Michael Chiklis, Still Intense Six Seasons In

DATE May 15, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Michael Chiklis, star of "The Shield," on the new
season, episodes he's directed, and "The Shield"'s upcoming end
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of "The Shield")

Mr. MICHAEL CHIKLIS: (as Vic Mackey) Let's get this straight. We need the
truth. This thing's going to get a lot uglier before it gets better.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Things are definitely getting uglier this season for Detective Vic
Mackey on the FX series "The Shield." My guest Michael Chiklis plays Mackey,
the leader of the strike team which works LA's inner city streets, busting
drug dealers, gang members and killers. The strike team is fearless and
committed, but they're also corrupt. They've stolen drug money, they've
beaten confessions out of people and two of them have killed other cops.

"The Shield" won a Peabody Award last spring. The citation said, "No cop
series has posed harder questions than `The Shield' about how far we're
willing to go to let law enforcement officers go to keep us safe." Chiklis has
won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Vic Mackey. "The Shield"
is in its sixth season. Last week was a turning point. Mackey had been
investigating who killed Lem, a member of his strike team. Finally Mackey
figured out it was Shane, another member of the team, who was afraid that Lem
was going to confess to the strike team's crimes and land them all in jail.
Here's Mackey confronting Shane, played by Walton Goggins.

(Soundbite of "The Shield")

Mr. CHIKLIS: (as Vic Mackey) You killed my friend and then you almost let
Kavanagh send me away for it.

Mr. WALTON GOGGINS: (as Shane) I never would have let it come to that.

Mr. CHIKLIS: (as Vic Mackey) You let me kill Guardo without opening
your...(word censored by station)...damned mouth. I had the chance to pull
the trigger on you once before. I didn't do it. Lem lost his life because of
it.

Mr. GOGGINS: (as Shane) Lem would have broken. I took it on myself, the way
that you took it off of us for Terry. But you're going to learn to be OK with
it. Man, you just need a little time.

Mr. CHIKLIS: (as Vic Mackey) You and me, we're all out of lot of time.

(Soundbite of dog barking)

Mr. CHIKLIS: (as Vic Mackey) Lem's case's still open. I hope they catch
you. I hope they do. I hope everybody knows what you did. You don't get to
do what you did for free. You're going to pay that bill.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Before Mackey figured out that Shane killed Lem, Mackey tortured
Guardo, the man he thought had done it, trying to get information out of him.
Mackey strung him up and beat him with a chain and when there was no
confession, Mackey shot him. I asked Michael Chiklis what it was like to film
such a brutal scene.

Mr. CHIKLIS: From a playing standpoint, it can be quite miserable, to tell
you the truth, Terry. I mean, you know, you're in a room for 12 hours with an
actor that you really, really like hanging by a chain and you're slashing him
with a--now, albeit a fake chain, but you know, I mean, you want to make it
viable and everything. And it's all about a trust exercise and, as actors,
being able to give each other permission.

And I think that--I'm really, really happy that I have the training that I do
because if you don't have that fundamental foundation, it would be very easy
to sort of carry this type of material around with you in your day-to-day
life, and you really can't afford to do that. You have to be able to
compartmentalize and realize that, you know, between action and cut, you have
to be honest, open, available and touch that pool of emotion and go there, and
then when you hear `Cut!' you have to let it go.

GROSS: So how does it affect, say--for instance in this scene, the
relationship you have with the actor that you're torturing? And you're
torturing him because you want information about who else was in on this. And
he's not giving anything up because he's not the guilty person, but anyways,
how does this affect your relationship with that actor? Do you feel, you
know, bad about putting him through it?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Well, a lot.

GROSS: Do you ask him every so often in between takes, `Is this OK for you?
Am I hurting you?'

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yes, it's fraught with apologies and--you know, it really is.
You just can't help but look at a guy and just go, `Oh man, listen. For what
is about to happen to you, I am truly sorry.' You know, `what you're about to
go through.' And, I mean, like I said, you have to--it's a weird sort of
bonding where you're excited as actors because you know the material is great,
and there's a potential, at least, before you even start shooting, for a great
piece of drama.

GROSS: Do you have like a safe word so if things--do you know what I mean?
Like if something...

Mr. CHIKLIS: Well, yeah. I mean, oftentimes it depends--yes, it depends on
the scene. I don't recall exactly what it was on that scene, but yes, you
have safe words. You can just say--usually it's "stop, stop." But, you know,
sometimes, the guy--it would sound too much like in the context of the scene,
so he'll say--usually it comes in the form of saying the real actor's name,
you know. They'll say like, `Chiklis, stop!' you know, and that will jar you
and go `OK, wait, now we're in the real world here,' you know?

