The Songwriters is supported in part by The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation Rusty and Kacie Gaston The Mike Curb Foundation SESAC, BMI and ASCAP Rich and Charlotte Hallworth Kerry O'Neil and Carla Wallace Additional support is provided by.

.

.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Welcome to The Songwriters.

I'm Ken Paulson, and today I'm so pleased to have Mike Reid join us.

This is a man who was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005, but has had success on multiple playing fields.

And that is not entirely a pun.

So good to see you, Mike.

Ken, lovely to be with you today.

Obviously an allusion to the fact that you are a man who played professional football.

And and I keep begging for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame to have this, like, pickup game.

And you're the first.

You're the first draft pick.

Look, I had my knees replaced about eight years ago, so I don't move like I used to.

It's been some years.

And and, you know, Ken, it was an entirely different time.

.

.

I mean, it's a long, long, long time ago.

Like, everything in the culture, music, poetry, theater, sports, nothing is much the same as it was back when I was in the NFL.

What's remarkable about your experience, though, is that there are people who have had success in multiple endeavors.

- Sure.

But you have been really good in both of them.

I mean, you you're not a walk on for the Cincinnati Bengals.

You were you were All-Pro.

You were you you were one of the.

I mean, you you drove a lot of quarterbacks to the ground.

Well you know what.

Let me let me just I don't want to get too far afield here, Ken.

But there's a there's a word that I try never to use and it's the word is career.

I just don't, you know, I just think we're.

Who knows why we're here.

I don't think we're necessarily here to be happy.

But I think we're here to experience, you know, and to be engaged.

So I happen to have certain abilities in two things that I loved.

Far more abilities in sports than than in music.

Music for me has been a long acquired skill, but I love.

.

.

One of my favorite stories, if I can just tell it for a minute, is about the great cellist Pablo Casals, arguably one of the great cellists in the 20th century, and he lived to be an old man.

- He was in his 90s being interviewed by a young woman, and he informed her at 92 as Pablo Casals, that he got up every morning and he practiced and she said, maestro, you█re Casals, you practice every day at 92.

Why?

He said, because I think I'm making progress.

[Ken laughs] - Right.

- That's great.

So I think I would say, Ken, whatever one does in life, if you can engage in something that you just feel like, that's why sports is a little more finite.

Nobody ever conquers music.

Right.

- The only thing you can do in music is try to improve.

- Right.

Yeah.

Well, the good thing about the music industry is you don't have to have good knees to excel.

No, what I always say is football breaks your body and music breaks your heart.

- That's perfect.

- Take your pick.

That is perfect.

I have to wonder, you know, as a ten year old, were you out there on the field all the time?

Or were you the kid in the corner with crayons, writing poems?

No, we were.

.

.

We.

.

.

I grew up.

.

.

my dad and mom.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, and dad was a blue.

.

.

Was a very.

.

.

was wonderful.

But it was a hardcore blue-collar family.

And we had a bunch of kids in our neighborhood.

It was out in the country, rural kind of.

We were like a pack of dogs running those hills and fields, and we would play football 12 months a year, and baseball 12 months a year.

And we just, we never ever thought about, you know, so but, but when I was six years old, down the hill from my house, our house was my grandmother, my dad's mother, on my dad's side.

And there was an old hand-carved upright piano on the sun porch.

And my earliest memories Ken, of life are three, three and a half, sitting there ♪ [hitting the piano keys] ♪ just doing this.

And when I was six, for whatever reason, who knows why.

I asked dad, mom and dad for lessons.

Piano lessons.

So my aunts and uncles, or my uncles and my brothers and cousins dragged that piano up the hill.

We got it tuned up so most of the notes worked and I started piano lessons.

That's fantastic.

- Yeah.

You had an advantage over other former professional football players.

You had a rich education in music and that was at Penn State.

And and you clearly loved the classics.

But to to then turn on a dime and say, okay, I'm going to be a professional at this.

How does that happen?

The first music, I think, in my life, Ken, that I was aware of, what would you say?

