John Conlee unedited radio interview with bumpers

Hi, this is John Connley and you're listening to the best in country with Pete Jordan. Hi, this is John Connley and Pete will be right back with more inside country in just a moment. Hi, this is Hi, this is Gary Morris and you're listening to Pete Jordan with more great country. Hi. Hi, this is Gary Morris and Pete will be back with some more inside country in a moment. What were your numbers like station you worked for? Great voice. Thanks. How long you been out of radio? Out of radio uh since June of 78. Since Rose color glasses hit. Still have your license? Well, I let it expire. You don't have to have a ticket anymore in the States. No. Not a third, you know. That's good. That sounds good. Does he does B still work? Are you George Ber? George was our road manager and unfortunately we lost George in an accident uh back in June in Los Angeles. Yeah. Drunk driver hit him. Yeah. You haven't been in your last album the latest. You haven't done any of the writing on that. No, haven't done any of the writing really since rosecolored glasses. Since that album. Why is there a reason? No time. And it's not writing is not uh that much of a burning desire with me. I guess when I was when I was writing some it was when I had more free time when I was still working in radio in fact and had you know more of a routine going and since we've been making a living at at what we're doing now we're gone twothirds of the time. So I if I wanted to do it more I'd make the time obviously but I don't. Singing is the main thing with me. How big a schedule do you keep right now? That's a number of tour dates per year. Uh we do as many as 120 a year, but we the time you count travel days that twothirds of the time. How long has it been since you've been those color glasses situation? How big of a shock was that to you when it hit as big as it did? Oh, was it? Yeah, sure. I mean, you never know. I don't think you know for sure. what songs are going to make it and what which ones aren't. If anybody knew that they could open an office and be multi-millionaires uh by just gleaning and previewing records and saying yes and no to record companies, but u you have some degree of confidence that it has at least a shot and u I was obviously happy when it uh when it made it. Did you pitch it to anybody else before? Everybody in town heard it essentially beforehand and along with Backside of 30 and backside of 30 was cut by Joe Stamploid before we had our recording contract. Nobody decided to cover. No, which suits me fine. Where were you when you heard radio first time? Do you remember? Uh probably somewhere in Nashville. But the the time that rem that I remember the most uh is uh driving from Tennessee to Kentucky and skipping around on the AM dial and hearing a station in Dallas play it and then going to Chicago station and then hearing it soon as I switched. That brought the point home that it was a more than a hit in Nashville. It was just, you know, all across the country. Anyone with you in the car? No, I was alone. You couldn't yell out and say me? No. No. I just probably grinned were pretty big and kept driving. Who um if anybody major could record a song that you had written back then, who would you want it to be? Right. Charles. Yeah. Then or now? Yeah. Mine too. You wouldn't pitch anything to him at all? Have you written songs before that you got sitting in a drawer somewhere that you're not going to bother using or maybe someday? Oh, maybe someday. I'd have to go back and they'd all the ones we haven't used so far would need polishing, you know, and uh I've I've dug them out a time or two and listened and you know, no ideas for improving them. So, they go back in the drawer, but that's what would have to happen probably before any of them would be usable by either me or anybody else. Have you ever been approached by anybody else to record with them like Ray Charles or any um that type of material or does that not interest you? Uh that's something that's a question everybody so far has asked uh tonight and the duet the duet thing is getting into crazy proportions. Uh and since it is and since it's becoming so common I'll probably stay away from it till it dies down a little bit and then think about it. Haven't done any duets yet with anybody but uh it's not impossible. Ray would be a good candidate if he'd be willing you know right. Yeah. mostly other people on CBS except for the Oaks I think they're on MCA. Are you happy with the folks right now at MCA so far? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people find it hard to believe when you talk about your background, the stuff that you were doing before you got into your if you don't mind. An encapsulated view. Born and raised on a farm in Kentucky. Uh we still operate those farms. From there into the funeral profession for six years. uh became a licensed mortician. I still do keep that license renewed and uh from there to broadcasting for nine years and um and then of course from there to to the music business. So three or four other things I know how to do to make a living at to some degree or other. What I'm curious what got you interested in being a mortician? Well, I had a good friend who was working part-time uh there, you know, when we were in high school. We had a folk trio together. He talked about it a lot. he liked it enough to get me interested. So, my senior year in high school, I started working there part-time and we also ran ambulance service and everything. So, a lot of self-satisfaction to it. You're helping people with the am in the case of the ambulance when they're sick or hurt or whatever. And uh in the case of the funeral