May 8, 2023 • 57 mins
My special guest on this episode of The Nashville Hype!™ Podcast is Kirt Webster. Kirt has had a phenomenal career in Nashville as the publicist to artists like Dolly Parton, George Jones, Kid Rock, Hank Williams Jr, the Oak Ridge Boys and many, many more. He's a great story teller and for no other reason than to hear his Jim Ed Brown story, you'll enjoy this episode.
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From the ot Living Studios in SunnySouth Florida via Nashville, Tennessee. Heard
all over the world on the iHeartRadioNetwork or wherever you get your streaming content.
It's The Nashville Hype with your hostPaul King. The Nashville Hype is
brought to you by Fantasy Song Pitch, a place where songwriters can pitch their
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songs to all their favorite artists onlyat fantasysongpitch dot com. You're listening to
The Nashville Hype with my special guest, Kurt Webster. You walked in to
Merle Kilgore's office and he said,who are you? And you said,
I'm your new publicist. That's correct. How in the world did you find
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the ump to just do that?I had been selling T shirts early on
my first job in Nashville, andI was on a headline tour with Clay
Walker six and we had the DixieChicks and James Bonomi and Emilio and Terry
Clark has opening acts various shows.And you know, I learned right then,
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you have to be aggressive. Youhave to go out and get what
you want. If you don't,you will get run over. And so
I realized after doing that for ayear, it's not why I moved to
town. And so I literally hadto cold call people to get through the
door because I did not go toBelmont, I did not go to Vanderbilt.
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I did not intern for a recordcompany or a manager company. So
I didn't have an inn already,if you will, And so therefore I
had to just take everything you know, that I wanted to do in pay
charge, and if it didn't happenas my own fault. If it happens,
then I win. And so wellon that tour, early on,
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there was a girl named Lisa dwho was out selling T shirts as well,
and we got to know each otherwell. She left doing merchandise that
first year and went to work atWilliam Morris and she became the assistant to
Greg Oswald and Greg represented at thetime Leonard skinnerd Hank Junior, Lone Star,
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a whole plethora of artists. Andshe called me one day after I'd
started the PR company and she said, Okay, Kathy Ganguish is going to
be retiring in the next two days. And they haven't announced yet, but
they've let us know. She's beendiagnosed with chrome's disease and so all her
clients are going to come available.The light bulb went off in my head.
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I picked up the phone. Istarted calling the Oaker's Boys manager,
Jim Halisey, the Gatlin Brothers manager, all the various Don Williams, all
the clients that she had, whichshe had a lot of the oldie but
goodiacs. And I thought, perfect, right up my alle, exactly what
I want to do and who Iwant to represent. So Hank Williams Junior
was on that list. So Icold called Merle Ogre's office and k answered
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the phone, k Night, andI said, can I get an appointment
with Merle? She said how?It was two o'clock on Thursday, So
I said great. So I showedup and he said what can I do
you for it? And what arewe here to talk about it? So
I'm your new publicist and literally Isat down and the first thing he said
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was, well, did you knowthat I wrote The Ring of Fire?
And I said, no, Merl, tell me about that. So he
went into the whole story. Welldid you know that I wrote you know,
Wolverton Mountain? Did you know thatI was roommates with Fair and young,
and of course I didn't know someof these things. So all I
did was opened the door for himto tell me those stories. By six
pm, we're still sitting that I'mhearing stories. And he said, you
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know, let's go eat. Wewent and had some Mexican food over off
of Elm Hill Pike. I'm outby the airport, and he said,
come to the show tomorrow night inLouisville, Kentucky. McGovern Gentry and Toby
Keith are opening for Hank, andI'll introduce you. I said, okay.
Drove to e Loouisville walking on thebus. Literally he looked at Hank
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and said, this is your newpublicist. And Hank looked and said what
does he do? And Roll said, he gets you in the paper and
things. Hank turned around, walkedback to the back of the bus and
the rest of his history. So, you know, it's one of those
things where you have to seize themoment. And that's what I learned early
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on, and so I firmly believethat that's what made me successful throughout my
publicity career. Was yes, Igot a lot of nose, Yes I
got a lot of yesses, butI turned a lot of nose into yeses
because of the fact that I justhad tenacity and didn't give up. Yeah.
Yeah, I think you and Imay have met. And I don't
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know this for a fact because itwas so many years ago, but if
you were working for Clay Walker inninety five or ninety six, I think
he was living in Hermitage at anapartment complex like a I want to work
like a white building, uh,Jackson Downs, Jackson Downs, Yeah,
yes, And that was just priorto me. He had moved in six,
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he had moved to Hempstead, Texas, and his wife Lorie, they
had McClay the daughter, and umthat was the hypnotize the Moon tour and
they actually were living in a trailerout on this massive land plot of acres
that they were building their dream homeat the time in Texas. Hypnotized the
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Moon went platinum, and that waswe actually had our platinum album party out
at his house in Hempstead, Texas. Okay. So that's that's why vividly
I can remember exactly where we wentand where we where we were. But
he was prior to that in thatapartment complex in Hermitage in Jackson Downs.
Yeah, I had started writing songs, I guess in nineteen ninety one,
and I was hanging around people likeTracy Lawrence and Elbert West to Arrest in
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Peace and several others, and forwhatever reason, I recall him being there
because I was there at the apartment. You know, you brought up Hank
Williams Junior. And from what yearsdid you represent Hank Williams. Well,
it was the Almira Club album andwe had had just taken over that project,
and then we did the Crossroads withKid Rock and it was from that
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point on all the way through twentyseventeen, the fall of seventeen. Okay,
Well, the reason I ask is, you know, he's not short
of controversy, and we don't needto go in specifics of what the controversy
was. But were you there andrepping him when the whole Monday night football
thing went down? Oh? Yes, We were promoting a box set that
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was called the Mother's Best box Setfor Hank Williams, and so Time Life
was putting this beautiful box set thatwas in the shape of a WSM radio
because all of those masters, themaster recordings and masters from the radio station
that had been recorded when Hank Williamswas doing live radio at the time.
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He had would perform all his songslive and then he would do the Mother's
Best flower commercials live and so allthose things, those ascetates were thrown into
a garbage and a janitor pulled themout and kept them, and years later
they found them at this janitor's house, and through obviously a legal battle,
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the courts ruled that those masters belongedback to the estate into the family.
So Jet Williams and Hank Williams becamethe owners of all those recordings. They
licensed them to Time Life, andthis beautiful box set had been released and
a lot of them were unreleased recordings, obviously of different songs that never had
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come out on record. So itwas like a brand new opportunity for people
to hear some Hank william stuff.Yeah, so be that the main We
booked him on to do a mediaday to promote that project, and we
booked him on Fox and Friends andhe was doing a via satellite and of
course you try to preface a lotof interviews in advance by saying, you
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know, here of our talking points, here's the things we want to stay
away from, you know, noteverybody abides by it, but you try
to give a ground or you know, you lay the groundwork and give some
some framework, if you will,on how to structure it. So it
comes off and everybody looks good.Right. Well, at the very end,
you know, they happened to aska political question, and as we
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know, there's no stranger too controversyor giving his opinion. And so as
soon as he did, literally wewere sitting in the control room and I'm
like, no, this is notgoing there, No, this is not
going there. And all of asudden, it was like what was done
was done. And we still hadthree or four hours worth of interviews to
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do because that was so early inthe morning that we had to get through
the rest of the day. Sowe did the rest of those interviews.
He went back home. We wereat the office and the phone started ringing,
saying, so you know, whois who, who is he referring
to on this part? Who ishe making the analogy too, and who
is he referencing? And you know, and everybody knows he was talking about
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Nat Jaho's you let Yaho, Sehn, Bayner, President Obama and Hitler,
and he was talking about a golfgame and how it just would be uncommon
for that pairing if you will,to be having a good time out on
a golf course. Yes, itdidn't. The explanation and his way of
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saying it didn't come off the waythat he was thinking it, you know,
or in some cases it did,in some cases it didn't. And
therefore people started making their own assumptionsand of course created a lot more controversy
than really was there. But itstill bubbled up, and all of a
sudden, you know, he endedup losing the money Night football deal.
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So all of that transpired throughout thatweekend. Sunday night, I'm like,
how's this week going to be?That's all I could remember. Monday,
I get a phone call from Hankand he says, I want to do
the view. I said, youwant to do what? And he said,
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I want to fly to New Yorkand do the view with Whoopi Goldberg.
