Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders by Bill Fitzhugh Page B

“Reminder.   Call Ken at Swerdlow, Florence to
discuss controlled composition clause.”
    As soon as Franklin
turned his back, Bill angrily flipped him the bird, mouthing the words, ‘ stop your whining .’   He stood, went to the door of his office, and
slammed it.   On the way back to his desk,
Bill stopped to look at the wall of gold records he had produced and he
wondered how and when things had gone so wrong.   When Bill came into the music business all you needed was a microphone,
a room with padded walls, a two-track reel-to-reel, and somebody who could sing
and play guitar.   Now everything was 24-bit,
integrated digital recording, editing, processing, and mixing systems.   Big Bill had seen things go from 45s to LPs
to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs.   And
now, according to the trades, the compact disc was about to be replaced by
something called a flash memory device.   Then there was something called music streaming and a computer file
compression code called MP3.   What the
hell was that all about?
    Before long, record company executives and artist managers
were going to be out of the loop entirely and the damn artists would be in
control of everything.   This was not the
kind of world in which Big Bill was equipped to live.   One minute he was at the top of the charts, the
next he was an eight-track tape in a digital download world.   It wasn’t supposed to end this way, he
thought.   He just wanted to get across
the finish line with some dough in his pocket, but he’d gotten lazy and fallen
behind.   He looked again at the Nashville Scene and knew he couldn’t let
it end like this.   He had to find somebody
to help get him out of this mess.

 
 
    18.

 
    Two days after the funeral Eddie was still in an emotionally
blunted state.   He calmly packed his car
and headed to Nashville.   He got a cheap motel room his first night
there.   The next day he found a one-bedroom
unit at the Country Squire Manor Apartment complex, a sprawling series of
cheaply constructed apartments offering three floor plans.   Eddie took apartment number nine, the
smallest available.   He signed the
documents and put down his deposit.   He
moved his stuff in and drew the curtains.   Five days later, Eddie was still inside with the curtains drawn.   He hadn’t arranged for phone service or
cable.   He had a pizza or two delivered,
but otherwise he was a complete recluse.   The only way his neighbors could tell he was there was the sound of his
guitar.
    Eddie was troubled.   In his mind everything had gone to pieces.   Nothing made sense.   His emotions were all over the road, like
George Jones behind the wheel of a lawn mower on his way back from the liquor
store.   He felt abandoned, cheated,
guilty, violated, confused, remorseful, anxious, and saved, all at once.   Eddie didn’t know how to deal with the
emotional chaos, except with his guitar.   He was scared half to death and he knew he had to find words for his
confusion or it would consume him.   But
words wouldn’t be enough, the emotional turbulence had
to be set to music.   The dissonance in
his mind had to be translated into melody. Minor chords seemed inevitable.
    Eddie couldn’t sleep more than an hour at a time.   When he did, he dreamed of Tammy, twisted and
choked by the poison.   The shot to the
head would jar him awake and he’d pick up the guitar and try to pry the thing
out from inside him.
    By day five, Eddie was in the grip of a powerful force and
he knew what it was.   He just hoped he
could survive it.   He wondered if this
was what great songwriters suffered every time they wrote a great song.   Eddie remembered an interview of a writer
whose work he admired.   She said, “ a lot of us have good songs inside, the trick lies in
getting one to come out.   Every time I
manage to get one out, I’m immediately struck by the terror that I’ll never be
able to do it again.   Or
worse, that I will.”
    Late on the