is I want to hold your hand by the Beatles 63. I've been in love with music ever since and I love talking to people about it and found if I could write about it in print, then I would talk to a lot of people about it. And I've always started with the Beatles, but I career obviously led me in all different directions. People ask me what kind of music I cover. And I always tell them everything from Dolly Parton to Ornette Coleman. So, I love it. Did you ever play music growing up? I played piano still, not very well, but I do write songs. The piano was a way of doing that. Well, I can definitely tell you're a music and book lover based on all of the CDs and books behind you. But besides writing for publication, you have written in published many books and your latest book, Willie Nelson. All the albums, it analyzes all of Willie Nelson's massive catalog. And in this book, you give each of his albums a grade. So what inspired you to write a book about Willie Nelson's career? Well, I've written a lot about him over my years as a journalist, interviewed him several times, then to a lot of his shows. And when my publisher asked me if I'd be interested in writing this book about Willie Nelson, I said, well, yes, because I've already written so much about him that I'm not starting to scratch. And he's one of my favorite artists. He's so fascinating. The blend of music that he uses. And there's been a lot of books about his life. Willie has written at least three autobiographies. Joe Nick Toskey wrote a very good biography of him. But what I wanted to do was something different. I wanted to tell the story of his life through his recordings. Because I always felt like, why are we interested in artists? Not because they got divorced or had a drinking problem. Lots of people got divorced and have a drinking problem. But only a few people make really amazing music at the level of Willie Nelson. And so I wanted to focus on that on the music he made. And as I said in the introduction, the stories about Willie are always becoming more and more elaborate as people tell them and retell them. But the music that's on those records is the same today as it was in 1962 when he made his first album. So let's go look at these records, these recordings and listen to them and figure out what that tells us about him as an artist and as a purse. And he has so much catalog to sort through. So did it take you a long time to go really in depth with all of his albums and grade them and write about your take on his catalog? Well, yeah, I went back and listened to all of them. When I took on this assignment, I looked at what I had on my shelves and it turned out I already owned 120 of them out of the 152 that I wrote about. So I was well along the way. And you listened to them again. You realize that some of your assumptions perhaps were not correct. Your first surprises are not always correct. Some of the records are like better than you thought they were. Other records are not as good as you thought they were. That's the sort of perspective. And hopefully I'm bringing it to the book. And people can purchase this book anywhere. They get their books online and it was released last month. We talked about how you are based in Maryland. As a music journalist, did you travel frequently and did you spend a lot of time in Nashville as a music journalist? I have. I've never lived in Nashville, but I have visited it many times. I wrote for the Nashville scene for several years. I sort of ran their country music critics poll. That was a very successful run for 20 years. My previous book to the William Nelson book was published by the country music Hall of Fame. And it's called In-Blaw Country, how Emileu Harris, Roseanne Cash and their circle fashioned a new kind of country music. And it's about all those people, Roseanne, Emileu, Rodney Crowe, Guy Clark, Ricky Skags, who all worked together. They wrote songs for each other. They played on each other's albums, sang on each other's albums, married each other, divorced each other. And it was a very tight unit that always fascinated me. Similar to the outlaws that came just before them, but different because they were sort of writing about, you know, owners on the road again. They were writing about marriage and the sort of new kind of marriage that comes with the baby boomer generation where bandwomen are more equal. Relations to each other and all the sort of the pluses and minuses that the challenges that presents and the rewards it offers. Yeah. And you describe this as an unnamed movement that helps shape modern country music. Would you describe this as, you know, it's a little bit different from outlawed country, but we're writing about more storytelling. So it was a little bit of a shift into American music. What did you say? Yeah. I think that the subject matters different because they're writing not about the independent loner, but more about the people trying to make a marriage work and trying to keep the family together. And obviously people of both camps admired each other quite a bit, really recorded a lot of these songs that are