Wayne and Darrell Scott: Father-Son Country

DATE July 3, 2006 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Father and son country music singers/songwriters
Darrell Scott and Wayne Scott discuss their work
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

When Darrell Scott became successful enough with his own country music career
to start his own record label, the first thing he did was pay tribute to his
father, Wayne Scott. He produced an album of his father singing mostly his
own songs, the songs that Darrell heard his father sing when he was growing
up. My guests are Darrell Scott and his father, Wayne Scott.

Darrell first made his mark in Nashville as a songwriter. His songs have been
recorded by Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks, Travis Tritt, Tim McGraw, Patty
Loveless, and Sara Evans. At the 2002 Country Music Awards, he won the ASCAP
Songwriter of the Year award. His own albums are more alternative country,
and he plays with Steve Earl's Blue Grass Dukes. His father, Wayne, who is
now in his 70s, made his living working in steel mills and installing
chainlink fences. They'll play a duet for us a little later, but let's start
with a track from the album Darrell produced of his father singing, then we'll
hear a track from Darrell's new album, "The Invisible Man."

(Soundbite of "It's the Whiskey That Eases the Pain" by Wayne Scott)

Mr. WAYNE SCOTT: (Singing)
It ain't love, it ain't money that makes this world turn around.
When you hit rock bottom you may not be on the ground.
Let me tell you something in case you're walking with a cane,
It ain't love, it ain't money, it's the whiskey that eases the pain.

(End of soundbite)

(Soundbite of "Do It Or Die Trying" by Darrell Scott)

Mr. DARRELL SCOTT: (Singing)
Well, he's got no business leaving at such an early age
Can't even balance his checkbook.
Look at him,
he's staring down that road like he can't wait to get away,
and he won't even give 'em a last look.
Brother's kicking gravel like it's no big deal,
Mama's on the front porch crying,
Dad says, `Come on, girl, he's got a date with the world,
and it's just two less eggs to be frying.
Where was it explained, to me,
history repeats history.
Don't you know, living is a lot like flying,
You either do it or die it trying.

Well, he winds up in the Army
where they cut off all his hair...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: OK. We heard Wayne Scott singing "It's the Whiskey That Eases the
Pain," his own song. And that CD was produced by his son Darrell Scott, and
from Darrell Scott's new CD, "The Invisible Man," we heard "Do It Or Die
Trying."

Darrell Scott, Wayne Scott, welcome to both of you to FRESH AIR. Pleasure to
have you here. Darrell, when you started your record company, the first album
you released was by your father. Now, you know...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: ...you're pretty well known in the world of country music, so why did
you want your first record to be your father's music?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Well, I just thought it was important, his music is
important. I know I'm his son and all that, there's that going for it, but I
really feel that his music is important just because it's so pure and true,
especially to the form of really country music or mountain kind of music, and
I've just--I heard these songs all my life and I know them backwards and
forwards, and it was just time to finally get him to come and record these,
you know, with a bunch of my friends down here in Nashville, or in some cases
we went to him up in Kentucky in his living room. It was--I just thought it
was time.

GROSS: You've said that you used to think that all the songs he sang were by
Hank Williams and Johnny Cash and other venerated songwriters. When did you
realize a lot of those songs were his own?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Well, yeah, they kind of blended together because around the
house he would do all of that. He'd do Johnny Cash and Hank and Meryl Haggard
and all that, and his own, and there was a time where I didn't know which was
which. It was just all blended in as what I thought were great songs. I'd
say probably somewhere in my mid- to late teens I started catching on that,
`Oh, OK, that's the Hank stuff, and there's the Johnny Cash stuff,' and really
starting to see his songs, which were his. And actually it took--there was
one song, which is the title of the record, "This Weary Way," I didn't know
that that was not a Hank Williams song until my late 20s. It just seemed so
perfectly Hank in terms of style, in terms of structure, and that may be from
my opinion, my dad's best song, so that's one that took me an extra 10 years
to figure out that it wasn't Hank's.