profession, you're there to help the survivors, the families through what's for most people the toughest time they'll ever go through. That was the attraction. After working the year part-time, I got interested enough to to pursue it full-time after I got out of high school and got my licenses. Um, it was sort of a diversion because radio had always been a thing I was going to get into from the time I was 9 or 10 years old. And after the six years, it was time for me either to get more involved in the funeral profession to own a place somewhere, whatever, or scratch this other itch. So, I decided to break away and try radio for a while and see what happened. And here I said uh mornings, afternoons, general manager, program director, music director, janitor, uh all of it. Yeah. No, not that hard. Not that hard. But like most everybody else who's in broadcasting, you do a little bit of everything, I guess. Over the time. Well, when was the last time you were in the recording studio? Yeah, this well the current album. uh the new the brand new one that I don't know if you even have it yet. It's it's just shipping this week. It's called Blue Highway and the new single Years After You is on that album and I guess we finished it up about two months ago. Three two and a half as far as my part of it was concerned. How do you feel about it? Uh I think it's I'll leave that up to everybody else. I'm proud of it. I think it's good. Uh if I didn't, we you wouldn't be getting it this week. Who gave a cut on that one? probably years after you. Um I think it's a special song. Um there's another song on that I don't know if it'll ever be a single or not, but it's kind of similar to the In My Eyes cut on on the Eyes album. It's special to me because of my relationship with my wife and everything. And it's a Jerry Fuller song called But She Loves Me. That's real special to me on the new album. Um but there are there are several that I dig on it, you know, a lot. What does your wife do? Is she working on the farm or? Yeah, we have a 16-month old baby and a 15-year-old daughter and a lot of farm animals and things. So, she she takes care of all that, you know, and me. What about coming to Canada? Do you like it? Oh, yeah, sure. You very well. We uh we've always done well here. And as I understand it from the label people here, um, the last year or so, year and a half, uh, our popularity seems to be increasing. Record sales seems to be increasing up here. That's what they tell me. I don't know, maybe it's a line, but yeah, we enjoy it. We enjoy it. We get to come one province or the other. You know, we're across the border maybe six or eight times a year. Where does country music go these days? On your last album, you went to Arkansas down south. Uh-huh. Did you just like make the song? Yeah. Yeah, that's that's about it. Um, you know, you come across them every now and then that you just that you dig, so you do your own thing with it. Have you got any on the new album? I don't think there any No, no. Everything's pretty uh it's pretty much original. The only thing I know of that's been cut that comes to mind uh we've got our version of Radio Lover on the new album which u Jones had no it was never released as a single so we cut that and you know u I guess there's some well there's some possibility that any of the other nine cuts could be singles. Uh we usually wait for feedback once the album's out to see you know what uh potential future singles will be. So, uh, that's the only song I can think of though that's been cut by anybody else that's been heard very much or whatever. Can you relate to that song? Yeah. With with your background in radio, do you have any input with MCA as to what songs are children? Mhm. Oh, yeah. Have had all along. I think that's necessary. Um, you know, it's you have to have a maintain a certain amount of control over your own career. I do. And uh and that includes certainly choosing which songs are going to be singles and which ones aren't. Would you as a I guess something to lean against if the new material ever stopped being good enough quality, would you rely on older songs to bring them back? Try them as singles once again seems to be the rage of these days. Old 60s. Well, that's happening quite a bit. That is happening quite a bit. Um had some success. I I think it's very it's viable. Uh you know, it depends on the song. That's Busted is really what that's the way it happened with us. Busted is a song that I've been into forever with from the Ray Charles version and u we cut it just because we wanted to do it and it turned out well enough that we then decided to release it as single because of the economy at the time. It was the dead of winter and it worked out very well. So sure, I'm not opposed to bringing back old tunes at all. For those of us that missed it the first time by Yeah. Right. How about that? I don't remember loving you. Did you like that song the first time you saw it? pretty much. Yeah, that's um it's a real different tune, you know, different subject matter for any kind of song. But yeah, that that's one of those that kind of grabs the the first time out. This the new one did the same thing to me. Sometimes you have to hear songs several times before you know whether you you know whether they grow on you or not. And but every now and then you hear some that grab you the first listen. And years after you did that for me and as I recall, so did I remember living in. One line that catches me, please be Yeah, right. Thanks. Got a lot of requests for the bar I worked at when it came out. That song crazy song. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. You're very welcome. Time out to do this. Glad to. Oh, girl.