in the inlaw country and they recorded really songs. Well, there was it, you know, it was definitely a relationship. But I always thought this is a movement needed a name to like be recognized for what it was. And that's why I sort of invented that name of inlaw country. Yeah. Yeah. I love the name of it. Can people find this book in the country music hall of fame like in the gift shop on Amazon or anywhere else that you buy books online? Very cool. As you mentioned, you spent a lot of time writing for the Nashville scene, even though maybe you weren't living here. Did you still see how Nashville evolved through the years writing for the Nashville scene and how it has grown? Of course, of course. You know, when I first came to Nashville in the late 70s, Broadway was Skid Row. You know, all of a sudden, there were sort of like, you know, the winos and the, you know, stragglers. And to watch how that has transformed itself into like Disneyland today, it has been quite a thing to watch. And I also think that to watch how Willie and Amy Lou and all the people around them sort of transformed country music industry, expanding to possibly what you can do in country music and sort of changing the rules. And even though they didn't last forever, I think their influence is still being felt today. And people like Chris Stapleton or Jason Isbell or Marco Price or Leon Wall Macleys, people were in the same spirit so that it's not the most popular music in country today or in Nashville, but it's definitely a major part of it. Absolutely. And besides writing publications and books, you are involved in other media platforms and outlets such as your latest podcast, Hardrain and Pink Catalax, which is co-hosted with TV and film director Mark Finkl Pearl. Is some stack the best place to listen to this podcast series or where can they find your podcast? That's where we decided to use this as our base. There's both the podcast and also I blog that I do music reviews and essays every once a week. I have an issue. So it's been a way for me to keep my hand in contemporary music as I'm writing these books about musical history. And I'm sure it's beyond country probably covers all genres on your podcast. Yes, that's fair. We just, you know, we just had a podcast with Darryl Scott who's a Nashville resident and important figure and James McMurtry from Texas and Kevin Gordon who's from Nashville. So it's a lot of songwriters live in Nashville and it's one of my main interests is in songwriting, whether it's Willie or Rodney Crowler, whoever is that's what we're emphasizing in my podcast. Do you have a favorite Willie Nelson album? Yeah, so, you know, at the end of the book, I list all 152 albums that I discussed in the book and ranked them from number one to number 152. And the top one was phases and stages, which he made in Atlantic and the 73, I think. You know, I love that album. I think one of those underrated albums he did was tougher than leather, which is in 1982, Raptor's heart attack. I think yesterday's wine, which is one of his final RCA albums, it's really good, spirit, there's a lot of good ones. They're not all good, but to figure out which is which, you have to buy the book. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah, everyone can buy the new Willie Nelson book online. Can you talk a little bit about the music footprint you have left in Baltimore and the nonprofit you have started called the Roots Cafe? Yeah, the Roots Cafe is a live music series that I started back in 1991 that does sort of Americana acts. Recently it was sort of a dance kind of concert series and then more singer songwriters now. You know, it's just a way to support that end of the creative scene here at Town. Very cool. And although you're based in Maryland, you know, you've spent quite a bit of time in Asheville, and I always like to ask my guest this question, do you have a favorite place you have taken a walk in Nashville or maybe even a favorite memory from Nashville? Yeah, I mean, I like Radner Lake, I like Richland Creek over White Bridge Road. Yeah. And like, there was a time when I was seeing a lot of Guy Clark and there's his basement room, where he did his songwriting and his guitar making. It's now in the country music hall of fame and I could tell you, it's just the same as it was when I was down there talking to the guy. So. Very cool. Well, thank you so much Jeffrey for being on Take a Walk Nashville today. Listeners can purchase your latest book, Willie Nelson, all the albums, wherever they get their books along with your past published books like In-Log Country. You can get that one right in the country music hall of fame. And we look forward to your next project and thank you for taking a virtual walk with me here in Nashville today, Jeffrey. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to Take a Walk Nashville with singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson. And check out our other podcasts. Music save me, comedy save me, and take a walk. Available on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Hart podcast. Guaranteed Human.