I mean, listen, when you're doing something that's so documentary style and so
raw and you want to go for the real, again, it's a fine line and you really
have to never lose sight, you know. Look, if I'm playing a murderer and I'm
supposed to, you know, kill someone in a scene, well, certainly, I'm not going
to go and kill them. That's insanity, so you have to, you know, you have to
create those barriers before you even start.

GROSS: How familiar were you with the multi-ethnic inner city streets of LA
that Vic Mackey works?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Oh, I wasn't really, honestly. That's been a big eye-opener
for me. You know, I knew a little bit about it because I was involved with,
and have been involved with, the Children's Lifesaving Foundation, which I'm
the spokesperson for, which is a, you know, a wonderful charity that helps
with children who are in homeless shelters in the Los Angeles County area.
So, you know, I had been to shelters, I had visited certain areas. But we
shoot in some of the hardest-core neighborhoods in Los Angeles, whether it's
in Rampart or East LA or in Compton, and, you know, I really didn't know that
there were places like this in the United States of America. They're
downright third world, you know, just abject poverty. And it's been a very
eye-opening experience. And you find yourself really, really appalled, and I
find myself, you know, oftentimes, you know, driving into my beautiful home
and, you know, looking at my wife and children and just having such a far more
deeper respect and appreciation of the world and my life and so many things.

GROSS: So you actually shoot on location on streets...

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yes, yes.

GROSS: ...in LA?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Ninety-nine percent of my shows on location. We have one
working set, which originally was on location, as well. It was the church,
which was converted into a precinct. That was originally, you know--in the
pilot, that is a live location. But they replicated it on a soundstage, and
that's the only like stationary set that we have. Everything else we pretty
much shoot on location.

GROSS: So are people who are on the inner city streets cooperative when
you're shooting there. Are there crowds like around the barriers?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah. Well, you know, they've become very, very used to us at
this point. And you know, we use so many of the locals as background, and,
you know, gang members as guest stars and, you know, the casting of the show,
you know. Barbara Fiorentino and the girls have just been incredible with
this show because they've gone out of their way to make it feel realer than
real, and I love the fact that no one makes any hay about how diverse our show
is because it feels visceral and real as opposed to being forced and sort of
uncomfortable.

But as far as the neighborhood's concerned, I mean, when we first started
shooting down there we had a couple of odd encounters where, you know, where
one night we had a crew from a major LA gang show up and say, `Hey, what are
you doing here?' And we were like, `We're shooting,' and they're like, `No
you're not. You haven't paid rent.' So we had to work out a little
arrangement and get permission to shoot there.

GROSS: Do you ever have to worry that because you are so kind of brazen and
strong and tough in the show that people who want to show how tough they are
will pick a fight with you?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Well, you know, there has been the odd occasion--I have to say
first of all, 99.999 percent of the time people are incredible when they
approach me, whether it's about "The Shield" or another piece of work that
I've done. But there is that odd, you know, encounter where, yeah, a guy will
want to be the guy who kicks my butt, you know. And I've learned how to
really defuse that situation very easily, which is basically to say, `You're
right. You could.' You know, I'm not going to get into an argument about that
because that's when it turns into, you know, a physical altercation. I'm not
going to have that happen., I'm just going to say, `Yeah, you're right, man.
You could pummel me.' And I just give it up, and it usually defuses the
situation. I start telling jokes. You know, I think there's really, you
know--oftentimes there's a way out of that kind of encounter. But, you know,
that rarely, rarely, rarely ever happens, you know, one or two times it's
really happened where someone wanted to hang that on their hat.

GROSS: My guest is Michael Chiklis, the star of the FX series "The Shield."
More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is Michael Chiklis, the star of the FX series "The Shield."
He plays Detective Vic Mackey.

You've directed several episodes of "The Shield" in addition to starring in
the series.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: And, first of all, I want to play a scene from an episode that you
directed. And this is a scene--you're not in this scene--this is a scene
where, you know, Captain Aceveda has been raped and...

