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Posted on 09/16/2006 5:58:25 PM PDT by Nita Nupress
Thanks for sharing that great story. I wasn't lucky enough to see Roger but I can assure you Roger wasn't drunk at the show you were at.
I always thought the lines from his songs 'the moon is high and so am I' and 'here I sit high getting ideas...' was just another way of saying happy or perhaps drunk, the truth is, Roger was probably high. Something I didn't even think happened at that time period. Afterall, Roger was super clean cut plus he was considered "country".
I'm a singer/songwriter too and I did a concert a few weeks back and a lady came up to me afterwards to share a story that she saw Roger in concert in Vegas and said the same thing - that he was drunk: again not drunk. His friends told me Roger never drunk. At that show she said she felt sad for him because the theatre was almost empty, he was forgetting words and the crowd was booing him. She told me he ended up singing a few of the hits and cut the show really short. She said it always stuck with her because just a few years earlier, Roger was the biggest thing.
I guess it depended when you saw Roger as to what your experience was. For 99% of the people I've met who saw him always say it was one of the best shows they've ever seen. For the bits of concerts I've seen/heard (on tape) where he was somewhat ripped, I thought he was even wittier and interesting because he would do really crazy things with his voice and his jokes were unreal. That's one of the reasons I find him so fascinating, he was talented on so many levels. I can honestly say I've never heard a bad performance from Roger live or from the studio. If I could be as good as Roger at his worst, I think people would actually know my music.
Again, thanks for sharing, looking forward to hearing more!
It's interesting to find out that Roger wasn't drunk. At the time, the late 60s, it was every parent's fear that their kids would listen to rock and roll and be lured into the drug culture.
Country music had a much more wholesome reputation. Although drinking was acceptable, drugs were not. Country fans were different from the hippies because the hippies did drugs. A natural enmity developed between the straight country fans and the drug-addled rock fans, as evidenced in these lyrics:
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin' right, and bein' free.
It's ironic that the country stars were as heavy into drugs as the rockers, without the country fans really being aware of it.
Okay, you said... It's ironic that the country stars were as heavy into drugs as the rockers, without the country fans really being aware of it.
You know what this means, don't you? Oh, the irony. It means we get to laugh at our parents and their naïveté.
The long-haired residents of Hippie Hill and Woodstock were tokin' on joints to "mellow out," rationalizing their drug use by saying they were "expanding their minds." Meanwhile, back in Nashville, the buzz-cut honky-tonkers on Music Row rationalized their drug use by saying they were just "taking their medicine," when in truth, they were gulping down handfuls of diet pills to stay up all night and go "roarin'." (How far is it from Nashville to Woodstock as the crow flies?)
Before reading this book, I thought Roger Miller was the pill-popper. After reading all these stories, I've decided that half the short-hairs in the Nashville music industry were walking around with pocketfuls of black mollies and old yellers. (Except Bobby Bare, who somehow stayed clean in the midst of all that madness). If I had read this book cover-to-cover in one sitting, my mind would have started seeing the city of Nashville proper as something akin to a big, yellow "Happy-Pill" jutting out of the Tennessee landscape.
My parents probably knew & just didn't tell me.
There's one thing I'll say in the short-hairs' defense: The mid-1960s was a time before the health dangers of amphetamine ingestion were well understood.
Other than that, I got nothing.
Thank you. I knew I vaguely remembered something like that. I'll go through them tomorrow to see what's there.
I think ol' Merle must laugh to himself when he sings "Okie".
Growing up in a Catholic school and later a minor seminary, my parents and teachers would tell me how I'd be going to hell for listening to rock music because "all rock stars are drug addicts". And when it came to music, they always had the country radio station on. Meanwhile, the country boys are the ones who invented the rock and roll lifestyle and were into way more trouble than the rock stars. As Rick Marcelli told me "they just hid it well". Rick was one of my favorite interviews in the book because he really chats about that side of things and how he was blown away because he used to work for the Rock Stars, then he started to work for Roger and couldn't believe all that was happening.
That said, I was told back then 'everyone' was doing a lot of that stuff out there (doctors, dentists, writers, musicians, etc). I don't believe that entirely but I do believe that it was a big thing in certain circles.
It really opened my eyes up as to what was going on and it opened my eyes as to what caused a lot of problems for these guys. It taught me to stay away from that stuff, more than all those commercials on TV did. I imagine a lot of the old timers have a hard time sleeping knowing the thousands upon thousands of dollars that were blown on that stuff.
Maybe you could get Pardek to run a "music" ping list.
I appreciate your willingness to help, I do. But you don't know Pardek very well, do you?
About the only thing Pardek wants to run is his mouth! ROFL!
Or my bidness, but we won't go there. :-)
LOL - low blow!
LOL! I have to admit that you know Pardek, but it seems to me that you're being kind of hard on him, don't you think?
___________________________________________________________________
I ordered that Roger Miller - King of the Road CD from ARTISTdirect.com on 9/21 - received an email telling me that my order had been processed and shipped on 2/23 - received CD today, 9/25, by USPS First Class. I'm listening to it now and the audio quality is excellent, even though it hasn't been digitally remastered. The cover booklet is very well done, with a bio and info and date of each song.
You must keep in mind that I don't have one of those 'kick me' tags stuck on my back like you. I received this CD in four days and one of those days was a Sunday when USPS doesn't run. Pretty quick, huh? If you want to order by phone, they're open from 9AM - 9PM Monday thru Friday - 1-877-527-8478 (toll free) for U.S. orders. They're located in Santa Monica, CA.
Surely you're gonna have a copy sent to Pardek.
Correction: my order had been processed and shipped on 9/23
Don't ask me how I know these things. I just do. :-)
So, how many times have you listened to it? ;-)
I just wanted to say "thanks" for your willingness to be the guinea pig!
I don't know. I lost count. The songs that were big hits when I was young bring back so many memories. Then there are all the other songs that were covered by other artists. All of his songs are so well written and easily enjoyed time after time.
I just wanted to say "thanks" for your willingness to be the guinea pig!
You fell for that?! Trust me, don't believe everything I say. Hmmm, that oughta keep ya busy for a while. Seriously though, it was my pleasure -- I got to listen to it first. LOL.
Beautiful music devolve
bump!
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