Wayne Carson died: wrote "Always on My Mind" and "The Letter"

Grammy-winning songwriter Wayne Carson, shown in 1997, penned such hits as Willie Nelson's "Always on My Mind" and the Box Tops' "The Letter." He has died in Franklin, Tenn., at the age of 72. (Nashville Songwriters Assn.)

Songwriter Wayne Carson was on the phone with his wife in the early 1970s, apologizing for being away from home so much for work.

"I said, 'Well, I know I've been gone a lot, but I've been thinking about you all the time,'" Carson said in a 1988 interview with The Times. "And it just struck me like someone had hit me with a hammer. I told her real fast I had to hang up because I had to put that into a song."

The result was the wistful ballad "Always on My Mind," which was one of Willie Nelson's most enduring hits. It was recorded by numerous other performers — as diverse as Elvis Presley and the Pet Shop Boys — and won Carson a Grammy for Song of the Year in 1983.

Carson, 72, died Monday at a convalescent hospital in Franklin, Tenn. He was being treated for a number of conditions and died of congestive heart failure, said Shirley Hutchins, administrator of his music publishing company.

He had other hits, most prominently "The Letter," which was the No. 1 song in the country when performed by the Box Tops in 1967. Three years later, it was back on the charts again in a version by Joe Cocker.

Carson wasn't the sole writer of "Always on My Mind." Mark James and Johnny Christopher shared the credit, not to mention the royalties, estimated at more than $1 million as of 1988.

But Carson said the bulk of the song was his. It begins:

Maybe I didn't love you

Quite as often as I could have

And maybe I didn't treat you

Quite as good as I should have

"I had the two verses to 'Always on My Mind' for a year," Carson said in a recorded interview done for a book on songwriting. But the song's producer suggested it needed a bridge, a songwriting element used to break up repetitive verses.

Carson, sitting at the piano at a recording studio in Memphis, couldn't come up with one. Fellow songwriters James and Christopher happened by, and he asked for their help.

Together, in a brief session, they came up with a bridge that includes the line, "Tell me that your sweet love hasn't died."

Carson said the bridge was, in his opinion, the least memorable part of the song. But he added, "I will say this: The song probably by all accounts would have never been exactly the same song without that bridge."

"Always on My Mind" was recorded by Presley in 1972. To the disappointment of Carson, however, it was released as the "B" side of the single "Separate Ways," which went on to become the hit, not incidentally because it came at a time when the marriage of Elvis and Priscilla Presley was breaking up.

It was another 10 years before the gentle Nelson version of "Always on My Mind" made it a smash hit.

The 1987 Pet Shop Boys rendition, with a dance beat and heavy use of electronics, was dismissed by many in the country music world. But not Carson.

"Everybody had told me, 'You're not going to like it. They changed some of the melody, they changed a couple of words and they added all these synthesizers and things,'" he said in The Times interview.

"But I just kept an open mind and when I finally heard it, I thought, 'Hell, that's a great record.'"

He was born Wayne Carson Head on May 31, 1943, in Denver. His parents, who were musicians with a stage act called Shorty & Sue, moved the family to Springfield, Mo., when Wayne was a boy.

Influenced by the sound of Merle Travis, Carson started playing the guitar at 14.

His father, who was a frustrated songwriter, handed Carson a song in the mid-1960s called "Her Last Letter." Like most of his father's songs, it ran to several pages. "He didn't know when to quit," Carson told CNN in 2011. "He didn't have a song, he had a short story."

But halfway down the third page, Carson spotted the phrase, "Ticket for an aer-o-plane," and he turned that into an entirely new song, "The Letter."

Gimme a ticket for an aer-o-plane

Ain't got time to take a fast train

Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home

My baby, just-a wrote me a letter

The songs that last, Carson said in his 1988 Times interview, whether in country, rock or dance beat form, are those with themes and emotions that strike nearly all people at some point in their lives.

"To me, a good song tells a story that everyone would like to say," he told The Times. "A song that leads people to say, 'God, that song's me.'"

He is survived by his wife, Wyndi Harp; son Christian Head; and one grandchild.

david.colker@latimes.com

Billy Sherrill - 7 country video-classics: 'D-I-V-O-R-C-E,' '...Shove It' and more (just fixing the internet one post at a time)

The classic country songs that producer Billy Sherrill, who died on Tuesday at age 78, helped deliver to the world have become American standards: “Stand By Your Man,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” “Behind Closed Doors,” “Take This Job and Shove It.”