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: And was forced to perform sex on the guy who raped him.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: And he's very, like, broken up and ashamed about it. He hasn't told
his wife. His wife knows that something's wrong because he hasn't been
behaving like a husband, and there's a scene in which she confronts him. And
he just kind of breaks down and confesses, and she doesn't accept it. She
doesn't accept that he allowed this rape to happen.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: It's a terrific scene. Can you talk about directing it? It's a
really important turning point in the character of Captain Aceveda.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah. Well, first of all, you have to be particularly
sensitive to the actor's process. And again, a lot of it boils down to trust.
If your actors really know that you're on their side and you want them to
flourish and you want them to be able to be accessible and touch that pool of
emotion--I mean, that's a very, very deep scene, and it doesn't take the turn
that one might expect it to. And you know, when you have someone like Benito
Martinez, who's a, you know, very heterosexual, proud father and husband
having to sort of face that potential sort of humiliation and rejection, you
have to talk to him and allow him to feel comfortable enough to touch that
pool and go to that place. It's a very ugly, dark place.

GROSS: So can you talk about what you did to make everybody feel safe to get
out these emotions, or what advice, if any, you gave the actors in this scene?

Mr. CHIKLIS: With Benny, I just basically said to him, `Hey, Benny, I know
this is tough, man, but you got to go there.' And he's like--he knew it, and I
said, `Listen, we're going to be here till we get it, so just know that--you
know, don't feel any pressure like you that have to get it in a few takes
here, you know. Just, you know, do what you need to do and get to the place
you need to get to.' And that allows an actor to go, `OK, you know, look
I'm--you know, nine times out of 10, that will give an actor enough latitude
to go through their process and get where they need to go.

GROSS: So why don't we hear that scene from an episode of "The Shield"
directed by Michael Chiklis, and this is Benito Martinez as Captain Aceveda
and Camille Sanes as his wife, and she's about to find out that he was raped.

(Soundbite of "The Shield")

Mr. BENITO MARTINEZ: (as Captain Aceveda) Those guys I fought? One of them
assaulted me.

Ms. CAMILLE SANES: (As Aurora Aceveda) But you're OK now?

Mr. MARTINEZ: (as Aceveda) He tied my hands and he made me get on my knees.

Ms. SANES: (As Aurora) They made you--both of them?

Mr. MARTINEZ: (as Aceveda) Just one of them.

Ms. SANES: (Aurora) You didn't--oh! Hey, you're a cop. You're trained in..

Mr. MARTINEZ: (as Aceveda) I was alone. I was in--I...

Ms. SANES: (Aurora) No, David! How? How could you let this happen?

Mr. MARTINEZ: (as Aceveda) Because I wanted to live. I wanted to live for
you and Sophia.

Ms. SANES: (As Aurora) I can't talk about this here.

(Soundbite of door closing)

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: It's a scene from "The Shield," directed by my guest Michael Chiklis,
who plays Detective Vic Mackey on the series. He's the star of the show.

Do you get to choose which episodes you're going to direct?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Well, usually it's determined by, you know, what really works.
Because I have the, you know, sort of added responsibility of being the lead
of the show, we have to put it in a place where I'll have the maximum amount
of prep time and time to edit, and usually it comes, you know, right before a
hiatus, and then I end up giving up my hiatus. You know, there's a week of
hiatus...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. CHIKLIS: ...and I end up in the editing booth for that hiatus time
period. So, you know, schedule dictates it to a degree, and then the guys
always tend to, you know, have something where, you know, something that's
very emotionally volatile, you know, because they know I'm, you know--they
sort of think of me as an actors' director, because the actors will feel a
level of comfort with me. And you know, like for instance this year, it was
show five, the one where Walton Goggins' character confesses to his wife that
he murdered Lem. So, you know, I tend to get those sort of very emotionally
volatile moments where something really, really raw comes out, which I love.
It's great.

GROSS: Your father ran a hair salon or a barbershop?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: Which was it? Was it...

Mr. CHIKLIS: A beauty salon. Yeah.

GROSS: For women?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Unisex...

GROSS: Unisex.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Unisex beauty salon.

GROSS: OK.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah. He's a very interesting guy, my father. He's very sort
of a macho kind of a guy. Very old school, new England Greek guy--by heritage
that is. American by birth, by the way. And he got into styling at a time
where, you know, Jack Kerouac was a cat, you know, and the beat generation in
Lowell, Massachusetts, you know. So, you know, being into style was like, you
know, was a cool thing, you know. And he just became successful at it and, at
one point he had a few shops and then, you know, now he's just got the one,
and he's primarily retired at this point. He's sort of semiretired and just
watches the books.

