A country way of life, Episode 33 (Buddy Spicher, Emily Weisband & Emily Shackelton)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Buddy Spicher
Jenee Fleenor is the current market leader in country music’s fiddle players. One of her predecessors is Buddy Spicher who, as of August 2024, is 86 years old and still around. He was until fairly recently a professor at Belmont University, teaching students to improvise and work around the singer.
Spicher has come a long way from a farm in DuBois, Pennsylvania, where he grew up. One of Nashville’s A Team, he duly features on records by dozens of country acts from the 1960s and 1970s, including Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton, and then into the 1980s with George Strait.
Spicher learned to read music but told one interviewer that some of the best musicians in town cannot do so: ‘They improvise…and then use their creativity. You have to be able to play a little bit,’ he said, ‘but music is mostly about making friends.’
He was part of the live bands who backed Audrey Williams, Hank Snow and Ray Price, and he toured Europe with Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle. When he wasn’t logging session time or backing up stars, Spicher was onstage at Wolfy’s playing Western Swing or playing in bands like the supergroup The Superpickers and Area Code 615; the latter’s Stone Fox Chase was the theme to long-running BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Spicher also contributed to the first three Asleep at the Wheel albums and has played with Elvis Presley, Bill Monroe and Bob Wills, respective royalty in rock’n’roll, bluegrass and Western Swing music.
Songwriters: Emily Weisband & Emily Shackelton
It is still notable to see female songwriters in the credits of hit country songs, and two familiar names belong to two ladies called Emily.
Emily Weisband is from Virginia and graduated from Belmont University’s songwriting programme. Her copyrights include songs by Cassadee Pope (Take You Home), Sam Hunt (Sinning with You), Chris Young (Looking for You), Lady A (Good Time To Be Alive), Lauren Alaina (Next Boyfriend) and Danielle Bradbery (Sway).
She also co-wrote Can’t Break Up Now, the duet between Old Dominion and Megan Moroney, and Keith Urban cut three of her compositions including Same Heart and Gettin’ In The Way. Weisband was also in the room for pop songs Consequences by Camila Cabello and Boy With Luv, a hit for BTS and Halsey.
Weisband told the Irish Times that Nashville is ‘a town of dreamers…It’s really addicting and contagious to be around.’ Writing songs can be ‘organised chaos’, and even though she was offered record deals as a pop, country and Christian performer, Weisband is perfectly happy in the backroom (‘I hate performing’).
Emily Shackelton, meanwhile, is best known for her work with Carly Pearce, whose hit Every Little Thing was an attempt to go for broke and write a ballad in a marketplace dominated by bros singing uptempo tunes. The gamble paid off and the pair have since worked on songs What He Didn’t Do, Mean It This Time and Dashboard Jesus.
Born in Biwabik, Minnesota, a town with less than 1000 inhabitants, Shackelton studied at Berklee College of Music before moving to Nashville and signing to Liz Rose’s publishing company. Her debut album Late Bloomer came out in 2013 and she has put out a series of singles of her own in the last few years.
Shackelton’s main job is as a songwriter, and she had cuts on several episodes of the TV sitcom about the city, including Love Like Mine from Nashville’s first series. Her copyrights include songs by acts with and for whom Emily Weisband has also written, including Cassadee Pope (Summer) and Lauren Alaina (Doin’ Fine). Shackelton joined Canadian singer Jess Moskaluke to write Heartbreaker, Kiss Me Quiet and Take Me Home. One of her songs was performed on American Idol by David Cook after she entered their songwriting contest.
‘Making a living in this crazy business is an accomplishment in and of itself,’ she told one interview, ‘trying to stay fresh with ideas and melodies and just trying to stick it out.’ And all this with a ‘full-time job’ as a mother of two children under ten.
All Episodes can be found here
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