A Word on Words; 4010; Eileen Sisk

liz from national television studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on workers with jobs don johnson you know once again welcome to our own words my guest today is eileen says she's been an editor at the tennessean in washington her first book was honky tonks got to dance and romance visit today with a second book the buck owens book buck owens the biography of maker's mark in country music by mixing like an electric guitars a little rock n roll the resulting in what was called a bakersfield sound and twenty one on one that's gotten the popular cultivated variety show he all it was on cbs from nineteen sixty nine a nine seven one and they're about a twenty year run and local syndication it reveals about collins was a complicated man with multiple marriages and lovers those in northern city was

controlling tightfisted mastered manipulation by lane welcome to word on words jarrett it's great daddy or i'm sorry i left tennessee and when you came where would you say he may want you can remain in many major mistakes is live it's not clear from the book when he had three wives or seven is not clear and because nobody knows what he had three wives seven but i yeah i know him only through heal a lot of people and a lot of people i'm only three video which made him appear is quite humorous quite laid back quite friendly he was mean he was from a man to a lot of people of course they'll meet some people

who say he was the nicest man ever monetary about the mistaken id up and he and humiliate downing says i can't talk about writing a biography and one day his aging goals opens a deal so we don't want to repeat not going to those paths right so you did well at that point i'd had three three years invested in digging up articles in and talking to people and i thought well duo one throwaway three years of my life now i didn't announce i thought well ok what why doing too well holly who is one of the clearest the bass player your inbox heyday said well i have an idea let's do the unauthorized first annual so what more books will be a lot more interesting so i said can't take well what would a word restart so he opened up his address rick and dad

started calling people and enlisting their help and we even got money now and samba word at one point that he'd taken out because he was afraid of money will go through years of laws yes it's kind of very confusing out there was a married before bonnie and a lot of people don't know that that he married extremely young and had a child and daughter with this woman in arizona before bonnie and then then there was money and then there was ellison fell less and some people say i'm marjorie in their hands on that whole tale the whole large retailers quite interesting because i've found out what even since the book came out about marjorie and the offspring and a lot of the back story that people don't know about and i hadn't written about that at all but

it also explains part of this march three story explains how he came across upon the name of courtney sounds to do is rockabilly recordings because the one in that and the man that marjorie billy collins was not buckled right at a distinguishing went under in a scene on the ledge was courting jones which was also the same name as the man that marjorie eventually married in his ruling was charles jobs that went by the name of courtney he was also a songwriter who got screwed out of some money to buy bok moes pause to visit harlan howard just gave him well you know i'm still trying to dig on them to buy it takes a long time to dig our

business it kind of seriously ill not a clean well i've been trying to pin down tim howard for an interview and when i was doing them but she said gael and then her granddaughter got married at skylight trying to get on the show and the un trying to get when tan was about the same way you know is as captain a singular and i had a deadline and i had always been tightening go with light and got settled i went with my hat anyone do it was that are literally gave the company a way because solomon says now that i know buck owens as root of your book that harlan county ryan it is a wonderful man just walk away from because like i may be totally wrong about that in that i discuss is your having to do you know that can be and it's something that now that harlan's cowboy and really now for sure

that list in those and she learned she might end she might not talk about what people don't want to talk and a lot of people want to preserve the level is that back and created for herself in our hardscrabble boyhood in which of course it wasn't all that hard scrabble when you get right down to it but it made a nice fairytale an immigrant story he knew how to tell a story and span an image for yourself you must master promotion a master manipulator a brilliant businessman and of course it's under the way that he did business wasn't the best way to do business in a lot of people's minds in my mind even i mean i think you can probably do business to be a good

person and so step by lily begin almost at the end of one chapter for the lack of the world in which you just turn over the storytelling to dallas and it is a horror story and then you begin the chapter by saying buck owens is said had no influence in the nashville country music scene and then hugh mcginnis tell story donors some bright young talented very talented human being who once said when he was very very young and bob found out about it he once said you know i'm not like that i don't have to