GROSS: Does he approve of you shaving your head?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Well, you know, what he didn't approve of is what I did to my
hair. When I--little anecdote here--I played a 65-year-old man in college,
Mr. DePinna in "You Can't Take It with You," and I shaved my head in male
pattern baldness at 20 years old. And instead of being smart and using powder
on my head, I used Ben Nye grease paint, like I did on my face and didn't
remove it properly--I would just use soap and water--and it essentially killed
the follicles of my head...

GROSS: Oh my gosh.

Mr. CHIKLIS: ...so my hair never grew back the same. Yeah, it was a very
traumatic experience as a young actor, and it actually kind of was--shaped my
career in a lot of ways. It's interesting...

GROSS: Because you had an older man's hair...

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: ...line.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Yeah. I was--yeah. So I was sort of forced to, you know,
either start wearing hairpieces, which I basically--I did, in "Wired." I wore
a hairpiece on top of my head during "Wired," ironically enough. Or to sort
of just be the person that I was and, you know, and that's what I wore--I wore
my hair normally, you know, on "The Commish," and it was really just a
train wreck of a hair situation for me. And very traumatic for a while. But
you know, I have no regrets because it very much shaped my career, which has
been very sort of interesting and eclectic, and I'm glad.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So how do you think you're going to feel when "The
Shield" ends?

Mr. CHIKLIS: Oh, you had to ask me that question! You know, right now, it's
like the five stages of death. I'm in denial at the moment.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. CHIKLIS: You know, I'm really--I have to be in denial because I actually
have to put my best foot forward and really do the best work that I can come
up with for this coming year...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. CHIKLIS: But I know it's going to be very, very hard. It's going to be
very said. Again, it's been one of the most extraordinary experiences of my
life and, you know, one thing that I can say that I'm really happy about is
that it's not going to be a situation where I wake up 10 years from now and
go, `Wow, I really didn't appreciate what that was when it was happening.'

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. CHIKLIS: One thing that I'm very proud of is my wife and I have known
from day one what this was and how great it's been and how sweet it's been And
you know what? I don't want to be a person to move forward in my life and
sort of rest on that laurel. I'm so thrilled to move forward. I feel like
there's so many wonderful characters to play and I'm really, really actually
excited at the brave new world aspect of it.

GROSS: I'll be really sorry to see "The Shield" end. I want to thank you so
much for talking with us. It's really been a pleasure.

Mr. CHIKLIS: Ah, Terry, thank you. Right back at you.

GROSS: Michael Chiklis stars in the FX series "The Shield." A new episode
will be shown tonight. This summer Chiklis will star in the movie "Fantastic
Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer."

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Bobby Braddock, country songwriter, author of the new
memoir "Down in Orburndale," on his life and work, and the
difference between old school and new school country singers
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

George Jones' hit "He Stopped Loving Her Today," Tanya Tucker's "I Believe the
South Is Going To Rise Again" and Toby Keith's "I Want to Talk about Me" were
all written by my guest, Bobby Braddock. He was inducted into the National
Hall of Fame in 1981. After decades of lyric writing, he's written a memoir
about growing up in old Florida, called "Down in Orburndale."

Let's start with a Braddock song that was a number one country hit for Tammy
Wynette in 1968.

(Soundbite of "D-I-V-O-R-C-E"

Ms. TAMMY WYNETTE: (Singing) Our little boy is four years old
And quite a little man
So we so spell out the words we don't
Want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E
But the words we're hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me

Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E
Becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E
Will be going away

I love you both and
This will be pure H-E-double-L on me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this
D-I-V-O-R-C-E

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Bobby Braddock, welcome to FRESH AIR. So tell us the story behind
this song. How did you write it?

Mr. BOBBY BRADDOCK: "D-I-V-O-R-C-E"? I had written a song called
"I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U, Do I Have to Spell It Out for You?" And it wasn't' very good
and that sort of inspired this song. And I wrote it, nobody recorded it. I
asked my friend Curly Putnam why did he think no one had recorded it, and he
said he thought the melody was a little bit to happy for a sad song. And I
said, `What would you do?' And he got around the title line and just made it
sound real mournful, and mine sounded sort of like a detergent commercial.
And I said, `Hey, let's get it on the tape like that.' And he didn't want any
of it, and I wanted him to have half, so we compromised and took a quarter of
it, and Tammy Wynette recorded it within, I'd say, probably a week or two
after that.

GROSS: Can you sing us the more upbeat version that you originally wrote?

