A country way of life, Episode 39 (Bobby Thompson, Max D Barnes & Glenn Sutton)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Bobby Thompson
Born in South Carolina, Bobby Thompson played rhythm guitar and banjo on sessions in the 1960s to the 1980s. The Country Music Hall of Fame website notes that he helped pioneer ‘the melodic style of banjo playing’, known as the chromatic style, while a 1974 feature in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine described him as ‘Nashville’s top studio banjo player, doing about ten recording sessions a week’.
His CV includes albums by Dottie West, Charley Pride, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, the Oak Ridge Boys and Hank Williams Jr. In the early 1980s he played guitar on George Strait’s first two albums, while he also contributed to projects by three outlaws: Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.
As with Buddy Spicher, whom we profiled recently, Thompson was a member of Area Code 615, a troupe of session musicians on a busman’s holiday. He was also part of the band who played on the TV show Hee Haw.
Songwriters: Max D Barnes and Glenn Sutton
Born in Hard Scratch, Iowa, Max D Barnes wrote songs that were cut by a plethora of acts in the 1980s. Vern Gosdin had hits with five of his copyrights including Way Down Deep, This Ain’t My First Rodeo and Chiseled in Stone. The last of these won the CMA Song of the Year award in 1989, and three years later Look at Us, which he wrote with Vince Gill, repeated the feat.
His first published song was the fantastically titled Uncanny Connie from Calgary, which is almost as good a title as one that Conway Twitty took into the charts: Red Neckin’ Love Makin’ Night. Barnes also wrote Don’t Tell Me What to Do, the breakthrough hit for Pam Tillis, Ten Feet Away for Keith Whitley, and Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes for George Jones.
Proving that sometimes artistic genius can be passed on through the genes, Barnes’ son Max T also went into the songwriting business, helping to write Love, Me for Collin Raye, A Night to Remember for Joe Diffie and the charming How Your Love Makes Me Feel for Diamond Rio. Father and son wrote Let Go of the Stone, a hit for John Anderson; Chiseled in Stone was written in honour of another son, Duane.
Glenn Sutton helped develop the countrypolitan sound which became popular in the 1960s. He and Billy Sherrill were behind Tammy Wynette’s sound and co-wrote songs like I Don’t Wanna Play House and Bedtime Story. The pair also wrote David Houston’s smash hit Almost Persuaded, which was number one for an unprecedented nine weeks in 1966.
Building on this success, Sutton wrote many of his then wife Lynn Anderson’s hits including You’re My Man, Keep Me In Mind and What a Man My Man Is. He also produced Rose Garden, which was written by Joe South.
Born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, he moved to Nashville via Mississippi. In one online biography, Sutton was called ‘one of Nashville’s most colourful characters’ thanks to his ‘outlandish sense of humour’, which you can appreciate in videos posted on Youtube. He also created several alter egos including Blue Water Dave, the World’s Oldest Entertainer.
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