Late Night At The Old Farm House-Stan Hitchcock 1953. No matter how late I would come in from my 17 year old wanderings...Mama always knew when my foot hit the floor in our Ozark farmhouse. She must have lain there awake, just waiting to see if I came in and if I was alright....Son?....Yes, Mama, Im alright and Im going to bed now. Night, Son....Night, Mama. And I would slip up the stairs to my room in the attic, turn on the little radio by my bed, decide which clear channel station I wanted to listen to tonight as I went to sleep...WSM? WCKY? XERF? WLS? ...the few stations that would stay on all night long, and reach down in the hills was not a long list. That was the years when disc jockeys were really characters...personalities...entertainers. Eddie Hill, who invented the all night country music format on WSM in the 50s would come on with his big booming voice and holler, Squall and bawl and run up the wall and holler Good Morning everybody!!! Eddie had knick names for most of the artists, buddys that he fished and hunted with all the time, and he kept me glued to the radio til I just could not hold my eyes open any longer. In later years, after I grew up (kinda) and moved to Nashville in the 60s, Eddie became my Mentor in television, and helped shape my career and life, for all these years after. Eddie would tell me, Stan, when you are on camera, just think of the lens of the camera as the eye of the audience...you are not working to a camera...you are reaching out and touching people...with your song...or your personality. Dont ever try to fool them country fans, cause they know when it is not true and you are just putting on. Tell it like you feel it, in song, in story, in conversation, if you put your heart in it...the folks will know it. 1966. Well, Eddie, you had the vein burst inside your head, one morning when we were having breakfast after our early morning tv show, I rushed you to St Thomas Hospital, but it was too late, the damage had already been done. It was a loss that I had trouble handling...but, I reckon those few years that I watched and listened and learned from you were enough to build a foundation to just keep doing it...if you feel it, do it...be true...from the heart. Eddie Hill wrote a song, I recorded it in an album in 1966. Some Day Youll Call My Name, was the song. Tonight those memories are strong on me. stan
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 04:47:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015