Mr. BRADDOCK: OK. What I had was--everything else was the same except the
title line. I had (sings) "Oh I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E."
And Curly changed it to (sings) "I wish that we could stop this
D-I-V-O-R-C-E." Which made it a lot, lot better; and that little change made
the difference, I think, between it being a hit and just gathering cobwebs and
nobody ever having heard it.

GROSS: Let's talk about another of your most famous songs, a song recorded by
George Jones, "He Stopped Loving Her Today." And after we talk about it a
little bit, we'll hear it. Now, this song tells a story. Would you describe
the story?

Mr. BRADDOCK: It's the story of a man whose love was so strong that the only
way he could get over this woman was to die. I think he was a terrible role
model, a very bad role model. The man was obsessed with this woman and he
never got over, he never moved on. Again, this is one I wrote with Curly
Putnam, and I thought it was just an OK song. I didn't think it was that
great a song. And when the producer Billy Sherrill played me George's
recording of it, I went, `Wow, this is something really great.' And I think in
this instance the artist and the production elevated the song to a place that
it wouldn't have been otherwise. I really attribute so much of the success of
this to George Jones and his producer. Because after I heard it I realized
then it was indeed something very special.

GROSS: Now, you mentioned that you co-wrote this song with Curly Putnam, who
also co-wrote "D-I-V-O-R-C-E." So what did he do on this song?

Mr. BRADDOCK: He did quite a bit. We had the song split up--he felt that I
wrote more, and I had--it was like two thirds and a third. But you know, if
we had done this today, we would have split it right down the middle. As you
look back on it, it's kind of a silly process of splitting songs up in strange
increments like that, you know.

GROSS: You're talking about splitting up the songwriting royalties?

Mr. BRADDOCK: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Yeah.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. BRADDOCK: I think today--course when you look--because he and I wrote
together quite a bit. When you look at a lot of songwriting teams--when you
look at Lennon and McCartney, there were so many songs that Paul wrote by
himself and John wrote by himself...

GROSS: Oh, exactly. Yeah.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Yeah. And if they had to do it over, I think they would
have--and I've been--a situation I wrote a song with Sonny Throckmorton a big
hit called "Thinkin' of a Rendezvous" and I just wrote the last verse and I
took a third of that, so I've been on both ends of that.

GROSS: Mm--hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: But Curly's contribution was, I think it was major.

GROSS: When we hear this, we'll hear a verse towards the end that is spoken,
and tell us about how you wrote that part.

Mr. BRADDOCK: That part was not on the original song. The producer, Billy
Sherrill, wanted us to have a verse--and I'm not sure we knew it was going to
be a recitation--in which the departed's ex came to the funeral to see him one
last time. And we did, I think, three or four versions of this before we got
one that he--the producer--really liked. And that part of the song was
written, I'd say, about a year and a half, two years after the original was
written.

GROSS: Hm. All right. We'll, let's hear George Jones' "He Stopped Loving
Her Today," a song written by my guest, Bobby Braddock with Curly Putnam.

(Soundbite of "He Stopped Loving Her Today")

Mr. GEORGE JONES: (Singing) I went to see him just today
Oh, but I didn't see no tears
All dressed up to go away
First time I'd seen him smile in years

He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today

Backup Singers: (Singing) Ooh, ooh, ooh

Mr. JONES: You know, she came to see him one last time

Singers: (Singing) Ooh, ooh, ooh

Mr. JONES: And we all wondered if she would...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Bobby Braddock, the word "schmaltz" is probably not a word that used a
lot in country music, but it's a word that comes to mind with parts of this
song, schmaltz being like overly sentimental or, you know, almost maudlin.
Did you think, `This is really going to be over the top'?

Mr. BRADDOCK: I think in the hands of anyone other than George Jones, it
would have been really schmaltzy, and I think George had such--there's such an
intense believability about it, there's a little story that goes with this,
and I think it's OK to tell it. That as George was performing--and in those
days, recordings were pretty much done--the vocals were often done with the
band on the original tracking session as opposed to now when they're done
separately later on. And George had sung this once and at that time, his ex,
Tammy Wynette, came into the control room with her new boyfriend, who was also
a friend of George, George Ritchie. And she sat down next to the producer
Billy Sherrill in the control room and Billy said, `George, you need to sing
it one more time.' And so as George sang it, he was looking at the control
room, and Tammy's face was--I mean, Tammy Wynette, the love of George Jones'
life at that time, her faced was illuminated and he was looking right at her
as he sang that song. So I think that probably put a little more poignancy
into what was going on that day.

GROSS: That's the take he used, huh?

