Akins Learns A Few Things About Nashville
One of Nashville’s current young hats, Rhett Akins, says he figures he was “set up” during a songwriting appointment in which he hoped to write a song for his just-released second album, “Somebody New.”
Akins, a Georgia native who in 1995 in his first year on the scene opened more than 100 of Reba McEntire’s throng-drawing shows while enjoying the big hit “That Ain’t My Truck,” did get a song out of the meeting, the one that gave the album its title. But it didn’t happen the way he was expecting.
The appointment was with Dean Dillon, who has been writing country hits for a couple of decades and a double handful of the most influential ones recorded by George Strait. Dillon is “a big hero of mine,” Akins says, adding that he had been wanting to co-compose with Dillon “forever.”
“Finally I got the chance. So I went over to Opryland Music Group, his publishing company, to write with him. I spit out a few ideas, but Dean wasn’t knocked out by any of them. So I asked him if he had been working on any songs that he and I might get going.
“He was sitting there on the couch with his guitar, and he started singing ‘Somebody Knew.’ I figured he had only written three or four lines and that was as far as he had gotten, but he proceeded to sing the entire song.
“After he got through, I didn’t know what to say. It was awesome, but I didn’t know if he’d written it and wasn’t happy with it and wanted me to help him with it or what. So I mustered up enough nerve to ask Dean Dillon if he wanted me to help him fix the song up.
“He just looked at me and said, ‘No. I just want you to pick up a copy of it on your way out.”’
Morgan admits sentimentality
Anybody familiar with Lorrie Morgan’s image of strength may be a little surprised at her recent remarks about herself on The Nashville Network’s “Spotlight With Phyllis George.”
“I’m weak,” she said. “And as far as … love goes, I’m very emotional, very sentimental, and things hurt me. I mean, love hurts me.”
Which contrasts considerably with her public image.
“I’ve been told that I’m hard to communicate with once I get my mind set on something. … But being a single mother and totally in charge of my business with 30-some employees and trucks and buses and things that go on, I have to be tough.”
Morgan told George that the tabloids “totally destroyed” her relationship with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. She said she wanted to marry him and that he remains “the most special person I’ve ever met.”
She also told George that although she and Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson discussed marriage, it isn’t likely, but she wants them to continue to be friends.
Murphy credits producer
David Lee Murphy, whose funky-country-rockish music sounds nothing like George Strait’s, says he is lucky to have Strait’s producer, MCA executive Tony Brown, supervising the production of his own records as well.
“You never hear two Tony Brown records that sound the same,” Murphy says. “You can listen to George Strait and you can listen to David Lee Murphy, and on each record you hear that artist.
“He literally makes the record around what the artist does instead of making a production and having the artist sing to it. On our records, that’s a real sparse production that fits around the acoustic guitar and the vocals and the gut feeling of the songs. That’s why he’s such a great producer.”
Murphy’s new album, “Gettin’ Out the Good Stuff,” is his second. The first, “Out With a Bang,” is nearing sales of 1 million copies and features such widely played hits as “Party Crowd” and “Dust on the Bottle.”
He started in ‘cockroach’ bar
Yoakamesque George Ducas, whose biggest hit so far has been the No. 5 “Lipstick Promises” and whose second album is due Aug. 6, is a university-educated ex-banker, but he got his start in a highly unpretentious Nashville pub called Amie’s.
“It’s a melting pot of bikers, white-collar guys and students, a very kick-back, friendly place full of characters from all walks of life,” Ducas recalls.
“Amie’s is like a cockroach. It won’t die.”