So, in my dreams last night, Vern and I were walking around downtown. We had nowhere to rest our weary heads inspite of trying very very hard to be resourceful, self reliant and motivated humans. In fact, we’ve been pretty darn proud of us.
Vern carried his bulky yet precious guitar in-case and a 40lb backpack. Me, a 30lb art portfolio, a heavy purse and a big smile. It was warm with a breeze blowing in hot sticky and possibly tempestuous skies. We needed the rain. We needed shelter more right now.
My dream meanders here and there. As they do. But we wind up curling up like puppies in a small cardboard box on the toppest most steps of a downtown church. We go to sleep easily, tired from hiking around all day with our entire lives’ possessions and obsessions on our backs. As freeing as it is to have so little, it still weighs 15lbs too heavy…
A ’rap rap rap’ wakes us up…
Maybe it was a “rat rat rat’.
A policeman looms over us…
He states we were criminally trespassing and how on earth could we have missed the sign. We look up and see nothing (not even the church!) but a do not even try to sleep comfortably, safely and together out here sign. It wasn’t there when we arrived. I could have sworn my life on it!
He arrests us but doesn’t take us in. He verifies on his screen that we are very good puppies and that we always show up for animal farm, I mean court every time we’re arrested.
We packed up and head down the street.
Big fat raindrops finally start to fall.
The cop barked at us.
And rather unpleasantly told us to
‘stay out of sight, out of mind’…
heck…they probably do some good, I’ve just never seen them around except on the little white info sheets ‘where to find meals/where to find help’ in Nashville. However, I have a problem with these ‘parking meter style-lets put an end to panhandling’ and feeble, silly attempts to ‘help’. I’ve not seen one coin depositied, emptied, distributed or stolen.
‘By joining ASCAP you can begin to register your songs, collect performance royalties….’
‘That’s funny, Vern, ‘Didn’t they tell you that YOU needed to get a performance set list from Keith’s people’.
‘Why, yes…’
‘But Vernon, they state categorically in their rules, regulations and governing documents that they collect performance royalties for the writer’.
I quote from their website:
“For live concerts, ASCAP uses set lists provided to us by concert promoters, the performing artists and our own members.”
Hmmmmm…
‘Well..honey (he doesn’t really call me that, it just sounded good…I haven’t received anything in the thirteen or so years that Keith has been performing those songs in concert’.
And let me tell you, the evidence is out there.
Log on to you tube.
It’s all there, beautifully documented by the fans cameras’, iPhones’, etc.
The artist is there on stage singing your song and it’s quite possible there’s a kid from the audience on stage, too. Sweet…
That’s a lot of foot work for a person to do.
That’s a tedious task for any individual.
Do you have any idea how many people, emails, phone calls it takes to get that information…for one concert year, let alone years of performances?
But what really bites, and bites really hard is being told by the organization that you are a member of that its your job to do.
EXCUSE ME for being a member!
Unhappily, but sorely in need of these severely back dated funds we contact Keith Urban’s folk.
‘That comes from ASCAP, Vernon. We don’t give out set lists.’
Next follows a barrage of expletives which I choose not to repeat, but as you can imagine and will understand this is extremely frustrating!
I wonder how many writers have missed out on their ‘God given right to their royalties from performances over the years.
It was probably too much trouble getting the concert set list themselves.
Perhaps, even a little bit of ‘well, maybe its just not worth my trouble, it’s too small’.
No earnings are too small and its organizations like ASCAP that bank on, and I mean BANK on the little (but with HUGE talents) guys not going to the trouble and just letting it slide. That’s a very large annual revenue for ASCAP, let alone the interest.
So we go back to ASCAP…but hang on they’re out of the office ’til Tuesday.
“ASCAP receives payment for public performances of songs and compositions by negotiating license fees with the users of music (radio, TV, cable, bars, clubs, restaurants, shopping malls, concert halls and promoters, web sites, airlines, orchestras, etc.) and distributing these monies to members whose works were performed.”
“There are billions of performances licensed by ASCAP each year. ASCAP is committed to paying our members for these performances fairly, accurately and efficiently. ASCAP collects and distributes more money in performance royalty income than any other organization and our payment system is by far the fairest and most objective in the U.S.”
Not so…
check this out, a hugely funny and timely interview with Vernon Rust that we recorded a while ago…
Wow…I haven’t logged on, blogged on or rambled on about anything in ages. And I mean absolutely ages…probably since the beginning of this wonderfully artistic new year of 2012…
So, whats been happening in our lives?
