by Bruce Feiler
The answer, ultimately, has to do with the changing nature of country music. First, Nashville’s younger audience now included more women—as much as 60 percent in some surveys. Second, because female artists had fewer role models in country, these artists were forced to draw from a broader range of influences than their male counterparts, which helped them to make music that was more modern and more daring. In a conversation I had with Deana Carter, the first of the post-Shania power cheerleader blondes, she didn’t even mention a country artist among her influences, which included Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, and Rickie Lee Jones. “Sometimes I want to be so pop, it gives me a cavity. I know it’s sappy, but I love Bread,” she said, referring to the seventies smooch rock kings. Third, these women were helped by a new crop of female songwriters who delved into topics men had long shunned. Deana Carter’s breakthrough hit, “Strawberry Wine,” co-written by Matraca Berg, tells the story of a seventeen-year-old girl who loses her virginity to an older man. “He was working through college on my grandpa’s farm / I was thirsting for knowledge and he had a car.” Hazel called it the first song about teenage free love.
All of these changes in tone and style posed an indirect threat to Wynonna, whose spiritualism and “big woman” body suddenly seemed at odds with the times. But the bigger threat she faced was the personalities of these women: Each was fiercely determined to succeed. “I know what I want,” Shania said. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t go out and get it. If I use a little sex appeal and I have a little fun, what’s wrong with that? The key is maintaining control and knowing when to draw the line.” As Deana Carter, who looked uncommonly like Marcia Brady, echoed: “Sure, I may look like a dumb blonde, but people respect me in this town. Maybe it’s just the will to succeed. Maybe it’s because there’s never been a question of failure in my mind. And maybe it’s dignity. I’ve never slept with an executive in this town, and believe me, they have tried for years. But they look at me with respect because I told them to kiss my ass in a heartbeat.”
This was an attitude—telling Music Row to shove it—that Wynonna never had before, but that she was just beginning to realize she needed.
Back at her party, Wynonna was fed up. Though the hundreds of people gathered in Trilogy were there for her and though the dozen or so television cameras huddled at the bar were waiting to hear what she had to say, she didn’t feel like talking. “I didn’t want to come tonight,” she muttered. “I hate these kinds of events.” Minutes later, after the entire room surged around her in a cartoon version of a press mob, she’d had enough. “Let’s go,” she said, ducking under a cameraman and tugging my arm.
A few steps from the bar, she opened a door onto a secret lounge that was tucked in the back of Trilogy. This was Naomi’s Room, a dimly lit salon with mod purple and red velvet sofas, a lava lamp, and the general air of a futuristic Las Vegas getaway—Frank Sinatra meets Buckaroo Banzai. “This is where Luke Perry likes to come to relax,” Wynonna said. With her manager and publicist scurrying behind her, Wynonna seemed in no mood for relaxing.
“Okay, I have some questions for you people,” Wynonna said. “I want to know what’s wrong.” What followed was the Judd version of a tirade. Wynonna was upset that her newest album, revelations, was not selling at the pace of her previous two. The album, an emotional mix of spiritual ballads and heart-wrenching love songs, had started off strongly, but, with mixed reviews and a slow-climbing single, had dropped from the top of the charts. At first Wynonna blamed this slippage on her label. “They are satisfied with just two million in sales,” she said. “I want to know why we can’t sell four million records?” Then she blamed it on the media. “I know who I am,” she said, “but nobody else does. Why am I not in The New York Times? Why am I not in Rolling Stone? What are the editors of these magazines saying? Tell me. I want to know.”
No one, of course, said anything: The scene was too unreal. Paula Batson, Wynonna’s publicist and a former MCA executive from Los Angeles, sat quietly in a chair across from Wynonna. John Unger, Wynonna’s manager and a preppy, Princeton-educated lawyer, sat next to his client with a resigned expression of “I’ve seen it all before.” “Wynonna is very much an artiste,” he told me later. “Very intense. Very emotional. Very passionate about her music. But also very confused. She’s been on a mythical journey. A journey of finding her own identity. Of growing up. Of leaving and going out into the wilderness and trying to find out who she is.”
