Country Music Broke My Brain (39 page)

The crowning glory of Chris' view of life was during an interview. I know he won't like this, but I am pretty sure this is how it happened. Chris' girlfriend was expecting a baby. He announced on the air, “My kid is gonna be the most amazing and brilliant kid ever.” Fair enough. Every father thinks his spawn is better than anybody else's. I know I thought that. However, Chris went further than any proud papa had ever gone before. He said that during their sonogram he could see his son's image. We're talking in the womb now. Chris announced to the radio public, “When I say smile, he smiles.”

I smiled, too, and said, “Maybe he recognizes Daddy's voice.”

Chris pressed ahead. “No, he hears the word and knows what it means. I say smile and he does.”

I asked as gently as I could, “So, your baby speaks English in the womb?”

Dad swelled up and said, “Yes, isn't that amazing?” The conversation continued on from there, but I was kind of reeling at the incredible news of the fetus that was already communicating with the outside world.

When I was driving home, my cell phone rang, and it was Jamie O'Neal of “There Is No Arizona” and “When I Think about Angels” hit records. We're great friends, and I love her. She is also one of the most amazing singers on the planet. She did several demos of my songs and lifted them to a better place. It's scary how good she is.

Jamie paused and said, “Did I just hear Chris Cagle say his kid can understand English and he's not even born yet?” I confirmed what she'd heard. “Wow,” Jamie almost sang (which is just how her voice is). “That is about the most unbelievable thing I've ever heard.”

I told her, “Yeah, but he's a proud father-to-be and maybe a little excited.”

Jamie replied, “Excited is one thing, but that is pretty out there. An unborn talking baby! I just wanted to make sure I heard what I heard this morning.” We made plans to catch up soon and said good-bye.

You know what? Sometimes the excitement of fatherhood causes you to have an unborn English-speaking baby. (Or to think you have one.) It's a miracle, as I know from having Autumn, the most amazing daughter anyone ever had. I haven't seen Chris in quite awhile, but I hope he's somewhere singing “What a Beautiful Day.”

The Flatts

AS
I WALKED PAST the bedroom, I heard a frustrated search going on. Drawers were being opened and closed, and my wife was talking out loud to herself. She was obviously hunting for something she needed that very moment. I half-shouted, “What did you lose, honey bun?” She gave that vague “to herself and not to me” answer, “I can
not
find my under-why-er.” That's how she said it. Under-WHY-er. Look, the girl grew up in Kentucky and had lived in Tennessee for most of her life, but I didn't remember her accent being so strong.

This was rural, in-the-sticks stuff. It sounded like people who pronounce words like “cold” as “code.” Or if they are enjoying the fried catfish, it's DEE-lish-ious. It's country-speak, where one-syllable words suddenly have three, and cities like “Shelbyville” turn into one syllable—“Shelbv'l.”

I wandered in to examine her newfound speech patterns in person and to also watch her search. She usually loses something, especially on trips. Often I wake up hearing the sounds of a thousand zippers in rapid-fire succession. Vroop-vroop-vroop, as she zips and unzips the hundreds of pockets and travel bags and luggage compartments looking for something of exalted value.

“Did you just say you can't find your under-WHY-er?” I half mocked. At the moment, she was bent over with her head almost in a bottom drawer of the Chester Drawers (which is how everybody in Kentucky refers to that large cabinet in the bedroom). She looked up and announced in a slightly frustrated voice, “Yes, it's a special bra I just bought. It's called the Underwire.” Ohhhhh, so it's
not
her accent changing, it's her clothes! Of course, I then celebrated the fact she needed such support. She usually gives me a disgusted look whenever I appreciate her talents. The woman is impossible to please. Suddenly it was an Aha! moment. There, among scores of frilly lavender unmentionables (that I just mentioned), she snatched out a silky piece of dangling garment and pronounced it as her Under-why-er.

All this is to bring me to my story of the Flatts. Rascal Flatts—Gary LaVox, Joe Don Rooney, and Jay DeMarcus—known mostly on the “Row” and in radio as the Flatts.

If you combined the Everly Brothers and the Gibb Brothers and the Marx Brothers, you'd get Rascal Flatts. They are that wonderful gumbo of great musicianship, songwriting, and general wackiness. Because one of my closest friends, Trey Turner, was their manager through much of their successful career, I was connected to them a bit.

Gary LaVox is, to me, the iPhone 5 of singers. You just wonder how it works. I've been in studios and watched it. I've written songs with him and watched it. It just comes so effortlessly, it kind of makes you angry. Nobody should be able to sing like that with one tonsil tied behind his back. He is LaVox, i.e., “The Voice.” If you listen closely to Gary sing, you'll notice he also uses
all
the notes. If the melody is near several other notes, by God, he'll sing those, too, just in case you want to hear every note close to the real note. If notes were people, he'd be China.

The funny thing to me is that, instead of wowing a crowd of 20,000 rabid fans, Gary is just as happy sitting in a duck blind at five in the morning in thirty-degree rain. You haven't lived 'til you've waited for Gary to show up on his motorcycle with a German pot on his head. I've argued with him for years that the sport of hunting ain't all that sportin'. He couldn't care less and lives to look down the barrel of a weapon at the unluckiest deer in the world. He's as quick as anybody I know with a quip and is generous with his time. And I've never seen his wife naked.