You hear a lot of things, but you don't start listening.

The first music I started listening to were hymns in church.

Those close, beautiful.

.

.

♪ [plays gentle piano chords] ♪ Songs of surrender.

I love that.

I always love those.

And and it just really went from there.

I remember when I was 13 years old, I rode my bike across town to a buddy, Dave Berry's house.

We're still dear friends after 60 some years later, and he played me the Beethoven “Emperor” concerto and the 5th piano concerto.

[laughs] And I tell you, I have to underscore incredibly, that I, the blue-collar house that I grew up in.

But that moment, and the birth of my children are the only things I can remember - changing my life.

Wow.

When I heard that sound.

So I've forgotten your original question.

I do this a lot.

I go rather far afield.

.

.

Basically reflecting on that transition from ballplayer to a successful songwriter.

I will tell you, the first time I heard your work was on a 1978 - Jerry Jeff Walker album - Dear.

Dear man Called Jerry Jeff , was the album.

Yeah.

I've been on the journalism side of the ledger a long time, and I was actually reviewing records at the time and pulled out that Jerry Jeff record and that first song on the record, it sounded to me like classic Jerry Jeff.

It had it had a feel of the kind of thing he would write, and in fact, it was an era in which he was experimenting a lot and adding a lot of other writers to his stable of people he would record.

Well, he always did Guy Clark songs.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

And and then I looked at the credits and it's it's not Jerry Jeff at all.

- Yeah.

How?

Talk about that song and how it got in the hands.

Was that your first cut?

Oh, yeah.

That was before I moved to Nashville.

That would have been, you say, late 70s.

- Yeah, ‘78.

- Song called “Eastern Avenue.” And there was an Eastern Avenue runs right along the the railroad tracks in Cincinnati, outside of Cincinnati.

And I was living because I was with the Bengals and I hadn't moved to Nashville yet.

And, and I loved you know, I, I have to say, Ken, you know, if I have to make some observation about myself, I'm.

I'm a primitive.

I'm not a smart man.

I'm I'm mostly heart and not a lot not a lot of brains.

And I love poetry in and I do now more than ever.

And so that lyric, that “Eastern Avenue” was really as, as often the case now, a poem may morph into a song.

But I don't think poetry and lyrics, song lyrics are the same thing.

- Right.

- Their intent is different.

And that did and I was, that song morphed into this poem.

It's a little clunk.

.

.

I wish I knew it.

I don't I got to know Jerry Jeff, and I was on the road with him a little bit in the ‘70s.

was on the road with him a little bit in the ‘70s.

- Wow.

- And but I, - you know, I'm sure some of those - lyrics are, are aiming at something they're not hitting, but they're all full of this feeling that he loved.

- Right.

- He loved the emotion of it.

And so this was in the late 70s.

I got that record.

I love this story.

I got that record and I was just like, I didn't know what to think.

My name is on a song on the Jerry Jeff Walker record.

So I get home, I take it home to Pennsylvania, and my older brother, Will is a lovely man.

He's a beautiful man, but he music means nothing to him.

So we were listening to the song and he was reading the lyrics and he looked at me puzzled with all great love, no meanness at all.

He looked at me and he said, do people buy this stuff?

[laughing] I love that moment.

I said, yeah, well, I hope so.

I hope they do.

That was that was like you said, the late, late 70s.

They didn't buy as many copies of that as some of your later work, but they certainly did.

Well, some of the later ones.

And then I came, you know.

Look, I had my head either up my, you know what, or in the clouds.

So I'm sure I didn't realize the magnitude of having Jerry Jeff Walker sing one of your songs the way I did later.

- The man who wrote “Mr.

Bojangles” Yeah.

- knows songs.

So did that give you the confidence then, to move to Nashville?

No, not at all.

First of all, I've never I've never been long in confidence to do much of anything.

It's it's following.

No, I, buddy of mine, Kenny Rogers, was a huge, the big thing in music, and everyone was writing songs for him.

