Life’s Fondest Dreams Coming True For Lee Roy Parnell

Lee Roy Parnell, singer-songwriter and slide guitarist extraordinaire, reports he has achieved two of his life’s fondest dreams:

“I just closed on a beautiful hill country ranch on 80 acres between Austin and Fredericksburg, Texas, with a house that was built in 1878.”

His new album, “Every Night’s a Saturday Night,” the first major-label effort he has produced himself, is “my favorite record I’ve ever done.”

“It’s closer to the bone,” he explains. “It was me and the guys, the people I play with on the road, and we had full creative control. Tim (DuBois, head of Arista Records) and I worked on the song selection, but the rest of it was left up to the guys and me.”

(Parnell will perform at the Silver Mountain Amphitheater on July 20 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $27.50 and $21.50, available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.)

Anyone who has heard or seen Parnell knows his music consists of a lot of visceral uptempo fire, soulful bluesiness and some very traditional country sounds mixed with enough contemporary flash to contend for radio play. The Texas redhead’s stage demeanor, meanwhile, reflects thousands of nights of playing long sets in beer joints and honkytonks.

The album’s brand-new first single, “Lucky Me, Lucky You,” has taken sizable jumps up the country hit charts, which gratifies Parnell. He wrote the song with Nashville songsmith Gary Nicholson from a saying Parnell’s father often used.

“My daddy used to say, ‘It’s funny, but the harder I work, the luckier I get,”’ the younger Parnell says. “Gary and I got to thinking about all the bad luck that can happen to people having to do with love, and how you finally fall in love when you get your mind and heart right and ready for it.

“That’s when you get lucky; when you’re ready to be a good boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife.”

Engvall had designs on TV

TV actor and comedy artist Bill Engvall, who has one of the year’s biggest-selling records in “Here’s Your Sign,” says he got onto the small screen inexplicably and from “out of nowhere.”

Engvall says he and his wife moved to Los Angeles from Texas with no promise of work and recalls he was on the road in Atlanta when he received a call from his wife saying she had heard from his agent.

“She said, ‘So-and-so just called and they want you to do ‘Designing Women,”’ he says. “I said, ‘Do what? When do I audition?’ and she goes, ‘You don’t have to. They just gave it to you.’ That was the first piece that we did on TV, and I don’t know why they did it. It was just one of those things that come from the heavens.”

And all his other TV successes appear to have stemmed from there.

“Because when Delta (Burke) got her own series and I went in to audition for that, she remembered who I was and had liked me, and I think that helped me get that job,” he says. “I was on that for a year. Then I had another series that never got to the air but we shot three of them for UPN.

“Then I got ‘The Jeff Foxworthy Show.”’

Preacher’s kid sneaky

Christian music star and TV host Gary Chapman says he was a preacher’s kid and a pretty wild one, too. He, however, was more discreet than his brother.

“I’ve got a brother six years older than me, and we’re very close,” says Chapman, host of The Nashville Network’s “Primetime Country.” “I looked up to him, admired him so much, and he was an absolute hell-raiser. He gave my parents more grief than you can imagine. The fact that he (a) lived and (b) didn’t wind up in prison is a miracle.

“I saw them hurt as a result of his actions, and somewhere along the way I decided not to do that. But being a preacher’s kid is tough in any setting. In a small town, it’s amazing: you can’t do one thing without everybody knowing it. And the preacher’s kid ain’t supposed to get into that kind of stuff.

“So I learned early on - and took it pretty much to an art form - to be deceptive, to hide whatever I wanted to do. And I took that into my adult life.”

Chapman says that impulse got him into drugs for a while, adding: “Looking back at it, I don’t know that I ever really enjoyed any of the substances as much as I enjoyed hiding ‘em.”

Demo gives singer a break

Pop-rock producer Mark Spiro - who has worked with Laura Branigan, Boyz II Men and Julian Lennon - became involved with country music because of the performance of an unknown female singer on a demo of his song, “Down Came a Blackbird.”

The singer is Lila McCann, whose first album (“Lila”) is scheduled for release by Asylum Records’ Nashville office in June. She’s a Seattle native who, when Spiro discovered her, was playing neighborhood bars and Eagles lodges.

Beer sign inspires band

The widely-praised roots-country band The Derailers used an inspirational touch in recording its second album, “Reverb Deluxe.”

“We hung up an old Lone Star beer light to give the studio a little honkytonk ambience,” recalls lead guitarist Brian Hofeldt.

Bramlett home in song

Bekka Bramlett, half of the country duo Bekka & Billy, recently bought Grand Ole Opry star Bill Anderson’s place on Old Hickory Lake.

In fact, the hottest song on the new “Bekka & Billy” album is titled “Old Hickory Lake.” It’s co-written by Bramlett, who is a daughter of noted ‘70s duo Delaney & Bonnie.

“We wrote it on the dock after I bought the place,” Bramlett says.

“Beth Nielsen Chapman, Annie Roboff and myself went over to Beth’s to write a song. She said, ‘What do you want to write about? What were you thinking about on the way over?’ I said I was thinking about how hard it was to leave Old Hickory Lake and, nothing personal, come out here and work.

“‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘Let’s go back. Let’s write a song about Old Hickory Lake.’ So we packed up her dogs, and me and her and Annie went back down and wrote a song about how fun it is. It’s all true. Moving out there and getting that place is just the neatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I hope I can keep working hard enough so I can pay the mortgage and keep it. It makes my day. It’s a hard place to leave.”