(upbeat music) - Welcome to "The Songwriters," I'm Ken Paulson and our guest today is the great K.T.

Oslin.

Not only a great country singer and artist, a phenomenal songwriter, the newest inductee into the National Songwriters Hall of Fame.

So glad to have you and congratulations.

- Thank you very much.

- Were you surprised by the honor?

- Oh, I was delighted, you know, usually you have to be dead to get on there and I was still alive, so that was fun.

No, it's fabulous, I dance about it every day.

- That's great, well, very much deserved.

And what I love about it is that you are widely known and respected as an artist.

A lot of people don't know that so much of your success had to do with you being a songwriter, creating your own art.

- Yeah, that was the only way to do it.

I started writing just to kill time in between auditions as an actor.

I thought I was gonna be an actor, I was sure I was gonna be an actor and once I got in the real business in New York of acting and just being on stage, I didn't like it.

I found it kind of dull 'cause it had to be so the same, it had to be the same, you flick your arm here and you do it the same way here the next night.

- That darn Broadway.

- That darn Broadway, you want everything perfect.

And it just, it didn't fit me.

I need to be looser than that.

- Well, you talk about it wasn't satisfying, but you were genuinely quite successful.

You were in the choruses of some of the biggest shows.

- Yeah.

- Can you tell us a little bit about that part of your career?

- Well, it started with my sister-in-law at the time came to me, she says, "Are you gonna audition "for the Hello Dolly company that's coming down?

"They need a singer, a female and a male, "they need two replacements."

And I said, "Well, I didn't know anything about it, "I never do."

And I said, "But sure I will."

So I went down and I sang on a Friday.

What did I sing?

♪ Summertime and the livin' is easy ♪ And I got it.

And we left Monday for a year tour with Carole Channing.

- Wow.

- And the original company, I just slipped right in.

And I did that for a year and then they asked me, "Would you like to join the New York company?"

I said, "Well, I believe I would."

(laughs) That's not bad.

And I did that and I moved to New York with a job and that's unheard of.

And I went into that and then I did it with Betty Grable.

- Oh, wow.

- And then the other company took in Pearl Bailey.

And they came in and we all got fired.

You can leave now.

And then I started doing some commercial work, just piddling around, trying to stay in there.

And I grew further and further away from the acting thing.

The parents of a fellow I used to date asked me if I wanted their piano.

I said, "Well, I'd love to have your piano."

And I had taken classical piano.

(scatting) I just kind of noodled with it.

And then I asked him to teach me some pop stuff.

I said, "Teach me some kind of groove."

And I learned to do that.

And again, waiting for the phone to ring, I started, I wrote a song based on something I read on a bathroom wall in a little town in South Carolina, due West, I think.

I'd gone in there and it was very neat.

Amongst all the scrawling graffiti and the jabbered, was this neatly, beautifully, it was almost calligraphy.

Is that the word?

- Sure.

- Yeah, where you have the beautiful handwriting.

And it said, "I ain't never gonna love nobody, "but Cornell Crawford."

(laughing) And I went out and said, "Holy cow, "I just read the most perfect country song title "that there ever has been."

Went back to New York with a friend and we sang demos together and we wrote that song.

And then I wrote another song, a silly one about game shows.

And then I wrote a ballad called "Still on My Mind."

And I went, "Uh-oh, this isn't bad."

- You came a long way from plonking at the piano.

That's extraordinary.

- Well, I don't play any better now than I did then.

It's the same, but at least it's okay.

- So, Cornell Crawford, you eventually recorded?

- Yes.

- And Mary Kay Plays did?

- Mary Kay Plays recorded it too, which delighted me to no end.

- It's the rare bathroom writing that inspires.

- Yes, it was the beauty of the craft.

You know, it just caught my eye.

And I got to talk to him on an interview one time, on a radio interview, and he thought, "Well, they're trying to ask me to come down."

I said, "Honey, don't get in this business.

"Don't stay, stay up there "and just be a nice, normal person."

- So, even though you came into your own as a songwriter after your "Hello, Dolly!"

years, earlier you were part of the vibrant folk music scene in Houston.

- Yeah.

- And you ran with some pretty fast company.

I was excited to hear about your early career with Guy Clark, which is, and a guy named David Jones, who I confessed earlier, I'd never heard of, but that's high cotton.

- It was high cotton, and none of us were any high cotton at that time.

We were just struggling along, doing it for fun.

And I ran into David and Guy at a drive-in food place, a hamburger joint, and they said, "I know you, you're from my school."

He was a couple of years older.

And I said, "Yes."

He says, "You sing, don't you?"

I said, "No, I don't know where you got that from."

He says, "Well, we sing at this club that's just opened.

"It's a folk club, and folk music was becoming the thing."

Oh my God.

And I said, "Well, I don't know."