And a buddy of mine in Cincinnati said, hey, I got this Kenny Rogers song, would you sing the demo?

- So I did.

He sent it to Nashville.

It ran across the hands of Gerry Tiefer and Byron Hill at ATV.

Who they're not here anymore.

They said, well, we'll pass on the song, but who's this guy singing?

They got a hold of me and said, why don't you come down here and talk to us so.

.

.

Nashville, Ken, from Cincinnati It's only four hours, was like Mars.

It might as well have been Mars because I wasn't raised on Country music.

So I came down and they offered me $100 a week on the condition I moved.

Susie and I had just got married.

She's one of 11 kids and wanted out of Cincinnati.

So while I was pondering it, she packed our stuff up and said, I'm going to Nashville.

Are you coming?

They gave you 100 a week to write or to sing?

- To write.

How in the world could they know that a guy who could sing could come down and be a writer?

Well, singing is, it█s you know, there are those that would question whether, you know.

.

.

They had heard.

.

.

I think I sent them some songs.

- Okay.

All right.

And they were very crude.

I remember one called “Stoned on the Blues.” It had a, it had a. .

.

[plays upbeat piano melody] That's all I remember and had some, some, some words to it, you know that.

Well that makes perfect sense.

It was just that, as you know, the world is full of people who can sing much smaller percentage who turn out to be good writers.

Well, listen, I, I came, I signed three, six month deals with them and came to Nashville.

And I mean, Ken, nothing.

.

.

I█ll say to these young writers who maybe watching the show, nothing made sense to me.

I grew up on on James and Paul Simon and Joni, church music.

So a Country song, you know.

And what was I what seemed to be a Country song.

.

.

made zero sense to me.

I was struggling and I only lasted there a year.

And then they said, maybe you need to go find your life's work.

And, but I did hear one cut, and it was a record made by Ronnie Milsap with Rob Galbraith producing, and the cut was, before that, Ken, I would just say maybe I'm I'm not.

You know, I should go coach football somewhere.

And it was running, singing a Jerry Reed song called “Misery Loves Company.” And I went, oh, oh there, there it is.

That's it.

There.

So it's not a coincidence that one of your big early hits came with Ronnie Milsap?

No, because after Rob, I was leaving.

Susie.

.

.

Susie would, she said, no, no, no, we're not leaving.

I have faith in you.

This is you love this, and you just need to.

I was and Rob Galbraith, who was running Ronnie's publishing company and producing him, said, well, before you leave town, bring me song.

And I had written a song called “Sad Old Moon.” I don't even remember it, but the other company hated and I played it for Rob, and he said, well, no one's going to cut that.

That's not a hit.

But boy, I sure like what's going on in there.

- Oh.

He could see, he, to this day, he said, yeah, I think there's a songwriter in there.

And I always say to young writers that come to town, the whole town doesn't like anybody.

All you need is 1 or 1 person to say, no, no, no, I see what's going on.

And that was for me was Rob Galbraith.

And I walked into his office, Ken, one day feeling like Jimmy Hoffa.

And I walked out feeling like Jimmy Webb.

- Wow.

He just made me feel like I might be a writer.

Wow.

And a few months later, I had three songs on Ronnie█s next record.

And did that include “Stranger In My House”?

No, it was the first single of mine, a song of mine that Ronnie, a hit with a song called “Inside.” And then “Stranger” came.

“Stranger In My House” came the next record.

Tell us about “Stranger,” which won a Grammy Award.

Again, these things, you know, if you bring up that I won a Grammy, I don't I want to look around and see see who you're talking about.

- I can document that, by the way.

When these things happen, you know, it's like you're not really.

No it was.

.

.

I always.

.

.

[plays a piano chord] I always tell the story on Sue she questions whether it's true or not.

That we were having an argument one night and because she was working at night paying our bills and I was down on the Row.

[plays piano chords] And I. We were in this middle of this fight that I either she said to me or I said to her, living here, I might as well, have a stranger in my house.

- Oh.

And and as mad as I was, in the back of my mind, I remember thinking, boy, that's a pretty good little song title, right?