GROSS: Wayne Scott, why didn't you make it more clear to your sons that you
were writing songs?

Mr. W. SCOTT: I decided to try to be a singer instead of a writer. I tried
writ--singing my songs once, and I didn't like the cold feet and cold shoulder
I got singing...

Mr. D. SCOTT: And he's talking about a club. I mean, we used to play clubs
like when I was a teenager. So he's talking about a night playing in a bar,
you know, where they come to dance and drink, and play five sets a night as
far as the band is concerned. So that's what he's referring to, you know,
that he did his songs one night, and, you know, of course, they wouldn't know
the songs and wondering why he's not doing, you know, the top ten of the
country music at that time. So I think that was his brush with trying out
new--you know, his material out in public and he...

GROSS: Did you give up after one shot at it?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yeah. I never done it again. Now that's all I do, and it's
great. I'm glad that he talked me into doing it, and I'm--it's a new
experience to me, and people actually listen to me, too.

GROSS: Well, I--you've very generously offered to perform a duet for us, so
I'd like to ask you to do a song that, Wayne Scott, you do on your CD, and
it's called "Sunday with My Son," and it's a song that you wrote. Let me ask
you to tell us what you're talking about in the song. It seems to be a song
that directly comes out of your life.

Mr. W. SCOTT: Every word of it's the truth. That's the only way I can
write. I only have inspiration. I don't have no education. Not that it's a
gripe. I chose it. But my son was the youngest one, and I hadn't seen him in
a long time. And I had him one Sunday afternoon for three hours and
we--chose--I just loved nature, so we went out into the woods to gather leaves
and pinecones and things like that, and it was so beautiful, the song started
going. And I had to keep turning my back to him to not let him see the old
man crying, and I come up with that song. So then by the next morning I had
all of it, and it said exactly what I wanted it to say. And this is it.

GROSS: So...

Mr. W. SCOTT: You want to hear it now?

GROSS: I actually want to hear it now, yeah.

Mr. D. SCOTT: OK.

Mr. W. SCOTT: OK.

Mr. D. SCOTT: One, two...

(Soundbite from "Sundays with My Son")

Mr. W. SCOTT: (Singing)
As I look back on some bitter years and things don't mean a thing
Like chasing women, writing songs and trucks and old freight trains,
When I reach back for happy thoughts of things that I have done,
One thing that I remember most was a Sunday with my son.

From the mouths of little children comes truth and honesty,
And this I kept remembering as we gathered autumn leaves.
When memory feeds upon the past of things that I have done,
One thing that I remember most was a Sunday with my son.

I'd fill his heart with happiness the way that he fills mine
But you just can't make up 10 lost years in just three hours' time.
Reflections call for happy thoughts. When it does, well, I've got one.
One thing that I remember most was a Sunday with my son.

From the mouths of little children comes truth and honesty,
And this I kept remembering as we gathered autumn leaves.
When memory feeds upon the past of things that I have done,
One thing that I remember most was a Sunday with my son.

When memory feeds upon the past of things that I have done,
One thing that I remember most was a Sunday with my son.
Sunday with my son. Sunday with my son.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Oh, thank you for doing that. That's Wayne Scott singing and playing
guitar, and your son Darrell Scott accompanying him on banjo. And Darrell,
thank you for bringing your father to our attention by...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Absolutely. It was truly my pleasure.

GROSS: ...recording him and pushing him forward like that. So...

Mr. D. SCOTT: It was truly my pleasure.

GROSS: So, Darrell, you're--you've actually been able to make your career in
music both as a performer and as a songwriter. I mean, you--as a songwriter
you've had several hits and--on the top of the billboard country chart...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: Did--watching your father when you were growing up, watching him
perform but making a living all kinds of other ways, from working in the steel
mill, I think, and...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm. Steel mills and fence construction.

GROSS: Fence construction, yeah.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Delivering oil...

GROSS: Mm-hm.

Mr. D. SCOTT: ...and all sorts of things. Yeah.