Well…since we got up off the dusty streets of Nashville last summer and found ourselves in a beautiful but dilapitated 20 plus year old Nissan Stanza this winter so much has changed…
it was a harsh winter but we have been so blessed with such awesome friends as John Perkins, Bo Barber, Cowboy Eddie Long and so many many others, strangers abound ready willing and able to come to the assistance of two crazy and in love artistes!
Vernon and I started filming a somewhat silly, very quirky but hilariously funny mini reality show…and it all started here, on you tube:
since I didn’t gain much of a following on you tube and heavens to betsy, it sure takes a lot longer to upload there than my awesome account on flickr, we aimed our daily funnies at my stellar friends and artists on flickr:
And goodness gracious it has grown, and grown and grown…
We have 500 plus viewers and countless Twitter followers! It is all so very exciting!!! I can’t begin to tell you all about the fun we have making these short video clips of basically Vernon cutting up in front of the camera…
The friends we have made, online, on the street, at wal-mart, the gas station…in the police force! Thank you the boys in blue @ Nashville Metro for always showing us your sense of humor.
The Nissan finally spluttered and died about a month or so ago and we now have a much more comfortable and reliable ride in the form of a Ford Taurus. Its getting pretty hot here in Nashville and its still terrribly hard living in a car together but the creativity and love between us deepens each day…
It shouldn’t be long before we are on the road and Vernon is out playing music for the audience he so deserves.
Here is Cadillac, Tennessee written & performed by Vernon Rust (hint: its about livin’ and lovin’ in your car!)
Please check in and continue to follow the Nashville Wild Child project on Facebook…
You would not believe what has happened over the last couple of days!
Boy…does our saga continue.
The guys from Shreveport, that is John Perkins and Scott Floyd Crain came up to shoot some film for the Nashville Wild Child documentary.
It’s a rags to riches to gutter and then redemption life thus far story of my man Vernon Rust.
He’s the hottest songwriter in Nashville right now, with 6 cuts from a variety of recording artists namely; Scotty McCreery, David Nail, The Oak Ridge boys and new comer John Damian.
PLUS…he recorded and released an extremely spiritually inspired ‘A lot more Jesus’ with a group of the most amazing artists I have ever had the joy to meet…
Funny thing though…it doesn’t mean jack right now, as those kind of credits take a good 3-4 months to trickle back to the real man behind the freakin’ great tune that you just can’t get outta your head!!!!!!!!!
Filming went really well in the shadow and setting sun of the Parthenon…
Vernon and I were a wee bit anxious as we’re not crazy about being portrayed in our current homeless state.
However, Vernon rose admirably to the occasion & played an awesome couple of songs, ‘A lot more Jesus’ and ‘Wheels’…
We slept in the car that night when some thing disastrous happened…Old Bessies heating motor went out.
It was so cold in the car we wound up driving around the corner to Southern Hills hospital at 5am and sat cold protest in the ER waiting room.
Now the night shift are one heck of an easy going bunch and they put the telly on for us & gave us hot coffee, crackers, etc….how sweet!
The next day felt quite dire.
With dwindling funds, (the dollar goes absolutely no where these days, neither does the pound, the euro, etc, etc) we were really worried about the night ahead.
Temperatures were dropping fast making the thought of lasting the night in a cold car more and more dicey.
Then Vernon produced a card from a really cool musician dude we had met briefly while on our pilgrimage down to Montgomery, Al and recording ‘A lot more Jesus’.
Something had told Vernon to hang on to that card. It had not even made its way in to his wallet.
To top it all, add insult to injury…the driver’s side window powered down and stuck…and stuck fast!
Just what we needed, a nice open window for the 20 degree weather we were facing.
Enter ‘Cowboy’ Eddie Long…a veritable angel and THE hostess with the mostest.
He completely took us under his wings and got us in to a room in a motel near his home in Lebanon, TN.
Not only that but he entertained us at his place, made sure we were fed and watered, like only a true cowboy would…
On top of such wonderful hospitality he also hooked us up with two of the coolest motor mechanics….Elisha and Joe of E&J auto repair (615)347-8358….
They come HIGHLY recommende and spent the afternoon putting in a new heating motor and trying to fix the window.
The heater was a success, alas the window not.
So we taped it up good and proper with plastic…talk about a hillbilly ride!
And then it’s back to Nashville, and straight to the library before I would have serious internet withdrawal or writers cramp….