Mr. BRADDOCK: Mm-hmm. That's the take. That's the take that we hear, yeah.
He has his love of his life, Nancy, now, but at that time this was like one of
the great country music love stories, you know?

GROSS: It must be so great to write a song and have it recorded by George
Jones.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Oh, it is. It's a great honor. I've had a lot of cuts by
George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and it's a big, big part of my career and
produced by Billy Sherrill.

GROSS: Well, in fact, I want to play a song, another big hit for you, that
you wrote for George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and I'm sure a lot of people
assumed that when they sang together their songs were autobiographical in some
way, and here's a song you wouldn't confuse with that because it's a couple
who buys a ring from a pawnshop because it's all they can afford, and
everybody knows that George Jones and Tammy Wynette could have afforded better
than that.

Mr. BRADDOCK: That's right.

GROSS: So tell us the story of the song before we hear it.

Mr. BRADDOCK: I got the idea for this song watching a made-for-TV movie. I
don't remember the title, but it was the autobiography of a handgun and had
belonged to a policeman. Someone stole it from him. It ended up in a
pawnshop, somebody bought it. And the last scene it showed a child reaching
up and finding it and looking at it, and that's as far as it went. It didn't
show what happened. But I thought that would be interesting to have a sort of
autobiography of a wedding band. And it didn't really turn into that, but
that's sort of where it got started.

GROSS: Well, let's hear "Golden Ring," sung by Tammy Wynette and George
Jones. This was written by my guest Bobby Braddock with Rafe Van Hoy,
recorded in 1976.

(Soundbite of "Golden Ring")

Ms. TAMMY WYNETTE: (Singing) In a pawnshop in Chicago
On a sunny summer day
A couple gazes at the wedding rings
There on display

Mr. JONES: (Singing) She smiles and nods her head
And he says, `Honey, that's for you,
It's not much, but it's the best
That I can do.'

Ms. WYNETTE and Mr. JONES: (Singing) Golden ring...

Backup Singers: (Singing) Golden ring...

Ms. WYNETTE and Mr. JONES: (Singing) With one tiny little stone
Waiting there

Backup Singers: (Singing) Waiting there...

Ms. WYNETTE and Mr. JONES: (Singing) For someone to take it home
By itself

Backup Singers: (Singing)
By itself...

Ms. WYNETTE and Mr. JONES: (Singing) It's just a cold, metallic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ring

Ms. WYNETTE: (Singing) In a little wedding chapel...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That was George Jones and Tammy Wynette singing Bobby Braddock's song
"Golden Ring." Braddock has written a new memoir called "Down in Orburndale."

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is country songwriter Bobby Braddock. His songs include
"D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," and "I Believe the South Is
Going To Rise Again." He's also written a new memoir about growing up in old
Florida. It's called "Down in Orburndale."

Now, you were assigned to Tree Music, which I think was probably the biggest
country music publisher. Is that fair?

Mr. BRADDOCK: It was. It wasn't the giant then that it is now. Of course,
it is now Sony/ATV/Tree.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Now, what was the approach of Tree Music to matching--well, to
deciding whether a song was worthy of being recorded and, if so, who would be
chosen to sing it, or who would be asked to sing it?

Mr. BRADDOCK: My memory is of just turning in a bunch of songs, them liking
the songs and getting out there in the street and getting cut. They had, of
course, a lot of good connections. My publisher, Buddy Killen, had a very
close connection with Billy Sherrill, who was a budding producer and
eventually produced George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Tanya Tucker, Barbara
Mandrell, Johnny Duncan. So that was a very, very good connection. Buddy
Killen himself was a very successful record producer. So my publisher
produced a lot of these, so it was just pretty easy. There were not a lot of
discussions about anything. If they didn't like a song, they told me, you
know, more than likely the next song or two I brought them, there would be
something that they would like.

GROSS: Did you ever think, `Oh not him, don't give it to him'?

Mr. BRADDOCK: Oh yeah. Yeah, I thought that a lot. Yeah, and that still
happening.

GROSS: Did you say anything, or did you figure, `Well, maybe it will be a hit
anyway'?

Mr. BRADDOCK: Yeah. I think `Maybe it'll be a hit anyway.' And eventually I
became a song plugger myself and got quite a few, including the Toby Keith
thing "I Want to Talk about Me," I got that cut and...

GROSS: What do you mean when you say you became a song plugger?