GROSS: And moving around the country.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: So watching him do that and just kind of playing on the side, did you
think, `Well, me, I want to really play professionally and make my life
playing'?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah, I think I kind of knew that as--even as a kid. It just
was, I wouldn't say easy for me, but it came naturally. It was like a natural
thing for me to gravitate towards and--to play because I grew up in a family
band. My dad, of course, played and sang and wrote, and I had older brothers
who played and younger brothers and, you know, it was just the kind--what you
do as a family, how some--well, camping, or fishing or into baseball,
whatever. And our thing really was to play music. And so I was kind of, you
know, on line for that, really from the age of six, I started playing. And
you know, because our family business was fence construction, which is really
hard labor out in the sun kind of thing, I also learned, you know, at about 11
or 12, that it was better for me to stay home and--while the others were
working, you know, someone needed to answer the phone and cook. We were a
bunch of bachelors, basically. My brothers and I lived with my dad, and so I
was the cook, and so I found a way to get out of hard labor actually pretty
early. And I just kind of kept that up. I'm still not into hard labor.

GROSS: Wayne Scott, when your sons were born, did you look at them one by one
and think, `This is going to be my band"?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yup. That's what I did.

Mr. D. SCOTT: That's what he absolutely did.

Mr. W. SCOTT: They're all D's.

GROSS: You know, all your sons, their names all start with the letter D. Why
is that?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yeah. That was for that reason, and they're...

GROSS: What, so you could start a band with them?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yeah. And their introduction to music was when they come
home, I laid them in the bed and stood over them and played Hank Williams,
Johnny Cash, played with them about an hour or so, so you wouldn't wake up
when you heard me singing at 2 in the morning, you know...(unintelligible).

Mr. D. SCOTT: We were used to it.

GROSS: That's funny so...

Mr. W. SCOTT: They can sleep right through country music. Or they can play
it. Darrell, you knew he was a musician, I'd say, at three, and--well, all
the boys are professional, but Darrell's the best. I mean, he--if it's got
strings on it, he can play it. At three years old, it was vivid that he
wouldn't be no fence builder.

GROSS: So how did having sons whose names each started with the letter D help
you in playing music or creating a band? I mean, I don't get that part.

Mr. W. SCOTT: I was going to name them the Two D's, the Three D's, the Four
D's, however many D's as it took. They was all going to be D's, you know.

Mr. D. SCOTT: So Wayne Scott and the Four D's, the Five D's, yeah.

Mr. W. SCOTT: That's the way it came. And honestly that was the reason. I
was determined they'd be musicians.

GROSS: My guests are Darrell and Wayne Scott. Darrell's new album is called
"The Invisible Man." His father's album is "This Weary Way." More after a
break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guests are Darrell Scott and his father, Wayne Scott. Darrell has
written many hit country songs. When he started his own record label, he
produced a record by his father, Wayne. Darrell and his four brothers were
raised by their father.

Darrell, where was your mother when you were growing up?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Well, we started off in northern Indiana. That was the steel
mill area and she--we all lived together then, and I guess when I was about
eight years old, they divorced and, oddly enough, remarried at about two years
later. And so we all moved to California at that point, and then they
divorced again. And so she was in the area. We'd see her often, and--but she
just wasn't living with us.

GROSS: Darrell, was it confusing for you when your parents divorced and then
remarried and then divorced again?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Well, you know what? I don't know about confusing. I--maybe
it was, but you know, in another way, I--it speaks to, you know, how wild they
must have been for one another, you know. And in a way, that's a really sweet
and wonderful thing. I guess they just couldn't figure it out, how to be a
couple, in the long run. You know, it seemed like they just couldn't keep
away from each other, and he's over there laughing. But that's what it seemed
like to me, you know. And it seemed like as far as--because of the first
breakup and basically we were awarded custody to him, if that's the wording
for it. But basically he was our guardian after the first divorce, and it
just seemed that that was already sort of set as a way the family was going to
be. So when they divorced a second time, I mean, it just also seemed--there
was no confusion about that. It seemed like if they weren't going to get it
together, you know, we--you know, me and my brothers were going to be with my
dad basically.