Well, you just wait right here.

And I went in and wrote it down and put it in a sock drawer, and I went and wrote it and we demoed it, and yeah.

.

.

[plays piano chords] Ronnie.

Ronnie.

- Can we hear that, please?

♪ [plays intro to “Stranger In My House”] ♪ This is a little, a. .

.

♪ ♪ slightly different.

♪ ♪ Ronnie's is.

♪ ♪ So, if I. .

.

♪ ♪ [sings] ♪ There's a silence ♪ ♪ here between us ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I've never heard before ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I can't find the love ♪ ♪ in her eyes anymore ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ There's some changes going on ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm beginning to understand ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ When I'm holding her ♪ ♪ I Swear I feel the presence of another man ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ There's a stranger in my house ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Somebody here that I can't see ♪ ♪ A stranger in my house ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Somebody here trying to take her love from me ♪ ♪ ♪ Wow.

And then Ronnie, of course, as all great artists do, they make the record their own.

They take it into the studio.

We had a good.

.

.

It's a, it's an interesting, funky little demo that we did.

Rob did.

Rob was driving everything I, I was kind of doing what I was told.

- What's interesting about that is in part you talked about your early influences, and that sounds like an extension of those early influences as opposed to mainstream Country hit writing at the time.

I love look I, the first Country record I ever bought, I'll give myself away.

Here was Big City , Haggard.

The quintessential Country song for me, well, always, “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.” But “I Always Get Lucky With You” - Yeah.

You know, I mean the.

.

.

to me, the great, the truly great Country songs are a such an important jewel in that crown of American music.

But, you know, there I think there are a fair number of them, but it's hard, you know, the Harlan Howards and the Hank Cochrans and Don Schlitz writing “The Gambler.” You know, if you, if you spend your life and never write anything but “The Gambler,” you're doing pretty, pretty darn well.

Or Bob McDill, another.

Have you talked to Bob here?

Yeah, absolutely.

The the interesting thing about that statement, though, is you can easily say if if you wrote nothing, but “I Can't Make You Love Me.” I mean, you have to recognize that your biggest copyright, your biggest song is widely regarded as not just another hit.

And it's it's seen in the same universe as “The Gambler.” As “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.” It is.

.

.

There's an immortal to this song that I'm sure you recognize.

But can you explain?

No, no, and it would be pretentious and and look, I'm.

As you can already tell, Ken, I'm a I'm a wind bag.

Right?

But no, I'm not going to.

That's a line I won't cross.

No.

There.

I don't believe there are spirits or giving songwriters, you know, songs to get people.

But I do happen to think that if we, as I tell young writers, you know, writer, a lot of young writers who say, I write because ♪ ♪ I have something to say.

Ken, I've never had anything to say.

[laughs] But I'm I love being here in this world.

I think the gift of being alive is and I've lived long enough.

I didn't always feel this way.

I█ve lived long enough to really feel that way.

It's all in the world.

And whether we can calm, slow ourselves down, quiet ourselves down to observe that which is trying to be said.

Now there's a name I'll invoke that will mean nothing to anybody but me.

Charlene Michie.

She broke my heart when I was 18 and and and she put this there's a great Robert Burns song called “She Put The Sad In All His Songs.” That was Charlene.

So anytime I ever wrote anything with that heartache in it, it was her.

Tell me that Charlene knew this, learned this, that, she was.

.

.

She's gone now.

She, I sang, I wrote something different for her service.

And she battled the disease.

And has been gone.

No, I don't I don't know that she.

- But she was kind of reverse muse.

Well, then the worry would be maybe she'd come knock on my door, asking for some money.

- Co-write.

- Yeah.

Co-write.

No, we don't want to go down that road.

So you wrote this classic song with Alan Shamblin, and he's been a good partner over the years.

Wonderful.

We wrote a song called “Walk On Faith Together.” And what else?

“In This Life.” Collin Raye and a couple others.

When you wrote the song, did you have an artist in mind?