She was on the air protecting meand telling people that she understood what
I said was an analogy. I'mlike, oh, yeah, okay,
okay. So I called the producersand Natalie Bubness and the group there,
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and I said, Hank would likethe countries that the show's booked, we're
full, let me check. Well, they came back and said, here's
no problem. Barbara Walters is inLondon for the Paul McCartney wedding. She's
flying back today, she'll be backtomorrow. She will want to be part
of this segment. We have tofigure this out. Needless to say that
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next day, following day, wewere in New York City. He wore
a Mickey Mantle jersey because he knewthat ABC and Disney owned The View and
so he was trying to make itagain another play there, and then he
called the Country Music Call of Fameand had them pool his jacket, his
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money at football jacket with all theteams they had manuel make and he got
that off of the display and hegifted it too. Will be in the
dressing room and said, I wantyou to have this as my gift because
you understood what I was saying.Be that as the man he went on
on Good Morning the View, andum, it was a great segment.
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Um Joy Behart loved him so muchthat she said, well, you stick
around in New York through this afternoonand when you come in film my show
later today, I want to doa whole other interview with you. Wow,
and he said, yes, thatwas not pre planned. Um,
they just had a great conversation.And here again their polar opposites in politics,
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right, but they had one.But the interesting piece was they had
one common ground. They truly understoodwhat they were saying, and they had
a civil conversation about it. Andso we end up going over to UM.
I don't remember see Ann or MSNBC, but she had. It was
Joy Behart's Night or Joy Behart Liveat the time, and um, we
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did two full segments on her show, and then we got on the plane
and came back to Nashville. Butyeah, it was It was an interesting
time because that was pre where weare today in politics. Yeah, but
yeah, it was just as volatiledepending on what the situation was. Were
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you responsible for him going back,because I know they invited him back.
I think in two thousand and sixteenor something. It was a combination of
a lot of people just saying,Okay, what gives you know? Your
ratings are down. The song issynonymous with football because of the are you
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ready for some football? It wassynonymous with ABC's Monday Night Football when it
moved to ESPN and I had adifferent audience obviously because there was a network,
but the same producers. They lovedHank. There was a long term
relationship that they had and so theywent back to the well internally to fight
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for us. So nice. Youknow, we had Ken Levitan, who
is Hanks manager, go out andfight for us. You know, I
had my conversations, So there wasa combination of a lot of people that
were saying all the same thing,and eventually they said, you know what,
you know, we'll bring Jason Deruloand we'll bring Florida, Georgia.
Line in, let's kind of makeit a little bit of a Hank and
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Friends type opening, and that couldbe a softer way of reintroducing that back
to Monday night football, so wedon't get any pushback kind of a thing.
Yeah, and yes, we shotthat here in Nashville. I believe
it was fifteen and sixteen time period, and it hit the airwaves and it
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was back on. Yeah. Doyou think you know you have a mistake
like that? And I wouldn't callit necessarily a mistake, but something like
that happens with a client of yoursand the next thing, you know,
six or seven years later, they'restill in the news. And sometimes I
guess it could be a curse ina way, because it's got to be
stressful. Obviously, you're you know, you're in a control room. You
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hear something said and you go automaticallyinto damage control in your mind and you
think, boy, we've got toget through this. But then five six
years later that that client is stillin the news. Oh absolutely. I
mean, the news cycle is thenews cycle. It's going to evolve.
The difference is when I started inpublicity early on in you know, the
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late nineties, you're still dealing witha fax machine. You're still taping photos
to a tear sheheet and mailing themto newspapers and people around the country.
Today, everything's instant. I alwaysreference that we're living in an Amazon world.
You know, you order something rightnow and in two hours that's at
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your doorstep. Well the same thing, you do something right now two hours
that's on the internet. Yeah,so we're living in this space of instant
gratification. Everybody's a reporter today becausethey have an iPhone, so they're all
filming and recording. Where before peoplewent through broadcast journalism to become a journalist
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to become a videographer. So youknow, when I was also starting out
in a journalist would call me ora newspaper, they would ask for a
photo pass, and you would givethem a PhotoPass. The first three songs,
no flash from the soundboard. Wedon't want you shooting up their nose.
Blah blah blah blah blah, allthese rules right, Well, today
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photopaths don't even exist. Because youbuy take it in the front row,
you buy take it in the fifthrow, you got your iPhone, You're
getting better coverage and footage of theartist performing or photos than the guy with
the you know, the camera withall the high end lenses then everything that
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they've got because they're so far backinto soundboard. There's a guy in the
front row who's you know, gotthis brand new iPhone with the highest technology
of camera on it, and theirphotos look exactly the same as the professional
guys sitting in the back right.So you know, it's one of those
things where technology has changed, ourlifestyles have changed. Everything has evolved,
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and so you know that's another reasonwhy now that I'm more doing consulting and
managing on projects. It's a lotdifferent because the days of your normal publicists
are coming to an end, tobelieve it or not, because everything is
becoming social media driven. So socialmedia quote unquote publicists have a role in
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a position within the industry. Butwhat we knew a publicists to be today
is not what a publicist was then. Yeah, if that makes sense,
Yeah, absolutely makes sense. Andyou're talking about the cycles of news.
I guess back then when he wasgoing through that, and you were kind
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of shepherding the flock around in orderto help him, you know, keep
a career essentially because you know,you can look at it in some ways,
he was canceled and he was oneof the original canceled artists you know,
for for that, um, butit did let him remain in the
news cycle for years because even sixyears later, whenever he went back on
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Monday Night football, it was amedia storm. Again, true, it
was, you know, and againthe cycle was was very short at that
point because again, um, it'sall about the flavor of the day and
what's hot in the news cycle,you know. And so when you're when
you have your return, you're goingto have those few folks that will come
out do that story and then itgoes away, yeah, because there's something
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else that's more topical. Yeah,but you know, but you're right,
it does come back out and you'relike, oh gosh, this again,
you know, but you're you're alsounderstanding that that's pretty much the news cycle.
You know, You've got people ofall walks of life that are journalists,
so different different things are going tospark the idea of a news story
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in different people. So you know, and you're never going to control the
universe. You're never going to controleverybody, so you just have to roll
with it. And in Hank's world, you know, when I came on
board during that al Mira Club record, you have to remember Hank Williams Junior
was not being played on radio atthat time. So when I took over
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his publicity and his marketing, thewhole focus was, Okay, how do
we continue to build a brand andenhance the brand because we don't have radio
to push the agenda where today,you know, we've got TikTok. If
you don't have radio today, you'vegot different social media platforms. Back then,
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in ninety eight, ninety nine,two thousand, in one, those
early days of trying to figure outwhere we were going to go. Yeah,
during that time period, you didn'thave a TikTok or a Facebook,
you didn't have any other platforms besidesradio and television and typical press. Yeah.
Do you do you think that radiostill rules? Radio is very important
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in our formats. Yeah, that'sthe difference. Yeah. You know,
you cannot name me one artist todaythat has had success or launched a career
to any other means that is stillsustained and still out there having that same
success unless they have had radio play. Yeah, you're talking about this,
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and it made me think about Littlenas X and how he was such a
phenomenal talent or whatever on TikTok andhe had millions and millions of views.
But it wasn't until Billy Ray Cyruscame along and radio picked that song up
that it became the longest lasting numberone song in the history of all mankind
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music. Absolutely, But you saidit best. What was the catalyst that
finally started to push it to themasses radio? So you know, you
can have all of the followers thatyou want on any platform, which is
phenomenal, and it gives you agreat base, and it gives you a
great launching pad. But if youstill don't hear it on the radio,
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whether it's serious exam syndicated radio show, to rest your radio, you really
you're not getting to the fans becausethey're not looking online to discover a lot
of music. Fans want to hearwhat's trendy. They want to hear what
their friends are saying is cool?Have you heard this? Sore? The
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way that the word travels is throughpeople hearing something they like and telling their
friends. Yeah, it's no differentthan when we were younger, and I
hate to say that, like we'regetting old. When we were youre,
when we would listen to terrestrial radiobefore satellite radio and we loved a song,
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what was the first thing we did. We either called the radio station
and requested it again, or wewent out about the cassette or the CD
before anything else, because you wantedto be able to play it whenever you
want it, right right? Okay, It took it actually took you doing
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something to hear that song again.It was an instant. You had to
call the radio station and say,hey, will you play X y Z
songs? I loved it? Well, they weren't going to play it back
to back or put in in theplaylist in an hour, you had to
stay listening to you could hear itagain, right, So people were more
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tune to hearing new songs and hearingradio are songs and artists that they normally
wouldn't be paying attention to on theradio because we were waiting for that song
to come back. So at thatpoint we were discovering new music that way.
