Script #4 The Man Who Had a Name

Before the posters and platinum, he was a neighbor with a guitar—two, actually—spinning front-porch stories into national anthems. A swaggering folk tale climbed to Number One. A private lullaby, sealed like time in glass, became a prayer the whole country knew by heart. And then, in the warm Southern dark, a short runway turned applause into silence. This is the story of the man who kept names in his pocket, loved hard, worked harder, and left an afterglow that refuses to fade. Say it softly—he’s got a name.

Written by Jonny Hartwell
Voiced by Jonny Hartwell
Music Credit: Reel World Audio.
A iHeart Radio Production

Jonny’s Dead Air Podcast
Written, hosted, and produced by Jonny Hartwell.
A production of iHeartRadio Pittsburgh.

Thanks for listening—and for keeping the light on.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome in. I'm Johnny Hartwell and this is another
Johnny's Dead Air podcast story, a production of iHeartRadio. There
we go again, diving into another story from music's dark side.
They say the past is a quiet room, and the
door only opens when a certain sound knocks tonight. It's

(00:20):
a voice, hand carved warm, carrying the weight of late
nights and long roads. A guitar follows, speaking the plain
language of porches and bars that sound both older than
trouble and younger than regret. Most legends arrive with noise.
This one slipped in like a secret. His songs felt
like letters the lovers, the hustlers, to everyday strangers waiting

(00:42):
on buses or in diners. The tragedy well, just when
time seemed finally on his side, it was taken away.
The applause was still ringing when the future closed its fist.
We won't say his name yet, not because you don't
know it, but because some names work best in the dark.
This is Script four, The Man who Had a Name.

(01:05):
Act one. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, before the
marquis and the Neon. There's a city that wears its
winters with pride and its summers with sweat, a row
house maze, front steps turned into front rooms, a place
where nicknames outnumber street signs, and the corner deli knows
more secrets than a priest. He's got a name. He

(01:28):
grows up here in a family that makes love into
Sunday dinners and tells stories with their hands. As a kid,
he learns that sound can be a shelter. The radio
on the kitchen counter is a lighthouse. Its glow keeps
the room from drifting. Voices come and go in, the
music stays later. There is a guitar secondhand, a little stubborn,

(01:48):
like the city itself. He teaches it patience, It teaches
him mercy. Call it out softly. He's got a name.
There is a university nearby, where ideas pretend to be facts,
and the coffee keeps both sides honest. He studies, He
plays shows that pay an apathetic applause and cheap beer.
He meets a girl who hears the same weather in

(02:10):
his voice that she hears out the window. Honest, changeable, strangely, comforting.
They sing together. They try to make a life out
of paper schedules and hard chairs out of the slivers
of night, rescued from the day in the margins. He's
got a name. When the rent ask questions he can't answer,
he takes whatever work keeps gas in the car and

(02:31):
food in the pantry, manual jobs, odd jobs, glovebox, business
cards with his name spelled half right half the time.
The heavy lift of ordinary life becomes source material. His
songs start to sound like conversations overheard in line. A punchline, here,
a confession, there, a hush when the truth walks in.
Every story needs a witness, and he's got a name, recordmend,

(02:55):
come and go. One deal fizzles, another points to a
door that opens, but Lee heads to another hallway. He
learns to just keep walking on every door, on every form.
He's got a name. He's not a star. He's a
man with a story and the stubbornness shaped like hope.
Not a star yet, but he's got a name. Act two,

(03:19):
two guitars, one lantern. Every good story has a second voice.
His arrives as a melody from a different map. A
player with soft hands and bright ears trying to make
a guitar ring like clear glass. When they sit together,
the room changes changes temperature. The first guitar tells who's talking,
and the second tells you how he feels about it.