Propelled by narrative flow that tackled broken homes, shattered dreams and terrible bosses, dense with sonic drama and detail, Sherrill’s most famous productions for artists including Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Charlie Rich and Johnny Paycheck contain emotional depths that belie their brevity, and helped define the so-called “countrypolitan” sound of late 1960s and 1970s country music.
Over his decades in the music business as both a songwriter and a producer, Sherrill also worked on records by artists including David Allan Coe, Merle Haggard, Elvis Costello, Barbara Mandrell, Ray Charles and dozens of others. Below, a few of his most notable productions.

Tammy Wynette, "Stand By Your Man" (1968). The Wynette-and-Sherrill-penned ode to devotion doesn’t send the most progressive message, but it is his most enduring production. “Stand by your man, give him two arms to cling to,” sings Wynette as angelic voices “ooh” in harmony behind her and a pedal steel moans below. The saving grace? How Wynette punctures the sentiment with a lyrical barb: “And if you love him, be proud of him/ ‘Cause after all, he’s just a man.”

George Jones, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" (1980). A devastating recounting of undying love, this hit was written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman. Told from a friend’s perspective, the lyrics detail a heartbroken man whose only reprieve from the suffering comes in death. “I went to see my friend today/ But I didn’t see no tears,” sings Jones, recalling the funeral wake. “All dressed up to go away/ First time I’d seen him smile in years.” Precise arrangements roll through new realms every four bars. Strings shiver as they pass through dark lyrics.

George Jones, "The Grand Tour" (1974). Rich with strings, pedal steel counter melodies and delicate, barely audible rhythms, Sherrill’s wry production on “The Grand Tour” mirrors the lyrical conceit. The story of heartbreak as narrated by the lonely tour-guide protagonist, the song opens with an implied ring of the doorbell and orchestral flourish.
Step right up, come on in
If you'd like to take the grand tour
Of a lonely house that once was home sweet home
I have nothing here to sell you
Just some things that I will tell you
Some things I know will chill you to the bone.
As Jones delivers the last line, grim, darkened, skeletal strings hover below. He then tours the house like the world's most depressed real estate agent.

Tammy Wynette, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” (1968). Tammy Wynette’s brilliantly rendered hit “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” tackles the end of not only a marriage but a family. With her raspy voice and pitch-perfect phrasing, the singer details a couple’s strategy for end-of-love communication: “Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man,” she sings. “So we spell out the words we don’t want him to understand.” She offers examples: “Watch him smile, he thinks it Christmas or his fifth birthday/ And he thinks C-U-S-T-O-D-Y spells fun or play.” (Wynette had first-hand experience with such troubles and worse. She was married to Jones during the peak of their fame -- and alleged that during that time she endured repeated incidents of domestic violence.)

Charlie Rich, "Behind Closed Doors" (1973). Singer and pianist Rich first gained success as a late-1950s session player for Sun Records. He failed to gain mainstream attention through much of the 1960s until he hooked up with Sherrill and softened his sound. Two of Rich’s biggest hits were a thematic yin-and-yangs: “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” documented the beginning and the ending of love affairs. The former celebrates secret, lustful nights after the bars close: “No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.” The latter highlights the remorse of a man on the outs with a lover. “Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world? And if you did, was she crying?”

Johnny Paycheck, "Take This Job and Shove It" (1977). Sherrill helped temper country music’s hard edges with strings, but he also worked with grittier outlaws such as David Allan Coe and Merle Haggard. The biggest hit of the bunch? Coe's "... Shove It," as interpreted by Paycheck and produced by Sherrill, remains the rallying cry for disgruntled employees the world over.

Elvis Costello, “Brown to Blue” (1981). An outlier in Sherrill's career was his work with British musician Costello. Seeking to break loose from his "angry young man" persona, Costello commissioned the producer to work on "Almost Blue." A love letter to classic country, Costello and Sherrill helped convey the spirit of Nashville to a generation who only knew Costello for his take on "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."

 Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit

Walter Lure - Last Heartbreaker standing releases new LP

❉ The last man standing from The Heartbreakers presents new track ahead of releasing new album.

New album ‘Wacka Lacka Boom Bop A Loom Bam Boo’ is the first new album in 2 and a half decades from Walter Lure, an original member of The Heartbreakers, who spearheaded the first wave of punk rock, and long-time collaborator with The Ramones. The Heartbreakers were also the band that supported the Sex Pistols on their 1976 Anarchy Tour.