They back announced and front announced songs. You know, this is you
know, he Stopped Loving Her todayfrom George Jones. You know, that's
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you know, Martina McBride, youknow this is Reba McIntire, Dolly Marton,
that's the Hank Williams Junior. Youknow, so all of a sudden,
you weren't guessing who the artists were. You weren't guessing the name of
the song. You know, youwere lucky and they say there's you know,
we're gonna play you twelve in arow this hour, and you got
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twelve songs. But they still backannounced and front announced. You knew who
was coming up. And so todaythey're trying to cram so many songs in
that they're just playing songs and youhave to shazam them or you have to
use technology to figure out who wasthat because I liked it a lot.
Because they're not really back announcing infront announcing because it takes too much time.
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You have to have radio. They'refurther a long lasting career, right,
So you see what I'm saying.So it's a double edged sword.
You have to have one to sustainthe other. Yeah, And so you
know, I hear some artists afterthey get a record deal and after it's
gone through four or five album cycles, and they're out making great money and
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they're having a great time. There'stwo buses on the road, three trucks,
all this stuff. God, Ihave a horrible record deal. They're
screwing me. They're this so that. And I sit there and I go,
whoa, whoa. Who invested thefirst million dollars in you five years
ago? Well, you're making thismoney because those people believed in your talent.
Proud of that. Nobody gave youa chance, right, So don't
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work the gifts worse in the mouthand be knocking the guys that are allowing
you to do what you're doing becausethey're giving you radio hits. And yes,
there might be some economics that aren'tin your favor at this point,
but they weren't in the record label'sfavor when they started, because they could
have lost a million, two million, five million dollars in a heartbeat if
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the records and the singles they putout on you flopped. Yeah, going
to radio is we're really expensive,you know, trying to do a radio
tour and get those spins. It'snot a cheap process or anyone, No,
not at all, because you know, people spend a lot of money
making a great record. This isthe part of the under the business that
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I wish they would teach more studentsand more people about our businesses. The
fact that you know, you gospend fifty thousand, one hundred thousand,
two hundred thousand whatever you're going tospend on making a great record with you
know, a list musicians, allthis stuff, and then you come out
and you go, I don't haveany money to promote it. If nobody
knows it's available, nobody's going tobuy it. So therefore you spend all
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this money to create a great record, but you have no way of telling
the people. And at the sametime, and you know, if you
go after radio to your point secondsago, is it's not cheap. Yeah,
you know, you have to spenda lot of money. It's not
just hiring radio promoters to promote yoursong. It's I've got to manufacture singles
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or I've got to use play MPEor CDX to distribute my single two radio.
Those two things cost. Then I'vegot to go visit radio stations so
they know who I am. Itmeans if I don't play guitar, I've
got to take a guitar player.That means I've got a couple of flights
that I've got to pay for,a couple of hotel rooms, several meals
I've got to pay for. Oh, my radio promotion guys got to go
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with me so we can introduce meto the program director music director at the
station. So now those three flights, not just two. I've got to
take those program directors out to dinnerso they'll actually like me and know who
I am because they're going to spendsome quality time versus Hi. I'm here
to play a song for you atthe station, and then you leave and
they don't remember your name when youleave, right, So all those costs
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are added. Then you have tothink about what is your promotional tools that
you're going to use. Do Ineed a music video? Do I need
which is a concept video? DoI need an acoustic video? What do
I need for my Facebook and socialmedia postings? Now I've got to hire
a social media manager to go makesure that I'm tagging all of the radio
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stations I visited and I'm getting theright photos to the right people. All
of those things cost money, andthat's all part of promoting a single because
all those things are tied back toyou're building your brand, and so when
all of a sudden you look atthat, you're going it's not a cheap
business. And I'm like, whenpeople come to me and they talk to
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me and I tell them these thingsthat are like, we had no idea,
and I said, I get it. That's why I want you to
know. I'd rather scare the hellout of you right now, tell you
the truth so you don't more you'reyour house. Don't do something and then
all of a sudden regret it laterbecause you're never digging yourself out of the
hole. Because you know, Johnnyor Molly wanted a star and they had
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what it took in your opinion,and therefore you gave it your all,
and all of a sudden, nowyou're bankrupt. It's like, it's not
fair to those moms and dads whoworked so hard on the grandparents who say,
here, I want to try this, So we're going to give you
our hundred thousand dollars, our lastsavings. Can we do this? And
I'm like, Noah, stay themoney, because that's not enough money that's
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going to get you around the bases. You're going to get the first base
or second base, and you're gonnabe out of money and then you're not
gonna be able to get all theway home, and it's going to hurt
you worse. So you know,there's a lot of pieces about the business,
Like I have a website called KurtwebsterConsultants dot com, and I have
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all of that information there about thebusiness and how managers work, how booking
agents work, how song publishing works, how radio how do you get a
radio promoter? A lot of thatinformation is in very simplistic form because I've
seen too many grandparents come to townand lose everything. I've seen too many
people come and feel like, ohmy gosh, I came in Ashtville and
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I got screwed over or I gottaken for X amount of dollars and I
look back going to go you mighthave, but part of that is the
fact that you didn't educate yourself onhow the business works. So don't blame
the people that screwed you, right, also blame yourself. Yeah, had
you done your research, you wouldknow what to be looking for it.
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People get so enamored with celebrity andthe excitement of our business that they forget
that it is a business, rightand and so you know, I tell
people all the time, do someresearch, please, some phone calls,
please, you know, ask thequestions, because at the end of the
day, you know it's for yourown good. Yeah, what are your
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hour what's like a normal day foryou? Like? Do you work from
seven am to midnight every single day? How does your life work? I
do not get into the office untilat least nine am. And that's that's
on purpose because I learn with allthe time zones, I work later in
the evening than I do early inthe morning because I'm in Nashville and Central
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Time, So the only thing that'sahead of me right now is New York
follow me, right, So I'monly I'm only an hour away. So
I call somebody at ten am,it's okay because their day is still fully
ahead of them. If I startmy day at seven am, which is
what I did early on, wellit's only five o'clock in the morning on
the West coast, right, Ican't call anybody. I can't do any
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work until ten am my time,which is eight o'clock. Third time.
Yeah, it makes sense, makessense. So at the end of the
day, I was all focused ongetting up early and going to the office
and doing all these great things.But then I couldn't work because nobody was
taking my call, nobody was inthe office. I'm like, what do
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I do now? So what Ido is I get to the office around
nine o'clock and the first thing Ido is check my email see if I've
got to return any calls from theday before. And then it's about research.
It's planning, strategizing, checking inwith the clients, figuring out what
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has to be dealt with and what'swhat's on fire and what's not, and
then just rolling through the day andgetting it all done. You know,
six o'clock typically is when everybody elsegoes home and shuts down. Typically I've
got a dinner meeting, or I'vegot something I've got to do with with
other clients in the evening, whetherit's they're playing the Grandelpry or they're playing
(32:00):
a show somewhere, or we juststrictly have our phone call and and a
recap of certain things. And that'snot every day, but it's a lot
of days yea, and so um, you know our days. There are
days I'm I'm in the office untilsix o'clock and we're done. There are
times I don't get home till midnight. Yeah, it's all varies based off
(32:22):
what the needs are. You know, we are not a Monday through Friday
job because our are touring Fridays andSaturdays. You know, my typical day
in my week doesn't start on Mondayand on Friday. Um, you know,
it's pretty much every day of theweek. Um, and all the
time, and all the time youjust don't know what's gonna what's gonna rise.
(32:45):
Yeah. How many do you know, just off hand, how many
shows that you produce, because Iknow you produced some really large shows in
Nashville, um and around and aroundthe country, of course, but do
you know how many that you've actuallyproduced yourself. I do not know how
many shows I've produced. I've neverkept track of that. Um, you
(33:08):
know, I always this is thefunny part of something that I tell people.
I'm like, I do funerals.Well, oh yeah, I don't
want to bring that up. Yeah, I've had to orchestrate, you know,
eight or nine massive funerals, everybodyfrom Carl Perkins to Jim ed Brown
to George Jones, Merle Kilgore,June Carter, Cash, Johnny Cash.
(33:30):
I mean, name you name someartists that Freddie Fender that I've represented,
and they happen to pass on mywatch, and all of a sudden,
now I'm in the thick of dealingwith the memorials, the live television portions
of the memorials, the artists sideof the memorials, you know, everything,
(33:53):
the internments, all of that stuff. And so you know, that's
that's one thing that I get alot of calls for still to this day,
from people going so and so passedaway. Can you give me some
advice. What do we need todo first? And I'll walk them through.
