2
As I stepped outside, my eyes were drawn to the tallest building, the most familiar, what I would come to think of as my compass as I settled into my city. Later I’d hear the BellSouth building referred to as the “Batman Building” and would discover that no matter where you were in the downtown area or where you came into Nashville—interstates, Hillsboro Road, or any of the old Pikes that lead into downtown, almost every view showed this iconic building on the skyline. That night, to see the spires in a clear sky amid a bunch of twinkling stars made me feel bold.
I stood in the parking lot, a map in one hand and my guitar case in the other. Deep in the front pocket of my blue jeans was my hotel key card and a twenty, the rest of the cash hidden in a Tampax box in my room.
There was a steady stream of cars on Division Street, and I looked down at the map, imagining all the streets as arteries and veins leading to the heart of a city pulsing with excitement. As I was leaving, Roy reminded me to be careful, that any city was dangerous for a single girl. But oddly, I had no fear. I’d begun to feel as if—I don’t know how to put it—I had some kind of immunity to danger, to anything that might thwart my destiny. Anyway, I fancied myself a strong person, and if there were risks that went along with achieving my dream, they were worth taking.
An impulse to go toward what was called Music Row kicked in and I took a left and started up a slight hill, going along beside a brick wall, passing several large buildings. There were no other pedestrians, and I realized this part of town was quiet in the way a business section is after dark, and I was just about to make a U-turn when up ahead I glimpsed what appeared to be a bunch of people dancing naked in the moonlight. I went closer and saw that it was nine bronze men and women, each more than twice life-sized, up on a piece of limestone in the middle of a traffic roundabout where Division Street meets Seventeenth Avenue. A female at the pinnacle held a tambourine aloft. I stood and stared, scarcely breathing. Was this the controversial sculpture called “Musica” I’d been hearing about? I thought it very tasteful, full of a deep creative energy that captured the spirit of inspiration perfectly.
At last, I turned my head and saw a little park to one side with another statue, this one of a man sitting at a piano. Curious, I made my way over to read the sign. Owen Bradley had been a record producer, architect of the “Nashville Sound,” and a man who helped create Music Row. He’d produced songs for many great country music artists, from Patsy Cline to Ernest Tubb. I had that feeling of walking inside of a dream as I sat down beside Mr. Bradley’s erect figure on the piano bench to drape my arm over his shoulder. I looked at his face. Depths of wisdom seemed to lie behind those eyes that stared out unblinkingly toward Music Square, that fertile field of record labels and recording studios.
“Anything you want to say to me?” I said in a playful voice before kissing his cheek, then hopping up. Something made me pause at one of the large stones around the edge of the brick courtyard. I bent over to read what it said by moonlight: “You’ve Never Been This Far Before”—Conway Twitty.
“You’re darn right,” I called to Mr. Bradley. “But here I am, and ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.”
This crazy dialogue made me remember where I actually needed to be: up on a stage. Since no record label or studio would be open for business on a Thursday night at 9:30, I looked at my map and decided to follow Demonbreun Street from the roundabout until I came to Fifth Avenue, which would take me to Broadway, to the honky-tonks. The nightlife.
Gradually the dark storefronts gave way to lit windows of restaurants and nightclubs. When I reached the corner of Fifth and Broadway, I paused, glancing in one direction at a humongous building that said Nashville Convention Center, and in the other direction to what looked like a gigantic street party. Six lanes wide, Broadway was full of people. Streams of folks were going in and out of doorways, clustering around storefronts, drinking, talking, eating, smoking, and laughing. Twinkling lights wound around tree branches put me in mind of Christmas, and from where I stood I could see a horse-drawn carriage and two statues of Elvis Presley.