(03:42):
Two guitars, one lantern. He's got a name, and now
he's learning to travel. They hunt for songs that walk
on the honest side of funny and the gentle side
of tough. A label finally bets on rooms full of strangers.
Studios turn into church basements where confession is set to
a beat. Mike's are unforgiving. They tell the truth. The

(04:02):
truth likes these two. Then the little miracles begin. A
single that starts as a shrug becomes a handshake across
the whole country. Another song finds a home on every
station that still trusts stories. The names he sings, ordinary, unforgettable,
start to live in all the places people stand around
waiting laundromats, bus terminals, gas stations, and break rooms. It

(04:25):
feels like he's sending dispatches from the middle of the
day On Late nine TV. He sits carefully in the spotlight,
like the seat might belong to someone else. The host
smiles too wide. The band leans forward. Our man looks
down at his hands, as if checking the strings for
for new secrets. Then he sings, and the room remembers
how to listen. He plays town after town where the

(04:48):
ceiling's sweat and the aisles won't behave. Success is a
rented suit. He wears it politely and loosens the tie
when no one's looking. On stage, he's playful. He leans
into the mic deadpen. This next tune is about a
friend of mine. He's not here tonight because well, he's
got a very busy parole officer. The crowd reacts, He

(05:10):
lets the laugh Breathe raises an eyebrow and drops a
quick ragtime lick that makes the second guitar chuckle back.
A story turns into a punchline, The punchline slides into
a verse, and suddenly the whole room feels like a
front porch. He tags the last line with a sly grin,
rides that little boom chick a boom rhythm, and the

(05:30):
audience laughs again, not just at the joke, but at
the joy of being let in on it. Backstage, the
set list is a map of human weather. A storm breaks,
a joke lands, a memory arrives without knocking. In the
middle of it all, there's that second guitar braiding light
through the shadows, turning the small stage into Safe Harbor's

(05:51):
people begin to say his name like a password. He
writes fast, but not careless. He treats every line as
if it had a job to do in a family
to feed. He believes songs should earn their keep. And
indeed he has a name, and we'll give it to you.
Next act three, a quiet announcement. Next act three, the

(06:21):
quiet announcement. He's got a name, all right, But before
we say it, notice the clues. The mustache that frames
a grin more kind than cocky. The work shirt with
the sleeves pushed up like there's a sync effix after
the show, The way he introduces a tune with a story,
not a speech, And the story has a friend's name
in it, and the friend has a habit you recognize

(06:42):
in yourself. And always always with a seshire Cat's smile.
You've heard his characters on jukeboxes and car radios. The
man who prides himself a little too much on a
dangerous reputation. A caller asking an operator to dial the
pass not because it's going to help, because that's all.
He has a bottle with a message about time, written long, long,

(07:04):
long before any of us knew how short it could be.
By now the radio charts have started to carry his fingerprints.
One song claws its way to the top ten and
refuses to leave. Another spins across the dial so often
that truckers and night nurses can hummet without even thinking
bad bad Lee Roy Brown struts the number one, the
kind of hit that makes even strangers grin. Time in

(07:27):
a bottle, written as a private note to his son,
suddenly finds itself on top of the billboard charts. After
tragedy after tragedy makes it public property. Operator and I
got a name. Keep the phones ringing at radio stations
across the country. Each single builds a staircase step by step,
and suddenly his name is climbing with it, from coast

(07:48):
to coast. People who've never seen his face know his
voice as well as their own reflection. On television, he
becomes a familiar guest. Johnny Carson leans in, audiences at
home lean closer, even Grammy committees begin to circle his name,
proof that the industry is paying attention to the storyteller
that people have already claimed. And beside him, night after

(08:09):
night is guitarist Mary mule Lesen, The Bright lyrical counter
melody to Jim's earth warm rhythm. Maury's high string voicing
and precise fingerpicking lays around the vocal, turning simple changes
into small architectures. You can hear him in the shimmer
between the lines, the lift in the chorus, the way
a joke becomes a confession and then a hook. Together,

(08:31):
they're a hinge, one voice opening the other letting light.
In one night between shows, he spreads a cheap steno
pad on a motel desk, clicks a battered pen, and
empties his pocket of names, the way a card player
fans a hand leroy Brown lands face up. He hears
the first groove, a strutting talk, sung shuffle, and counts

(08:52):
under his breath boom, check a boom, chick a boom.
Then then he sketches the man in objects loud rings,
knife edge, cree says crocodile grin, a reputation that walks
into the room before he does. The boast line arrives,
he crosses it out, writes it back louder. The rhyme
snaps Brown downtown, and he grins, tapping the desk with

(09:14):
his pick. He trims the verses so the punchline has
room to land. Then pencils a chorus that feels like
a swagger you can sing later in the rehearsal room.
More a threads high string sparkle between the chords, and
the song stands up, shoulders back, ready to walk into
every bar in America. He doesn't sing like a star.

