Devil Sent the Rain by Tom Piazza Page B

“what makes it is you’re singing by the way you’ve had to live. And if you had a hard life to live, then you sing a hard life song. Then you turn around and sing about how good you wish it could have been. When I sing, whether it’s recording or at a show, or just sittin’ down here with you, I give it all I got from the heart. And if it’d be something sad in there, I’ve hit that sad road. ’Cause I used to be barefooted, no shoes on my feet, had no dad when I was four years old, nobody to give me a dollar to go to a show. Had to walk five miles to town to see a show. We’d get one pair of shoes when it frosted, and time it got warmin’ up your toes was walkin’ out of ’em. You wore ’em day and night and everywhere you went.
    â€œIn writin’ songs,” he went on, “you gotta have something good to write about . You can’t just sit down and say I’m just absolutely gonna write a song out of nowhere—and that’s just about the way the song sounds. It has to hit you.”
    Referring to a recent song he had written, he said, “ That song started and I’m sittin’ on the damn commode —all reared back and I start in to write that thing. And I’ve heard a lot of people say that’s where it started , on the commode. Well, I’ll tell you, the best place to read the newspaper, get you a glass and sit on the goddamn commode and read and read and read and enjoy it better’n anything in the world.” Again he laughed and laughed at this. He was so out front with everything, and I decided I really liked him, even if he was hard to deal with.
    I asked him if he had a favorite time in his life. He thought for a second and said, “I was glad that Bill Monroe hired me, but sometimes that was rough there. Traveling six in a car, with the bass tied on top, used to sleep on each other’s shoulders, that was the pillow, worked seven days a week, seven nights . . . I guess for enjoyment, when I had Paul Williams and J. D. Crowe with me, on the Louisiana Hayride, and in Wheeling, West Virginia. We could really sing it, really pick it; we had it down just right. J. D. Crowe was fourteen years old. I learned him how to sing baritone and how to tone his voice in with mine. Paul, too. We slept in the same house and could rehearse and get it down like we wanted to.
    â€œSeems like that’s when I liked to sing, and . . . We’d ride along in the cars and sing our songs and enjoy it, get it to soundin’ good. In those days everybody liked to sing, and liked to hear that harmony, liked to get it better so they could make more money. Playin’ in them little bars for five dollars a night and tips. And sayin’, ‘Oh, God, please help me get good enough to get out of here.’ And mean that. Now the boys meet me at the festivals backstage, we show up—“Are you in tune?” “Yeah, let me see if we are”—go on, do the show, and go off . . . It just ain’t as good as it was then. And I hate to say this, but it never will be, because it’s run different. Most of the bands don’t even travel in the same car and come to the shows together. They come with their girlfriends, or their wives, or whatsoever, so it’s a girlfriend deal, it’s not a professional deal. And it shouldn’t be like that; business should be business . If you’re gonna make a living at it.
    â€œThey’re payin’ big money, though,” he said, with a tinge of bitterness audible now. “But there’s little rehearsin’. No rehearsin’, to tell you the truth. My band don’t know what it is to rehearse. If they get out there the night before I do, or stay a night after, they might jam out there and play everything in the world, but there’s no rehearsin’. Nothin’ serious . You can’t go into a job just laughin’ and having