Mr. BRADDOCK: I just decided to go out and start pitching my own songs
around.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: And I found this to be true. One hazard is that, when I
pitched songs myself, if there's a song they're not going to take, they're
more apt to go ahead and tell me, `Yeah, we want that,' because I'm sitting
there in front of them and then it doesn't get cut so there's a
disappointment. But the big plus to it is, if I'm sitting there, they're
going to listen to it all the way through, and they might hear something that
they like that they wouldn't have heard if they cut if off if they were
sitting there by themselves.

GROSS: Good point. I'm glad you brought up the Toby Keith record. This is
unusual, because it's a kind of rap country song. So what gave you the idea
to do that.

Mr. BRADDOCK: I think it's the only number one country rap song, you know.
There probably don't need to be any more. I got the idea for that song,
Terry, I had a friend who I talked to quite a bit on the phone, and she was
going through a lot of stressful personal things at that time and she seemed
to pretty much dominate the conversation with things that were going on in her
life. And I wrote this song and played it to her on the phone, and she didn't
say anything. And a day or two later, she called me up and she said, `That
song you sing.' She said, `Did you write that about me?' I said, `That's
right.' And so she was the inspiration for the song.

And I was producing, had just begun producing a young man named Blake Shelton
and I had a lot of success with producing in the past few years, and he went
around doing this little rap thing just to cut up, and I thought it would be
good to write a country song in rap form for him to record, and the record
label thought, `Well, this wouldn't be a good first record for a new artist,'
and they were probably right. So I took it to Toby Keith's producer, James
Stroud, and he immediately liked it for Toby.

GROSS: And he had a number one hit for five weeks.

Mr. BRADDOCK: For five weeks in a row, yeah. That's probably as big a song
as I ever had. It's probably as big as "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

GROSS: Why don't we hear it? That's Toby Keith recorded in 2001, "I Want to
Talk about Me," written by my guest, Bobby Braddock.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. TOBY KEITH: (Rapping)
You talk about your work
How your boss is a jerk
We talk about your church
And your head when it hurts
We talk about the troubles
You've been having with your brother,
About your daddy and your mother
And your crazy ex-lover

We talk about your friends
And the places that you've been
We talk about your skin
And the dimples on your chin
The polish on your toes
And the run in your hose
And, God knows,
We're going to talk about your clothes.

(Singing) Even though talking about you makes me smile
But every once in a while

I want to talk about me
Want to talk about I
Want to talk about number one
Oh my, me, my
What I think, what I like,
What I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you, you usually
But occasionally
I want to talk about me
I want to talk about me

(Rapping) We talk about your dreams
And we talk about your schemes...

(End of soundbite)
GROSS: That's Toby Keith from 2001, and my guest Bobby Braddock wrote that
song. Bobby Braddock has a new memoir. It's called "Down in Orburndale: A
Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida," and it's about growing up in central
Florida.

You know, a lot of people think of like George Jones country music and, say,
Toby Keith country music as being two different forms altogether from two
different eras of country music. You, of course, had hits in both styles,
both eras. Do you see that those two being as disconnected as some other
people do?

Mr. BRADDOCK: I never really thought about it that much. Of course,
sonically, it's different, because most parts from different eras.

GROSS: What are some of the sonic differences from the different eras?

Mr. BRADDOCK: One thing, I can identify from the different eras by the
amount of reverb...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: .,..and the amount of delay that they have, which are
technical thing. The stuff that you hear now--I'll tell you one difference
now is singers are tuned. There are singers out there who do not have really
good pitch who probably could not have gotten deals years ago who know, if
they look good, and if they have an interesting delivery and an interesting
personality, then they might get a record deal, because their flatness or
sharpness can be tuned by digital process on ProTools. Toby Keith is not one
of those. Toby live sounds pretty much like he does when he's recording.
Attitude--Toby's got quite a bit of attitude, chutzpah.

George comes from a different era, and it's more from the perspective of maybe
somebody who does not have as much self-confidence and--this was an era when
country music was about, `She went off and left me, you know, my heart's
broken.' You don't exactly hear that. I can't imagine Toby Keith saying,
`Baby you left me, I love you so much, please come back to me.' Country
singers did a lot of that back in the '50s and '60s. You don't hear as much
about that now. They inject themselves into their songs, personally a lot,
too. You know, you hear songwriters saying, `Well, I wouldn't say that.'
Thankfully, you don't hear a lot of actors saying, `Well, I wouldn't say
that,' you know?

GROSS: Yeah, well, that's the point.

Mr. BRADDOCK: I know.

GROSS: You're acting.