Stars were in my eyes as I headed into the thick of it, passing various businesses: Cadillac Ranch, Whiskey Bent Saloon, Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, Wanna B’s Karaoke, Rippy’s Ribs, Big River Grille, Robert’s Western World, and one I knew I’d have to visit: the Ernest Tubb Record Shop. Nothing had prepared me for the energy I saw and felt in every square foot. This place was worlds away from the life I knew of quiet hills, trees, and rivers. I’d come from a mountain town peopled with working folk whose idea of nightlife was a jug of whiskey and a poker game in a back room. Quickly, I reminded myself not to let the shadows cast by the past follow me to Music City. Music City . . . now I understood. A name so perfect for this place pulsing with melody and harmony and soul!
It was a pleasant temperature, and I wandered a while soaking it all in. Finally, I set my Washburn down to rest my arm, leaned back against a solid brick wall, and waited to see where I might go first, what called to me. After a good ten minutes, I walked a ways and stood at the doorway of a place, which judging from the crowd, was very popular. It was one of those rowdy honky-tonks you hear about in a million country songs—a line of folks at the bar holding foaming beers, crowds wearing cowboy hats and boots and moving to a band.
I remained just outside, feeling a bit uncertain of how to do what I’d come to do. Everybody looked so relaxed. Hipster girls with chic hair and lots of jewelry and fancy jeans, the guys with that confident swagger, that backslapping good-ol’-boy ease. I felt a little frumpy and out of it until I put my hand in my pocket to kind of huddle into myself and touched my guitar pick. And that was when I stood up tall, the siren call of the stage loud and clear. I needed to feel the love of the crowd inside. I needed to feel the music filling every cell as I sang.
I started to walk through the doorway, but a man held out his arm like a gate. “Hold on just a minute there. Gotta pay the cover charge.”
I peered inside and didn’t see any covers in the whole place. For a moment my mind went blank, then something I can only call my stage presence took over, and I said, “Well, covers or not, I’d really like to sing tonight.”
He eyed me like I was out of my mind. “This ain’t no karaoke lounge.”
“Um, I know. Of course it’s not. Who’s that?” I nodded toward the stage.
“That’s our house band.”
“Can I sing when they take a break?”
He squinted his eyes at me. “I don’t know what planet you come from, but like I said, we ain’t no karaoke bar. There’s some places around here, on certain nights, you might could sing, but you can’t just wander in here and say, ‘I’d like to sing.’ ” The last four words he said in a high voice that made me cringe.
“Please. I promise. Mr. Anglin said Nashville would die when they heard me, and I’ve got this song I wrote called—”
“What is it you don’t understand? Do you know how many desperate gals come to Nashville thinking they’re God’s gift to country music? Think they got the voice that’ll make them a star?” He guffawed and slapped his thigh. “I’ll tell you what happens to most of ’em. Most of ’em end up dancing at the gentlemen’s clubs. Yep, they’re the reason there’s a half-dozen of those bars down next to the interstate! All them females who didn’t make it in country music still got to put food in their stomachs.” Sizing me up, he smiled like a hungry wolf. “You look like you got the right equipment to make some good money dancing.” He reached out toward me with his beefy hand.
“Don’t touch me!” I backed away, tripping over my own feet. I can’t say I was shocked at the disrespect in his eyes. I’d witnessed this in scenes from my former life, and as if to prove it, from the back room of my subconscious I heard a slight knocking sound. I clenched my teeth, terrified I was fixing to be the involuntary audience of some sleazy little documentary from my past. But something inside me snapped, and this surge of anger eclipsed the memory so that the film just beginning to roll in my head went mercifully blank.
When I got down the sidewalk a ways, I could feel tears of fury just under the surface, but I willed them away, thinking, I will sing tonight! I’m here and no leering man with slimy paws is gonna stop me again.
Before I knew it, I was at the entrance to a place that said World Famous Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. I stood and let the beat of the drums and the bass guitar wash over me, restore me. Finally I craned my neck to peer into the main room. Like all the others, the place was packed. I noticed a picture of Willie Nelson with a paper beneath it that said he got his first songwriting job after singing at Tootsie’s. A thrill raced through me! I fancied I could actually feel the presence of greatness, and I was glad to see there was a woman at the entrance. She was skinny, perched up on a stool with her legs crossed, wearing a red gingham blouse and hair much too black and shiny for her age. I pointed to the poster. “Do you know Willie?”
