They Came to Nashville

Bobby Braddock

104   Bobby Braddock I first saw Bobby Braddock at a “guitar pull” at Harlan Howard’s house on Otter Creek Road in Nashville. A “guitar pull” is what you call a Nashville party with lots of songwriters, but only one guitar. The liquor starts flowing, spirits rise, normally shy songwriters become emboldened, a guitar materializes, and next thing you know, everybody’s pulling at it. Well, not really, but you get the idea. My favorite “guitar pull” story is the one about Roger Miller. As the guitar was going around, it seemed like every songwriter was prefacing his or her song with a pitiful introduction like, “This is a song I wrote after my girlfriend left me . . .” or “This is a song I wrote after my dog died . . .” or “This is a song I wrote after my truck broke down . . .” and so on. Just real downer kind of stuff. When the guitar finally got to Roger, the room suddenly got quiet. Everybody was looking at Roger as he fiddled around with the guitar. Then he looked up and said, “This is a song I wrote while that guy was singing that last one.” I don’t remember meeting Braddock that night at Harlan’s. But I remember him and a gal sitting at an upright piano singing “Golden Ring,” a song Bobby had written with Rafe Van Hoy that was a huge hit for George Jones and Tammy Wynette. It was quite a gathering. I can still see Leon Russell sitting crosslegged on the floor singing “A Song for You.” I had gone to the party with Joe South, but at some point, Joe had bolted, so I ended up leaving with John and Susan Loudermilk. There’s a lot more to the story, but we’ll just leave it at that. Not long after that, I finally met Braddock somewhere, I can’t quite remember. It might have been Ciraco’s, an Italian restaurant between Vanderbilt and Music Row. But what I clearly remember is Bobby telling me how much he loved my song about Hank Williams, even ­ going    Bobby Braddock   105 so far as to quote some of the lyrics. I was completely blown away. Bobby was about the hottest songwriter in Nashville at the time. “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” a song he wrote with Curly Putman, had just won CMA Song of the Year. For a while, Bobby would show up—usually with an entourage that included his daughter, Lauren—at the Bluebird Café whenever I played there with my band. Once, after a show, I ended up following Bobby and his cronies back to his girlfriend’s apartment off Thompson Lane, where we played Scrabble until well after sunup. My most vivid memory from that night is of the dictionary we used to look up challenged words. It was called The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. I had one just like it at home, only mine wasn’t covered with phrases that looked like somebody had tried to carve them into the dictionary with a ballpoint pen. Each phrase was punctuated with multiple exclamation points, as in This book sucks!!, This book’s a lying son of a bitch!!, Whoever published this piece-of-shit dictionary ought to be hanged!!!, and so on. John D. Loudermilk, John Egerton, Bobby Braddock, Marshall, and Michael Gray at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Sept. 15, 2007 106   They Came to Nashville Evidently, whenever Braddock and the dictionary would disagree, instead of throwing the dictionary against the wall, Braddock would vent his frustration in true songwriter fashion by throwing words on the dictionary. For years, whenever I’d stop by Kroger on my way home after a late night at the Bluebird, I inevitably would run into Bobby Braddock. It was uncanny. We’d laugh as we’d be the only two people there. Lately I’ve been running into Buddy Miller, but for a while—like ten years running—it was Braddock every damn time. You could set your watch by it. Two o’clock in the morning? Book it. Bobby Braddock is Krogering in Green Hills. I think it’s safe to say that Braddock, besides being one of the most successful songwriters ever to hit Nashville, is a night owl. My house in Nashville November 18, 2008 So, Bobby, I’ve read your wonderful book [Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter’s Youth...