And to defy any logic to recent event…Guess what happened? Old Bessie’s radio came on good and loud with some pretty solid speaker action…
Urban camping in our mobile crib is downright criminal fun…
Vernon feels complete. “We need a lot more Jesus” has finally been recorded.
And believe me when I say it is STELLAR!!! We haven’t even heard the master mix yet and we’re still stoked!!!!!!
I feel as though the whole spirituality behind this production really started the day of recording at Tony Buenger’s studio in Eclectic, Alabama.
Vernon and I came down here with just $20 in our pockets.
We left an icy cold, rainy Nashville in the middle of the night and crawled down to Montgomery to meet up with Curt.
Something just felt right about where this path was leading us. Especially the artists that were waiting for us to come together for Vernon’s song.
Only it’s not just a song, it’s a message…
Now the story behind how he & Vernon had met should be completely a whole other blog…
But, then all the chapters in Vernon’s life are stories, blogs…what ever you wanna call ‘em…that was one of my initial thoughts when I met him a year ago, almost to this very day…’there’s a book to be written here…’
So that first day of the recording started with a visit to the Hank Williams museum. We had run in to Beth Petty and her husband, Jeff…the night before at the ‘It’ll do’ bar and she invited us down there.
Curt invited Vernon and I to stay with him and his beautiful mother, Lela in Montgomery, Alabama. and what a welcome we received…
Curt Brewer has known Vernon for about 2 years but has been familiar with his awesome songwriting ability for much longer.
This is an amazing little story in the fact that Curt & a friend found a beat up old CD in a dumpster behind a studio on Music Row, Nashville…
On that CD was a song that Vernon & Keith Urban wrote.
Ironically, it included a song that Keith refused to do, titled ‘ That was Him, this is now’. It cost him his record deal at Warner Bro’s and almost cost him his career.
Curt recorded the song, minus vocals, but it was that wrinkle in time that sealed their friendship forever. They were getting ready to lay it down the road with ‘we need a lot more Jesus’…
We were pleased to learn that Curt’s Mom, was an accomplished performer, originally as ‘Lela Brewer and the Country Class’ and later as ‘The girl with the guitar’ and that she loved to sing Vernon’s song ‘Sacred ground’. Such a huge compliment and it was wonderful that the two should meet…
Anyway, so started this amazing experience…
Curt introduced Vernon to his friend Tony Buenger who owns, and quite obviously loves the Guest House studio, a place so full of love and music making…the vibe is absolutely palpable as soon as you arrive…
On the wall next to the mixing room is a great painting of Hank Williams.
Something told me it was supposed to be and when I saw my photo’s I really knew…
The studio was not only filled with awesome music, the kind that hits you right in the chest, or brings a tear to stinging eyes…
But beautiful, spherical energies that are impossible to explain. They are not dust particles, reflections…phenomena that I have tried to wrap my skeptical mind around and want to explain…
There is only one rationale…
We were all filled with the spirit…
Tony opened up the studio doors so that ‘A lot more Jesus’ could become a reality and…
the brightest orbs of all were on every photo of Vernon Rust….
Wow…what a crazy few days and finally the realization of a dream and vision I had a year ago when I first met Vernon. It was Christmas morning and he came downstairs to the living area of a very depressing rooming house that we had both found ourselves trapped in.
He played a handful of his brilliant songs. Like I have written about so many times, his songs are like beautiful stories and it was one Christmas day that I will cherish forever. But what really impressed me and amazed me no end was the fact that Vernon is an incredible performer. If anyone should sing his songs, it is HIM!
The whirlwind months have been filled with wonderful news of one artist or another covering a Vernon Rust song…each and every day it’s something new and exciting. His songs are timeless classics, as cool and moving today as they were when he first penned them 5, 10, 15 plus years ago.
What struck me, this time last year…is the fact that if anyone should be out performing, wowing the crowd and singing from his vast repertoire, it is Vernon.
Last night he took the stage at The Werehouse and totally rocked the house with the help, support and creativity of an awesome group of musicians…Cody Cooke, Jackie Brock and Ryan Dougherty. It was an awesome set of shared songs, music and I can tell you the crowd loved it all! They opened for David Allen Coe and if any artist needed the audience warmed up, David surely was one lucky son of an outlaw gun.