He says, "Well, learn a couple of songs "and come down and sing with us."

So I did, and we'd sing those songs over and over, and the club got bigger.

It was a wonderful little place.

It had magic to it.

The 13 people that worked there were just great, all of them.

Frank Davis played a machine that he made out of a Fender guitar and something else, I don't know.

And it was like wild, and that was his daddy banjo.

And it just got bigger and bigger, but it stayed small.

That's the secret, stay small for a while.

And I would sing.

I was the diva of music, and I loved it.

I thought, "Well, this is kind of fun."

- Were they all covers, or was Guy Clark trying out new material?

- Well, we sang old folk songs.

- Well, fast forward a quarter century when you're the hottest star in the world.

Does Guy Clark pitch you any of his songs at that point, knowing you so well?

- No, he didn't.

We were always running the opposite direction, and he didn't, but we'd get in touch with each other sometimes quickly.

He was great.

He started writing some really cool stuff.

- And he's a fellow member of the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.

- Yes, he is.

- So when we left the '70s, you were learning the craft of songwriting.

Were you thinking in terms of, "This isn't bad.

"I could be a songwriter."

When did it dawn on you, "Wait, I could be a performer"?

- Well, when I wrote that one good song, and I thought, "Well, this is good.

"Now what am I gonna do?

"Am I gonna be a writer?

"Are you kidding?

"Why don't I be a goat herd in New York?"

And I said, "This is just too much.

"You gotta settle in on something."

And I just kept writing and writing, and I got a little better and a little bit better.

And I had eight songs that I'd written when I tried to go out and get a record deal.

And I got one.

But they didn't know what to do with me, and I went down to Nashville, and I wasn't country.

I didn't know what I was, and neither did they.

And a lot of people would say, "This is really brilliant stuff.

"This is great.

"Is it country?"

No.

Maybe in about 10 years.

And I thought, "Well, you don't know anything.

"You don't know more than me."

- I think I'm missing an important moment because-- - Uh-oh.

- Well, the whole town, this whole town is full of people, waitresses, Uber drivers, who decided they were gonna be entertainers, gonna be performers, and were looking for record deals.

And, of course, they kinda peak with Uber.

How did you, with eight songs in your pocket, get a recording deal?

- Well, first of all, I didn't tell 'em I only had eight.

I just acted like I had this massive list of songs.

But it really happened from the women, the wives of the record label heads, and the friend, and the head of blah, blah, blah.

The women got the music.

They got it right away and said, "You need to play this on your station.

"You need to play this.

"This is good stuff.

"They're gonna love it."

"Really?"

They did, "Well, what's that about?"

And it started that way.

It was always from the women's side.

They beefed me along.

- That's great.

So one day you decide you are gonna write songs for others.

- Yes.

- The Judds record your work?

- I didn't decide to write for them.

They just cut the song.

- I see.

- You don't decide.

Once you've cut it, it's free for everybody to come in.

You can't control that.

- But women seem to gravitate to your music.

- Absolutely.

- As listeners, but also as artists.

- Yeah.

Oh, I was thrilled when they were, oh, it was incredible.

How can this be that someone wants to sing my song?

Don't do it too good.

- And was somebody out there pitching or were they pulling this off records?

- I had a fairy godmother in Nashville in the form of a woman called Diane Petty.

And she had just come to work for SESAC, which are the people that do your copyrights and all that stuff.

And this is kind of interesting.

I was still in New York and I knew this guy who was a guitar player and his father knew somebody at the head of SESAC in New York.

And they arranged for us to go down there and give him the tape.

We made a demo tape in a little bitty studio like this.

And we did the tape, left it to him, and they said, "Well, this is good, "but we don't know anything about country music "and let's send it down.

"We have a new person on our staff, Diane Petty, "and let's send it down to her.

"She'll know what to do."

Well, Diane is a writer's dream.

Diane is focused on the writers.

She loves writers.

And she got it.

Excuse me.

She got it.

She got what I was trying to do.

And she just pushed me along and pushed them out of the way and said, "We're not gonna take no for an answer.

"You've got to get into this."

And so we finally got a woman that was the wife of a label.

He was the label and she was his wife.

And she said, "You gotta play this.

"No, you gotta sign this girl."

And so he says, "Well, okay."

People would hear the record.

They said, "This is great music.

"How old is she?"

- Really?

- Yeah.

- I wanna believe that was because you had her perspective.

- Of course, and I was so fabulous.

And they just said, "How old is she?

"She's not a little tweaky, freaky girl, squeaky."

And he says, "No, but it doesn't matter.

"This is good stuff."

So he gave me a little break.

And again, nobody knew what to do with me, really.

And it just didn't mesh, it didn't gel.

And they dropped me.

And I said, "Well, okay."