Okay, here's how these pieces willplay, and here's how you need
(34:14):
to focus on these areas and knowthat these people are going to come out
of the woodworks and you need tobe very careful. And people are going
to try to manipulate the family intodoing this, but that's the wrong move,
so steer them in this direction.And you know, believe it or
not, it's not as easy asgoing to a funeral home and picking out
a casket and saying, Okay,we're gonna have a visitation on Tuesday and
(34:37):
the funeral is going to be onWednesday, you know, like a typical
family. I mean, when you'redealing with celebrity, there's a lot of
moving parts because depending on if they'regrand a lopermember, if they're a Hall
of Fame member, what's happening,You've got obligations that you have to make
sure are fulfilled not only for thefamily, but to some of the organizations
(35:00):
that you represented or they represented.So you know, there's there's a lot
of moving parts. When you talkabout producing events, A funeral is an
event. There's a lot of orchestrationthat goes into that. Then you know,
I've worked on as a side producer, if you will, on several
events in Nashville, and then I'veproduced several major events in Nashville and beyond.
(35:23):
One was the George Jones Farewell Concertten years ago thirteen, the year
that he died. We started puttingtogether it was going to be his last
concert ever at the Bridgetown Arena andI was sitting at the house with him
and he looked at me and said, Son, you know, I really
don't care what you're going to dofor that show. I'm not going to
(35:44):
be there. I said, what, George. He said, yeah,
I'm gonna go to the other sideand I just won't be there. So
you do what you want to do. And I'm like, you are absolutely
crazy. And a month later hehad passed. He knew he just so
you know, me and Nancy Jonesand a small team of people got together.
(36:06):
We had like a one hundred andseventeen artists on that show. Stayed
on time, and I wait,everybody from Megadeath to members of Sticks to
kid Rock to all the way Georgestraight In, Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson.
I mean, it was the spectrumof rock meets country and everybody came
for the love of George Jones andit was phenomenal. And you know,
(36:30):
fast forward, you know. Iwas part of Kenny Rogers final farewell show
at Bridgetone where where we united Kennyand Dolly for the very last time on
stage, and it became an unbelievabletelevision moment that aired a couple of years
ago on CBS and also was partof a documentary bio type show on Kenny
(36:53):
Rogers. Those were moments of greatnessof saying, look at what we were
able to produce and create. Mostrecently, I produced a multi artist show
honoring Lee Greenwood for his forty yearsof hits, and we're producing right now
and it'll air here this year ontelevision that George Jones still play in Possum
(37:17):
Music and Memories of George Jones thetenth anniversary of his passing celebration with Dirk's
Bentley Whinona, Brad Paisley, JamieJohnson. I mean, just a great
grouping of artists, Tanya Tucker,Justin Moore, Sam Moore, A lot
of people are going to come togetherand sing George Jones songs. There's gonna
(37:37):
be some cool moments. Jamie Johnsonand Why and are gonna sing Golden Ring
and Sarah Evans and Easton Corban aregoing to do I was country when country
wasn't cool, and so that willbe on television to keep the memory of
George Jones and his music alive.So those kind of projects are fun to
me because they have a beginning andthey have an end. So you know
(38:00):
what you're starting with and you knowwhat your end game is, and it's
all that metal stuff that becomes thepain in the rear that we have to
deal with. But we get throughit and when you see the endgame of
what finally came about, You're going, Okay, everything was worth it,
Yeah, because I see the endgame and now I'm loving this right.
(38:20):
So is that your most proud momentwas the George Jones memorial? Is that,
like I mean a ranking in topten, let's say, of a
career status. Is that near thetop or at the top? That was?
That was one of those top youknow, defining moments. I will
say probably the biggest defining momentum thatI would say that probably personal and a
(38:44):
heart perspective. Number one would begetting jim Ed Brown and the Browns into
the Hall of Fame. Oh yeah, because Jim had jim Ed had been
diagnosed with cancer. Um he hadovercome the cancer, it came back,
and I got the phone call tobring him to the CMA for Sarah Trey.
(39:05):
Hearn the CEO to let him knowthat he had been voted into the
Hall of Fame, and so Itold him we had to go to the
CMA, and I got his daughterand I said, oh, we've got
to do an interview down there.Will you bring him and meet me there?
So we got there, and makea long story short, we walked
into Sarah's office and he had aball cap on and he sat down and
she said, okay, so youready to go do your interview and he
(39:25):
said yes, And she said,well, I've got a couple of questions
I wanted to ask you, anda few things to tell you first about
what we're going to talk about.And she said, first one is is
congratulations, you're the next member ofthe Country Music Hall of Fame. And
literally he fell back in his chairand his ball cap flew back, and
it was like what It was atearful, emotional moment. And then he
(39:50):
was sworn to secrecy because he wasn'tallowed to tell anybody until the official announcement.
We did that. We had alittle party that night at this house
after the announcement, and then hegot sick again and he was not going
to live till November to be ableto get the medallion around his neck and
(40:12):
actually become a member. Because howthat works is the CMA makes the announcement.
As soon as the CMA has donewith the announcement, the Hall of
Fame takes over and they start theystart planning the medallion ceremony, and when
this medallion is placed over your neck, that's officially when you become a member
of the Hall of Fame. You'rea member elect during that time period of
(40:37):
the announcement till the medallion ceremony,So he was a member elect, but
he wasn't an official member. AndI got the phone call from Becky and
his from Becky his wife and Kim, his daughter, and said, listen,
Dad's probably got a week left unfortunately, that doctors are telling us,
and we want you to come upto the don see him. And I
(41:01):
came up and I patted his handand we were talking and a little Brenda
Lee had just come up and waslaying in the bed with him, and
they were talking about old Arkansas TVshows and things that they had done,
and it was a very cute andspecial moment. And I said, well,
Jim Ed, I did what Ipromised you. I got you in
the Hall of Fame. And I'mso excited and he just smiled from ear
(41:23):
to ear and Brenda, being amember of the Hall of Fame, was
like, yes, I'm so proudof you. And it was a great
moment. And I walked out ofthere going but he's not a member,
not a member. And so Icalled Sarah Trehern and I said, Sarah,
we need to do something. Isthere a way we can do the
(41:43):
medallion at the hospital? And shesaid, let me call Kyle Young at
the Hall of Fame and see,so she called Kyle and calls like,
it's unprecedented, We've never done it. And does Kurt even have the authority
to make this phone call? Itbecame a controversial thing, right, and
it was like, what we're tryingto do something for a man who's dying,
(42:05):
all right, you know? Andand and so Sarah called me back
and she said, well, Kyle, first off, asked if you had
the authority to make this phone call, and she said, I know you
represent Jim Ed, and but isthis what the family would want. I
said, absolutely, Yeah, hungup from Sarah, pick up the phone.
I called Kim and Beckham like here'shere's the questions being asked. Is
(42:30):
this what you want? And theywere both in tears on the phone,
going absolutely. I said, okay, I just want to make sure that
if you get that phone call behindthe scenes saying we got a phone call
from Kurt Webster, are you okaywith this that we're all on the same
page, Like, Kurt, ofcourse we are. I'm like okay.
So I called Sarabacks. I've talkedto the family. Yes, okay.
(42:53):
So then another phone call went toKyle Cole said, we only can do
it if we have a sitting livingmember of the Hall of Fame come because
they have to present the medallion.Okay. Well, on my pr roster,
I had Brenda Lee, I hadseveral Hall of Famers, so I
(43:15):
it was like dollar prayer, dollarfriend. I got on my phone and
I started dialing around. I calledBill Anderson and Bill said, I said
one o'clock today or tomorrow. Iforget the timing of it. I said,
can you do this? And hesaid, well, I have a
dentist appointment at that time, butthat dentnist appointment can wait. I will
(43:39):
cancel that. Don't you worry.I will be there. I picked up
the phone. I said that partcheck it off your list, Sarah,
Bill Anderson is going to do it. Yeah, right, She called Kyle.
That was done. Kyle got thescript of how they actually what they
read and how they induct and inour minds it was offset. Nobody was
(44:02):
going to know anything, I believeKyle is. Sarah called Ricky Skaggs and
a few other Hall of Fame kindmembers and people in the business or friends
Opry members at the time. Idon't know if Rickie had been made a
member or not at that point theHall of Fame, but he was an
Opry member. And we all camearound and walked into the room at the
(44:23):
same time, and Jim ed waslaying there and a big smile on his
face, and I said, well, Jim, I brought some friends with
me, and Sarah took over insteada few words. Kyle said a few
words, and then all of asudden they just started in and it was
(44:43):
tears amongst the entire room. Andwhen Bill Anderson placed the medallion around Jim
Ed's neck in that hospital bed andeverybody held hands, and then we're saying,
well, the circle be unbroken.That right there was probably the number
(45:04):
one highlight of my career in life, because I knew that it wasn't going
to last long and that he wouldgo rest in peace, knowing that his
music and his humanity and who hewas as a person would live on forever
(45:27):
as a country music Call of Famemember, And that I knew in my
heart no matter what people thought,if I had authority or not, or
what took place, I did whatwas right at the time. Yeah,
I pushed the envelope to do somethingunprecedented that had never been done before,
(45:47):
and it's still never been done since. Because it was the right thing to
do to me. To me,that's really what matters. And so that
that I know that, you know, what I did God's work. Yeah,
no matter how religious somebody is orisn't out there, it was like
I knew that moment, I wasdoing God's work, not my work.