GROSS: Wayne Scott, did you know any other fathers of five who were basically
raising their children as single fathers?

Mr. W. SCOTT: No, not in those days. When you went--when I went to
California I started meeting some. There was quite a few mamas that ran away
out there. Instead of the guy, it was the girl would do it just the same.
But back here I was the only one. The hardest part of it was learning to be
the mom, but I really didn't...(unintelligible)...with the cooking, the
cleaning, and helping direct their music. They were great, beautiful kids.
They weren't the troublemakers that I knew that, you know, that some of my
buddies had. They were really good. Never arrest, never a school problem.
No. It was just about perfect, you know. And besides that, they played
music.

GROSS: Sounds good.

Well, Darrell Scott, can I ask you to sing one of your songs, and why don't
you do one of the songs from your new CD?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah, this is one called "Hank Williams's Ghost."

(Soundbite of "Hank Williams's Ghost" by Darrell Scott)

Mr. D. SCOTT: Checking the mike here. Two, three.

(Singing) In the early morning hours
Just before you're wide awake
Before you summons all your powers
To cover up your big mistake.
When all the coulda woulda beens
Collide with shoulda knowns
And all your rage and angst hillbilly sins
Have an odor all their own.

Aw, but it's all right. It's OK.
Yeah, you learn to look the other way.
Life is short, life is long, Hey!
Get your guitar and sing this song.
La da da da dai dai la dai

Now you're kicking back the covers
Yeah, now you're ready to make your stand
You never ever really ever thought you were quite like all the others
Mm. You had promise in your hands.
And you've studied truth and honor.
Oh, but you did not past the test.
Mm, up in heaven you're a goner.
Seems you're as human as the rest.

Well, it's all right. It's OK.
Yeah, you'll learn to stand some other way
Like on your knees, or maybe on your back.
Hey! Take one last breath and fade to black.
La da da da da dai dai la dai dai

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Darrell Scott performing a song that's also featured on his new
album "The Invisible Man." Darrell and his father Wayne Scott will be back in
the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music from Darrell Scott)

Mr. D. Scott: (Singing) Nobody said it would be easy, and nobody said it
would be this hard.

(Announcements)

GROSS: Coming up, more of our interview with father and son country music
singers Wayne and Darrell Scott. And Ken Tucker reviews "Rockford," a new
comeback CD by the '70s rock band Cheap Trick.

(Announcements)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Darrell and Wayne Scott.
Darrell has written songs recorded by Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt, the Dixie
Chicks and Sarah Evens. When he started his own label last year, he recorded
an album by his father, Wayne, who had never recorded before and never made
his living as a singer. Wayne Scott's album is called "This Weary Way."
Darrell has a new album called "The Invisible Man." Here's a song written and
sung by Darrell called "Family Tree" from one of his earlier albums.

(Soundbite from "Family Tree" by Darrell Scott)

Mr. D. SCOTT: (Singing)
Dancing in the living room, cutting up a rug
Dancing with a baby, looks more like a hug,
Living in a house made of sawmill wood,
Roll over, Beethoven, never sounded so good.
C'mon on baby, baby, let's go
Where we get the money, honey, I don't know
One more baby's all right by me.
We'll just add another limb to the family tree.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Darrell, when you started playing with your father in bars, when you
were in your early teens...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: ...did it seem really cool to be doing that or did it seem like just
another, like, family obligation?