be a star then bought a permit of forgiven for that an amtrak international and blocked him from getting jobs to stop him from getting according to him stop him from getting writing gigs stop him from literally from performing on an admission wonder why is somebody is rich and he was rich and as powerful and it was powerful as booker with why he would pick on young men like to us it's it's i wouldn't be included that story if i hadn't heard similar stories that it you know from other people and seen price was one songwriter it he also told me as a terrible story about how he had

basically got shoved away and pushed under the rug to sustain us than it didn't say who was ms alyssa tell me gave me i'm one piece of advice when i was leaving her when i interviewed her in oklahoma she said just be careful and very vindictive man you know what i mean and so she knew it meant she a wedding that she had gotten the short end of the stack care back on he seemed to have a special vendetta against john s and a lot of people he lashed out at me for even cleaning that my editors wanted me to put a disclaimer on and i said what i can't put a disclaimer on this man's story because i'm waving to be sure he's never liked to me everything and he's polling well itself

sets the pattern is like it's like a it's like a global first yemen is there do you know you have one more example kind of even hourly yes number of his mean spiritedness the nbc that happy so these are all the same and yelling counters that goes he once said as important wanted an ugly to be a star but you've been but you think of what you saw on hee haw and his demeanor and then his parents a self created as a happy go lucky troubadour and suddenly realize it was all night all a sham and when you know he was on dr he exaggerated everything and i think in the epilogue of the book i mention that there is a

school in california in southern california that actually was doing an animation of course the news but collins is an example because he was such a caricature of himself and he he exaggerated his movements in and expressions and things then that's when animator afloat for and some bach was then seen an example of one of the human examples of the perfect know we use of hughes' relationship with the marriage woes the voyager one and that's true in many ways that then another way up the well so while after he died because of the treatment many gave dance with iranian signs i mean he basically turned his back on these people after dawn without a picture talk about nomination but politico's of the mirror viewers <unk>

nomination would know much about the relationship well i don't think buck owens would have made it to where it was if i had been assigned dawn when it's time you know that he just added a whole different elements about music in his extremely talented he was probably more of a talented musician buck himself was sick and also a composer and just all around good person nobody ever sent a bad word about john rich to mean the entire time i was researching this book which was thirteen years in the making that song and but he had this semiotics relationship where they well almost a telepathic relationship onstage where they could reach of others mindfulness if you go back and watch some clips from the old buck owens

ranch is and also from hee haw it can see the interaction between the two you and the high harmonies were were dawn raids on the shows that a lot of people don't realize that on some of the recordings that the high harmonies were buck himself that he didn't the high harmonies on record against that and i was able to re election but san so much that he blended it and i just you know box career tanked after dawn staff did for those of you just joining us and talking with audiences about a book buck owens the marquee again i come to look point that as was his he was an upcoming wise acre i think that he was shrewd and cunning and as i said the outset manipulative but as wise as he was he

would've been better served you viewed as usual bob lovell was barbara flynn yes singer again and you know what's funny as i ran into a guy in there country music association music festival this year and he was a former news director because radio and he came up to me and he was talking about the book and he said you know i'm not going to give me the best advice ever in the news business and out ways to talk to the people who made the least amount of money and had the least amount of power and that's where i would find the best story he said it was the best advise anyone ever gave me in the news business and i thought well that's exactly what i did or in writing about if i hadn't talked to people who made the least amount of money and had the least amount of power i wouldn't have gotten the best story i said to know what was there

ms clark to like this i mean i did with a detroit muller and dr barry and they were directly his parents keep a lab down put it in a sense that there was a relation between book and unleashes yet there were us and he knows that i'm very close to his mother and his grandmother and i'm almost to the point where you yourself this is another spectacular now back in the day no un husbands used to slap their wives around or wherever and i guess chris black who is burt's national promotion director and one of his girlfriend lover as a longtime lover she actually she thought she was going to be marrying in a job varying and she goes to like a

little bubble as far as where she was concerned would buy on and she and she definitely had blinders on she talked a little oh yes well it was funny after i did my first book honky tonks i had gotten a letter from her because a friend of a mutual friend in oklahoma had ordered a book for me at first lies book and send it to her friend chris and chris stamp mia thank you know and add a letter that was the most convoluted letter i ever read this horse story about having more for black and a promoter on anyone to music promoter and all this stuff and i thought what this is just the most hair raising pal i've ever heard a better say this letter i might need it send a well i didn't at that point i didn't really know what her association with buck was at all or anything but i just filed away

