And that’s where I came in. I was the female vocalist on the demos of one or all of those songs. Let’s say they wrote a song that they thought was perfect for Martina McBride or Trisha Yearwood. They’d call me and say, “Hey we got this song. We need a key from you, because we’re going to track it in the studio on Monday at ten A.M.” Then I’d show up at three P.M. the same day and put my vocal on it. Then they’d mix it, give it to the publisher, who would then take it to Martina McBride’s record company and play it for someone in the A&R (or Artists & Repertoire) department.
The record company guy might reject the song himself or send it to Martina’s producer, who might reject it, or to Martina herself, who might reject it. Or Martina and the producer could really like it, but have no place on her current album for it. So, for that poor little song, there are a lot of hurdles to clear before it ever shows up on a CD or country radio.
This is all very serious business, because there is a lot of money—millions—in publishing a song that becomes a giant hit and maybe even a popular standard for years to come. Because of this, being a singer-songwriter can give you a lot more staying power in Nashville than just being a performer. It gives you at least two sources of income—publishing and recording.
Now back to my own demo work. It wasn’t too long after I had Grace that I started getting an increasing number of calls to sing on demos. Sometimes I might be in a studio with John or another one of my cohorts recording a demo of their song, and someone at the studio would say, “Hey, you’re good—let me jot your name down.” It was a word-of-mouth business and like everything in Nashville, at first the calls were few and far between but then began to pick up. Pretty soon I was one of the primary “go-to” girls when it came to demo-singing. It was how I supported myself and the family before I finally got my own recording contract.
There were only a few female demo vocalists at that time who could sing well and give a certain song a certain style and passion that might appeal to a certain star. If you are a songwriter who’s pitching a song to Trisha Yearwood, you want the demo to sound like Trisha Yearwood so that she can hear herself singing that song. If you sing on enough demos, you can learn a lot of different singing techniques. That was another part of my musical education before I landed a deal.
The way the demo recording business works, they pay you per song, which means, they pay you the same whether it takes you five minutes or five hours to get that song down right. I got good at doing a great demo quick. This really helps if you’re trying to get back to your toddler or if you have that toddler right in the studio with you. It also means you can record more songs in a given day or week. And I did a hell of a lot. I bet there are probably three thousand songs sitting around on Music Row with my voice on them. For a while there, I was damn near the Queen of the Demos.
It’s kind of funny, but now, years later, I can turn on the radio and hear a song that I originally recorded as a demo. I can even hear how the artist singing it borrowed some of the licks that I had come up with for the demo. It doesn’t bother me now—it’s all part of the process of getting a song demoed, sold, and recorded. God knows I’ve been influenced by singing styles and licks that I’ve heard over the years, from Tanya Tucker to Nancy Wilson.
And I would take my little Grace with me to every demo recording session I could. I would haul her from studio to studio in her little car-carrier seat. I called it her “pumpkin seat.” I’d often put her in one of those glass-enclosed acoustical vocal booths that are completely soundproof. I’d close the door while I recorded a track so that she wouldn’t ruin the take by crying or making a racket. She could see me through the glass and I could see her while I was singing. Soon Grace and I were doing five or six demo sessions a week. I wasn’t getting rich but I was making a decent living and I was getting my name out there, not just as a demo singer, but as a singer, period.
Demo-singing was definitely a way in for me, along with the association with the talented people in the Muzik Mafia. Because of my spreading reputation in the world of demos, I had a chance to do a number of showcases for industry decision-makers. A formal showcase is different from the in-office kind of audition that I did for John Grady that landed me my first deal. A showcase is a stage performance for invited recording company A&R executives and managers and songwriters and anyone with any clout that you can get to come out on a Thursday night and hear you sing a set of songs. If you’re going to throw a showcase, you have to spend some money, most likely money out of your own pocket. Even if your musician friends pitch in to help, there are unavoidable costs in mounting a public audition like that. Unfortunately none of the showcases that I sweated over, prepared for, and performed ever led to anything. I actually met my manager at a private party and got a contract in a sterile office at eight o’clock in the morning. Go figure.
From demo studios to riding with me on my tour bus to hanging out backstage at huge municipal arenas, Grace has grown up around musicians, stagehands, truck drivers, and a host of other people associated with a life in music. It is terribly painful to this day to have to tell her that Mommy has to go away for days or even weeks and do her work, leaving the one she loves most at home. It’s not pleasant to get a phone call saying, “So, where are you tonight, Mommy? When will you be home? Will you be home soon? I got a lot of stuff to show you . . .”
Given the circumstances, much of this separation is unavoidable, but there are ways to minimize it and I’m trying to find every one in the book. It’s imperative, for instance, that Grace has a good relationship with her father, which we’ve all tried to maintain. And, also, with all the traveling in our lives, it’s important that Grace feels like she has a real home, with her own room, her own pets, her own friends, and a few loving relatives in shouting distance. I know the other way for a child to grow up—the way I grew up—and I don’t want Grace’s life to be that fragmented, full of stress and often lonely.