(09:34):
He sings like a neighbor you can't stop inviting over.
And yet the records prove he has become one, a
reluctant star who still wears the crown like a ball cap.
Now say his name in a whisper, first, the way
a room does when the headliner walks out and everybody
recognizes the silhouette. Let it build from the edge of

(09:55):
your tongue to the roof of your mouth, until the
syllables are the size they deserve. Say it softly. He's
got a name. The room already knows it. Jim Croachy.
There it is, playing as a kitchen table, strong as
a handshake, A name made of ordinary materials, built the last.

(10:17):
But we can't make days last forever, and the words
don't make wishes come true. He's got a name, hard one,
and some names outlast the man at four the mile
marker nobody likes. Next at four, the mile marker nobody likes.

(10:42):
Here's the part the posters don't warn you about. Success
isn't a finish line. It's a turnstile. You keep moving
or you get bruised. The schedule gets tighter, the city
start to rhyme, airport, hotel, soundcheck, show, ride, repeat. Every
stage is a beautiful The answer is always always yes.

(11:04):
Bills don't care if you're tired. Contracts love ink more
than people. The money comes in like the tide and
goes out the same way. He's a new father. He
keeps missing the smallest miracles because the road is hungry.
He wants to be two men at once, and knows
he only gets to be one. Backstage rooms become little
museums of fatigue, paper cups with lip marks, a half

(11:27):
eaten sandwich, and joke someone meant to finish later. Phone
calls home require a roll of quarters. In the right
kind of courage, he tells the people who matter most
that he'll fix the calendar. He'll build a fence around
those hours, and he'll come home soon and stay, and
he means it too. On stage, nothing looks wrong. The

(11:48):
notes are honest. The story still land like coins in
a jar, But in the quiet between shows, the engine
of his life runs too hot. The world is asking
for more of him than he has left in the tank.
He starts writing letters, as if words can hold up
the roof when he's gone. Maybe they can. Maybe that's
what songs were doing all along. There's talk of taking

(12:09):
a breath, or choosing fewer flights or more mornings, or
trading wind rooms breakfast tables. A plan begins to sketch
itself in pencil. December looks like a promise, but promises
are written in pencil on the itinerary. A thin line
arcs between small names on a map. One more hop,
one more handshake, one more night. Flight over feels that

(12:31):
turn black after sundown. From the window of some future terminal,
you can almost picture it. Beyond the last string of
runway bulbs, a tree line gathers like a dark seam.
No one says it, but the road has edges, the
air has weight, and sometimes the shortest distance between two
shows is the narrowest margin. A life is given BacT

(12:55):
five A small runway, a heavy silence. Next back five,
small runway, heavy silence. The town that night is quiet,
the way southern towns get quiet, the air so thick
you have to carve a path through it. A college show,

(13:16):
the kind with folding chairs and a gym floor that's
seen more victories and heartbreaks than most living rooms. He
plays beautifully, they both do. The audience is generous, the
kind that respects the distance traveled to earn it. There's
a next gig penciled in a few hundred miles away,
because the calendar knows how to be cruel. After the show,

(13:37):
the clock wins. Bags to the car cases latch click
shot like hushed goodbyes. The ride to the small airport
smells like cut grass and fuel, and the kind of
night that makes your shirts stick to your back. A
twin engine waits at the edge of the lights. The
pilot checks his list. In another life, there's a hotel instead,

(13:57):
a late breakfast, a call home that isn't rushed. But
this life is built on arrival, so departures come with it.
Inside the little terminal, the fluorescent lights hum like tired bees.
A vending machine coughs out of pack of crackers. Jim
rolls his shoulders and grins at Maury. If we make
it to Dallas by dawn. I'm ordering pancase the size

(14:17):
of forty five Maurray answers with bright harmonic Somebody pours
burnt coffee and declares jet fuel. Somebody else toasts the
next show with paper cups. The small twin engine plane
waits at Nakadish Regional Airport in Louisiana, its propellers twitching
against the heavy night air. Inside. The seats fill with
wearied travelers bound for Dallas. The singer himself, his guitarist