“Not personally.” She smiled with yellow teeth. “Feel like I do, though, the way he sits there looking at me all the time.”
“Does a person have to buy covers to come in here?”
She had a smoker’s husky laugh. “Nope. Don’t gotta buy covers to come into Tootsie’s.”
“Do y’all let regular folks sing here?”
“Sometimes, but not tonight.”
She looked like one of those world-weary women who’ve seen it all, glittery blue eye shadow and black lines drawn in for her eyebrows. But she had a warm smile, and I decided to take my chances that she’d be kind. “Do you know anywhere I can sing tonight?”
“Hmm . . . let me think,” she said, her silver chandelier earrings swinging as she tilted her head. “Believe it’s open jam night at the Station Inn.”
“At a hotel?”
“The Station Inn’s a bar on Twelfth Avenue, darlin’.” She made a gesture over one sharp shoulder. “That a way. In the Gulch.”
“Can I walk there?”
“I reckon. Twelfth Avenue’s right off Broadway.”
I thanked her and left, quickly passing half a dozen more nightclubs, feeling drunk just listening to all that music streaming out of their doorways, some sounding sad, with sweet, plaintive fiddle notes, and some lively, with a beat you couldn’t help moving some body part along with.
Twelfth Avenue was not a hop, skip, and a jump away, and I had to slow my pace after passing several huge, ornate churches, the courthouse, a high school, and a really big building that said Frist Center for the Visual Arts. As I walked on, I began to see a number of dark areas and hulking gray dumpsters, and I decided “gulch” sure fit the way things were looking. I went a while longer and decided that even if they did charge you for covers at this place, I was definitely going to pay.
I turned down Twelfth, panting hard, my legs getting really tired, until finally, past Demonbreun Street, I saw the Station Inn, an old nondescript concrete block building with a few windows.
Inside was a plain, low-ceilinged place with plywood floors. Red-and-white-checked tablecloths covered the tables, and church pews situated along the sides and the rear were full of folks holding bottles of beer. There was a stage with no one on it, and I got a rush just picturing myself there.
A big man in a big white cowboy hat was leaning near the door with his feet splayed out in sharp-toed boots. He smiled at me and said, “Evening, ma’am. Welcome to the Station Inn.”
“Cover?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in a vague, world-wise manner, recalling the last man I’d spoken to with a flinch of anxiety.
“Ten tonight.”
I held out the twenty and waited for my change before I asked. “Can regular folks sing here?”
“Absolutely. And every mandolin, banjo, or fiddle player who’s anybody can play here.” He smiled. “We are Bluegrass and Roots.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by roots, but I shifted from leg to leg, thinking of endless late Saturday nights listening to Bluegrass Time on the radio; of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, Lester Flatt with his acoustic guitar, and Earl Scruggs with his banjo. Lester and Earl had themselves a band called the Foggy Mountain Boys. Even Dolly Parton and Patty Loveless sang some bluegrass, and Alison Krauss sure could do that high, lonesome sound. My particular sound wasn’t actually bluegrass, but it was acoustic, which is what bluegrass is all about, and it did tell a good story the way bluegrass songs generally do. I knew I could strum my Washburn and sing my song, “Walking the Wildwood,” an octave above my usual. Everything inside me was jumping around and getting all excited as I smiled, lifted my guitar case, and said so clear and strong, “I’d like to sing a bluegrass tune I wrote called ‘Walking the Wildwood.’ It’s a song that comes straight from my heart.”
The man looked like maybe he could see how much this meant to me, and he must’ve known how much it was gonna crush me when he cocked his big head, gentled up his voice, and said, “Well, that sure sounds nice. You come back on Sunday, when we have our open jam.”
My heart fell down to my feet.
He chuckled in a kind way and said, “Hey, hey, now. Chin up. Sunday’ll be here ’fore you know it, and tonight we got Raul Malo. He’s doing ‘Crying Time,’ and everybody loves him. Come on in and give a listen.”