“Maybe it’s my producer,” Wynonna continued. “I told Tony Brown, ‘You don’t need to be my producer and be the main guy at MCA.’ Everyone’s getting really greedy. When I was making this record, I wanted to bring Eric Clapton in to play guitar. Tony said we just didn’t have time. Well, let’s make time. Hell, I’m paying for it anyway.” Then again, maybe it was all the new women in Nashville. “It’s getting gross out there,” she said. “It’s such a T-and-A thing. They’re making dresses now to where the accent is on showing the belly button and the nipple. What’s next? Designing little hearts around the pubic area? It’s depressing. It goes straight for the libido and bypasses the heart.”
This scene too was depressing. It reminded me of the moment in Robert Altman’s film Nashville, when Ronee Blakely’s diva-esque character, said to be a composite of Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, faints onstage and retreats to her bed, where she lies brooding in a fever-induced rage, lashing out at the evils of the industry. Wynonna too was capable of such zealous rages—what about my spirit, how about the music, where is the love? But then suddenly, from this tirade, a pause. Wynonna, in a rare moment, turned her gaze on herself. Might she be the one to blame? Might she have done something wrong? Her voice dipped to a quiver when she confronted this possibility.
“I’m trying to organize my life,” she said, her voice almost pleading. “I’m studying Stephen Covey. I’m working with Deepak. I’m looking for a personal trainer I can turn my life over to. I’m trying to decide what part of my life is for family, what part for fun, what part for interviews. Is that what the problem is? Is it me? Is it because I’m fat? Do I have to show my belly button and make sexy videos?”
The moment felt like an epiphany, as if Wynonna was waking from a deep sleep.
“Nashville used to be such a refuge,” she said. “People felt this longing to go somewhere where they could be appreciated. Now, if we’re not careful, we’ll turn into another New York and L.A., where everyone’s just a commodity.” Her voice was growing in strength. She sat up for the first time. “I want women to be independent as much as anybody,” she said. “I want women to be appreciated. But there’s no reason that just because I don’t show my belly button, I can’t be strong or in control. Someone called my hotline recently and asked if now that I had a husband and a child was I going to become boring and fade away. I wanted to pick up the phone and call that wench. No way am I going to become boring. I’ll ride my Harley home from the hospital with my baby over my shoulder if I have to. I’ll organize a convention of bikers and ride naked through the desert. I’m not going to become boring, and I’m not going to go away.”
ELEVEN
THE SINGLE
On the third Monday in April, the most important woman in Wade Hayes’s life—or, at least, his career—was staring into a blue-and-white computer screen in a spacious first-floor office overlooking a rain-puddled 16th Avenue South. She was also, by virtue of what came over that screen, one of the most powerful women on Music Row. And at the moment she was pissed.
“That bastard!” Debi Fleischer said. “He’s not supposed to do that to me…” She paused for a second to consider her options, then blurted, “I must get Jack on the phone.”
She pivoted from her screen for the first time in an hour and punched a speed-dial entrant on her telephone. Within seconds, a faraway ringing could be heard from the speaker. When it became clear that Jack was not going to answer, Debi Fleischer, Jack’s boss, the vice president for promotions at Columbia Records, and a wo
man hailed by several dozen gold records on her wall (not to mention a few stuffed animals in the corner) as the “Queen,” began preparing a pointed message for his machine.
“So, Jack,” Debi began at the tone. She was a round, usually jolly woman in her don’t-ask forties with straight black bob hair and an chronically infectious grin. She had a laugh that could lighten the labyrinthine offices of Sony Music (Sony had two divisions in Nashville: Columbia and Epic), but also, when needed, a sarcastic bite that could weaken even the most pompous male bombast in what was still one of the most testosterone-infused corners of the entertainment business, country music. If she was a queen, it was the Queen of Hearts—smiling, smiling, then “Off with your head.”