Even so, there have been times when she has rebelled against this back-and-forth separation. I remember one specific occasion after I had become “an overnight sensation” that brought this home in a big way. We were at home at the time and Grace was walking across the living room from her bedroom. One of my videos came on CMT, for probably the fiftieth time, and Grace stopped to catch it for a moment. Then she looked at me and her daddy, rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and announced:
“I am so sick of Gretchen Wilson.”
I knew exactly what she meant—she was sick of Gretchen Wilson the singer, the performer, the interviewee, the business. I remember at the time hoping I’d never, ever hear, “I’m sick of Mommy.” As long as it was “Gretchen Wilson,” at least for the time being, that was fine. There are days where I get a little fed up with all this “Gretchen Wilson” craziness myself.
When Grace is on the road with me, she kind of takes over, creating her own little world in the backstage dressing room and making friends with anyone in sight. For instance, as we’re doing this book, she is six and she is infatuated with the lead guitarist in my band, Dean Hall. She’s crazy about Dean. She acts like a fourteen-year-old girl around him. She writes him little notes and stuffs them in the hole in his guitar. Dean saves them and when Grace comes with us on the road again, she’ll ask, “Do you still have that note?” and he’ll say, “Sure.” It’s their own little friendship game.
The advantage of all of this for Grace is that she meets and gets to know all kinds of people, often strange, one-of-a-kind people. The show business environment she is privy to is sure a lot different than growing up in the isolated world of Pocahontas, Illinois. There are strange people there, too, of course, just not as many, I guess.
Because she is around so many different people, she is not lacking in social skills. She is not the shy, retiring type. She loves to be the center of attention, especially on the road, and she loves the camaraderie of the band and crew. I like to say that she has never met a stranger. She loves everyone.
Typical of t
he way Grace encounters the world is the first time she met Fred Gill. Fred is a dwarf who is both an amazing entrepreneur—his ventures include the Funkey Monkey tavern in Seymour, Indiana—and an integral part of the Muzik Mafia community. His official title is “Ambassador of Attractions” for Big & Rich. He is all of three feet, two inches and a wonderful free spirit. We affectionately refer to him as “Two Foot Fred.”
Well, the first time Grace met Fred, she was a little freaked out. She looked at me in a kind of scared way and said, “Mommy, why is he so little?”
I said, “I don’t know, baby, he’s a dwarf.” Always tell your kid the truth, I strongly believe, even if it is at times a little confusing.
So Grace walked up to Fred, made a little small talk, and then just asked him straight out, “So, why are you so little?”
Without skipping a beat, Fred looked her in the eye and said, “’Cause that’s the way God made me.”
Grace came right back with, “Oh, okay. You want to see my new trick?”
It was that simple. Case closed. The innocence of a child can blow you away from time to time and point out how we adults can be so messed up when it comes to people who are different from us. My grandpa thought all Italians, not to mention every other ethnic group on earth, were not to be trusted. Thankfully, Grace, growing up in a world full of all kinds of strange and wonderful people, won’t have the same blanket prejudices.
Grace has changed me in so many ways. Although I had drinking problems in the past, for instance, I don’t think I’ll have another one as long as she is in my life. Since she arrived, I realized that I was no longer living just for myself and my own wants and needs. I was living for her, too. In the simplest of terms, it was not all about me anymore. This is a very good thing to remember when you get caught up in a star-making business where the person on the pedestal is often led into thinking that he or she is the center of the known universe. Grace walks into the room and that kind of egomania goes right out the window.
The bottom line is, Grace is my life and music is my talent and passion. I think music can be a wonderful, healing thing. It can change people’s lives sometimes, and certainly change their mood or outlook during times of trouble and stress. And it is a wonderful thing to be able to stand on stage and do what I do for a living. But, having said that, the ultimate reality in my life is my daughter. That’s who I really am. I’m a mom first, a singer second.
Through careful planning, keeping my priorities straight, and maybe a little luck, I’ve been able to stay close to my precious daughter and still be the “Gretchen Wilson” that sometimes irritates her. It is not always easy, especially right after my career took off like a shot, and I’m sure Grace still has some complaints at times about our unusual life together and apart. But, with the help of my extended family and the people I work with who understand how I feel about Grace, we’ve made it work pretty well up to now. I think I’m doing, and will continue to do, everything I can to see that my daughter can grow up with more advantages, and in a healthier environment, than I did. Just like my grandma, my mom, and me, she’s a redneck woman, too, and will probably, sooner or later, show us just how far a redneck woman can go.
Having centered my personal life around Grace, the next big step in my career—meeting my managers—also involved children, ironically. Longtime music promoter and manager Marc Oswald, who was already handling the career of Big & Rich, held a kind of barbecue-pool party at his house in honor of a group of people in Nashville, including himself, who had adopted young orphans from Russia. John and Kenny were invited and brought me along. I didn’t know Marc but I knew him by reputation. He had promoted massive country shows, produced a lot of network television, and knew his way around Nashville. John had been telling Marc about me and they both thought this was the perfect occasion to introduce me to a bunch of insiders, including legendary manager Dale Morris. Dale’s clients include Alabama and Kenny Chesney. It was an honor just to meet him, let alone end up being represented by him.