And sat in my bathrobe in a rocking chair in my apartment in New York for a year going, "Holy cow, what am I gonna do now?

"This is terrible, I have no money.

"I'm never gonna get anywhere."

- And Hello Dolly had closed.

- Gone, Hello Dolly, all the connections.

And Diane says, "I want you to meet "a couple of writers in town.

"Rory Burke, Charlie Black, oh, mercy, I've forgotten.

"I'll think of it in a minute."

And they said, "They're great guys."

And they were great, they'd just written all of Anne Murray's hits, just fabulous writers.

And so we got together one afternoon and we wrote a song on something I had started, gotten it going, and I said, "Well, here's one."

And that night, we went out to dinner and Rory took me home and he says, "Let me tell you something."

He said, "The only reason for you to co-write "is if you get lonesome."

- Wow.

- And I thought, wow.

- And that's something coming from Rory Burke.

- That's really something.

He's very droll and funny, but he's dead on.

And I said, "Really?"

He said, "Absolutely."

- And so you took that advice?

- So I did.

I enjoyed writing by myself better.

Control is a big thing with me.

I had control.

And it just, yeah.

I mean, sometime I would break down and write with somebody, be fine.

But I always found I thought I wrote better alone.

- So I wanna take us back to the, sort of the big bang of your career, 80s Ladies.

- Yeah.

- That was your own song.

No one else contributed.

So all those royalties are yours.

That's important.

What is the genesis of that song?

And why do you think so many people responded with such warmth to it?

- Well, I knew I wrote that song and it took me a long time to write it.

I was very careful and slow.

And I was going nowhere.

I was writing, you know, it was a big race and I kept on going with it.

And when I got to the end and I had the nursery rhyme, ♪ Hey, my name is Alice ♪ That's when I went, oh, oh, I said, people are gonna love this.

I always thought people, I never thought I was gonna be a big deal or anything, but I thought people would like the music.

I just knew it, you know?

And when I got that written, I said, okay, I'll present this to anyone with pride and know that I'm gonna get somewhere.

And that's when it started buzzing around to the radio stations and to the this and the that.

And people would say, well, you know, what about this?

And the woman would always come in, you need to play this.

She's a secretary.

You need to play this, put it on.

And they started to play it.

And I had signed to RCA.

Joe Galanti had said, I get it.

I will go with this.

And he gave me full range to just go with whatever I thought was right.

They never told me what to do, how to dress, how to look, what pictures to make.

They just said, what do you want to do?

And of course, it was just bing, bing, bing, bing all over the place.

I was, you know, wild.

And that started the song rolling along.

And then the second one to follow up that song, a single release, I think was the better.

The bigger hit song called "Do Ya".

- I'm gonna come back to "Do Ya".

- Okay.

- As great as that song was, and it truly was, the video took it additional places.

And it's actually a heart-rending song.

- There's a scene in the video where the girls are cheerleaders in high school and there's this and that.

And it's actual footage of the woman that did... she was just on the crew.

And she says, I've got some film footage of girls, you know, it'd be great.

And it looked like me.

I mean, I looked at that thing and I said, when did I do that?

And it had the footage on it.

And it just, people would see it and they'd go, this is me and my friend, about three girls that were in high school, school together and stayed together.

And it just, it hit here.

It was real.

It was not frou-frou and hairdos and dancing machines.

And it just, it hit people.

They thought, this is my life.

This is a story of me.

- I'm sure that decades after that song, you have heard from people.

- Oh, yeah.

They're always asking me questions, you know, about it.

One time, two little, about 12 year old girls came up to me at one of my concerts.

And they said, we wanna ask you one question about your video.

I said, what was it?

She says, why did you burn your camels?

And I thought, what?

I don't believe I did.

I said, burn my, oh, burn your candles at both ends.

I said, yeah, that's, she said, oh, that's much better.

It's little things like that, that, you know, people are listening.

They're really listening.

They're not hearing right, but they're listening.

- It intrigued them anyway.

- Yeah.

- So let's talk about the follow-up to "80s Ladies."

- Okay.

- A song with some attitude.

- Big time.

- Yeah, tell us about how you came to write that.

- I had a friend in New York, he was married, and they'd been married about five years.

And they'd started to peck at each other.

Well, you don't eat your cereal right, and you don't do this.

And I'd watch them bicker and scrabble around.

And I just started to write, ♪ Do you still get a thrill ♪ ♪ When you see me coming up the hill ♪ ♪ Hunting out, do you ♪ And I thought, well, that's cute.

And I kind of wrote it kind of fast.

And I played it for the band at the dates.

And they said, oh yeah, and so we played it.

And I listened to it back for about a week.

And I thought, this is not the right feel.

And I went back and I said, (hums) It was in that, (hums) You know, it was done in that.

And boy, did it work.

It won an award for most jukebox play.

- Great.