(46:10):
And and and so you know thenthe fact that when I was, you
know, a kid, I wantedKenny and Dolly to perform again because I
always wanted to go see them inconcert, and I never got to.
I had to watch all the RealLove HBO specials and all the things that
were on tv UM. And whenI moved to Nashville and I got to
start representing both of them, toknow that I was the catalyst and the
(46:35):
one who actually put them two backtogether on that stage for the very last
time, and we got to seethat final performance. You know that ranks
in the top five because I movedto Nashville with a hope and a dream
to work for Kenny and Dolly.Yeah, I worked for them. I
(46:57):
lived my dream. I got thatdone. But to know that then I
closed out that dream and put themtogether for the last time in October of
twenty seventeen, and at that pointthey never performed ever again, and poor
Kenny passed away subsequently a few yearslater. It was like, Okay,
(47:22):
you know, it's a perfect exampleof if you dream it, you can
live it, you can do it. And that's kind of way the way
that I look at my careers.That was a pipe dream. I'm fourteen
fifty and sixteen years old in Phoenix, Arizona, and I'm like, I'm
going to town to work for KennyDolly, my mom and dad are like,
yeah, yeah, yeah, sureI am one day and all of
(47:44):
a sudden it happened. Yeah.And then knowing that the very last time
they got to perform together was thatmoment. And I'll back up just a
quick second. I got to seethem perform one other time together, and
that was when I was executive producerof the Dolly Pardon Smokey Mountain Rise Telethon
(48:05):
that we won an Emmy. Fourwas when the Wildfire's happened. We got
one day out of her schedule toput the telethon on, and I'm like,
you can't have this without Kenny andDolly. And I literally called Kenny
and said, Kenny, we're shapingthis on this day live. Can you
be here? And he said,well, I'm in Detroit the night before
on the Christmas tour. That's myone day off, and I'm in Pennsylvania
(48:30):
the next day. I'll get thebus driver to give me to Nashville and
I'll get to Pennsylvania. Tell DollyI'll be there. So knowing that,
okay, all of a sudden theydid the telethon as just like a fast
I prompt to throw together thing becausewe got to raise money to help all
(48:50):
those wildfire victims. You know,it was a great moment to say,
ah, they did it. Iwould have never thought that a few years
later I would have been the catalystto put them together for the final time.
But all in all, I knewthat I did that, and that
was another highlight of my career becauseit put the bow, if you will,
(49:13):
tied the bow on the end ofthat part of my career. Like
that's why I came to town.That's how that part of that career ended,
and now I can do other things. What is it about the growth
of Nashville that did you expect it? First of all? And second of
all, do you have like thehot spot quote unquote that you like to
go to places? Well? WhenI again, when I moved to town,
(49:37):
it was so wonderful because it waseverything was based off of the Three
Streets sixteen, seventeen and eighteen knownas Music Row. You could literally walk
from house to house and those houseswere turned into office buildings and you could
pretty much get all your business doneon three streets, whether it was banking
(50:00):
with the music industry, whether it'sstarting to a management company, whether it
was talking to the booking agents.Everybody was in these little houses and turned
into office buildings and it was veryeasy to work within. Everybody knew each
other, it was very simple.As time has gone on, those houses
have become big condo complexes. Um, there's just been a lot, if
(50:23):
you will, of growth on musicgrow that music grow. Isn't music grow
anymore? That's just realities right now, it's very industrialized. There's still a
few homes. They're like Crystal Galeso has her office and studio and in
a home building. Um, thereare others that still do, but not
(50:45):
everybody. And so seeing that growand everything you expand out, this is
kind of like, wow, whathappened? But then also you know covid
has turned everything into people from homeand people getting rid of offices all together.
Because we are a relationship business andwe are very much a lunch and
(51:07):
dinner type business where you go andmeeting and get your deals done that way.
So there are a lot of Um, there's been a lot of growth
that way. The scary part isis looking at downtown where you pull off
the freeway off of forty and yougo there are seven skyscrapers. Um,
I mean nice skyscrapers, crane inthe air, building building, these skyscraper
(51:30):
hotels in these buildings, and I'mlike, wait a minute. We never
had a skyline like that. Wenever had New York City or or you
know, Austin or LA with allthese big buildings in one small area.
And we all just knew the BatmanBuilding, Right, you want to get
you down, Like you want togo to downtown Nashville, you want to
get to the Honky Talks, lookfor the Batman Building. I was like
(51:52):
done, and so that was it. You know. Um, I've been
blessed. Um. I work withSteve Smith, who owns Tutsies Honky Tonk
sent from Rippies just you know kidRocks, Um, several Honckey Tonks all
through downtown and UM, I've workedwith him now twenty plus years, and
(52:16):
a growth of what he's been ableto build has been absolutely phenomenal. I
mean he was he was, youknow, um, a single guy owner
if you will, of establishments andjust started growing it from one thing to
the next. And um, allof a sudden, Oh, we're gonna
(52:37):
take over this location, We're gonnatake over that one, And all of
a sudden, you know, hisbusiness has started booming, and then all
of a sudden, we're we're expandingTutsies to three floors and we're growing,
we're building. I'm like, ohmy goodness, this is this is phenomenal.
And so now when we sit andhave our meetings that we talk about
how much things have grown and whathas happened, you know, it's what
(53:00):
are we doing next? Yea,and and you know what are the new
pieces? You know, Um,you've got on Broadway now a lot of
the buildings are celebrity driven bars andclubs. You've got John Riches, You've
got Luke Bryan's, You've got JasonAlden's, You've got Flora Georgia Lines,
you've got mirandas you know, mostof the Eric kid Rocks. Everything has
(53:22):
a name on it now Garth Brooksis getting ready to open his and Eric
Church has got one launching. Soyou know, Um, before it was
just business guys owned a honkey talk. Yeah, Robert, it's become it's
become part of the music establishment oftheir enterprise. Those brands are now taking
(53:42):
over those pieces because we've become thebachelorette capital of the world. Um,
you know, the TV show Nashvilleback in the day opened a lot of
those doors. It made Nashville lookfun, you know, So all those
seasons of that show, whether youlike it or not, it really opened
up a lot of those doors thatpeople paid attention. So there's you know,
(54:07):
there's been so much growth, andyou know with growth becomes problems.
Yeah, you know, whether it'shigh priced hotels, whether it's you know,
crime, whether it's whatever. Butit's in every city. So you
can't put the negative and bring itdown because you've grown in creating positive moves.
You know, you have to lookat and go. It's part of
(54:28):
it for me because I've been inFlorida for so long. When when the
NFL decided to hold their draft thereon Second Avenue or Broadway rather and thousands
and that tens of thousands of peopleshowed up for that draft, I thought,
Man, we have really entered anew world. Oh absolutely, yes,
(54:52):
you know, we definitely have um, you know, expanded into a
more um non just country enterprise.We are now um seen by corporations as
the place to be. So you'rewe're seeing conventions and um big events come
(55:12):
to town. They're they're talking aboutrebuilding this stadium so we could host a
super Bowl one year. Um.You know when when when they're starting talking
about things of that nature, allof a sudden, it's like, whoa,
we're no longer. We're no longerfanfare as we knew. You know
where you're going to pig Barns andsigning autographs and you know, well,
(55:35):
we're well beyond that now. Don'tget me wrong, I loved me some
fanfare. I love the old dayswhen it was pig Barns and every artists
wouldn't find autographs were the good day. But now it's so commercialized and so
big. Um. The team mayhave done a phenomenal job with expanding it
and bringing so many stages and somany artists and so many opportunities for people
(56:00):
to be heard, but now it'sjust like it used to be all contained
at the fairgrounds. Now it's acitywide event and there's again pluses and minuses
to it. It's phenomenal. It'sit's one of the things where you go,
wow, they have really taken thisand grown it. I remember,
you know, you have to thinkback. Fan first started with three little
(56:20):
ladies that ran Loretta's fan club.You know, the Johnson's sisters in Conway,
Twitter getting together and doing a littleshow for the fans. And they
had a company called IFKO, theInternational Fan Club Organization, and it just
grew from there to where all thefan clubs started participating and they got their
artists to come and all of asudden, fan Fair was born and and
(56:44):
now it's massive. So you know, again it's we've become a corporate world
where everything's bigger, and you know, and again you take the goods with
the beads, you can't you can'tknock it, but then take the money
from it. You got to embracesit and say, whatever happens, happens,
let's go. If it's wrong,we got to fix it. If
(57:05):
it's right, we gotta win it. So let's go, you know.