I could hardly believe I’d hit another brick wall! Part of me wanted to go back to the Best Western, turn on my radio, climb into a hot tub, and sulk. But the man’s voice was so kind, and I’d already told myself I absolutely could not fall apart.
Crowds make me nervous unless I’m singing, so I walked in, ordered a Coke, and sat in an out-of-the-way corner to watch as Raul took the stage. People started whistling, calling out, and clapping while he tested the microphone and situated his guitar. There was no dance floor so when he began playing and singing, folks were moving their hips and shoulders right where they were, a sea of bodies rippling. Raul’s music was alive, thumping against the walls, pulsing up through the floor. I sat on the edge of my seat through an entire set, thinking Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll go strut my stuff on Music Row. I’ll be living the dream.
Friday morning came, and I fixed strong coffee and carried a cup back to bed to sit cross-legged in a nest of covers with the Nashville phonebook on one side and my shoulder bag with the demos on the other. I scanned all the listings under Music Producers in the Yellow Pages, swallowing the last thick slug of coffee before I squeezed my eyes shut to rip out the page.
My retro country-music-star outfit was laid like a flat person on the other bed, and it looked like it could hop up and start singing all by itself. There was a white blouse with a half-circle of ruffles on the chest, and over that a red bolero jacket with a matching knee-length skirt that swished out like a bell when I twirled. Mac McNair had given me a castaway pair of fancy white pumps with ankle straps that were his wife’s from the previous Easter. He assured me she wouldn’t dare show up at church in the same pair of shoes two years in a row.
I put my outfit on and stood in front of the mirror. Wow, I thought, after I brushed my long hair to one shoulder and put on red lipstick, that woman looks like she stepped out of a brochure about the Ryman! Holding an imaginary microphone to my lips, I said, “Hello, I’m Jennifer Anne Clodfelter, and I’m gonna sing a song I wrote, a song that’s in my heart and I know you’re gonna love. Here’s ‘Walking the Wildwood’ just for you.” The shameless sales pitch didn’t shock me because I’d practiced it ten zillion times. Also, whenever I played my music, stage or no stage, I became an entirely different person who did and said things that ordinarily scared me senseless.
Curious about the weather, I went to my window to slide the curtains over, smiling at clear blue skies, and down below, the hotel pool sparkling in sunlight. Beyond the pool was a grassy lot with several trees, and across the side street a big building that said BMI. Pressing my nose to the glass, I could see what appeared to be a residential neighborhood behind the Best Western.
Roy Durden was gone and the lobby was a busy place. A group of men in business suits were sitting on four sofas surrounding a coffee table, and two maids were wheeling a cart to what I guessed was the laundry room. The smell of sausage and warm biscuits was almost enough to lure me into the dining area, but I set my face like flint and stepped outside.
Nashville on a weekday morning seemed a good bit more subdued, and Mrs. McNair’s pumps were stiff and unfamiliar, but I walked along with spirits soaring, my guitar case like an old friend. Broadway might be where the live music, the partying of my new town, happened, but legendary Music Row, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Avenues South, was the business side of country music. That was where record label offices, publishing houses, musical licensing firms, and recording studios sat literally hip to hip. I fingered the phone book page in the shallow pocket of my skirt as I walked along. My brain felt like a piñata had burst open inside, releasing swirling slips of paper with names of various companies: Bayou Recording, Center Row Recording Studios, Big Machine Records, Country Thunder Records, Elite Talent Agency, Sea Gayle, Big Yellow Dog, Masterfonics, Sixteen Ton Studio, Cherry Lane Music Publishing, Red Ridge Entertainment, Grand & Gee Music, and a zillion more. More than you can ever imagine. And every single one of them held promise, a wonderful opportunity just waiting.
I’d pictured a line of sterile, businesslike buildings, but as I started down Music Square East, I saw quaint brick and stone bungalows in Craftsman style, the occasional Victorian or Georgian, with columns and awnings and wrought-iron railings, set behind manicured lawns full of oak and magnolia trees. A nice feeling swept over me as I focused in on my first prospect.