Check out this awesome clip from last night’s show:
More importantly, earlier on that evening Vernon received an award and was inducted in to NXNWLAMusicFoundation (North by Northwest Louisiana Music Association) hall of fame. He joins an illustrious group of musicians and songwriters…Lead Belly and Bob Campbell, who is truly a radio icon and recorded artists such as Hank Williams and Elvis.
It was truly a blessed day…and a huge thank you must go out to Dan Garner for his long-standing friendship and support of Vernon and his music.
Me?
Wow…I loved every minute of seeing Vernon on stage, living his passion…finally doing what he should have been doing all these years.
My chest swelled with pride as I surveyed the happy crowd digging my man…
Thank you, as always for John Perkins who was there filming more footage for the Nashville Wild Child documentary so please head on over to Kickstarter and support this project.
So what prompted the recording of this fascinating documentary about one man?
One man who came to Nashville 25 years ago with a boat load of songwriting ideas and a sub conscious vision of having an influence on country music. Or on the recording industry for that matter…
Nashville had most certainly changed over the years and as my personal guide, historian and street companion, Vernon spent our homeless summer telling me all about country music people, the places, the recording studios on Music Row, his experiences….good and bad.
He reflected on what used to be, what once was and what no longer is…
Much has changed since the advent of the internet.
Since the proliferation of personal computers.
LP’s became cassettes…became CD’s…became downloads and unfortunately it all morphed in to file sharing…
Music became barely intangible…
Sadly, and to quote Vernon “you can’t wake up Christmas morning and find a download in your Christmas stocking….”
Illegal downloads whittled away at talented royalty cheques. They ensured that the most important people behind that awesome song you love to listen to on your Ipod, mp3 player, your laptop… is definitely not paid for his work. For his creation. For his idea.
This summer we visited the closed up studios and offices along Music Row. So many musicians, songwriters, technicians left with nothing to do but find a job, earn a paycheck, try to survive…in a rapidly changing business and city.
In Nashville, many (having come here from all over the country) wound up on the streets, their hopes and dreams of making it in the music industry vanished for good…
Vernon’s never vanished. He always believed in his music.
His songs became a dormant volcano, just waiting to erupt in popularity and figure out a way to beautifully infiltrate our technologically driven lives…
What I learned about Vernon though, is that he never lost his love of and belief in people.
Even when life had seemingly beaten him down.
Sometimes because of others, admittedly through his own faults.
His sense of humor kept him going, a constant lifeboat on a dodgy raft. One that has seen him through many a storm.
Most importantly, in my opinion he has songs to share with the world. Music that he is driven to share, with all walks of life.
He draws on his lifetime experiences, both hardships and joys and turns his emotions in to songs that we can all relate to.
His lyrics know no boundaries.
His songs are timeless pieces, more relevant today than when they were born years ago.
Stories about the hard cold life of reality,
of the changes in town when the factory closed down,
of the love we had even though our family was poor and how upon ‘looking back we were the rich kids, after all’,
of how ‘We need a lot more Jesus and a lot less of everything else’.
He currently has young artists such as Scotty McCreery, David Nail and Adam Brand recording and performing his songs.
Rising stars that weren’t even born when Vernon’s lyrics and music were conceived.
I will never forget the morning I found out Scotty McCreery was to include ‘walk in the country’ on his debut album.
The latest winner of American Idol, a young man with a rich, velvety smooth voice and stellar stage presence, wanted to sing my man’s song, a Vernon Rust song!
And sing it so well, too! I ran upstairs, where Vernon was asleep and did something I should never in a million years do, I woke him up….
“Hey, Scotty McCreery is gonna record ‘walk in the country’ for his album ‘Clear as day’”.
Sleepily,Vernon murmured and with very little excitement ‘Hmmmm, so…who is Scotty?’ ‘some local club singer?’ and then added ‘that’s good’ basically meaning ‘let me go back to sleep honey’.
I proceeded to bug him….tripping over words ABOUT how freakin’ wonderful this is, how he had better get up and BE excited! Scotty is HOT. He’s arguably the best winner, ever, of the very popular TV show.
I went on to get him up to full steam on Facebook. To re-connect him with friends from his past. Friends that very much wanted to help him with his future.
John Perkins had tried to find Vernon two years earlier by writing to him via everyone’s favourite social network.
Thankfully, John is a patient man.
He also happens to be a lifelong believer in Vernon’s music too.
During this period of Thanksgiving, family get together’s and comfortable times, Vernon and I never forgot how precariously we had spent the summer months on the streets of Nashville.