And every essentially that's where we wherewhere we have become, you know,
such a notable city that everybody's watchingwhat we're doing and wanting to come here.
Yeah. Well, Kurt, Ireally do appreciate your time today and
just want to say I appreciate youand thank you for coming on. Absolutely,
(57:25):
thanks for having me. You've beenlistening to the Nashville Hype podcast.
I'm your host Paul King. Youcan find us at the Nashville Hype dot
com. We're on all the socials, and the podcast can be heard on
Apple, Spotify, Google, iHeart, and many other places. Thank you
so much for tuning in.
From the ot Living Studios in SunnySouth Florida via Nashville, Tennessee. Heard
all over the world on the iHeartRadioNetwork or wherever you get your streaming content.
It's The Nashville Hype with your hostPaul King. The Nashville Hype is
brought to you by Fantasy Song Pitch, a place where songwriters can pitch their
(00:23):
songs to all their favorite artists onlyat fantasysongpitch dot com. You're listening to
The Nashville Hype with my special guest, Kurt Webster. You walked in to
Merle Kilgore's office and he said,who are you? And you said,
I'm your new publicist. That's correct. How in the world did you find
(00:45):
the ump to just do that?I had been selling T shirts early on
my first job in Nashville, andI was on a headline tour with Clay
Walker six and we had the DixieChicks and James Bonomi and Emilio and Terry
Clark has opening acts various shows.And you know, I learned right then,
(01:08):
you have to be aggressive. Youhave to go out and get what
you want. If you don't,you will get run over. And so
I realized after doing that for ayear, it's not why I moved to
town. And so I literally hadto cold call people to get through the
door because I did not go toBelmont, I did not go to Vanderbilt.
(01:29):
I did not intern for a recordcompany or a manager company. So
I didn't have an inn already,if you will, And so therefore I
had to just take everything you know, that I wanted to do in pay
charge, and if it didn't happenas my own fault. If it happens,
then I win. And so wellon that tour, early on,
(01:53):
there was a girl named Lisa dwho was out selling T shirts as well,
and we got to know each otherwell. She left doing merchandise that
first year and went to work atWilliam Morris and she became the assistant to
Greg Oswald and Greg represented at thetime Leonard skinnerd Hank Junior, Lone Star,
(02:14):
a whole plethora of artists. Andshe called me one day after I'd
started the PR company and she said, Okay, Kathy Ganguish is going to
be retiring in the next two days. And they haven't announced yet, but
they've let us know. She's beendiagnosed with chrome's disease and so all her
clients are going to come available.The light bulb went off in my head.
(02:37):
I picked up the phone. Istarted calling the Oaker's Boys manager,
Jim Halisey, the Gatlin Brothers manager, all the various Don Williams, all
the clients that she had, whichshe had a lot of the oldie but
goodiacs. And I thought, perfect, right up my alle, exactly what
I want to do and who Iwant to represent. So Hank Williams Junior
was on that list. So Icold called Merle Ogre's office and k answered
(03:00):
the phone, k Night, andI said, can I get an appointment
with Merle? She said how?It was two o'clock on Thursday, So
I said great. So I showedup and he said what can I do
you for it? And what arewe here to talk about it? So
I'm your new publicist and literally Isat down and the first thing he said
(03:21):
was, well, did you knowthat I wrote The Ring of Fire?
And I said, no, Merl, tell me about that. So he
went into the whole story. Welldid you know that I wrote you know,
Wolverton Mountain? Did you know thatI was roommates with Fair and young,
and of course I didn't know someof these things. So all I
did was opened the door for himto tell me those stories. By six
pm, we're still sitting that I'mhearing stories. And he said, you
(03:43):
know, let's go eat. Wewent and had some Mexican food over off
of Elm Hill Pike. I'm outby the airport, and he said,
come to the show tomorrow night inLouisville, Kentucky. McGovern Gentry and Toby
Keith are opening for Hank, andI'll introduce you. I said, okay.
Drove to e Loouisville walking on thebus. Literally he looked at Hank
(04:04):
and said, this is your newpublicist. And Hank looked and said what
does he do? And Roll said, he gets you in the paper and
things. Hank turned around, walkedback to the back of the bus and
the rest of his history. So, you know, it's one of those
things where you have to seize themoment. And that's what I learned early
(04:26):
on, and so I firmly believethat that's what made me successful throughout my
publicity career. Was yes, Igot a lot of nose, Yes I
got a lot of yesses, butI turned a lot of nose into yeses
because of the fact that I justhad tenacity and didn't give up. Yeah.
Yeah, I think you and Imay have met. And I don't
(04:47):
know this for a fact because itwas so many years ago, but if
you were working for Clay Walker inninety five or ninety six, I think
he was living in Hermitage at anapartment complex like a I want to work
like a white building, uh,Jackson Downs, Jackson Downs, Yeah,
yes, And that was just priorto me. He had moved in six,
(05:10):
he had moved to Hempstead, Texas, and his wife Lorie, they
had McClay the daughter, and umthat was the hypnotize the Moon tour and
they actually were living in a trailerout on this massive land plot of acres
that they were building their dream homeat the time in Texas. Hypnotized the
(05:32):
Moon went platinum, and that waswe actually had our platinum album party out
at his house in Hempstead, Texas. Okay. So that's that's why vividly
I can remember exactly where we wentand where we where we were. But
he was prior to that in thatapartment complex in Hermitage in Jackson Downs.
Yeah, I had started writing songs, I guess in nineteen ninety one,
and I was hanging around people likeTracy Lawrence and Elbert West to Arrest in
(05:57):
Peace and several others, and forwhatever reason, I recall him being there
because I was there at the apartment. You know, you brought up Hank
Williams Junior. And from what yearsdid you represent Hank Williams. Well,
it was the Almira Club album andwe had had just taken over that project,
and then we did the Crossroads withKid Rock and it was from that
(06:23):
point on all the way through twentyseventeen, the fall of seventeen. Okay,
Well, the reason I ask is, you know, he's not short
of controversy, and we don't needto go in specifics of what the controversy
was. But were you there andrepping him when the whole Monday night football
thing went down? Oh? Yes, We were promoting a box set that
(06:45):
was called the Mother's Best box Setfor Hank Williams, and so Time Life
was putting this beautiful box set thatwas in the shape of a WSM radio
because all of those masters, themaster recordings and masters from the radio station
that had been recorded when Hank Williamswas doing live radio at the time.
(07:09):
He had would perform all his songslive and then he would do the Mother's
Best flower commercials live and so allthose things, those ascetates were thrown into
a garbage and a janitor pulled themout and kept them, and years later
they found them at this janitor's house, and through obviously a legal battle,
(07:31):
the courts ruled that those masters belongedback to the estate into the family.
So Jet Williams and Hank Williams becamethe owners of all those recordings. They
licensed them to Time Life, andthis beautiful box set had been released and
a lot of them were unreleased recordings, obviously of different songs that never had
(07:53):
come out on record. So itwas like a brand new opportunity for people
to hear some Hank william stuff.Yeah, so be that the main We
booked him on to do a mediaday to promote that project, and we
booked him on Fox and Friends andhe was doing a via satellite and of
course you try to preface a lotof interviews in advance by saying, you
(08:16):
know, here of our talking points, here's the things we want to stay
away from, you know, noteverybody abides by it, but you try
to give a ground or you know, you lay the groundwork and give some
some framework, if you will,on how to structure it. So it
comes off and everybody looks good.Right. Well, at the very end,
you know, they happened to aska political question, and as we
(08:37):
know, there's no stranger too controversyor giving his opinion. And so as
soon as he did, literally wewere sitting in the control room and I'm
like, no, this is notgoing there, No, this is not
going there. And all of asudden, it was like what was done
was done. And we still hadthree or four hours worth of interviews to
(09:03):
do because that was so early inthe morning that we had to get through
the rest of the day. Sowe did the rest of those interviews.