Mr. BRADDOCK: I know. So that's the big difference.

GROSS: Yeah. So does it bother you when a singer says, `I wouldn't say
that'? And you want to say to them, `Well, who cares? I'm the one who wrote
it.'

Mr. BRADDOCK: I guess...

GROSS: Though I guess they have a right to feel it's not right for them. You
know...

Mr. BRADDOCK: Yeah.

GROSS: ...that they can't sing it sincerely.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Of course, I went through
the whole thing in producing. In producing Blake Shelton, I saw another, a
completely different side of it. You know, I was sitting on the other side of
it, and I hated that process. I mean, I loved it in a way, but what I hated
about it was I was in the position of saying, `No, we're not going to record
your song.' And I found that very, very hard, and I found that painful. Every
song I passed on I felt bad about it, because I had spent my entire life being
on the other side of it.

GROSS: My guest is country music songwriter Bobby Braddock. He's written a
new memoir about growing up in old Florida. We'll talk more after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is country music songwriter Bobby Braddock. His songs have
been recorded by George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Tanya Tucker and Toby Keith.

So, you know, this whole idea that you can actually tune singers now, you can
digitally change their pitch and make them on pitch, does that bother you as a
songwriter? Would you prefer to have your sounds interpreted by people who
are just gifted singers and don't need that kind of technological fixing?

Mr. BRADDOCK: The tuning, that doesn't bother me so much. What does bother
me is that I think to get a record deal now somebody has got to be very
handsome or very pretty...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: ...and that bothers me...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: ... because I look back at some of the great singers, you
know, they never would have gotten a deal today because aesthetically or
cosmetically speaking, you know, I think they probably don't meet the standard
of today and...

GROSS: My gosh, even George Jones. It's not like, `Oh, what a hunk!'

Mr. BRADDOCK: That's right. I mean, I've heard that said in retrospect
about say, for instance, Marty Robbins...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Or Hank Williams, or Patsy Cline...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Or Kate Smith. You know, I think we probably would have
missed out on a lot of good music. And we're probably missing out on a lot of
good music now because they want people who are very video friendly.

GROSS: What's one of your favorite songs that we have not played?

Mr. BRADDOCK: My favorite song I've written that was a hit was Tracy
Lawrence's record of "Time Marches On." My favorite song that was not a hit
was a song on a George Strait album. The song was called "The Nerve," which
was inspired by a book called "Einstein's Dreams." It's sort of physics put to
music.

GROSS: Why is "Time Marches On" one of your favorites?

Mr. BRADDOCK: I think of it as--I associate it with Orburndale in Polk
County. I think I started thinking about this song as I would go down there
and we talk about the retirees moving in there, I would notice the difference
in the old crackers, the natives, and the people who had moved down there from
Illinois and Wisconsin and New Jersey. I know this sounds stereotypical, and
it may sound a bit bizarre, but I noticed that when Southern men get older,
their pants get lower and lower and lower, and their tummies stick out over
their belt. Northerners, as they get older, their pants get higher and higher
and higher till they're finally wearing them up to the chest area. And that
inspired the bridge of that song `The South moves north, the North moves
south, a star is born and a star burns out,' which is actually, I have in the
front of my book.

GROSS: That's great, though I'm not completely sure that I would empirically
agree with your conclusions about people in the North raising their pants
above their belly, but it's an interesting theory.

Mr. BRADDOCK: It may be a little exaggeration, but I do have a flair for the
dramatic.

GROSS: You've proved that. Bobby Braddock, it's been great to talk to you.
Thank you so much.

Mr. BRADDOCK: Thank you so much for having me on your show.

GROSS: Bobby Braddock has written a new memoir called "Down in Orburndale: A
Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida." This is the song we've been talking about,
"Time Marches On," sung by Tracy Lawrence.

(Soundbite of "Time Marches On")

Mr. TRACY LAWRENCE: (Singing) Sister's using rouge
And clear complexion soap
Brother's wearing beads
And he smokes a lot of dope
Mama is depressed
Barely makes a sound
Daddy's got a girlfriend
In another town
Bob Dylan sings "Like a rolling stone"
And time marches on
Time marches on

The South moves north
The North moves south
A star is born
A star burns out
The only thing
That stays the same
Is everything changes
Everything changes

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: You can download podcasts of our show by going to our Web site,
freshair.npr.org.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. LAWRENCE: (Singing) ...beneath the maple tree
As the angels sing an old Hank Williams song
Time marches on
Time marches on

(End of soundbite)
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