We are constantly thankful for the help, support and creativity of a friend in John Perkins.
For Vernon’s younger brother Ken and his beautiful family, who took us in over the holiday of gratitude…made us feel most welcome, wanted…loved.
Not once have we forgotten our friends less fortunate, who still face the struggle of day-to-day survival in a homeless world.
We think of them more so now than we ever have, now that winter brings colder weather.
Now that the holidays are here and families are united, share food, enjoy gifts and comfort…
So many have no family. Or they have long been estranged.
There are few friends on the street. It’s very hard to trust anyone or let your guard down.
Sub consciously you find yourself putting up a wall. An imaginary wall of protection from the elements, from figures of authority or others trying desperately to survive, just like you.
They spend Thanksgiving and Christmas alone or perhaps with a church group willing to sacrifice their own time for those in need or without.
Forever more, Vernon and I are particularly thankful because we have been there. We have experienced homelessness.
We both have encountered a rocky road in life. Poor choices, bad decisions…untimely or inopportune. Call it what you will.
Vernon enjoyed success. He met and mingled with the famous and talented. He was given opportunities…
Some may say he blew it all, that he lost everything because of his own excesses.
That he, quite possibly is his own worst enemy.
I, too followed a similar path.
Struggling so much with myself. Fighting the flow of life…
Maybe we are all guilty of doing just that, at some point or another in our lives?
There is, all of a sudden time to indulge ourselves.
The rewards of hard work, talent and success, uplift and ply our ego’s.
We finally see a fruition to all our hard labours, to all the hours we have struggled with the coming to reality of our art and ideas.
We squander the chance to enjoy a time rich with comforts. We experience a momentary lapse of responsibility.
Success…
It’s a very hard time for some to handle. Everything happens so quickly.
Friends that you thought were friends really never were.
We become self-absorbed…
Without thinking, we choose a path of self-destruction.
And then something happens to turn it all around.
A soul search.
A casual conversation with someone who cares.
We both have many to thank for our renaissance.
To come out of such a wilderness, relatively unscathed…
and to be given a second chance.
What a unique and special blessing!
One that we both cherish everyday.
The gift of having survived.
The opportunity to now make the right decisions.
And to do good with all that comes our way.
For that we are truly thankful.
“It’s not what you have, but who do you love?”
From the song, Rich Kids (written by Vernon Rust)
Please visit Kickstarter and support our documentary.
Please click on the above link for more information about the documentary ‘Nashville Wild Child – The Vernon Rust Story’and to make a donation towards the production of Vernon’s highly entertaining and poignant story…
Now I would never in a million years claim to be an aficionado on great music. Neither would I say I’m a huge fan of country music. But I know what I like and I most certainly like what I know.
Recently I got to see behind the scenes of the making of a documentary titled ‘Nashville Wild Child – The Vernon Rust story’. It is a film about the man, the song writer that has become such a huge part of my life this year.
I first met Vernon when I moved to Nashville December 2010. I came here reluctantly and really with nowhere else to go, my life at a distinct crossroads with some definite changes to be made. Vernon happened to rent a room upstairs and he appeared Christmas morning, armed with his beautiful, unique and one-of-a- kind green guitar. I had already been told that he was one of the best songwriters in Nashville. What I heard that morning certainly backed that statement up.
Vernon is credited with having discovered and assisted in the making of country music’s very own Keith Urban. The two had written together nearly all of Urban’s first US album release ‘The Ranch’. An album that many fans claim to be Urban’s best with songs like ‘Walk in the country’, ‘Homespun love’ and ‘ Desiree’.
For whatever reasons, the two parted company. Urban went on to a very successful career in country music and Rust slipped in to relative obscurity, enjoying over time the income from smaller and smaller royalty checks. He hid himself away, rarely performed and lived life on the razor thin edge of poverty.
So what was a hugely talented singer/songwriter doing hiding in a fairly run down rooming house in Southern Hills, Nashville? Trying very hard to not pawn his unique guitar, for one and trying to survive on the erratic income from frozen meat sales.
What I encountered that Christmas morning were some of the most awesome songs I had ever heard. They flowed like beautiful, sometimes sad but forever hopeful rivers of human emotion and experience. They sung like stories.
Stories shared by couples falling in and out of love. And finding love again.
Stories that are sung to children at bed time.
He had my attention…
And I met a man who has become my lifelong friend, companion, mentor and inspiration…
Check back real soon for my blog – Nashville Wild Child Part II…
