(dead air beep) (light acoustic music) - Welcome to The Songwriters.

I'm Ken Paulson and today, we are visiting with a man who's been a member of the National Songwriters Hall of Fame since 1996 and just recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary.

Congratulations.

- Yes, thank you very much.

- This is Kenny O'Dell.

He's had a rich and rewarding career as a songwriter and as an artist.

- Yes.

- Been very fortunate.

- It's good to see you and I'm so glad to see you wearing the Songwriters Hall of Fame baseball cap.

- Yes, it must be kinda rare because I saw Pat Alger yesterday at a, at our gathering and he says, "Where did you get that hat?"

So, I've had to spill the beans.

So, he said, "Well, I want one of those," and in a kinda menacing way.

- Well, Pat Alger is the President of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, - Yes.

- also a member of the hall as a singer-songwriter.

- Yes sir.

- He can have any hat he wants but ya know, all across America, young people are gonna go out and buy that hat because of your appearance on this show today.

- Well, I hope so.

- Good.

- Well, it's good to visit with you.

I met you about two years ago.

- [Kenny] Yes.

- And people who admire your career are always talking about Charlie Rich in the country years, but I came up to you and I just said I loved your 1967 album, Beautiful People.

- I know it.

- And I gather that you don't get that every week, is that not?

- No, every other week, but-- (laughing) - Well, it's a great pop record and what I find remarkable about your career is how you've been able to go pop and country and do it pretty seamlessly.

- That's funny you say that.

I always had my, I guess, one foot in this and that and the other, country and pop and whatever pop existed at that time, or what we thought it was.

But I always grew up with a, a foot in everything there.

I loved everything that I touched, ya know, that came across.

I absorbed it, ya know, used it.

Country, the jazz, R&B.

It was all part of who I eventually became.

- And you started early.

I understand that you, you actually were recording as early as 13?

- Um, I would call it, it was recording, but okay.

We were in the sawmill, my folks were in the sawmill business out of Bakersfield, California up in the, up in the mountains, okay?

And this was around 1955 or 50 and they had decided they were going to buy me, I was bangin' around on an old guitar that my dad had and he taught me some chords that he had picked up through his life there, ya know?

G, C, D, and those, A, were the first.

So I was tryin' to make up songs, not write em but make em up.

That didn't come till later and I still making up songs, for God's sake.

So, they decided I needed to get, have a better instrument 'cause they could see some promise.

They saw it in me and I'll be danged if they didn't go, there was a music store down in Bakersfield and well, they dealt in Martin instruments, ya know?

Somehow or another, my Dad had the forethought that he was a very talented man too, he is.

That that was what we needed to get you is a brand new Martin guitar.

Cool.

(Ken laughs) And sure enough, they went and got me this beautiful, and I still have it, even though it's suffered some of the indignation of being washed down the river in old Tenn there from our big Nashville flood.

A lot of my instruments and my wife's instruments were in this storage facility called Sound Check here.

A lot of the other people, musicians lost some treasures down there and my Martin was in there.

So it was pretty much trashed.

It'll never play again but still has my name on it there.

So I still keep it in a storage facility.

- Well you gotta have centuries worth of use out of it.

That's pretty good.

- I did, I did.

I had wrote Beautiful People on it for one thing and a bunch of, lot of songs.

It was my go-to guitar.

- Let's talk about those early years.

Beautiful People was a pop single in 1967 that I think went to about number 37 on the charts.

- Yeah, that one and then Bobby, he went to 36, maybe.

- Bobby Vee.

- They wanted, he topped out, beat me out by one slot there.

- I wanted to get to that because um, it's a song that got my attention in 1967.

I thought it was great and bought the album and yet it was, I'll talk to other people about you or about the song and I almost always have to sing it to them.

- Yeah.

- Because it's not a staple of radio and when I sing it, the kid don't recognize it at all but, but it could've been a much bigger hit except you record it and then Bobby Vee's people here and they say Bobby Vee's gonna record it.

You both had a top 40 record and neither of you have a big hit.

Are you still upset about that?

- You know, I was never upset about it 'cause I found, I saw very early on that that was a double-edge sword if you will.

I saw that I wasn't a babe in the woods exactly, ya know?

I saw what it was doing for me and had the potential of doing with my songwriting and I saw that.

I said well, okay, I made it.

This is, this is taking away from my record but it's also adding to my resume, if you will, you know?