Mr. D. SCOTT: A little of both, you know, because, you know, with him
naming us D's, again, if you equate that that he's growing his band, you know,
there's actually a path that seems to be that you're supposed to take, which
is to play music, which I did. What I also did later, probably in my early
20s, was get out of music, as I had known it, which was playing bars, or, you
know, playing other people's music, largely, and there was--you know, inside
me was this thing building up about really being an artist and being a writer
and really finding my writer's voice that I really kind of took myself off of
that path that seemed to be paved for me, and I--basically what I did was I
went to college. I moved to an area where no one knew me, which was in Boston
area, and I just kind of started all over. In looking back, I see that it was
actually a huge, huge education for music and songwriting but, at the time, I
was actually going there to do something other than music. And I got an
English degree and started at a school called Middlesex Community College, and
then transferred into Tufts University, got an English degree and really
considered going down the, you know, the next step, which was maybe a master's
program in creative writing and poetry and stuff like that. And so, you know,
as I look back that actually improved my songwriting, you know, day and night.
There was a before I went to school and studied poetry and literature and then
there's an after. And--but at the time I had to think that I was getting out
of music, and I certainly was as I--music as I had known it, which was largely
the bars.

GROSS: You know, we were talking a little earlier about what it was like to
grow up in the family and--you know, with five boys, five sons, who all ended
up playing music and you all were in a band together. In--and, Darrell, in
one of your songs, called "Hummingbird," you tell a story about--I assume this
is autobiographical, so correct me if I'm wrong--but you tell a story about
when you were five and told to go play outside.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: You went to play outside with your father's guitar because you wanted
to see if it would float in the lake, and you know, it didn't float. It
drowned.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah.

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: And that was the end of that guitar. True story?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah. Absolutely true. And that was while we were living in
northern Indiana, and there were a lot of swamps up there and cattails and
stuff. And I'm not sure where we got it into our heads to do that, but we
did. And we took the guitar out in the back just to see if, you know, if it
would, float. Because, you know, it was wood...

GROSS: Mm-hm.

Mr. D. SCOTT: ...and all that kind of stuff.

GROSS: Well...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah, that's a true story.

GROSS: Wayne Scott, I'd really like to hear the story from your perspective,
as the father whose guitar was drowned by his five-year-old son.

Mr. W. SCOTT: He's--here's its replacement (plays chord). That is another
Thunderbird, and he replaced it and...

Mr. D. SCOTT: A Hummingbird.

Mr. W. SCOTT: Hummingbird.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah, what he's playing there is a Hummingbird guitar that I
gave him. It's a beautiful one, it's the best 1966 Hummingbird Gibson guitar
I've ever heard, and I found it up in a shop in New England and presented it
to him about three or four years ago.

Mr. W. SCOTT: He--they did destroy it, that song is true. And I wasn't one
bit mad. I knew that some day especially he would be a known musician,
something I could never be, or I didn't try to be or didn't want to be. But
you--that was just a slight mistake. I didn't scold him. I wasn't mad. I
wasn't hurt. Oh, I'd have liked to kept the old guitar, but not enough to
distort him any, so I just threw it in the weeds there when I saw it. I mean,
it was gone.

GROSS: Darrell, I know when you first moved to Nashville, you moved into your
father's house.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: And Wayne Scott, where were you living if Darrell moved into your
house?

Mr. W. SCOTT: I went back to Kentucky. I didn't know that I was a
forerunner of him. But he needed the house and I needed to sell it, and I
don't belong in Nashville. Me, I like it, you know, up there in the hills and
my four-wheeler and those kind of things so...

GROSS: You grew up in Kentucky.

Mr. W. SCOTT: Oh yeah.

GROSS: Did your parents work on a tobacco farm?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yeah. Well, uneducated, I had to go where there's a broom to
push. But once I got in there, you know, I got the top job, pretty soon
because that--I could learn and I did. But I couldn't just call my shots
where to live. With no education, you can't just--you just can't do that.
And I don't say it as a gripe. I like the outside, so I love building fences
in California. I could build them 12 months out of the year and weed the same
in January as in we do in June, you know. It was neat. It was great. It
was--I was my own boss, and I could schedule the music. I could quit when I
wanted to or had to. It was great for me. But I'm not recommending it to no
one else. Get you an education.

