Saturday night found us winding down the drive of Sam Casey’s fifty-acre Brentwood estate, bordered by the Harpeth River, and knocking on his massive door at his ginormous house. Bernadette, his siliconized, tucked and lifted, made-to-order bride, answered the door holding what was obviously not her first glass of red wine. She ushered us in and quickly disappeared with a little white yap dog into the kitchen where she was barking at the chef and the server.
The house was a showpiece. Where most homes have pictures or artwork, Sam had decorated his house with records. Gold and platinum records. Awards and recognitions were stacked on every shelf. His house was a museum to himself. What he’d conquered. What he owned.
I said, “These all yours?”
He feigned indifference. “Gifts from my artists.”
I tested him. “Strange that they didn’t keep them.”
He made eye contact. “They love me. And who can blame them?” He pointed to one record after another. “When I found her, she was waiting tables in Tuscaloosa. This one was a rodeo clown. Car salesman.” He sipped some brown-colored liquid from a crystal glass. “You two stay in this business long enough and you’ll find that it’s a jealous mistress. You turn your head for a second and she’s gone.” He made a fist. “Keep a tight grip. Tight all the time. Otherwise, somebody will come like a thief in the night and steal your trophies.”
Dinner consisted of our choice of steak, lobster, or fish. I ate all three. After-dinner consisted of expensive brandy and a dessert that his chef prepared in front of us—which included setting it on fire. I had three helpings.
Finally he took us out back. We walked beneath the portico and into a second building some distance from the house. His recording studio. He patted the heart pine that glowed amber red in the recessed lighting. “Found this in Virginia. Two hundred years old. Used to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. Hid slaves in a cellar. Had it taken apart board by board, numbered, and reassembled here around one of the best recording studios in Nashville.” He pointed to the soundboard. “Aren’t very many of those.”
He took a sip of his drink. “I’ve recorded more number one hits in there than I can count.” He shook his head. “If those walls could talk.” He looked at both of us. “Next week I’m going to record one more.”
25
What Sam thought would take a week took less than a day. Evidence of the chemistry between Daley and me. She brought her guitar and her voice, I brought me, and Sam sat behind his motherboard and slid knobs up and down. Oz controlling all the levers. Smiling on the other side of the glass.
After the fourth time through, he pulled off his headphones and said, “I believe that’ll do it.”
I didn’t like Sam and I didn’t trust him, but when it came to sound production he had a gift. Listening to the playback, it was obvious he’d captured the essence of Daley.
Her first single hit radio stations the following week where, thanks to the hype from the Ryman show, it immediately jumped to number one. And stayed there.
Unbeknownst to me, Daley had credited me as the songwriter. She told Sam that while I’d given her the song to sing, it was mine. With my first royalty check, I bought a D-28 from Riggs with a price tag of twenty-two thousand. He sold it to me for fourteen.
Along with the guitar I sent my dad a check for fifty thousand dollars. I wanted to tell him what had happened. I wanted to tell him about Jimmy. I wanted to tell him about Daley. I could not. Some things must be said face-to-face. I simply wrote, Dad, I’m sorry. I tracked the package and confirmed it was delivered two days later and Dad had signed for it. The thought of that brought some comfort.
Daley’s “Cross My Heart” tour started the following month. We were gone a year. We opened for one big act after another. Pretty soon the fans were coming to see us. We performed in fortysomething states, in several countries, and on most every nighttime talk show. We even helped bring down the crystal ball in Times Square. Somewhere in there I turned twenty-four, but I can’t remember where. Life was a blur.
Back in Nashville, Daley won Best New Entertainer, Female Vocalist of the Year, and, wonder of wonders, we won Song of the Year. It was tough to argue with a song that had gone five times platinum, giving Sam more glitter for his foyer. The emcee called us a match made in heaven. “If you want to hear what angels sound like when they sing, just listen to these two.” Later that night, to my surprise, I won Songwriter of the Year.
I stood on that stage, a trophy in each hand, looked out at all those beautiful people looking at me, and felt a deep and growing inner sadness. I was on my way. Daley and I both were. I had everything I could want.