And of course, then at that same time, I had the next plane to London by the Rose Garden and these things were clicking up.

I guess at one time there, I believe they all three were in the top 40 there.

My record and Bobby's record and their record.

So, things were shaping up to be for the writer thing and I wanted to be a songwriter and artist at the same time and by golly, all of a sudden, I was.

And I thought things were really lookin' up and it didn't, I never saw it as anything easy, but that was pretty heady days to have those three things going for me at one time.

I thought perhaps I could keep that up and I did for a while, but I could never follow up satisfactorily through ya know, no cigar for me.

- I just wanna add that album recorded in 1967 although not a lot of people bought it.

Has been reissued on Real Gone Music.

So, it is a classic that has stood the test of time.

- Well, thank you.

- Congratulations.

- That's great.

- So, you make this transition.

I mean, the next time I look up and hear about Kenny O'Dell, you're in Nashville.

You're in the country world.

And throughout the 70s in Nashville, you were an artist and you were a songwriter.

- Yeah.

- How did you go from really a pretty pop sound to be kind of a hardcore country songwriter?

- Well, my heart was always in that stuff in the first place and it was the makeup of who I am, ya know, or was.

We always had the radios when I was a kid, the radio dial was on country stations.

There in Bakersfield, for instance, I don't have to tell you, that's, there was a hot bed of country music, country and western music, by the way.

And that's all we listened to and my mother, she taught me how to dance, you know?

Two step anyway.

And I went there on the mountain and we had a battery operated radio and we were dialed into every chance we could until we had the kinda, take care not to run the batteries down because these ones are the big ol car battery almost, you know?

And they weren't easy, at that time, for access to pick em up.

And of course, the car radio, we always had that on a country station or and then when that'd die, or the rock and roll guys, ya know, Elvis of course and all the great stuff.

But Little Richard and you bet, all that good stuff.

- You got a good education.

- Oh, I sure did.

It was all on the radio and the jukebox.

And that's pretty much my influence forever.

- So by 1973, you're firmly established in Nashville as a songwriter and you write the song that changes everything for you.

- Oh yeah.

- Could you tell us how Behind Closed Doors came about?

- Well, here again, I came to town in 1970 here to, to work with Bobby Goldsboro and their company and Bob Montgomery who's no longer with us, bless his heart.

And to run their publishing company, they'd startin' a new publishing company and write for the company and a line had opened up there for me by, with Bobby because Bobby, he had a mixmash with a song called Honey and he also had an album.

Well, what winds up on the Honey album is Beautiful People.

And that, so there you go there and that, all of a sudden, Bobby came through Vegas, which I was where I was, well, what we were based out of at that time.

This would've been 66, just about, something like that, 67.

And I tracked him down there at the Riviera where he was workin' I think it was.

I told him I had some songs I wanted to play him and if he had time and he was very gracious.

I did play em for him and we didn't get anything cut with him but the line was open securely by them and as fate would have it, they're getting ready to start this company and I'd played out my last card there in Vegas.

I had records out and a good friend of mine had the studio there.

His name was Bill Porter who has Nashville, came from Nashville out there.

It was a funny thing how it all came together.

And Bill's studio, that's where I cut Beautiful People and a wonderful man, wonderful fellow.

He was very helpful and a sweet man.

Helped me, I always gave him credit for co-producing The Beautiful People.

Well deserved it by the way too.

Back to Bobby there.

And finally we get on the line, on the phone.

They call me, said how would you like to come to Nashville and run a new publishing company we're startin' up.

I said, "Well, is there possibility of workin', I could stay out here and run it from here?"

No, we don't think that would really do the trick.

You need to be back here.

I said well...

He said well I'll tell you what, we're comin' out to Vegas.

I mean, out to Los Angeles.

This was in early, late, late 60, late 69 and he says and we're gonna Bobby's, we're gonna celebrate Bobby's birthday out in LA.

Snuff Garrett and his crew, Sonny Curtis, they're all gonna be there.

I said, "Well great.

Fun to meet them and a couple of The Crickets."

The rest of the whole team was there.

Okay, Corki and I, we make a date with them and that's my wife, Corki, of course.

- At this point, I wanna interject at Corki Ray, your wife of 50 years is a member of the Musician's Hall of Fame.

- She sure is.

- Yeah, the only member of the family in a hall of fame.

- She's got it.

- She played for years with Duane Eddy.

