**Make sure you listen to the audio interview with Robert Hicks posted in June

A Guitar and A Pen is a wonderful compilation of stories from some of the best storytellers around ~ Country Music Singers and Song writers. Regardless of whether you’re a country music fan, these are touching, funny, and relatable life stories you’re sure to enjoy…and who better to tell them, then folks who know how to spin a tale in 3 minutes or less?

Co-edited by Robert Hicks, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow of the South, and by John Bohlinger and Justin Stelter, A Guitar and a Pen features writers of songs you’re sure to recall: Charlie Daniels (”The Devil Went Down to Georgia”), Tom T. Hall (”Harper Valley P.T.A.”), Bob McDill (”Song of the South”), Bob DiPiero (”Cleopatra, Queen of Denial,” Kris Kristofferson (”For The Good Times”), …and many more. Plus, a foreword by Vince Gill.
 

Carrie:  How did you decide to put this collection together?

John Bohlinger: I grew up writing songs, making them up before I could write. I pounded them out on my family’s tragically out of tune upright whose sticky keys hit me right at eye level. I smacked my dad’s Tijuana gut-string, holding it like a doghouse bass and hollering out impromptu lyrics about my dog, cat, shoes, brother—a childhood stream of semi-consciousness in rhyme. Haunted by these melodies and lyrics that woke me up at night, I’d forget where I was going, where I parked my car, what I was supposed to be doing. So I set out on a quixotic journey to Nashville to be a song writer. I waited tables at night, wrote songs on bar napkins that morphed into hard paper balls in my pockets, woke up early and wrote all day as my son and I played pirates or cowboys in the strip of grass outside our little crappy apartment. I pitched songs all over town to every publisher, artist, plugger, record executive, or poser I met. Eventually I parlayed hard work and average talent into a good little career. (What a delicious scam.) The driving force behind my preoccupation remains the power of a song. Today, just like when I was a kid listening to the radio in our ’72 Microbus, a great song hypnotizes me, taking the entire roller coaster ride of emotions that you feel in a week and squeezing it into a few compact minutes where time stops.

In Nashville, song writers strive to find that magic marriage of lyrics and melody that says the ineffable. Sometimes the lyrics alone, like the melody alone, can give you that feeling. I started hunting for short stories by Nashville writers, devoured what I found, and began writing my own stories. I talked to my song writer and publisher friends and found many of them were writing prose as well or collecting short stories by song writers. I contacted my longtime friend Robert Hicks. Robert and I met through song writing and share the same passion for the craft. We joined forces to record short stories by Nashville song writers, like John Lomax chasing the blues of the Delta to share with the world. Robert brought in Justin. We plugged away for six years, searching for songs and a home for the project, and lucked out with Center Street.

Carrie:  How did you come to know the contributors?

Robert Hicks: In 1969, I came to Nashville to go to college. All I knew about country music was that I didn’t like it. But somehow, through proximity, or happenstance, one night I stumbled into the briar patch of country music: the alley next to the historic Ryman Auditorium—“the Mother Church of Country Music”—which, back then, still housed the Grand Ole Opry. In those days, the alley served as a de facto back stage of the Ryman, which had been built as a church and hence didn’t have a back stage.

That night, a bunch of folks lounged against the walls of the alley, smoking cigarettes and laughing. A beautiful woman, over-dressed, began to argue with a man. As their fight grew louder, it seemed to amuse everyone else. They were married, I realized. The argument escalated with accusations of infidelity; she shoved him, and he pushed back; and just as it all seemed to be transforming into a bizarre scene from a Robert Altman movie, a kid came bounding down the side steps of the Ryman and yelled, “You’re on in five minutes, Ms. Anderson!”

The woman stopped, turned to her husband, said, “Help me with my makeup.” And just about five minutes later, Lynn Anderson stood on the stage of the Opry singing “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.”

Somehow, at that moment, I fell in love with country music. These folks wore their feelings like they wore their rhinestones. Everything shone, and nothing was hidden. It seemed like a good way to live.

A few years later, after finishing school and still a bit direction-less, I sat in a bar with an old friend. Our discussion was part of that unending discussion you have at that age about what to do with your life. For whatever reason, he turned and said, “I think you should be a music publisher.”