Except what mattered most.
I stepped up to the microphone and remembered the Ryman, night after night, empty save my echo. “I’d like to dedicate this to my dad . . .” I swallowed.
Daley saw me wrestling with getting the words out. She knew the truth, so she walked onto the stage from the side and spoke for me. “He’s not here tonight.”
I gathered my composure. “Dad, I did what you said. I . . .” A tear spilled down my cheek. “I let it out.”
That brought them to their feet.
After the show Daley went to dinner with the band while I disappeared down Broadway, let myself in the stage door of the Ryman after midnight, and played to an empty house. Halfway through the song, I cracked. Couldn’t finish. I found myself facedown on the stage, sobbing at the top of my lungs.
I felt a hand on my back. Daley. No words. She just sat and held me and let me soak her shoulder. I’d been holding that inside a long time.
When I had gathered myself I said, “I need to go home, Dee. There’s some things there . . . things left unsaid.” I looked at her. “I need to clean up a really big mess.”
She brushed the hair out of my face and kissed my nose. “Can I go too?”
That’s when I knew.
The next day I walked into a jewelry store in Franklin that Riggs recommended and told them Riggs had sent me. When they found out what I was doing and who I was buying it for, they rolled out the red carpet, and the prices listed on the tags were immediately cut in half. As you can guess, I didn’t know squat about diamonds, but I’d like to think that when I gave them my credit card and bought that $9,946 ring I got a good deal. The salesman told me all about quality and cut and brilliance, and by the time I left I could have written an essay on the reflective qualities of light through diamonds. But that wasn’t why I bought it. I bought it because it looked like Daley.
Sam brought us in from the road and told us it was time to cut an album. Then he looked at me. “Now, about those songs.”
Songs were not the problem. I had more songs than I could count. Sam, on the other hand, was. I still didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but I couldn’t argue with his ability to produce, so I played my cards close to my chest. Admittedly, I was green, and five years repairing guitars and cleaning toilets at the Ryman didn’t mean I knew much about the music business—but I was not completely stupid when it came to people. And Sam betrayed what he thought about us in his eyes.
To Sam, Daley and I were little more than train cars passing in the night. He’d ride us until we wore out or something better came along. His pasted-on, backslapper smile didn’t fool me. Nor did the red carpet he continually rolled out for Daley. She had grown up with nothing, her father hadn’t given her the time of day, and Sam used this void to his advantage. He gave her nice things, played the affectionate uncle, and kept her in his back pocket. Daddy Warbucks.
I knew we needed him, and for the moment he needed us. But Sam wanted to take Daley where Sam wanted Daley to go, and I had a pretty strong gut feeling that when Daley got there she wouldn’t like where he’d taken her. But he was pretty well entrenched in that soft spot in her heart, so trying to convince her otherwise was an uphill trudge. Given that, and knowing a tug-of-war was coming with Sam, I showed the songs to Daley first. I let her pick the sound she wanted. I knew we
were in trouble when she was afraid to make a decision.
“We need to ask Sam.”
I will admit I had become protective. Maybe overly so. But in my defense, I was not trying to make Daley into who I wanted her to be. I was trying to encourage Daley to find the freedom to be Daley. Something no man had ever done. I stopped her.
“Dee, if you were going to sing with me alone at two a.m. in the Ryman, what would you sing?”
Without skipping a beat, she picked out eight songs in my notebook. She chose well. Each of those songs fit her voice, showcased her growing range and control, and allowed her to begin directing her own brand. Most importantly, because many of them were ballads, they allowed her to communicate the depth of emotive truth for which she was becoming famous.
Daley was playing before sold-out shows because she made people believe. And these songs would only add to that. We decided to walk into Sam’s studio with these eight. I knew he wouldn’t like that, but he couldn’t argue with what I’d written.