- [Kenny] Yes.

- And takes credit for forming a band with you, which I understand you take credit for forming.

Well actually, we squabbled over that around 30 seconds and that was.

(laughing) - So, I mean, you're a very lucky man, I should say that.

- Oh, yes.

- But somehow, this leads you to, Behind Closed Doors, this is the same publishing company?

- No, no.

See, I got, I lost my place.

- Well relocated.

Behind Closed Doors one of the biggest hits of 1973.

And changes your career forever.

Was that a co-write with someone.

- No.

- [Ken] All yours.

- Yes sir and I always wrote by myself because that was the nature, mostly primarily because that was how I grew up, you know?

I really never knew how to co-write.

I mean, that may sound silly because in its essence, it is silly to say that and as I became more seeped in the Nashville singing, I did co-write with a couple of people, mostly my old friend who's gone for now, Larry Henley.

Larry and I wrote a lot of songs.

We had one hit called Real Lizzie and the Rainman.

But we did a lot of things together and yeah.

He's left us now too.

- So you write a salacious song.

Does this make Corki uncomfortable.

- No, you know something?

(Ken laughs) Well, in some way, well, she was a little uncomfortable about it and I guess you could call it that, but actually it was a innocent remark.

I would always, I did most of my work and this, believe it or not, because the only place I could find any real privacy was in my bedroom there, you know?

So, I was working on this title called Behind Closed Doors, one of many titles that I had put together, you know?

Just as you know, I always started with the title almost always and it took me a while to figure out where I wanted to go with that song, with that lyric.

And eventually, I did write it and I got going on it and Corki, so Corki said, I said, "Listen, I want to see what you think of this."

So, she says okay.

I said I'll play it first.

When I get behind closed doors, so I played her a few bars of that and she says, "Well it sounds kinda nasty, kind of nasty to me.

(Ken laughs) It's suggestive."

And I said, "Well, no, it's a love song, ya know?"

That's how I saw it but that was, she's the one that thought I might be gettin' into a, a X-rated territory but-- - I teased you when I called it salacious but, it was a sexy song for country radio in 1973 and it's, - Yeah, yeah.

- It's Charlie Rich singing about how lucky he is to be married to this woman and you'd all be very impressed by what goes on behind closed doors.

- Sure.

- So, do you remember pitching it to Charlie Rich or how'd that all happen?

- Oh yeah.

- Well, I have to lay the groundwork for it again.

Then I try to get right to it.

I had a song called, "I Take it on Home."

Who it was first cut, I pitched at Billy Sherrill and it was first recorded by Johnny Paycheck.

But Billy cut it on him.

Well, that went on an album and not a lot, nothin' was gonna happen there.

Well, I was over there pitchin' songs to Billy and he says, "What was that song, what was that song that we cut on Rich?

On Charlie Rich?"

He says, "Take it on home."

I said, sure, I said, well...

He said, "Well, play me some of it, ya know?"

And so I did.

He says, "Yeah, yeah, okay."

He says, "Well get on, put your guitar down and come over here and play it on," so this became a little pattern that he would do.

Put the guitar down and I couldn't play piano but I knew, but I learned enough my own self to be able to give myself, put it on a record or a demo and get the idea across.

Okay, boom-chuck, boom-chuck.

So, I started, went over to his trusty.

Is this supposed to be studio B?

It is, I believe.

- This is Quonset hut.

- Quonset.

- Okay, it evolved to be known as studio B is where, what it was.

And this is where, this is the floor or something.

This is where I, we recorded those songs.

- Wow!

- Behind Closed Doors, I was on that set too.

- In this room.

- [Kenny] Yes.

- Wow.

- Anyway, so I started playing it.

Boom-chucked for Charlie, for him, and Billy says, "Yeah, okay, we may try that on Charlie."

So, sure enough, he lined the session up, but Charlie, he said, "Would you go pick, would you pick Charlie up?

He's coming in here, da da da da da..." Okay, first time to meet Charlie is at the airport out here and he says, "And work with him on the song."

I said, "Sure!"

Ya know, I don't know why I would have to do that, but I was up for anything and that was easy enough to do.

So, that laid the groundwork for my relationship with Charlie and more with Billy also.

Slow forward to the end of 70, 1970 maybe at the first of it.

72, rather, excuse me.

And he's looking for songs for Charlie Rich again.

And this is prior to, so I'm working on Behind Closed Doors, and this, I've got this in my little hands to play for him.