(14:41):
and trusted partner, the booking agent, the tour manager, a
comedian who opens the show, and the pilot. Seven souls
in all. None of them know the runway is shorter
than it should be, that the weight of their plans
will meet the limit of rural strip carved out of
pine and silence. The plaine gas their speed, The nose
rises just a breath, them wavers, The ground keeps its

(15:06):
hand out when it should let go. Shoulder belts bite,
seat rails, buzz. The engines push past loud into a
thin metallic scream out the window. Runway light shiver, then shudder,
then fall behind. Blackness moves forward like a curtain pulled
by an unseen hand. The cabin tilts, then the drop ahead.

(15:27):
A lone tree waits in the wrong place, dark against darker,
Metal meets bark, bark refuses. The night turns white, sparks
skittering across wood, air bright as torn foil. The cabin
inhales once a hard surprise breath, and nothing of those

(15:48):
on board, none walk away. The sky takes all seven,
leaving only the stillness behind. News doesn't travel so much
as it appears. A phone brings in a house where
a crib sits quiet. In a mailbox somewhere, a letter
is already on its way, inside a plan to rest,

(16:10):
the reclaim, mornings to quit running so fast it will arrive,
like the ghost of a promise that still could have
come true if the clock had been kinder by a
single page. The next day, the world hears a new
song in the doorway, not the first, not the last.
It sounds like someone saying his own name out loud,

(16:30):
as if to remember who he is and where he
came from. The radios pull it close, and we do
what we always do when we don't know what to do.
We just play his records again and again and again.

(16:51):
Act six, The epilogue of Jim Croche next act six.
It's two thirteen am, a low lit booth on the
edge of town. The overnight DJ taps the meter bridge,
taking a cleansing breath, and flips open the mic. This

(17:11):
one goes out to Jim and his wife Ingrid into
the baby boy from everyone still listening in the dark,
We're holding you close tonight. He rides the fader up,
vinyl crackle blooms. A row of silent phone lines light
up on the board, every light representing the memory of
how Jim touched their life. Jim's voice rides the signal

(17:33):
like a steady hand on a shoulder, keeping vigil, reminding
us that love out lasts the night. Legends are loud,
legacies are patient, years passed, and the songs stitch themselves
into ordinary days, grocery idols, corner bars. Midnight drives his
characters keep walking, the tough man with the paper reputation,

(17:56):
the collar chasing yesterday and love turned verb. And those
who never saw him speak as if he just stepped out.
Those who did keep the ticket stubs like proof. The
second guitar that once braided light is quiet, now living
on and hands it taut, A sun carries the road forward.
A partner keeps a table where food and music shared

(18:17):
space with grief. Even the letter that arrived too late
becomes part of the story we tell to guard our plans.
Ask musicians and they'll say Kraft, the clean math of chords,
that land where the heart hopes. Ask the rest of us,
and we'll say company. The way his voice makes a
room feel less alone. He didn't sing to be famous.

(18:40):
He sang so people could see themselves and not flinch,
because because names matter. Sometimes you can still picture the
hotel stenopad, the groove penciled boom chick in the margins,
the brown downtown rhymes circled twice. You can hear a
pick tap tap tap cheap would Mary's arko waiting in

(19:01):
the afterlight. Even the scratch marks feel like music. You
don't have to say it loudly. The quiet knows what
to do with it. And somewhere beyond the static, his
words keep traveling, carrying a name and a truth. Like
the song promised. He walked down the road, carrying his
name through every chorus, and that name stays like the

(19:24):
pine trees lining that winding road. He's got a name.
Say it again, Jim Croachy. His music remains on radios
and jukeboxes and playlist and inside it it's the echo
of another promise. If time could be saved, he spend
it with those he loved. If he could save time

(19:45):
in a bottle, and the hush that follows. There never
seems to be enough time. We carry the rest in
the pauses and the looks across a kitchen table and
a chorus waiting for us to join. Jim found the words,
he just ran out of time. I hope you enjoyed

(20:09):
the man who had a name. This has been Johnny's
Dead Air Podcast script number four. I'm Johnny Hartwell, thank
you so much for listening.