Sam was no dummy. He knew I was holding back. He wanted more control. Further, his facial expression suggested that he didn’t like the direction these songs were taking Daley. I knew there was an inherent tension between what he knew to be successful and Daley’s desire to be her own person. That’s healthy. What it becomes unhealthy is when you use your success as a continual argument for someone else’s selling out. There’s got to be some give-and-take, and with Sam it was all take. Talking with Riggs, I discovered Sam had sold out long ago. But since everything he touched turned to gold, or platinum, nobody argued with him.
In the end we convinced him to cut a “deluxe” record with eight new originals and four live cuts from concerts we would play in the next few months. We even tossed around the idea of adding in a cover or two if we happened to really like one of the live versions. Daley seemed pleased, but something in the back of my head was bugging me. Sam had given in too easily. I could tell he knew something we didn’t. I just didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t have enough experience to figure it out.
Our last request was something I was pretty sure Sam would never agree to. Prior to the digital age, music was a shared experience and recorded as one. Meaning bands or artists and musicians would gather in a single room, much the same way they do onstage, and play. They might play a song five or ten or fifteen times through, but they did it together. The recordings captured not only their sound but their chemistry. Their shared experience.
But that had all changed.
Daley and I knew from experience that what happened onstage would be difficult to reproduce in the studio, given how records were made. More often than not, artists would lay down tracks separately. That meant that when recording an album, musicians seldom played together. The drummer would lay down a beat, then maybe on another day the bass player would fill in with his lead, followed on another day by the guitarists, who might record rhythm first and then lead. The last things to be recorded were the vocals.
That made for a very dissected experience. Nothing like the stage. Further, it meant that if the record company was using studio musicians, the person singing might never meet the person playing drums or bass or guitar. The producer takes these disparate parts and then mixes them together. That means he decides how the music will be heard. He dictates the experience.
It’s how 99 percent of music was made by then. And neither Daley nor I liked it. Daley’s real gift was communicating emotion, and that happened best when we played together. Sam hated her dependence on this, but he couldn’t deny the power of the chemistry. To our surprise, he agreed to record it our way. That’s when I knew something was amiss.
We scheduled the recording for the following week. And Daley and I scheduled a trip home to Colorado the week after.
26
Having one thing left to accomplish before we left, I took Daley on a drive. We headed out of town, through the horse farms, hay fields, and rolling hills.
She laid her head back. “Where’re we going?”
“You’ll see.”
We spent most of the afternoon just driving. Her hand in mine. We laughed. Talked of concerts.
“Remember when . . .”
“What about that guy . . .”
“What were we thinking?”
Band members. Broken guitar strings. The Eiffel Tower. Big Ben. The Statue of Liberty. San Francisco Bay.
When she was comfortable in someone else’s presence, and I mean like DNA-comfortable, Daley had a habit of singing to herself. Different melodies she’d string together. Some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard weren’t songs at all. I was pretty sure she wasn’t aware she was doing it. Most of that afternoon she twirled her hair around one finger and sang. The anxious, fragile girl I’d met in the Ryman had been replaced by the radiant woman beside me. I’d grown used to her presence, her tenderness, her touch. Even her smell. Sometimes, when I was with her, I’d just close my eyes and breathe.
For dinner that night, I took her to my favorite restaurant. The Sudsy Schnitzel. When we walked up to the counter I said, “Let me order.” She loved an adventure, so she smiled and found a table.
I prepared mine with onions, peppers, and spicy mustard. I prepared hers with cabbage, onions, and that strange cheese that smelled really bad. I arranged both on two plates, set out two napkins, two drinks. Then I found her in a corner next to the glass where we could watch the guys wash and wax Sam’s Mercedes.
She took one whiff and said, “Wow! That’s special. What on earth did you get me?”
I told her the story of the old man in the green Cadillac. “Every week he came here. Still in love.” I slid my hand beneath hers. “Dee, right now life is pretty good for us. The world is rolled out on a silver platter. But I’ve known it when it’s not. I’ve known good and bad. I’ve known loneliness and I’ve been known . . . What I’m trying to say and not doing a very good job of it is this: I don’t know what’ll happen in the future. Can’t promise you much. Don’t know where we’ll end. But just like the old man in the Cadillac, I know that I will love you a long, long time from now. Sixty years from now, I want to be sitting here ordering these same horrible dogs and laughing with you. Watching you twirl your hair around your finger and listening to your lullabies.”