He went back home. We wereat the office and the phone started ringing,
saying, so you know, whois who, who is he referring
to on this part? Who ishe making the analogy too, and who
is he referencing? And you know, and everybody knows he was talking about
(09:26):
Nat Jaho's you let Yaho, Sehn, Bayner, President Obama and Hitler,
and he was talking about a golfgame and how it just would be uncommon
for that pairing if you will,to be having a good time out on
a golf course. Yes, itdidn't. The explanation and his way of
(09:48):
saying it didn't come off the waythat he was thinking it, you know,
or in some cases it did,in some cases it didn't. And
therefore people started making their own assumptionsand of course created a lot more controversy
than really was there. But itstill bubbled up, and all of a
sudden, you know, he endedup losing the money Night football deal.
(10:11):
So all of that transpired throughout thatweekend. Sunday night, I'm like,
how's this week going to be?That's all I could remember. Monday,
I get a phone call from Hankand he says, I want to do
the view. I said, youwant to do what? And he said,
(10:33):
I want to fly to New Yorkand do the view with Whoopi Goldberg.
She was on the air protecting meand telling people that she understood what
I said was an analogy. I'mlike, oh, yeah, okay,
okay. So I called the producersand Natalie Bubness and the group there,
(10:54):
and I said, Hank would likethe countries that the show's booked, we're
full, let me check. Well, they came back and said, here's
no problem. Barbara Walters is inLondon for the Paul McCartney wedding. She's
flying back today, she'll be backtomorrow. She will want to be part
of this segment. We have tofigure this out. Needless to say that
(11:16):
next day, following day, wewere in New York City. He wore
a Mickey Mantle jersey because he knewthat ABC and Disney owned The View and
so he was trying to make itagain another play there, and then he
called the Country Music Call of Fameand had them pool his jacket, his
(11:41):
money at football jacket with all theteams they had manuel make and he got
that off of the display and hegifted it too. Will be in the
dressing room and said, I wantyou to have this as my gift because
you understood what I was saying.Be that as the man he went on
on Good Morning the View, andum, it was a great segment.
(12:05):
Um Joy Behart loved him so muchthat she said, well, you stick
around in New York through this afternoonand when you come in film my show
later today, I want to doa whole other interview with you. Wow,
and he said, yes, thatwas not pre planned. Um,
they just had a great conversation.And here again their polar opposites in politics,
(12:28):
right, but they had one.But the interesting piece was they had
one common ground. They truly understoodwhat they were saying, and they had
a civil conversation about it. Andso we end up going over to UM.
I don't remember see Ann or MSNBC, but she had. It was
Joy Behart's Night or Joy Behart Liveat the time, and um, we
(12:48):
did two full segments on her show, and then we got on the plane
and came back to Nashville. Butyeah, it was It was an interesting
time because that was pre where weare today in politics. Yeah, but
yeah, it was just as volatiledepending on what the situation was. Were
(13:09):
you responsible for him going back,because I know they invited him back.
I think in two thousand and sixteenor something. It was a combination of
a lot of people just saying,Okay, what gives you know? Your
ratings are down. The song issynonymous with football because of the are you
(13:31):
ready for some football? It wassynonymous with ABC's Monday Night Football when it
moved to ESPN and I had adifferent audience obviously because there was a network,
but the same producers. They lovedHank. There was a long term
relationship that they had and so theywent back to the well internally to fight
(13:56):
for us. So nice. Youknow, we had Ken Levitan, who
is Hanks manager, go out andfight for us. You know, I
had my conversations, So there wasa combination of a lot of people that
were saying all the same thing,and eventually they said, you know what,
you know, we'll bring Jason Deruloand we'll bring Florida, Georgia.
Line in, let's kind of makeit a little bit of a Hank and
(14:18):
Friends type opening, and that couldbe a softer way of reintroducing that back
to Monday night football, so wedon't get any pushback kind of a thing.
Yeah, and yes, we shotthat here in Nashville. I believe
it was fifteen and sixteen time period, and it hit the airwaves and it
(14:41):
was back on. Yeah. Doyou think you know you have a mistake
like that? And I wouldn't callit necessarily a mistake, but something like
that happens with a client of yoursand the next thing, you know,
six or seven years later, they'restill in the news. And sometimes I
guess it could be a curse ina way, because it's got to be
stressful. Obviously, you're you know, you're in a control room. You
(15:05):
hear something said and you go automaticallyinto damage control in your mind and you
think, boy, we've got toget through this. But then five six
years later that that client is stillin the news. Oh absolutely. I
mean, the news cycle is thenews cycle. It's going to evolve.
The difference is when I started inpublicity early on in you know, the
(15:28):
late nineties, you're still dealing witha fax machine. You're still taping photos
to a tear sheheet and mailing themto newspapers and people around the country.
Today, everything's instant. I alwaysreference that we're living in an Amazon world.
You know, you order something rightnow and in two hours that's at
(15:48):
your doorstep. Well the same thing, you do something right now two hours
that's on the internet. Yeah,so we're living in this space of instant
gratification. Everybody's a reporter today becausethey have an iPhone, so they're all
filming and recording. Where before peoplewent through broadcast journalism to become a journalist
(16:11):
to become a videographer. So youknow, when I was also starting out
in a journalist would call me ora newspaper, they would ask for a
photo pass, and you would givethem a PhotoPass. The first three songs,
no flash from the soundboard. Wedon't want you shooting up their nose.
Blah blah blah blah blah, allthese rules right, Well, today
(16:32):
photopaths don't even exist. Because youbuy take it in the front row,
you buy take it in the fifthrow, you got your iPhone, You're
getting better coverage and footage of theartist performing or photos than the guy with
the you know, the camera withall the high end lenses then everything that
(16:55):
they've got because they're so far backinto soundboard. There's a guy in the
front row who's you know, gotthis brand new iPhone with the highest technology
of camera on it, and theirphotos look exactly the same as the professional
guys sitting in the back right.So you know, it's one of those
things where technology has changed, ourlifestyles have changed. Everything has evolved,
(17:21):
and so you know that's another reasonwhy now that I'm more doing consulting and
managing on projects. It's a lotdifferent because the days of your normal publicists
are coming to an end, tobelieve it or not, because everything is
becoming social media driven. So socialmedia quote unquote publicists have a role in
(17:42):
a position within the industry. Butwhat we knew a publicists to be today
is not what a publicist was then. Yeah, if that makes sense,
Yeah, absolutely makes sense. Andyou're talking about the cycles of news.
I guess back then when he wasgoing through that, and you were kind
(18:03):
of shepherding the flock around in orderto help him, you know, keep
a career essentially because you know,you can look at it in some ways,
he was canceled and he was oneof the original canceled artists you know,
for for that, um, butit did let him remain in the
news cycle for years because even sixyears later, whenever he went back on
(18:25):
Monday Night football, it was amedia storm. Again, true, it
was, you know, and againthe cycle was was very short at that
point because again, um, it'sall about the flavor of the day and
what's hot in the news cycle,you know. And so when you're when
you have your return, you're goingto have those few folks that will come
out do that story and then itgoes away, yeah, because there's something
(18:49):
else that's more topical. Yeah,but you know, but you're right,
it does come back out and you'relike, oh gosh, this again,
you know, but you're you're alsounderstanding that that's pretty much the news cycle.
You know, You've got people ofall walks of life that are journalists,
so different different things are going tospark the idea of a news story
(19:11):
in different people. So you know, and you're never going to control the
universe. You're never going to controleverybody, so you just have to roll
with it. And in Hank's world, you know, when I came on
board during that al Mira Club record, you have to remember Hank Williams Junior
was not being played on radio atthat time. So when I took over
(19:33):
his publicity and his marketing, thewhole focus was, Okay, how do
we continue to build a brand andenhance the brand because we don't have radio
to push the agenda where today,you know, we've got TikTok. If
you don't have radio today, you'vegot different social media platforms. Back then,
(19:56):
in ninety eight, ninety nine,two thousand, in one, those
early days of trying to figure outwhere we were going to go. Yeah,
during that time period, you didn'thave a TikTok or a Facebook,
you didn't have any other platforms besidesradio and television and typical press. Yeah.
Do you do you think that radiostill rules? Radio is very important
(20:21):
in our formats. Yeah, that'sthe difference. Yeah. You know,
you cannot name me one artist todaythat has had success or launched a career
to any other means that is stillsustained and still out there having that same
success unless they have had radio play. Yeah, you're talking about this,
(20:44):
and it made me think about Littlenas X and how he was such a
phenomenal talent or whatever on TikTok andhe had millions and millions of views.