“Really?” I asked.“What do they do?”

“I don’t know, but I think you’d be good at it—it’s a good title.”

I was looking for answers, and thankfully he wasn’t in a cult or I guess I might be chanting in an airport somewhere today. Instead, the next day I ended up at a bookstore, reading about music publishing—and I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life: be an advocate of and believer in the song writer. These were people I wanted to cast in my lot with. It’s now my world and a world I believe in very deeply.

Nashville is a small town in many ways; even more important, it’s one of the most accessible places on earth for the creative. Many of the contributors in this book are not only colleagues but also life-long friends.

Carrie:  Was there a particular story that you related to?

Justin Stelter: There were so many stories I related to. But maybe Tim Putnam’s “The River” is as near and dear to me as anything in the book. I grew up on Westerns. My passion for reading is born out of them. They took me beyond the world of my childhood and taught me about honor and justice and manliness. My reading taste has expanded a bit over the years, but I still have a heart for those stories. When Robert and I joined forces with John, I had no thought that a Western would ever show up. Yet, there it was one day. Somehow it had all come full circle for me.

John Bohlinger: Louis Armstrong said, “If they act too hip, you know they can’t play.” Nashville song writers carry that same philosophy about writers. The emperor’s clothes bit may work in pop where listeners fear that if they don’t understand they must be stupid or square, but not in Nashville. Country music is the poetry of the guy who changes oil at Wal-Mart all day, or the girl behind the cashier’s register, worried about raising her kid alone. Nashville writers say what we have felt. Like Harlan said, “Three chords and the truth.” Tom T. epitomizes the best of these Nashville writers. His story, “The Day Jimmy Killed the Rabbit,” pulls you in like his songs do and sucker punches you in the gut at the end, leaving you gasping for air and wishing you could have fixed this kid’s problems because that could have been you—or your cousin, spouse, mom, son, somebody you love.

Carrie:  What story most surprised you?

Justin Stelter: Every single story in the collection confirms our theory that these men and women—and all the rest of the song writers in Nashville—really are some of the best storytellers there are. Yet, that said, I have to admit that there was always a bit of genuine surprise every time I finished reading a story, since another song writer had just proved us right again. As far as a surprise within the story itself: Well, I hate to admit it, for I should have seen it coming from the beginning, but I guess that would be the end of Bobby Braddock’s story.

Carrie:  Which story particularly reflected the person who wrote it? Which did not?

Robert Hicks: This is a tough question for me to answer—not because I don’t know which stories reflect the people who wrote them, but because so many of the folks are friends, and I know how close to home they were treading.

You know, on second thought, I think I will plead the Fifth and move on.

Carrie:   Robert and John, how did you come up with the ideas for your own stories?

John Bohlinger: During my earlier years in Nashville, a series of bad breaks left my son, his mamma, and me living in our van for a week. It tore me up to think my stupidity had put them in such a mess. My sweet son had no idea we were poor; he thought we were camping. Getting through that opened my eyes, gave me empathy for our brothers and sisters who struggle with poverty. I saw first hand the emptiness of some charity that benefits the giver rather than the receiver.“A Big Batch of Biscuits” isn’t fiction, it’s a retelling of the experience a friend of mine went through.

Robert Hicks: I have never claimed to have an original idea in my life. My ideas come from the world I live in and know well. The story in this book—like all the rest of the stories I recount—originates in reality. It should not come as much of a surprise to those who know me when I say I come from a crazy family. In the story I’ve provided here, most of the narrative is way more true than I’d like to admit—although I did change a few details here and there, without altering, I hope, the essential truths behind it. Now most of that part of my family is gone, so it’s a little easier to tell their tales; but still, telling their story is mixed with bittersweet guilt. Again, perhaps I should plead the Fifth on this one too . . .

For more wonderful stories, purchase the book and visit the A Guitar and a Pen website. Throw your name in the hat to win a FREE copy of the book ~ Details on the Free Book Drawing page above.

Call 206-309-7318, leave a comment below or email Carrie@WordsToMouth.com