Two people.

Nice.

I love your question, Ken, I said.

We finished it that day.

And Alan, I always thought, this is the penultimate, not penultimate.

That's a misuse of that word.

It's the ultimate moment for a songwriter, for me, is the minute.

.

.

a song is there and you say, okay, I it it, it seems to be finished for the simple reason I wouldn't change anything.

And we had that feeling this is, this is we wouldn't change anything here.

And I said I only knew three places: Bette Midler, [Linda] Ronstadt was making records still, and Bonnie [Raitt].

And I had had a song called “Too Soon To Tell” on Bonnie's record the Nick Of Time .

So I had her, and she was we were not buddy buddies, but I knew Bonnie.

We were friends, so I sent it to her.

So when Bonnie Raitt received this song, immediately, she called you and said, this is the song I█ve been waiting for.

.

.

- No!

my entire life.

- No, she did not.

And now, Bonnie, if you're seeing this, don't be mad at me.

I got enough people mad at me.

There was.

.

.

She was a toss up between this and another song.

And the other song is a truly great song.

Do you remember Michael Smotherman?

Sure.

He wrote a song called “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” and it's such a great song.

And she, as I recall my memory, Ken, was that Bonnie said, it's between that and “I Can't Make You Love Me” and the Smotherman.

And so we hung up and I said, well, I'm not getting my hopes up because that Smotherman song is a great song.

She called a couple weeks and said, well, you know, I've been living with this and do you mind if I have a hold?

And I said well, I guess, alright.

And so then and then, you know, the time goes by and they made the record they made.

And although we were talking earlier, the single went to number 18.

Yeah.

But it has lived forever in so many versions.

And is there one cover version of that song that stands out for you beyond Bonnie's original?

Yeah, no, there are a couple that I would, I would that are, George Michael did a beautiful.

.

.

- Yes.

Not Nancy Wilson, the Heart singer, but Nancy Wilson, the old Jazz singer.

Right.

Right.

Breathtaking chart on that.

Nancy's version is stunning.

You know Paul Carrack.

Does that name ring a bell?

- Oh, Squeeze and.

.

.

Squeeze and Mike And The Mechanics.

- Yeah of course.

He did a record called I think it's called Another Hat [ A Different Hat ] or something where he does these and he does “I Can't Make You Love Me” on that.

And of course, Carrack█s what what Ken, one of the half dozen great singers alive.

Fabulous.

And it's a really interesting arrangement of it.

And so he he does it.

Kenny Rogers did a lovely version.

Prince.

It's on a Prince.

Prince put on.

You've got a Patti LaBelle cover.

Yeah, I think you know, it's... It's a huge universe.

Another guy Tank, this R&B singer.

And people say, Tank?

Yeah, but it's a great version.

- You know, it's one of those songs that we grew up with.

In other words, “Girl From Ipanema” was everywhere recorded by everyone.

And, you know, you had the Andy Williams, Perry Como, all those mainstream artists, and they would all record “Honey.” Right?

And not comparing it to your work at all.

But there were some songs that they absolutely had to record, and a. .

.

“Those Were The Days.” - “Those Were The Days.” If you had a hit in the day, era you're talking about Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Andy Williams, who else?

Jack Jones.

They all recorded that song.

And in its way, “ I Can't Make You Love Me” became.

.

.

one of one of those songs.

Can we please hear some of this classic song?

♪ ♪ ♪ I can't make you love me ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ If you don█t ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You can't make your heart feel ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ something it won't ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Here in the dark ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ in these final hours ♪ ♪ I will lay down my heart ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'll feel the power ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ But you ♪ ♪ I know you won█t ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ‘Cause I can't make you love me ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ If you don't ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ For more information on The Songwriters, visit SongwritersShow.org ♪ ♪ The Songwriters is supported in part by The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation Rusty and Kacie Gaston The Mike Curb Foundation SESAC, BMI and ASCAP Rich and Charlotte Hallworth Kerry O'Neil and Carla Wallace Additional support is provided by.

.

.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