A country way of life, Episode 15 (Bart Butler, Stuart Duncan, Bobby Braddock)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Producer: Bart Butler
The success of country music today depends on a synthesis between the commercially minded Nashville and the musically minded Texas. Bart Butler is a key figure in driving the sound forward.
Born in Hondo, Texas, Butler co-wrote Make Me Wanna, an early chart-topper in the career of Thomas Rhett, and Up All Night, the biggest hit from Jon Pardi’s first album. Butler produced that debut and Pardi’s next three albums, including 2022’s Mr Saturday Night, which included his own copyright Your Heart or Mine.
In an interview in 2019, Butler said that Pardi was the only people cutting tracks with fiddle and steel guitar at a time when country music was trying to ride the Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line wave. Butler and Pardi’s persistence in keeping to the old sounds has paid off: as well as producing several tracks for Randall King, Butler has also written songs for Blake Shelton and Luke Grimes. He also had the title cut on George Strait’s album Honky Tonk Time Machine.
Player: Stuart Duncan
The famous country fiddle player Stuart Duncan turned 60 on April 14. Born in Virginia, he grew up on a naval base in Southern California, and attended gigs as a child at the local folk club where his dad ran the sound.
Duncan originally moved to Nashville to play bluegrass music, and he is a go-to guy for musicians looking to have a traditional country feel. You can hear him on records by Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, George Strait and Alan Jackson, and it’s his fiddle on If I Die Young by The Band Perry and Lady A’s Need You Now album.
He plays on the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou, and he also backed Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant on their Raising Sand tour. Duncan has also collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma and Chris Thile on the incomparable Goat Rodeo Sessions project.
In an interview in 2014, Duncan lamented the cyclical nature of commercial country music: ‘When the wind blows that way everybody jumps on that wagon and it takes another five or six or ten years for it to turn around so they’ll use pedal steels and fiddles again. I’ll just hang around until then!’
Songwriter: Bobby Braddock
If Bobby Braddock had just written He Stopped Loving Her Today, he would be held in the highest regard. As with the likes of Harlan Howard and Dean Dillon, however, Braddock’s catalogue is packed with standards that will still be sung in 2124. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011, as the first in their Songwriter category; he has since been joined by Dillon, Bob McDill, Hank Cochran and Don Schlitz.
Born in Florida in 1940, Braddock co-wrote D-I-V-O-R-C-E for Tammy Wynette and Golden Ring, her duet with George Jones. He also produced and arranged the strings on Blake Shelton’s first four albums, and when Shelton turned down I Wanna Talk About Me, Toby Keith had one of his biggest hits with it. Braddock later had success with Time Marches On (Tracy Lawrence) and People Are Crazy (Billy Currington).
Before he became a songwriter Braddock had been a piano player in bars around Florida, moving to Nashville to work as a studio cat and live musician who backed Marty Robbins. He also had a couple of minor hits himself, releasing three studio albums including 1983’s brilliantly titled Hardpore Cornography.
All Episodes can be found here
For more country music evangelism, go to countrywol.com where you can read Monday essays, Friday reviews and Sunday Hymn Sheets. Follow Jonny’s Country Music Calendar at the Country Way of Life Facebook page (facebook.com/acountrywayoflife).