I climbed four steps beneath a green awning, and with hardly a pause, pushed open the door to step inside. “Morning,” I said in my most cheerful voice to a woman sitting behind a desk with a fern spilling over the corner. She looked up from what I recognized as a Krispy Kreme donut box, grabbed at a pair of glasses resting on her huge shelf of a bosom and set them on her nose. She cocked her head, squinted, then frowned with orangey lips underneath a pageboy haircut, which looked like it was on fire from the overhead lights.
“May I help you?” She looked me up and down.
“Yes, please. My name is Jennifer Anne Clodfelter, and I’ve got a song that’s in my heart and on my lips I know y’all are gonna love. Here’s ‘Walking the Wildwood’ just for you.” I bent to unbuckle my guitar case.
“What?” she said in this shrill voice.
“I’m a singer.” My heart was pounding as I looked up at her shocked face. “I wrote this really great song called ‘Walking the Wildwood,’ and I’m happy to do it bluegrass or pure country. What’s your pleasure?”
“Well, aren’t we all?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said you’re a singer.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve got over seventy original songs.” I pulled my song notebook from beneath the Washburn and held it up.
“First of all, I’m just the administrative assistant here, and second of all, we don’t accept unsolicited material.” She nodded at a small poster on the wall with chunky black lettering; “We do not accept unsolicited materials. Due to the large volume of submissions we receive, we cannot always respond promptly.”
“Well, of course,” I said, more heartily than I felt. “May I please give you a demo?”
I heard her exasperated sigh. “Drop it over there on that tray on the counter. Mr. Clarke may get to it; he may not. He’s a busy man. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to tend to.” She rooted around in the Krispy Kreme box for a chocolate glazed donut.
I heard some men’s voices coming from down the hall behind her. “Could I talk to Mr. Clarke? Real quick? I promise I won’t even take five minutes of his time. I’ll—”
“Leave your demo over there. If Mr. Clarke likes it, he’ll call you to set up an appointment. Now, like I said, I have work—”
“Please. I’ve come all the way from Blue Ridge, Georgia, and I don’t have a lot of time before my money runs out, and I promise you, ma’am, I’ve got this beautiful song, and I wrote the words and the music, and if you’ll just give me a chance to sing it for Mr. Clarke, then I promise you I’ll—”
The woman’s nostrils widened. She half-stood behind her desk, and I watched shiny flakes of glaze glide off her lap. “Did you just climb out of the hills? You can’t come barreling in here and demand Mr. Clarke’s attention!” She shook her head in a rude way. “Do you know how many country music singer wannabes I get coming in here? Don’t you know anything?”
I stared at the lipstick prints on her Styrofoam coffee cup and said nothing for a long time. I had just climbed out of the hills. “I’m sorry I disturbed you,” I said, gathering my things together before I set a demo in the overflowing basket.
I stood on the sidewalk awhile, feeling shaky. What if none of the labels would listen to a live singer off the street? What would I do? Throw in the towel and go back to Blue Ridge? Nope. That wasn’t even a possibility.
“That’s just one music label,” I said finally, the warm sun seeping into my skin through my cotton blouse. I closed my eyes, lifting my face for an infusion of its strength. For one fleeting moment I toyed with telling a lie when I walked into the next place, saying I was dying of cancer and my last wish was to sing a song to that particular record label. Everyone has compassion for a dying person, and I knew that once they heard me, I’d be forgiven the lie and welcomed with open arms. But just as quickly, I decided it might jinx me and I’d get cancer.