GROSS: You left home when you were--what?--15 or 16?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: Why did you leave? What did you want to get away from?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Dad worked us six days a week. Well, most people did because
it was poor, I mean, poverty. And I belonged to Mom on Sunday, and she was
great in church, so that give me seven days a week, you know, and that's what
I wanted away with. I didn't leave in anger nor none of that. I--it was time
to spread my wings. I mean, I had to go, and I'm glad they allowed me. And I
took one look in the coal mine, and I swore if I ever dig coal, it's not going
to be on this Earth. I'll go anywhere. I won't...

GROSS: Did you have family who worked in the mines, in the coal mines?

Mr. W. SCOTT: They all did.

GROSS: Mm-hm.

Mr. W. SCOTT: Grandparents and all. So if you live in east Kentucky, or
you did in my day and didn't want to dig coal, you went north or you went
west. So I went north and that was too cold for me, and I went west and
California was paradise for me. I stayed 22 years there so...

GROSS: So building fences in California seemed like paradise compared to the
coal mines?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Lord, yeah. I wouldn't dig coal. I wouldn't.

GROSS: Darrell, you have a song in which there's a lyric about a tombstone in
Harlan County, that says, `You'll never get out of Harlan County alive.'

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: Is there--did you see a tombstone that actually said that?

Mr. D. SCOTT: No, that's a little poetic license, but that was the
impression of it. I mean, basically I went to Harlan County to see--to
research what happened to a great-grandfather of mine who--I mean, they did
move from Harlan County to, as miners, to Knox County as poor farming. And
something happened after the move. He must have done something bad or
something. He just sort of exited family oral history. There's no record of
what happened to him at all. And so I went to Harlan County to do some
research, and I came up with no information on him whatsoever. And so that
song, "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive," is absolutely a true story, a true
song, and I had to make up, so to speak, the last verse. And if you know, at
least in my family, if you have roots in eastern Kentucky, and Harlan County
specifically, there's a mythology that goes on about it, bloody Harlan and how
tough it is, how--sort of fighting that it is. And again, if you understand,
you know, my parents were born in the '30s, and we have, you know, generations
of Kentucky family ahead of that, the myth runs pretty deep. And so, for me,
poetically, "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive," was just a scene--it seemed to
shake hands with the upbringing I had about the mythology of Harlan County.

GROSS: Would you be willing to do one verse of your song about Harlan County?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

(Soundbite of "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive" by Darrell Scott)

Mr. D. SCOTT:
(Singing) In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky,
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
It said, `You will never leave Harlan alive.'

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Well, thanks for doing that.

Wayne Scott, what do you think of that song? I mean, you grew up...

Mr. W. SCOTT: My eyes are wet now. I'm crying. It reminds me so much of
my old grandma and grandad. They had 10 children. And Patty Loveless
sings...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

Mr. W. SCOTT: ...that song, and I had to keep my handkerchief out while she
was singing. But that's a sad one to me, it's so real.

GROSS: My guests are Darrell and Wayne Scott. Darrell's new album is called
"The Invisible Man." His father's album is "This Weary Way." More after a
break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guests are Darrell Scott and his father, Wayne Scott. Darrell has
written many hit country songs and recorded several albums of his own. When
he started his own record label, he produced a record by his father, Wayne.

Well, Darrell Scott, some of the people who have had hits with your songs
include the Dixie Chicks, Travis Tritt, Sara Evans, Garth Brooks. Do they
ask you for songs? How did you manage to get them to them?

Mr. D. SCOTT: You know, I--for the most part, as I see the songs that were
cut by other people, I see songs that were taken from records that I put out
even in the small way that I would put them out...

GROSS: Mm-hm.

Mr. D. SCOTT: ...in an independent label or now where I'm putting them out
on
my own, with my own label and distribution and stuff. So I can only assume
that someone in either the record company or the producers or the artists
themselves were, I guess, fans of the music, of my records. And, you know, in
town here, there's a thing, you know, called a pitch, you know, where you
pitch songs. You know who's recording. You kind of even know what they're
looking for. You know who their producer is. You know their general sound.
I haven't had a lot of success in the normal pitch world. But it seems the
success I've had has come from the songs sort of bubbling up through their
camp, someone in their camp loving the song and thinking it would be right
for the artist or the artist, you know, loving the song. I--the pitch hasn't
worked, it seems to me. It's by putting out my own records, and that seems to
be where they're getting the songs.