So I went to Marc’s party and kind of hid behind John and Kenny in a setting where I knew very few people. To quote Marc, “She hadn’t been to too many pool parties, at least not where the pool was in the ground.” Along with Big & Rich, I got up and sang a couple of songs. Even amidst all the kids and craziness of that party, I must have made an impression, because it wasn’t too long before both Dale and Marc began to help guide my career. Today they are my co-managers and are involved in every aspect of my professional life.
The big meeting at Sony with John Grady came about through the Sony A&R man at the time, Mark Wright. It was Mark’s job to find “artists” and develop their “repertoire.” I had met Mark at another failed audition at another label and though the label head politely ran me out of his office, Mark liked what I was up to. When he moved to Sony, he remembered my name. Through two local contacts, Cory Gierman of Muzik Mafia fame and Greg Perkins, a tavern owner and friend, I got a meeting coordinated by Mark Wright to go in and meet John Grady.
At the very last minute, not wanting to walk into the high-powered meeting all by myself, I called Dale Morris and asked if he would come with me and represent me as management. He said yes, I’m happy to report, and the rest, as they say, is history.
When I look back, I owe a lot of people a lifetime of gratitude for helping me get to that particular, life-changing, in-office showcase. I could say, for instance, that I got my record deal specifically because of Mark Wright. But that would leave out a roomful of people who got me to the place where Mark introduced me to John Grady. John Rich, Big Kenny, Sharon Vaughn, Cory Gierman, Greg Perkins, and a bunch of others had been setting up showcases for me and spreading my name around for a long time. So who got me my big break? I’d have to say, in all fairness, every last one of them.
CHAPTER 9
NO BAD FOR A BARTENDER
Not bad for a bartender
Or an eighth grade education
Pretty good for a backwoods girl, who had to make it on her own
I’m on the stool side of the bar these days buying everyone a round
Ain’t it funny how the tables turned
Not bad for a bartender
“Not Bad for a Bartender”
The night after the morning I sang in John Grady’s office and he handed me the note that said “NOW,” John Rich and I were out celebrating and we ended up in front of the Ryman Auditorium, the longtime spiritual home—almost the Vatican—of the Grand Ole Opry and, in a way, a shrine to all of country music, back to the days of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, “The Singing Brakeman.” Standing in front of the Ryman is like standing in front of a Gothic cathedral. It seems ancient and sacred, and it’s usually empty these days and kind of quiet and ghostly.
Anyway, just for the hell of it, John and I went around to the side and tried to open the door. To our surprise, it was unlocked. So I look at John and say, “So, you want to go in?” John immediately replies, “Let’s go.”
The place was totally empty. We look around and see nothing but this dark, all-wood theater converted from an actual church that was originally built in 1892. On the empty stage, though, we spot a guitar just sitting there. John picks up the guitar, strums a few chords, and begins a song so familiar to me that I just opened my mouth and start singing. The Patsy Cline classic, “Leavin’ on Your Mind.” It was a magical moment for me. Here I was, standing on the stage of the Ryman, just like Patsy, and singing a song I felt I was born to sing, just like Patsy. It was like Dorothy arriving at the gates of Oz after that long trek down the yellow brick road. I even repeat that image in the song “Not Bad for a Bartender”:
Swinging doors and cleaning floors is all I’d ever known
Then out of nowhere somehow I found my yellow brick road
And now I was in Oz. As I was singing “Leavin’ on Your Mind,” a security guard showed up, ready to hustle us out of the building. Either out of politeness or because she liked the sound of my voice singing
that familiar ballad, she let me finish the song. Then she tossed us out.
Later we went back to the Ryman, having gotten all the proper clearances, and filmed a fantasy version of that moment for the video for my song “When I Think About Cheatin’.” We even added the exact date of that original “break-in”—August 27, 2003, 1:04A.M. Like in the real story, John finds a door open and he and I mount the stage to do a song. This time it’s my own “cheatin’” song, told from a woman’s point of view and sung in front of an old-time Opry microphone. Both the stage and the audience are haunted with the ghostly presence of some of the great performers of the Opry. Through the magic of special effects, as I sing, I am surrounded by the likes of Conway Twitty, Roy Acuff, Little Jimmy Dickens, Hank Sr., Floyd Cramer, and of course, Patsy Cline. In the video, you can actually see them in the room. In reality, I just felt them, strongly.
Later, on my second CD, we introduce the song “One Bud Wiser,” with another nod to the Opry. “Ladies and gentlemen,” John Rich says in his best old-timey voice, “Welcome to the Grand Ole Opry here in Nashville, Tennessee. All the way from Pocahontas, Illinois, it’s Gret-chen Wilson!” We thought it fit the song perfectly. “One Bud Wiser” sounds like a classic Opry tune, doesn’t it?
I guess at the moment when John and I first got up on that empty Ryman stage and I sang “Leavin’ on Your Mind,” I felt in my heart that I had finally been invited to join those great country performers, at least for one record distributed by Sony. I had just made a long, strange journey from a Patsy Cline song playing on my grandma’s record player back in Greenville, Illinois, to a Patsy Cline song on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. If I hadn’t reached the top of the mountain, I was damn close.
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