I readjusted my shoulder bag, which was bulging with demos, and marched to the next door down, which said Warner Music. Same story, and I left a demo, then crossed over Roy Acuff Place to see a building called Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. I had no money for college, so I passed it by, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to go to a place like that. It would be a dream, not one bit like school. I came to a big brick building that said EMI Music Publishing. I walked in, gave my same spiel, and was told to leave a demo. I crossed Chet Atkins Place, passed by an enormous, columned church called Belmont, and after that paused in front of a pretty red brick house. With a deep breath, I climbed ten steps up to enter Sixteen Ton Studio. The man sitting at a desk in the foyer stared at me with wide eyes and said nothing when I held up the Washburn and asked if I could sing; he only nodded at a shelf. I left a demo and dragged myself back outside to do pretty much the same at four more labels. After that, I knew without a doubt that folks in Nashville’s Music Row didn’t have the time to stop and listen to someone off the streets.
Still, every single refusal hurt like the first time, and it felt like I was leaving a part of my heart in the basket, or on the counter, or atop a shelf whenever I plunked a demo down. However, I knew that there was nothing to do but methodically step into the various labels and leave a demo until all twenty-five were gone. I worked hard not to picture Mr. Anglin’s disappointed face by reminding myself that I was fulfilling my vow and that the demos he helped me make were full of original songs that made him weep.
Late in the afternoon, I trudged along, passing Music City Tattoo and the Rhinestone Wedding Chapel, also in Craftsman homes. Then I saw this unusual place that looked like a barn, with a colorful, oversized statue standing in the parking lot. It had a cheerful face that reminded me of the Big Boy that used to be outside of Shoney’s restaurants. I was tired and hungry and I decided to let myself splurge.
After my eyes adjusted to the dimness inside Bobby’s Idle Hour Tavern, I found a barstool and set my shoulder bag and my guitar on the floor. Bobby’s was an unassuming place, with dollar bills taped to the posts and neon signs reading Rolling Rock and Budweiser Select on the wall. A Washburn guitar hung behind the bar, and this seemed like a good omen. A couple other customers sat at the bar, laid-back older men, holding drinks, watching a television in one corner. The closest one tipped his head and said “Howdy, ma’am,” in a voice that sounded like his words were smiling.
Another voice spoke to me from across the bar: a pretty, middle-aged woman with long brown hair pulled back. “You look tired, hon,” she said kindly. “What can I get you?”
“Peanuts and a Coke?”
She nodded, and it wasn’t sixty seconds until an icy Coke and a bowl of peanuts appeared in front of me. I wolfed them down, and they tasted so good I almost cried. Food in my stomach helped me feel a little better.
“You a singer?” asked the man who’d spoken to me earlier, his brown eyes measuring me and my guitar case resting on the floor.
“Sure am,” I said.
“Sam Watkins,” he said, holding out a hand.
Did I read anything but friendly in his words? No, I did not. Only a down-to-earth kindness and curiosity. “Jennifer Anne Clodfelter,” I said, shaking his hand. “You sing?”
“Something like that.” He smiled.
My heart soared to find someone with a mutual passion. “I write all my own songs and I’ve been delivering demos here at Music Row. Going to break into the Nashville scene.”
There was a stretch of silence that seemed to go on forever and in which I wondered what was going on in Sam Watkins’s head.
“Where’d you say you were from?” he asked finally.
“I’m a resident of Nashville.”
He lifted his eyebrows, and there was another long pause while he rubbed his scruffy beard. I tried my best to wait for him to speak, but I couldn’t help myself. “Music is who I am. I have lots of experience in the music business. Won tons of talent shows and my chorus teacher worked with me on studying stage presence, and he helped me make demos, and Mac, my boss at McNair Orchards says I’m the next Patsy Cline.” I nodded down at my guitar case. “I’ve got over seventy completely original songs and I’ve been told countless times throughout my life that I absolutely need to be in Nashville, and that Nashville’s gonna just die when they hear me.” My thoughts and words were falling all over each other so fast I didn’t even have time to be sad about Mr. Anglin.
Sam Watkins cocked his head. “Girl, I admire your spunk, but I’m not going to sugarcoat things. The music business is rough, even for a man like me who’s been doing it twenty years now. You a member of NSAI and SGA?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what those letters even stood for.
“ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC?”
