Emery’s New Talk Show Covers All Things Country
Longtime country radio-TV host and best-selling autobiographer Ralph Emery indicates his forthcoming morning show on The Nashville Network will not be just another daytime talk show of the type with which Americans have become familiar.
“We’re not going to have any sort of adversarial situation where people are yelling at each other, nor are we going to talk about things that would pique your prurient curiosity,” Emery says. “We hope to put a lot of fun in this show.”
His one-hour series, “The Ralph Emery Show,” premieres July 10 and runs Monday through Friday.
Emery hosted TNN’s flagship weeknight talk-and-music series “Nashville Now” for a decade before the show was reformatted into “Music City Tonight” and Charlie Chase and Lorianne Crook took over. Since then, Emery has been doing meaty and highly rated TNN specials on such high-profile people as Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and President and Mrs. George Bush. He’s also seen his two volumes of autobiography, “Memories” and “More Memories,” each make The New York Times best-seller list, opening the gates for the flood of country autobiographies of the past few years.
But the 62-year-old, a Nashville institution, isn’t the retiring type. The morning show was his idea and, although he presently is still working out the format, he says he doesn’t want to make this just a repeat of “Nashville Now.”
One of the departures he is considering is regular, week-long telephone visits to prominent morning disc jockeys in such major cities as Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago, in which “we will be on their air and they will be on ours,” to promote the show.
He also envisions “breaking new ground for TNN with a regular newscast and a brief look at the nationwide weather,” adding that a once-a-week cooking feature also has been suggested.
Gill grateful for success
Vince Gill, who probably has vocally backed up almost as many records for friends as Emmylou Harris and Waylon Jennings have over the years, says that having become hugely successful after years of being otherwise has changed everything about his life “except my perception of what I’m doing and how I feel about it.”
He started backing a lot of records when he was just another aspiring Nashville artist, and he has just kept doing it. He professes to be as proud of his subordinate efforts as he is those in which he is at center microphone.
“I think those things that I contribute to other people’s records are equally as important as what they’re contributing to the record,” he says. “When I’m singing on one of Patty (Loveless)’s records and it comes on the radio, I turn it up and I’m just as excited about that as I am hearing my own.”
Stuart out for fun
In his own handwriting, Marty Stuart tells readers of his fan club publication that 1994 for him “was a time of change. I was looking for new energy and inspiration. Any of you that know me understand that I have to keep things fresh, exciting and a little dangerous. I have no desire to do it like anybody else. Country music does not need any more imitators. It needs people who truly love the music and the people that support it. … I’m going to keep on until I find the top, and I fully intend on having all of the fun I can stand until that happens.”