“I’m sitting here looking at BBS in Syracuse,” she continued, “and I don’t see Wade on this list.” On her screen, the weekly playlist from WBBS, a radio station in upstate New York, had just appeared. It was one of 183 such lists announcing spins for the upcoming week. Each list would appear over the next several hours on the live, on-line tracking system kept by Radio & Records. At the end of the day, the spins from those lists would be tabulated, weighted according to the size of the station, and ranked in order of popularity, thus determining the top seventy-five country singles of the week.
“Their adds are thirteen spins: Shania Twain,” Debi said. “Okay, I can see that. Ten spins: Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt. Well, maybe. But five spins: Keith Gattis. Can you explain that last one to me? I thought BBS didn’t add records that weren’t by stars. And I thought they didn’t add those records until they made Top 10. Let me know what you know about this situation, and what you don’t know…find out.”
Debi Fleischer was not having a good day. Still two months—or, in radio terms, eight weeks—away from the release of Wade’s new album, On a Good Night, Debi had chosen this day to release the album’s first single, the rockin’ Bubba anthem “On a Good Night,” to the 2,642 radio stations that program country music full-time. Record companies release singles several months early to radio in an effort to build up momentum before the albums go on sale. To add even more umph to the release of Wade’s new single, Debi, a native of Burbank, California, who had worked as a road manager for Crystal Gayle before turning to record promotion in the early 1980s, had decided to transfer the song to the two hundred or so stations that really count (the ones that report their playlists to the chartmakers at Billboard and R&R) by digital satellite transmission, or DGS, precisely six days before.
“It’s more expensive,” she explained a week before the experiment, “but right now it’s not been done a lot, so it’s another way of saying we think so much of this artist that we’re doing this special thing. We’re giving you his new single in this high-quality instant form so that as soon as it’s unscrambled you can rush it on the air.” The idea was to create so much buzz around the song that it would smother the other half dozen records also going for adds that week. “We want to be the most-added record,” she explained. She also hoped to achieve “breaker” status on the R&R chart, meaning 60 percent of the stations had added the song. And what, for her, would be the best-case scenario? At least 120 adds, she said, and a debut in the thirties. And the worst-case scenario? Fewer than seventy-five adds and not charting at all. “That would be a disaster,” she said.
Disaster struck early in this case. The satellite transmission system failed miserably. Most stations, it turned out, didn’t know they had such a system, and those that did know they had it couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Debi, in California at the time, immediately ordered her staff to overnight the single to all two hundred reporting stations via UPS. UPS, though, lost the shipment. By the time a backup shipment arrived the next day, Friday (“Oh, and my consolation is that I’m supposed to be getting the whole thing free,” she said), Wade had already missed most of the planning meetings that would have allowed him to be added to most stations on Monday. “On a Good Night” was having a bad week.
Working overtime, Debi and her staff of regional promoters had managed to stabilize the situation by Monday morning, cajoling promises from at least fifty stations that they would add Wade to their lists. By midafternoon, the question had become whether they could regain enough momentum to overtake Alabama’s new single, “Say I,” when the window for submissions closed at 5 P.M. CST. The mood in her office was tense, with a constant flow of executives, staffers, and even managers (Mike Robertson had come by earlier; Wade was on the road in Michigan). Throughout, the screen remained the center of attention of this minidrama, which was being carried out in real time in offices just like this one up and down Music Row, as well as at radio stations from Los Angeles to Long Island.
As station after station submitted its playlist, Debi would click on it and scan it with animallike ferocity. “Ooooh, Greenville just added Wade at thirteen spins!” she trumpeted. “Plus Ray Hood. Who’s Ray Hood? That must be a coerced add.” Every now and then, something unusual would pop up and she would get titillated. “Look, KSCS just dropped Garth,” she cooed at one point. “I’ll give them five minutes to fix that.” And sure enough, five minutes later, KSCS resubmitted and Garth’s “The Change” was back on for another week. “Looks like somebody wanted some tickets or maybe a jacket,” she said. “But I tell you, it won’t go Top 15. The song’s just too pompous.” The whole enterprise reminded me of a giant game of on-line chicken. I could think of no segment of American business, with the exception of Wall Street, where so much was riding on a set of actions being played out simultaneously on dozens of computer terminals around the country. And unlike trading stocks or bonds, the central players in this enterprise changed their actions right up until the last minute.
