Baja Oklahoma

Epilogue

Epilogue J U A N IT A H UTe H IN S became a professional singer as well as a composer on that December night in Fort Worth, Texas, when Willie and Lonnie and the boys entertained from 9 till Overdose. In early January. less than a month later, Juanita was invited to Nashville by the executives of the Mad Dog Music Co. She was accompanied on the trip by an E",xon dealer and a country disc jockey. They went along 10 look after her business affairs. After three weeks in Nashville, she wrote a letter addressed to Herb Macklin but it was meant to be shared by all of her friends. The leiter read: Dear Herb & the Chicken FriedsI was just sitting here in our motel trying on rhinestone eyelashes and I thought you might wan! to know what's been going on since we went off on that crime spree. This town turns out to be like any other, if not more so. It's equally divided among people who look rich, and are somehow considered successful because of it, and talented people looking for work. We could start our own silver mine if we piled up all ",0 EPILOGUE the belt buckle~ we've seen. Nobody has an ordinary pair of boots. They're all made out of four kinds of unborn puppy dog. Slick saw an electric guitar he thought he remembered from watching the Daytona 500 on TV. We've been to all the places you're supposed to go hear entertainment, like the Embers and the Carousel in Printers Alley. Everyone we've seen is somebody you've never heard of imitating somebody else you've never heard of-or somebody you're sick of. As for the famous landmarks. the Ryman Auditorium where the Grand Ole OpTy originated from all those years look!; like a smaller version of old Paschal High. Lower Broad, the street where you'll find Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Ernest Tubb's Record Store, is a good place to buy "adult books." Music Row is out a way from downtown. It's a nice neighborhood where about a hundred music companies and fifty recording studios have moved in on a middleincome neighborhood. If you can imagine a bunch of little modern office buildings that say "United Artists Tower" stuck between TCU-type homes, that's it. But out there is where The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is, and I have to confess it's the greatest thing I've ever experienced. It looks like a Lutheran church on the outside, but you go in and one of the first things you see in a glassenclosed display casc is Merle Haggard's pardon from prison. You wind up at Elvis' gold Cadillac. But in the middle is where 1 could spend a month. I made Slick take a picture of the uncharred part of Dottie Newton's wig, which was recovered from the plane crash when she was killed with Whoop Collins and the Whoopers. Ferd Boady's fingernails are there, and Bambi McElroy's shotgun, and the blood-splattered EP ILOG U E '9' sheet that was wrapped around Wirt Kincaid. I was pleased they saw fit to include a couple o[ Bob Wills' Roi-Tan cigars. We've been to several business meetings al Mad Dog Music, which has a house ncar those office buildings on Music Row. I've heard a lot of talk about "artist roslers" and "pressings" and "risk-reward ralios." Slick and Old Jeemy wouldn't lei me sell 'em but one song. Baja. They say the others might be worth more after Baja comes out. Baja gets released this week as a single for Lonnie and on the album. Mad Dog says they'll give it "maximized P & 0 ," which is promotion and distribution. Old Jeemy swears it's not a gamble. He says he invented "workin' between the cracks." Whatever happens, the funny suits are interested in my other songs, and they want me to be an entertainer. Scares me to death, but I guess I'll try it. No wigs, though! We're slaying in a decent motel, even if the swimming pool is shaped like a fiddle and there's a life-size painting o[ Dottie Newton in Ihe lobby. Mad Dog is paying for everything. Old Jeemy says this is "the honeymoon period." It...