My heart sank as I shook my head again. I figured I must seem pretty pathetic, but I couldn’t afford to be a member of anything. Sam Watkins broke into my thoughts gently. “If you’re as good as you say, my best advice is to make sure you get some legal advice before you even open your mouth to sing. You need somebody you can trust to help you plan long-term. Too many sharks out there’ll try to flatter you, tell you you’re the next Loretta Lynn, and get you to sign as an exclusive writer. Then, later you find out you made the biggest mistake of your life.”
The emotional roller coaster I was riding on dipped even lower as I absorbed all this information about the city’s seemingly impenetrable music scene.
Sam lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring above his head like a halo. He leaned forward into the warm circle of light that shone over the bar. “You’re not really from here,” he said, and I could tell he meant it kindly. “The place to start is to get involved with a group of other amateurs, local singers and songwriters. Meet some other creative-minded folks. There’s a whole community of us here, you know, and if you want to make it in Nashville, you’ve got to learn the ropes.”
I felt like I had to defend myself. “But I’m not some beginner! I’ve been writing songs and singing practically my whole life.”
It got quiet. Sam had an expression on his face I couldn’t read. I probably looked pathetic, my hands shaking on my knees, my shoulders drooped with exhaustion.
“Listen,” he said at last, a softness in his voice. “Never got me nowhere, but some folks claim open mic nights are the backbone of the country music industry. There’s a dozen or more places you ought to go try your wings at, play some of those original songs you’re talking about. You ought to go sing at The French Quarter or the Douglas Corner Café or the Bluebird’s open mic night. Get you some practice performing in front of a group.”
I didn’t need any more practice performing in front of a group, but he was so nice. “Thanks. Which of those is best, in your opinion?”
He stubbed his cigarette out in a black ashtray on the bar. “Well, I’d have to say it’s the Bluebird on Monday nights. Every Monday they got a show goes, oh, two or three hours, where a dozen hopefuls get to strut their stuff. Great place to try out new material, work on your performing skills, meet other writers and singers, and just become a part of the songwriting community. Now I think about it, the Bluebird’s where Kathy Mattea and Garth Brooks got their start.”
“Really?” My heart sped up.
“Yep,” he said, a grin on his leathery face. “If you’re good as you say, you might catch the eye of a mover and shaker in the industry who’s sitting out in the audience. It could be your big break.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” I knew I sounded like a ninny, but fireworks were going off in my brain. I got to my feet, dug down into my pocket and set a five dollar bill down on the bar. “Bye, Sam.” I wasn’t quite out the door when he called after me. I turned.
“I’m going to give you some more advice.”
“Yes?” I smiled.
“Lose the sweet-girl Sunday school outfit.”
A hot flush rushed up my chest, and again I felt myself revisiting that time and place I’d buried so far in the red Georgia clay. Sam Watkins sure didn’t seem to have the leering look in his eye. Hadn’t my instincts assured me he was safe? I ran down the hot sidewalk, and my thoughts moved to Mr. Anglin. I’d never felt so safe as when I was perched on a chair in his classroom after class was over, him at his desk, his legs crossed at the knee, the picture of elegance and manners. I loved that he dressed like a gentleman: turtlenecks in the fall and winter, his slender wrists sticking out of flawless starched shirts with French cuffs in the spring. I never suspected he had anything in mind besides the rich enjoyment of music. You cannot fall apart now, I told myself, walking toward a large gray brick building that said Bench Mark Sound Music Publishing; you’ve got to honor your promise to him.
I put myself in this sort of trance where I was hardly aware of anything—not the passage of time, not rude folks. When I finished the recording companies on Music Square East, I headed to Seventeenth Avenue, to tackle Music Square West. Close to five p.m., my feet aching terribly and my arm exhausted from lugging my Washburn, I gave out my last demo and decided it was time to go home.
I was shocked to find that someone had made up the beds in room 316. There was also a fresh stack of towels, more coffee, and clean cups. I looked inside my Tampax box, and when I saw my money was still there, I hung up my blouse and skirt, put the pumps on the closet floor, and sat on the closed toilet lid to hold a wet washrag to the blisters on the backs of my heels.