- People would go in there and get drunk, listen to it, play it, do you?

(laughs) Which I love.

- Yeah, gotta know your audience.

- Yeah, you can go with your audience.

- That is great.

And that's been covered by other people in other genres.

And it's a nice piece in your catalog, that's for sure.

- It's a great piece, yeah.

- So you have won two Grammy awards.

- Yes, by then.

- Oh, by then.

But who's counting?

- But counting.

- And the second Grammy was for?

- "Hold Me."

- And I have to believe that song means a lot to you as well.

- Well, it was a real risk-taker.

I talked in the first of it about this guy coming in and says, "Listen, sit down and listen to me.

"I need to tell you about my day.

"When I left here this morning, "I was bound and determined I was never gonna come back."

You know, blah, blah, blah, and then, oh, and then she tells him she also had the same feeling.

But they came together this morning.

It was over, now we're coming back together.

- So congratulations on your latest cut.

Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, has adapted "Where's a Woman to Go?"

and wisely changed it to "Where's a Man to Go?"

- Can't believe it.

- That's pretty cool.

- It's very cool.

I didn't know that until I got here today.

- Well, we have to get you the record.

- We do.

- It's brand new.

- I have to listen to it.

Can we play it in the car?

- I think that's doable now, yes.

You can listen to any song you want anywhere in the world.

- When you write one, you go in the car and you drive around and listen to it in the car.

If it works in the car and you get the groove going or you get the feel and all that stuff, you know you're on the right track.

If it doesn't work in the car, it doesn't work.

- And it used to be a more authentic test because it was an AM radio.

- Yeah.

- So you had no range or anything.

- Right.

- It had to work there.

So that same song, though, was recorded by the great Dusty Springfield.

Did you have any contact with her regarding her cover of that song?

- Well, I was dumbfounded when she called me up from England and said, "I cut your song."

And what?

You know, I mean, she was, whoa, she was big stuff.

And I said, "How fabulous."

And she asked me, and I have gone completely blank on her name, it's terrible.

She's a fabulous writer.

Where's Bob?

My Bob, he knows everybody's name.

Anyway, the three of us were on that record.

- So you sang backup with Dusty Springfield?

- Sang backup for Dusty on my song that I'd written, and I went, golly, this is it.

- That's great.

- This is fun.

- It tells us something about your music, though, that it can be recorded by such a wide range of artists.

- Well, hopefully, you know, I was afraid it was only girl music, you know, and nobody wanted to listen to it, and what's this about?

But it's been amazing, the songs that people tell me, "Oh, I love that song, this song, that song."

I go, "Really?

"You're interesting."

And it's just been great.

You know, there's something about, I used to iron and sing songs with the radio, and somebody's doing that with my music, too.

And it's just, yay, you know?

Nothing is better than writing a good song.

- How much work was it for you to write songs?

Did it come pretty- - Agony, sometimes agony.

- Really?

- "80s Ladies" took me years to get, but once I got that tag, I went, "That's it, you got it!"

And it was in there.

- Makes me wanna ask, was it "70s Ladies" before it was "80s Ladies"?

- No, it was- - It didn't take that long?

- It was nothing, it was just "80s Ladies," it just was.

But that tag just put it into some place, and then when you saw it on film, the film on it, and it looked like me, and you just went, "Oh my gosh, this is just so--" - As your career progressed, you had a lot of success for a long time.

Did you decide at one point, "I've had enough of this"?

- Yes.

- And how do you get to that crossroads?

- Well, because of my age, it was harder to do.

I started at 50.

And it's a hard business to do, touring is difficult.

And you're just dragging around saying, "I just can't do it."

When in actuality, I was coming down with a disease called Parkinson's, and it just was devastating me.

And I was thinking crazily, I was just like going, and I said, "I wanna quit, I don't need to do this.

I've written some really great songs."

One of the old-time writers, Irving Berlin or somebody, said that every songwriter writes one really great song and some really good songs.

And I could churn out mediocre songs 'til the cows came home, and that wouldn't be fun, but I'd only write one '80s ladies.

So I said, I went up to my lawyer and my accountant, and I said, "If I stay living the way I do," which is very modest, "can I just quit?"

And they said, "Yes."

I said, "Well, then I quit."

And I got up and left, and I quit.

- Well, I will tell you, I respect that decision, but we do miss you.

- Thank you very much, that's very sweet.

I miss you too.

It took me a while to settle down and go, "Okay, it's not so bad, but I would love to go back and do it, but I've lost my voice."

- Thank you for the joy you've given all of us over the many years you've written and performed.

- Well, you're very welcome, that's kind of you to say.

- And once again, congratulations on being the newest member of the National Songwriters Hall of Fame.

(Kathy gasps) Thank you, Kathy.

- You're welcome.

Thank you.

(bright music)