GROSS: It seems to me that in Nashville you live in two different worlds.
You put out kind of like alternative country albums...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: I think it's fair to call it that.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: At the same time you have had songs that have been on, you know, like
mega-selling records, like by the Dixie Chicks...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm. Yeah, that's right.

GROSS: ...and Garth Brooks, so you've got a taste of both worlds there.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Yeah, and I can tell you one finances the other.

GROSS: Right. That's what I figured. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Mr. D. SCOTT: And that's why I'm able to put out records like my dad's or
my odd records or whatever, you know. It's because, you know, I'm making
money from the songs doing well, and rather than buying real estate or boats
that I don't need or things like that that come to some people with success
here in town, I'm throwing it back into music, and I'll do that until the
money runs out, basically.

GROSS: Now, you have a really good song called "Family Tree..."

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: ...about being kind of broke but having another baby. Do you have
kids?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Absolutely. I have three children.

GROSS: You have three.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: Do they all play?

Mr. D. SCOTT: You know, they're just starting to sort of surround that idea
right now. And I've been very hands off about that. Of course, they've been
surrounded by music and sessions in their living rooms and shows and stuff
that they've seen and friends--musician friends and all, but as far as them
playing an instrument, they have just started to do that in the last year, I
would say.

GROSS: How old are they?

Mr. D. SCOTT: Let's see. We've got 11-year-old, 13-year-old boys, and
almost 16-year-old girl.

GROSS: I mean, you come from a family where the whole family played and they
played together. Do you want your children to play with you?

Mr. D. SCOTT: No. I mean, that isn't like a vision of mine. I want them
to do what their heart is leading them to do, whatever that is. And that's
ult--that's way, way, way more important to me. I don't have visions of them
playing with me. I want them to do what they want to do.

GROSS: You know, you--Darrell Scott, you put out your father, Wayne Scott's,
first and only album last year when you started your record company...

Mr. D. SCOTT: Mm-hm.

GROSS: ...and Wayne Scott, has that affected your life a lot? Did you get a
lot of performances after that? Like what are some of the ripple effects it's
had?

Mr. W. SCOTT: I've told him at the beginning I don't want to leave this
mountain range, you know. Anything he can get me anywhere in the Appalachian
range or this area, I would do them, and the greatest thing I've ever done, he
had me do MerleFest in North Carolina. Of everything I ever did in music,
that took the cake for me. That was great. But, you know, to go anywhere
else, I'm not even into that. I'm too old. I'm too tired. I'd rather be
home.

Mr. D. SCOTT: I know a ripple effect.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. D. SCOTT: It's--that he's told me a lot about is hearing his
records on the radio in his area. Right?

Mr. W. SCOTT: Oh, yeah. That's something, to hear your son, and then, as
the
years go by, here's me, the same way. You know, that's--cotton don't grow
like that in my holler, you know.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both so much for talking with us. Thank
you.

Mr. W. SCOTT: Thank you.

Mr. D. SCOTT: Thanks, Terry.

GROSS: Darrell and Wayne Scott. Darrell's new CD is called "The Invisible
Man." Here's the title track from the album he produced of his father singing
"This Weary Way." Darrell's featured on guitar. It was recorded in Darrell's
living room.

(Soundbite of "This Weary Way" by Wayne Scott)

Mr. W. SCOTT: (Singing)
Once I was a slave for Satan
Many wrong things I have done
Many hearts have been broken
Too late to right the wrongs I've done.