By four o’clock, “On a Good Night” had regained something of a healthy momentum: WDSY, Pittsburgh, twenty spins; KFMS, Las Vegas, seventeen spins; WWZD, Macon, five spins. For someone unaccustomed to the geography of country music, the array was mind-boggling: Wade was added in upstate New York (WFRG, Utica) and Southern California (KIKF, Los Angeles), as well as Anchorage (KASH), Akron (WQMX), and Amarillo (KGNC). He was playing in Peoria, as well as in Elvis’s hometown, Tupelo, Mississippi. He was also playing, most crucially of all, on WUSN in Chicago, the largest country station in America with just under 1 million listeners, and on WSIX in Nashville, the most important station in the country, since that’s where Music Row gets its information.
At the top of the chart, this day would bring little excitement. Despite an early push, John Michael Montgomery was clearly ahead of Faith Hill, who herself was facing a late-day challenge from Brooks & Dunn, whose “My Maria” was the hottest song all year and would eventually stay perched at number one for three weeks. At the bottom, a battle was developing among Wade, Alabama, and Shania Twain, whose record wasn’t officially going for adds until the following week, but because of the energy surrounding her career was being added early by dozens of stations, particularly big-city stations that carry more weight in the complex point system that eventually determines chart position.
Debi was sweating for every station she could get, and ones she didn’t get, she took personally. When WHOK in Columbus, Georgia, added Alabama and newcomer Keith Gattis (both on RCA) over Wade and another of her acts, the band Ricochet, she was visibly upset. “The fact that they added those records means I consider us screwed. They’d add Keith Gattis over Ricochet and Wade Hayes? Excuse me? If they called me and asked for something right now I’d say, ‘Fuck you. When you add my record, I’ll give you something.’” Minutes later, she got that opportunity. Jack called back from the Northeast region and reported that RCA had promised WBBS in Syracuse a free show from Keith Gattis the next time he’s in the area. Also, Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt were going to be playing in the region in the coming weeks. “And who’s going to be their opening act?” Debi asked archly. Jack didn’t know. “Ricochet!” she boomed. “Now get back on the phone and tell them if they want any tickets, they better reconsider their attitude.” Smil
ing, smiling, “Off with their heads.”
At just before five, there was a rush of final stations. Several members of Debi’s staff had gathered in her office, along with the president, Allen Butler, and VP, Paul Worley, who had earlier approved Wade’s material in the studio. It took Debi several minutes to slog through the last few lists: Boston, Detroit, San Antonio, Tampa. As she was doing so, the Southwest rep, working out of the Nashville office, came sprinting into the office. “I just got Oklahoma City!” Debi looked at her watch: Just under the deadline. At precisely 5:06, she pulled up WTDI in Charlotte and let out an audible squeal. The mass of anxious executives surged forward as if she was about to go into labor. “We’re going to be the most-added record,” she began to chant. “We’re going to be the most-added record!” The half dozen or so people burst into applause and reached for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s stowed safely under the table. A bag of chips magically appeared, along with a quart of Debi’s favorite salsa from the San Antonio Taco Co.
At just after six, a small ding emanated from the terminal and the chart numbers materialized on the screen. John Michael finished at number one, Brooks & Dunn at number two. The Mavericks cracked the Top 10 for the first time with “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down,” and Wade Hayes, with a hard-earned seventy new adds—eleven more than Alabama and thirteen more than Shania—debuted in his first week of release at number forty-five, with a bullet notation indicating upward momentum. Debi spread her hands out and bowed her head. “It’s good to be queen,” she declared.