kept it again soon to file folders at probably about six inches wide full of correspondents on a clip beings all sorts of things from chris sheehan we talk about the government was chris seemed to be is i read correctly house on tour i'll guess like get along and you know the funny thing is on that winter an issue is really a classy lady a very nice person i felt when roman thought she was a class act a lot of people want an essay and thought she was a there was a little more than a day here and half of that a lot of the dating was part of the fairytale the levels story than the living and so if there was no

love lost between jan and crisp and journalist normal lady about the way she behaved in public with cress and on course then there are people whose at an advancement when oath from wind here said don't really take everything janice sallis a hundred per sat let's go back and under a tree just a moment and his death they do there he's pointed his chopper right the motorcycle wonderful picture in the book and then he loses control and illinois and clearly in the book was affected by it but he was also as you

pointed out earlier very very cruel man tightfisted with the rich's wife and south in ballots and lived with a story about a different ending i think so i think it would've had a different ending to what it would be who was because at the point when dunn died he was getting ready to leave and he was telling but that he was going to write a tell all book ants are thom browne went before a diner it's a trend or i did tell all but two so seeing this is the whole story that tom bowman leaving is another gripping me as i think he was with a pipe five years very talented steel wire i mean together again crying time he says ray

charles calling on sheer steel and but i won't let you go buck owens you're unavailable arm and book stands in the way set up the great jobs for no good reason he would've cost overruns nelson right you would've lost probably didn't back after and i didn't give them more exposure absolutely yale and bad luck when it's not want to let somebody out showing him however he did not want anybody else overshadowing on that was rbs like we have now and jingles year lists one is dead creators of the bakersfield sound before but even so that he was in bakersfield before but never got there i biked a hit

bakersfield till nineteen fifty one even now he likes to make and sell it grew up there and was there in from nineteen twelve saying thirty seven on but he didn't he stopped in arizona first and then doing that the bakersfield till nineteen fifty one well to the extent that they took the journey that led him to bakersfield was forced by on his parents and he's that much of the story about john a party or at least charted that depth of financial deprivation is ms ackerman well documented and now and an acknowledgment but he did exaggerate it substantially you know you do this with this couple places in the book usually just research what do you think he was

worried you know i was able to pinpoint or at least a hundred million by the time he died but it had been a lot more than that it it's just i have to go with what i could find in documents forces are also because of the way he handled his fierce indian business everything was extremely private so whenever i trusted singing we're off to us he had several any guide changing the names of these trusts to eye line dague this paper trail of him for several years and you know and i'd see owens one island to you know american music fan base are all these things and on key he had to be worth a lot more than a hundred million i think you know that for a bottle and science and you know they're out there are yes you provide them with the first learning session

rv and discard or three a wonderful photo album of bach voters his close friends sold his enemies but your nose as you point out in putting together the book you know if we have for those who might say you know i mean i really had a hatchet job on bark i mean there's no reason to promote his sessions for his record or or even as well the man in the photo album includes a a picture of the crystal palace which was sort of his dream career politician else's taj mahal it was it was a small gap and but there you know it's it's it's not a flattering portrait by any means put on the other hand you didn't get a sense you

were reported instead for fairness in large to go from the beginning to the end and as i said we talk about dallas and how badly he was treated its denizens story and learn to let our eyes on well i tried to be very fair and balanced as as much as i could because buck went out of his way to tell people not to talk to me hands i mean maybe some of the big ones like george johnson charlie pride didn't talk back and after that people with the real story to talk and i as i said earlier it's the ones with the least amount of money to lace in a wasteland of power where you get the real truth i don't think it's a story that told to do three hours of people who were closest to him and those

people more people who never made it really big even though it were closely associated haggard made it really been noted that he was ralph martin got out after two weeks so you came when you reach that the reset point where is where is where his career peaks and then heads down i'm looking at the clock we run and i really think of a common thank you for having me and next book was due back here to think well if we're watching on guns in the letter word on words keep reading oh geez