Joe Don Rooney is the quiet sex symbol. I have played golf with Joe Don and his dad several times, and I know the little acorn is near the oak. His father is a gentle soul. Joe Don listens and cares. He also has a freaky Barry Gibb falsetto that you probably don't know you've heard singing up above Gary. Joe Don is also married to Tiffany Fallon. Tiff is a Playboy Playmate of the Year. She had apparently visited the radio station where I worked one afternoon. In my studio on my soundboard, she left a
Playboy
folded out and had signed it in a low and lusty place. I have never seen Gary LaVox's wife naked.

The final member of the group is the one I'm probably closest to, Jay DeMarcus. He's also married to an Allison. She's a babe, too. These guys
all
hit the Lovely Lottery. Jay's a bass player, a singer, a songwriter, and a producer. Check out his work on the last Chicago album. He also has a golf swing that isn't supposed to exist in nature. Defying all natural laws of physics and luck, he can swat the white pill forward in jaw-dropping swoops and curves. Joe Don can whack it, too, but Jay is his own special category.

As Trey (then the Flatts' manager) and I stood on a tee somewhere, he mentioned a Flatts song, “I'm Movin' On.” My producer, Devon, had already discovered this tune on her own and had played it for me with that “Listen to
this
” look that people get. She was right. The story I got later was that “I'm Movin' On” was rejected by some people at the record company to even be recorded. Then it was rejected as an album cut. It was certainly never going to be a single release. Guess who played it. Guess who deserves zero credit for anything other than listening to people who knew an amazing song when they heard it. It was one of those wonderful warm exciting moments when you see a song being born. Trey drove their label's record execs around Nashville to record stores. (Remember when they actually had stores full of records for sale?) The Rascal Flatts bin was empty. People, ultimately the smartest or worst judges of hit songs, had heard it a few times and immediately said the magic words, “Where can I buy that?” I can't tell you the number of times people have called me to inquire where they might purchase a song I was playing. I always told them area muffler shops or flea markets in Uruguay. They accepted my answer and, I assume, headed to Midas.

I've also been told by the Flatts themselves that “I'm Movin' On” changed their careers. Suddenly, they were on another level. Their audience was bigger than ever, and it ignited a rocket under them. They are gracious to say I played the thing, but the truth is they
made
the thing. They wanted that song. They sang that song. The Flatts are stars because of their own talents.

As far as I can determine, Gary LaVox has never seen my wife naked. Or even in her under-why-er.

Taylor Swift

I
HAD NO IDEA she was only fifteen when I met her in Nashville at BMI during a performing rights soiree, where the organization's songwriters and publishers, as well as numerous artists, gather annually to honor the music. She was being escorted by one of the nicest guys in the business, Scott Borchetta, who runs Big Machine Records.

Scott and I have a long history and friendship. It was Scott who worked one of my songs that had been recorded by George Strait called “The Big One,” and made it the No. 1 song in the nation. I also knew his father from his record promotion business.

Scott's blonde, elegant, and amazingly mature “date” at BMI that evening was Taylor Swift, who was the first artist he had signed to his then fledging label. I didn't know who she was back some eight or nine years ago, but I did know I was truly impressed with her. As we chatted for some time before the ceremony began, we discussed her writing and her singing and her dreams. I remember watching her walk away, thinking she was probably going to get everything she wanted.

Scott did his job. A lot of people take credit for Taylor Swift. Certainly her parents, who moved to nearby Hendersonville to let their daughter take a shot at the big spotlight, deserve the “belief” award. But it's Mr. Borchetta, in all his Italian designer clothes glory, who deserves the “genius” award. He put it all on the line and started a company, raised the money, hired the right people, and set forth on a run of success rarely seen in any business. It's always easy to look back and say, as I do, that this person or that person has “got it.” It's a lot tougher to actually do the work, take the risk, and make the decisions based solely on a gut instinct that somebody can break through.

For an artist to succeed, it's actually pretty rare—a combination of luck and sweat and songs and looks—and an angel or two. Taylor Swift had all those things and more. She had beauty, brains, and a laser vision of where she was going that I've never seen in anyone so young. And, “bonus time,” she's funny, with comedic timing and a sense of improv that is a natural gift. Throw in “hit songwriter” in the star-making machine and what you get is the Taylor of today.

Taylor happened to be a guest on my radio show the same day that a large group from Leadership Music was visiting me at the station. Leadership Music is a great program where a select group of executives representing different sides of the business converge for a full day once a month to learn from each other. Taylor waltzed into the studio in a gossamer summer dress, carrying a big guitar and an even bigger smile. I interviewed her not really knowing much about her, except that Scott believed in all her tomorrows. She sang, she was funny, she laughed. She threw her head back and just let loose. Everyone in the room loved her, most of all me.

Thus began a radio romance. I played each new song with an honest enthusiasm about how great it was. Meanwhile, her father wrote me notes about his kids listening to me around the breakfast table before high school classes and said how great it was to be listening and laughing together. I got a call from her every now and then. She tweeted with great humor something I said about her, such as when I said her dad was walking around Hendersonville in a white robe and an aluminum hat. Like all teenagers, Taylor seemed to enjoy poking fun at her parental unit.