A country way of life, Episode 31 (Eddie Bayers, Lee Thomas Miller & Brett James)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Eddie Bayers
In 2021, alongside Ray Charles and The Judds, two celebrated backroom figures were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Both were the first of their kind: pedal steel player Pete Drake and drummer Eddie Bayers.
Bayers had a taste of the musician’s life of many places when, as a child of a fighter pilot, he lived in California and North Africa. Starting out on the piano, he switched to drums as a teenager at the time when rock’n’roll was the hot new thing.
He moved over to Nashville after time spent in New Jersey and LA, playing on sessions for hot country stars like George Strait, Rosanne Cash and Reba McEntire. His drumming can be heard on She’s In Love With The Boy by Trisha Yearwood, 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton and everything by The Judds. His credo is to serve the singer and the record, to be the artist’s drummer, and to ‘honour the music you’re required to perform’.
Bayers overcame a broken wrist caused by a motorbike accident in the mid-1980s, playing on film soundtracks including Twister, The Prince of Egypt and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He is still working in his mid-seventies, and for the past two decades he has kept the beat as part of the Opry band.
Songwriters: Lee Thomas Miller & Brett James
Between them, Lee Thomas Miller and Brett James have dozens of copyrights on country songs that have been loved by millions.
Born in Kentucky and raised on a tobacco farm, Miller taught himself the guitar after learning piano and violin. When he went to Nashville, he was told that he would not make it as an artist but that his knowledge of music theory would stand him in good stead as a songwriter.
His catalogue includes some deep and philosophical songs: You’re Gonna Miss This by Trace Adkins, The Impossible by Joe Nichols, Whiskey and You by Chris Stapleton and In Color by Jamey Johnson. His many collaborations with Brad Paisley include The World, Crushin’ It, Perfect Storm and I’m Still A Guy, and there are recordings online of Miller singing It Ain’t My Fault, which he wrote with Brothers Osborne. He has also been a fierce advocate for songwriters as president of the NSAI.
Miller has said of helping artists create music that ‘they will have to sing it forever so I want them to be proud of it…Just say it real and honest.’
Brett James Cornelius has done much the same, with over two dozen country number ones: Who I Am by Jessica Andrews, I Hold On by Dierks Bentley, Cowboy Casanova and Jesus Take The Wheel by Carrie Underwood, Love You Out Loud and Summer Nights by Rascal Flatts, and When the Sun Goes Down and Out Last Night by Kenny Chesney. James performed the last of these as part of the Songwriters event at Country2Country in both 2014 and 2018.
James is one of many writers interviewed for the documentary It All Begins with a Song. In 2020, he composed the soundtrack for the romcom Then Came You and released a pair of EPs on which he took lead vocals, as he had done before turning himself into a backroom boy. That same year saw him inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, which is not at all bad for a man who twice dropped out of medical school.
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).