I placed the ring in the palm of her hand. “I’m giving you all that I have. All I’m ever gonna have. I’m giving you my song.” I slid the ring on her finger. “Will you sing it back to me?”
The following week was a lot of fun. Sam feigned happiness, even threw us an engagement dinner at his house. I knew better. He’d been at this game a long time. And he’d never lost. That’s the message he sent whenever I walked in his front door. I kept my eyes open.
On Monday morning we walked into the recording studio. The entire band. By Thursday evening we’d cut seven of the eight songs. Daley was elated. Sam seemed happy enough. Everyone agreed that we’d wrap Friday and then spend the weekend listening to takes to decide which we liked.
Thursday evening we finished work and Sam had barbecue brought in, spread across his back porch. Everyone had left the studio except me. I wanted to restring Daley’s McPherson, let the strings settle overnight to be ready for tomorrow morning. I’d fallen in love with that guitar.
Problem was I needed strings. I opened the case and found nothing. I knew I could get anything I needed from Riggs, but he was a forty-five-minute drive away, and I figured Sam had to have something lying around. I mean, this was a recording studio. So I started digging. I opened drawers and rummaged through closets.
Along one wall he had custom-built instrument closets. Each instrument had its own sliding drawer or closet, depending on size. Everything from electric violins to Gibson mandolins and banjos to Fender and Gibson electric guitars. He had one whole wall of Martins. Another of McPhersons.
I may not have liked Sam, and trusted him even less, but he and I had one thing in common: an affinity for nice instruments. We’d been so busy d
uring the week that I hadn’t had time to play but a few of them. I began sliding the drawers in and out, looking to see if anyone had tucked a set of strings alongside one of the guitars.
Nothing doing.
Last I opened one of the large storage closets where everything that didn’t have a place was kept out of the way. Music stands, boxes of electrical stuff, a stuffed deer head, Styrofoam cups, packing blankets. In the back he’d stacked the cases that went along with all the guitars. I wound my way through the stacks and started opening guitar cases. No strings.
I sat down. You mean to tell me that in one of the most successful recording studios in Nashville, there isn’t a set of medium strings?
Sam’s office was a separate two-story building fifty feet away, connected to the studio by a winding walkway. Downstairs was the conference room and upstairs was his office. I walked the flagstone path to the door, found it unlocked, and let myself in. I glanced into the heart-pine-paneled conference room and then went up the open staircase to the office.
If I thought Sam’s house was a museum, I had another thing coming. His office was his own private Hall of Fame. Warm leather. Recessed lighting. An oak desk half the size of the room. A pecky cypress conference table with twelve chairs on each side lining one wall. A gun safe discreetly tucked away in one corner. The walls had custom-built cutouts, each with its own individual lighting, where he kept his most prized awards. Pictures with presidents. More than a dozen Grammys. Two Oscars for contribution to two different soundtracks.
Interestingly, there were no pictures of wives. Or children. Or grandkids’ paintings. Nothing. Everything centered around Sam. I walked around to take a closer look and observed that he was always in the middle of the pictures. The word that came to mind was narcissistic.
Behind his desk, a door led into a smaller sitting room. A couple of leather couches. Looked like his personal music room. Or where he kept his most prized stuff. The back of the wall was mostly glass and looked out across the pasture and horse farm. A beautiful view. On either side, facing each other, were a couple of glass cases filled with three guitars. Two electrics on the right, one Gibson, one Fender; and one acoustic on the left. I couldn’t see any reason for their significance. No plaque. I eyeballed the electrics with mild interest. What kid-at-heart doesn’t love a good electric guitar? But it was the yellowed spruce top and signature Martin headstock of the acoustic that caught my attention. I flipped on the light switch and my knees nearly buckled.