So I walk in there.

I get an appointment with him and I played it for him.

He says, "Well, yeah!"

He just, he says, "Well, here again.

Well, why don't you come over here to the piano.

Put the guitar away."

And I said, "Okay."

So I went over there and I'm startin' to play this.

By the way, Charlie is there too, okay?

And he wasn't commenting on it either way.

Billy was doing the talking and they, they were just listening to the song as it came out, ya know?

So, I went over to, come on over here.

So I go over to the piano and I started boom-chucking it away.

(humming song) Billy says you, he's tappin' on the top of his ol', his piano is in the Musician's Hall of Fame too, by the way, the upright is what it was.

And Charlie, he's kinda taken.

Says, "Yeah, well okay, he wasn't committing himself them."

- He didn't get up and say, "That is the greatest song I've ever heard.

I need to record it right away?"

- No, no, that would've been fun.

But as it was, it just sort of came out into the way it was supposed to be and there's no parade or anything.

It was just business as usual.

And so, he sets the session up, says, "Kenny, I want you on rhythm guitar too."

And we cut the record and at the session and the next day, this was our publishing company, Bob Montgomery, by then and Bobby Goldsboro and as we published that song also.

And we needed a hit badly, really badly.

So Bob, he calls me after the, I don't know how we made it without cell phones in those days, but we did.

And we live to tell about it.

And anyway, he says, check, I was supposed to check in with him like I always did after a session and when we had a song on, he said, "Well, how'd the session go?"

I said, "Well, Bob, ya know, I can't tell.

I don't know.

It sounded pretty good to me," and Bob would have to tell it later.

He says and right then, his enthusiastic egg, it just plummeted, ya know?

I didn't make it, sounded like nothing was happening.

And I was just a matter of fact fellow about that stuff, ya know?

Sounded pretty good.

I couldn't say it was a smash, again, to that, ya know?

I have no expectations except it was recorded and now, Billy Sherrill, he called that, he thought it was a smash all along.

- And for those who may not know the name Billy Sherrill.

- [Kenny] Yes.

- Maybe the greatest producer of country music, certainly in that era.

- You betcha.

- He, everything he touched turned to gold.

- You bet.

The stamp was all over the 70s there, you bet.

- Well, this song goes on to be not just a hit, a massive hit.

In fact, it's been, it's been estimated that it may be one of the 50 most played songs in world history.

- That's great.

- And that's gotta be transformative.

Gotta build confidence.

- Oh yeah.

- I mean, - looking back, do you understand why Behind Closed Doors was such a very big song?

- Well, I would have to dissect it up and say it was because of all the people, the elements that were involved in that.

The right artist for it and maybe somebody else could've done it.

Who knows?

We'll never know.

- You know, it's a perfect record and obviously, a perfect song.

Ya know, you and I both know songwriters who often tell the story about and they've had six or seven, eight hits, and they'll go to a party and somebody will say, "Well, have you ever written anything I've heard of?"

And then they tell them and the person goes, "No, I haven't heard any of those."

That never happens to you.

Everyone has heard Behind Closed Doors.

- Just about, I mean, just about.

But it was and it was a treat from here and there, here and there to be able to have it recognized and not get that result, but you know, time changes everything as that old song went.

- You, you've got an impressive discography and resume as a writer.

As you look at your rich career, do you step back and you say, "That was the best song I've ever written."

Is there one you're just particularly proud of the craftsmanship as opposed to perhaps the sales?

- Hmm... (sighs) Ya know, that, it's easy, it is easy to step back in spores and separate, ya know, the success and whatever.

I've always felt that "Mama He's Crazy" was one of my most well put together songs.

I labored over it far too long, but I had to let it go.

At some point, you gotta just let it go.

And that was all I could, the best I could do for that time of my life.

And I have to say that I think that was one of the best songs that I have ever wrote.

- Sounds like it was rewarding on multiple levels.

- Yes and it's, and it was an obvious, another obvious thing for those, for that, those two ladies, you know?

It was tailor made.

And not really and I didn't write that for them, you see?

It came together with the title and all these other elements here, but they happened to be in the right place at the right time and we are in the same little sphere, you know, if you will and it's good that we fell, that we passed each other in the night there as old speak.

- We're all the better for it.

Congratulations on your extraordinary career.

- Thank you.

- Kenny O'Dell, thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me.

(light acoustic music)