You may know Walter Lure as co-frontman of Johnnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers. If that doesn’t ring a bell, you should know that this band were among a small handful who spearheaded the first wave of punk rock, having also supported the Sex Pistols on their 1976 Anarchy Tour just as the UK punk scene was building momentum. Walter Lure is also a long-time collaborator with The Ramones, contributing to three of their albums.
Have a listen to the new single, recently written and part of their new album Wacka Lacka Boom Bop A Loom Bam Boo forthcoming via Cleopatra on August 17:

New album ‘Wacka Lacka Boom Bop A Loom Bam Boo’ is the first new album in 2 and a half decades from legendary guitarist-vocalist Walter Lure, an original member of The Heartbreakers, who spearheaded the first wave of punk rock, and also long-time collaborator with The Ramones. The Heartbreakers were also the band that supported the Sex Pistols on their 1976 Anarchy Tour just as the UK punk scene was building momentum.
The new album will be released on Cleopatra Records on both CD and red vinyl with reverse-board jackets, as well as digitally.

“This is my first release of new songs in 25 years or so since the last Waldo’s album. That might seem like a long time but it really only feels like a few years-life seems to contract over long periods for some reason,” says Walter Lure.
Today Walter Lure & The Waldos is Walter Lure (guitar and vocals), along with Takanori Ichiuji (bass and vocals), Tak Nakai a.k.a. Takto (guitar and vocals), and Joe Rizzo (drums and vocals).
Earlier, Walter Lure & The Waldos previewed the lead track ‘Crazy Kids’, which will be featured in the forthcoming full-length film Thunders: Room 37, dramatizing the final days of Lure’s former bandmate Johnny Thunders. Their new full-length also features other new tunes, as well as killer new versions of Heartbreakers classics London Boys❉ andTake A Chance On Me.
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“With more lives than a cat with a lucky charm, Walter Lure survived not only the NYC punk scene, but also the Anarchy Tour and being in The Heartbreakers, possibly the most self-destructive, contrary band of them all”❉ – Louder Than War

In 1975, Walter Lure became an original member of The Heartbreakers as guitarist and vocalist, joining Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan (of the New York Dolls), and Richard Hell (of Television), who was later replaced by Billy Rath. Lure was playing with glam-punk band The Demons when he joined The Heartbreakers and earlier played with anarchic Bronx hard rock group Bloodbath in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
In 1977, The Heartbreakers released their only studio album ‘L.A.M.F.’ The band’s 1977 song London Boys is a swipe at the Sex Pistols, in response to the Pistols’ song New York, which put down the New York Dolls. After The Heartbreakers’ “official” breakup in 1977, the band would often reform, continuing to play the occasional gig right up until Johnny Thunders’ death in 1991.
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The Heartbreakers final show was for the Johnny Thunders Memorial Concert. In 1994, three Heartbreakers – Walter Lure, Tony Coiro and Joey Pinter – were joined by Jeff West in releasing ‘Rent Party’, The Waldos’ debut album.
Lure worked with The Ramones on their albums Subterranean Jungle (1983), Too Tough To Die (1984) and Animal Boy (1986), released a single with The Blessed, and also started a number of bands, including The Hurricanes and The Heroes, before ultimately founding The Waldos.  In 1997, Walter Lure also played a set of shows for the 40th anniversary of The Heartbreakers ‘L.A.M.F.’ album, joined by Blondie’s Clem Burke, Sex Pistols’ bassist Glen Matlock and Social Distortion’s Mike Ness.
❉ ‘Wacka Lacka Boom Bop A Loom Bam Boo’ will be released on August 17, but it is already available for pre-order via Bandcamp on both CD and red vinyl with reverse-board jackets. On September 6, Walter Lure & The Waldos will hold their record release party at Bowery Electric in New York.

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I always experience a mild depression whenever I type up what I have written. This act seems redundant. The work has already been done. I adore the praise of the public, no mistake. But the primary motive must be publican. Much more, I'd guess, the inner journey of the imagination itself. There is the ecstasy. The rest is simply good. Some money, a little fame. Not to be rolled over by time like a crab in the surf. Tetrameter.

I write out of a greed for lives and language. A need to listen to the orchestra of living. It is often said that a writer is more alive than his peers. But I believe he might also be a sort of narcoleptic who requires constant waking up by his own imaginative work. He is closer to sleep and dream, and his memory is more haunted, thus more precise.

Poor devils, the old scribes, jabber jabber, daddy daddy, he says.  But wait, this is pretty good.