Won't you listen to me, brother?
Get down on your knees and pray
If you wander alone as I have,
Oh Lord, help a man who may pass this weary way.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Coming up, Cheap Trick has a comeback CD and Ken Tucker has a review.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Ken Tucker reviews new CD "Rockford" by Cheap Trick
TERRY GROSS, host:

The rock band Cheap Trick had a string of pop rock hit singles in the late
'70s, such as "I Want You to Want Me" and "Dream Police." These days the band
is probably best known for singing the opening theme song in the street for
the sitcom "That '70s Show." But rock critic Ken Tucker says the band's new
album "Rockford" is a startling surprise, the same old sound made fresh.

(Soundbite from "Rockford")

Cheap Trick: (Singing)
Tonight I think I'll find my way downtown
I've got to turn my mind off, but I don't know how.
Let me dream tonight, dream tonight, hey
Dream tonight, dream tonight, hey
How could I...

(End of soundbite)

Mr. KEN TUCKER: Because the genre known as pop rock relies for its fuel on
the hot blood of adolescents, it's rare for a band of middle-agers to
musically recapture their youth. For evidence I point you away from recent
releases by Big Star and the so-called "new" Cars. Most of the time it's
better for musicians to just grow up and craft songs that mean something to
their adulthood. To grow up or go away. But if I say that Cheap Trick has
achieved a state of arrested development, I mean it as a compliment or, more
honestly, a statement of wonder. I mean, they've been trying to make a decent
comeback record for the past 10 years. Where did a new song as good as this
come from?

(Soundbite of music)

Cheap Trick: (Singing)
Every night I can play it
Every day I can say it, oh,
If I try I won't delay it
Every night and every day

I guess I'm living for the moment
I guess you're loving for today. Yeah.
Here is where we're going,
Or are we going to stay?
I really need you more than want you
But I still want you to stay

Every night I can play it
Every day I can say it
If I try won't delay it
Every night and every day

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: This is Cheap Trick in its most familiar lineup: Guitarist Rick
Nielsen, singer Robin Zander, bassist Tom Peterson, drummer Bun E. Carlos.
One thing the band has going for it is that it's always been a goof, a put-on
of a pop rock band acting like a hard rock band, whether you looked at
Zander's poofy hairdo or Nielsen's ridiculously big baseball cap or winced at
Bun E. Carlos's stilly stage name. His real name is Brad Carlson.

There was an element of instant or freeze-dried nostalgia hovering over the
band from its beginnings in Rockford, Illinois, in 1973. They immediately
gave in to and, therefore, transcended the exaggerated gestures and bombastic
excesses demanded of rock acts that played big stadiums in the late '70s. A
song on the new album seems to address their past and present in an oblique
way.

(Soundbite of music)

Cheap Trick: (Singing)
If I knew, wish I knew, I coulda
seen what I'm going through
When I first laid eyes on you
You blew me away, yeah,
(Unintelligible)...oh, so right,
I feel for you every night
You blew me away.

Ever since, you stayed away,
(Unintelligible)...gone.
Thought I'd lost the key to you
Looking for notes in the song.

This time we've got it, yeah
What I've been looking for
We've surely got it
I shouln't ask for any more.
Who could ask for anything more

You could be king for a day
You could be queen for a day, yeah

This time we've got it
This time we've got it
This time we've got it
Let's take it away.

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: "This Time We Got It" works as both a song about a romantic
couple working through its difficulties and as an assertion that this time
around Cheap Trick has its act together again, at least one more time. They
tried to assure that this album, "Rockford," got a commercial boost by
collaborating with professional hitmaker Linda Perry, whose work with everyone
from Courtney Love to Pink, on one song here "Perfect Stranger." But that tune
is so generic, it doesn't even merit playing.

Overall "Rockford" has its share of flimsy songs but you don't hold those
against them. They just give you a chance to catch your breath before another
good one comes around, and to laugh and marvel at the life in this music. And
talk about having cheerfully pointless hip cred, they wrote and performed the
theme song for Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." For a bunch of cynical
old tarts, these guys are, on their own terms ,the real thing--sellouts who
deserve to sell out stadiums and record stores.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is editor at large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed
"Rockford" by Cheap Trick.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.