But it wasn't until Billy Ray Cyruscame along and radio picked that song up
that it became the longest lasting numberone song in the history of all mankind
(21:04):
music. Absolutely, But you saidit best. What was the catalyst that
finally started to push it to themasses radio? So you know, you
can have all of the followers thatyou want on any platform, which is
phenomenal, and it gives you agreat base, and it gives you a
great launching pad. But if youstill don't hear it on the radio,
(21:30):
whether it's serious exam syndicated radio show, to rest your radio, you really
you're not getting to the fans becausethey're not looking online to discover a lot
of music. Fans want to hearwhat's trendy. They want to hear what
their friends are saying is cool?Have you heard this? Sore? The
(21:52):
way that the word travels is throughpeople hearing something they like and telling their
friends. Yeah, it's no differentthan when we were younger, and I
hate to say that, like we'regetting old. When we were youre,
when we would listen to terrestrial radiobefore satellite radio and we loved a song,
(22:14):
what was the first thing we did. We either called the radio station
and requested it again, or wewent out about the cassette or the CD
before anything else, because you wantedto be able to play it whenever you
want it, right right? Okay, It took it actually took you doing
(22:36):
something to hear that song again.It was an instant. You had to
call the radio station and say,hey, will you play X y Z
songs? I loved it? Well, they weren't going to play it back
to back or put in in theplaylist in an hour, you had to
stay listening to you could hear itagain, right, So people were more
(23:00):
tune to hearing new songs and hearingradio are songs and artists that they normally
wouldn't be paying attention to on theradio because we were waiting for that song
to come back. So at thatpoint we were discovering new music that way.
They back announced and front announced songs. You know, this is you
know, he Stopped Loving Her todayfrom George Jones. You know, that's
(23:23):
you know, Martina McBride, youknow this is Reba McIntire, Dolly Marton,
that's the Hank Williams Junior. Youknow, so all of a sudden,
you weren't guessing who the artists were. You weren't guessing the name of
the song. You know, youwere lucky and they say there's you know,
we're gonna play you twelve in arow this hour, and you got
(23:45):
twelve songs. But they still backannounced and front announced. You knew who
was coming up. And so todaythey're trying to cram so many songs in
that they're just playing songs and youhave to shazam them or you have to
use technology to figure out who wasthat because I liked it a lot.
Because they're not really back announcing infront announcing because it takes too much time.
(24:07):
You have to have radio. They'refurther a long lasting career, right,
So you see what I'm saying.So it's a double edged sword.
You have to have one to sustainthe other. Yeah, And so you
know, I hear some artists afterthey get a record deal and after it's
gone through four or five album cycles, and they're out making great money and
(24:30):
they're having a great time. There'stwo buses on the road, three trucks,
all this stuff. God, Ihave a horrible record deal. They're
screwing me. They're this so that. And I sit there and I go,
whoa, whoa. Who invested thefirst million dollars in you five years
ago? Well, you're making thismoney because those people believed in your talent.
Proud of that. Nobody gave youa chance, right, So don't
(24:51):
work the gifts worse in the mouthand be knocking the guys that are allowing
you to do what you're doing becausethey're giving you radio hits. And yes,
there might be some economics that aren'tin your favor at this point,
but they weren't in the record label'sfavor when they started, because they could
have lost a million, two million, five million dollars in a heartbeat if
(25:12):
the records and the singles they putout on you flopped. Yeah, going
to radio is we're really expensive,you know, trying to do a radio
tour and get those spins. It'snot a cheap process or anyone, No,
not at all, because you know, people spend a lot of money
making a great record. This isthe part of the under the business that
(25:33):
I wish they would teach more studentsand more people about our businesses. The
fact that you know, you gospend fifty thousand, one hundred thousand,
two hundred thousand whatever you're going tospend on making a great record with you
know, a list musicians, allthis stuff, and then you come out
and you go, I don't haveany money to promote it. If nobody
knows it's available, nobody's going tobuy it. So therefore you spend all
(25:55):
this money to create a great record, but you have no way of telling
the people. And at the sametime, and you know, if you
go after radio to your point secondsago, is it's not cheap. Yeah,
you know, you have to spenda lot of money. It's not
just hiring radio promoters to promote yoursong. It's I've got to manufacture singles
(26:17):
or I've got to use play MPEor CDX to distribute my single two radio.
Those two things cost. Then I'vegot to go visit radio stations so
they know who I am. Itmeans if I don't play guitar, I've
got to take a guitar player.That means I've got a couple of flights
that I've got to pay for,a couple of hotel rooms, several meals
I've got to pay for. Oh, my radio promotion guys got to go
(26:41):
with me so we can introduce meto the program director music director at the
station. So now those three flights, not just two. I've got to
take those program directors out to dinnerso they'll actually like me and know who
I am because they're going to spendsome quality time versus Hi. I'm here
to play a song for you atthe station, and then you leave and
they don't remember your name when youleave, right, So all those costs
(27:06):
are added. Then you have tothink about what is your promotional tools that
you're going to use. Do Ineed a music video? Do I need
which is a concept video? DoI need an acoustic video? What do
I need for my Facebook and socialmedia postings? Now I've got to hire
a social media manager to go makesure that I'm tagging all of the radio
(27:26):
stations I visited and I'm getting theright photos to the right people. All
of those things cost money, andthat's all part of promoting a single because
all those things are tied back toyou're building your brand, and so when
all of a sudden you look atthat, you're going it's not a cheap
business. And I'm like, whenpeople come to me and they talk to
(27:47):
me and I tell them these thingsthat are like, we had no idea,
and I said, I get it. That's why I want you to
know. I'd rather scare the hellout of you right now, tell you
the truth so you don't more you'reyour house. Don't do something and then
all of a sudden regret it laterbecause you're never digging yourself out of the
hole. Because you know, Johnnyor Molly wanted a star and they had
(28:12):
what it took in your opinion,and therefore you gave it your all,
and all of a sudden, nowyou're bankrupt. It's like, it's not
fair to those moms and dads whoworked so hard on the grandparents who say,
here, I want to try this, So we're going to give you
our hundred thousand dollars, our lastsavings. Can we do this? And
I'm like, Noah, stay themoney, because that's not enough money that's
(28:36):
going to get you around the bases. You're going to get the first base
or second base, and you're gonnabe out of money and then you're not
gonna be able to get all theway home, and it's going to hurt
you worse. So you know,there's a lot of pieces about the business,
Like I have a website called KurtwebsterConsultants dot com, and I have
(28:56):
all of that information there about thebusiness and how managers work, how booking
agents work, how song publishing works, how radio how do you get a
radio promoter? A lot of thatinformation is in very simplistic form because I've
seen too many grandparents come to townand lose everything. I've seen too many
people come and feel like, ohmy gosh, I came in Ashtville and
(29:21):
I got screwed over or I gottaken for X amount of dollars and I
look back going to go you mighthave, but part of that is the
fact that you didn't educate yourself onhow the business works. So don't blame
the people that screwed you, right, also blame yourself. Yeah, had
you done your research, you wouldknow what to be looking for it.
(29:41):
People get so enamored with celebrity andthe excitement of our business that they forget
that it is a business, rightand and so you know, I tell
people all the time, do someresearch, please, some phone calls,
please, you know, ask thequestions, because at the end of the
day, you know it's for yourown good. Yeah, what are your
(30:03):
hour what's like a normal day foryou? Like? Do you work from
seven am to midnight every single day? How does your life work? I
do not get into the office untilat least nine am. And that's that's
on purpose because I learn with allthe time zones, I work later in
the evening than I do early inthe morning because I'm in Nashville and Central
(30:29):
Time, So the only thing that'sahead of me right now is New York
follow me, right, So I'monly I'm only an hour away. So
I call somebody at ten am,it's okay because their day is still fully
ahead of them. If I startmy day at seven am, which is
what I did early on, wellit's only five o'clock in the morning on
the West coast, right, Ican't call anybody. I can't do any
(30:52):
work until ten am my time,which is eight o'clock. Third time.
Yeah, it makes sense, makessense. So at the end of the
day, I was all focused ongetting up early and going to the office
and doing all these great things.But then I couldn't work because nobody was
taking my call, nobody was inthe office. I'm like, what do
(31:15):
I do now? So what Ido is I get to the office around
nine o'clock and the first thing Ido is check my email see if I've
got to return any calls from theday before. And then it's about research.
It's planning, strategizing, checking inwith the clients, figuring out what
(31:37):
has to be dealt with and what'swhat's on fire and what's not, and
then just rolling through the day andgetting it all done. You know,
six o'clock typically is when everybody elsegoes home and shuts down. Typically I've
got a dinner meeting, or I'vegot something I've got to do with with
other clients in the evening, whetherit's they're playing the Grandelpry or they're playing
(32:00):
a show somewhere, or we juststrictly have our phone call and and a
recap of certain things. And that'snot every day, but it's a lot
of days yea, and so um, you know our days. There are
days I'm I'm in the office untilsix o'clock and we're done. There are
times I don't get home till midnight. Yeah, it's all varies based off
(32:22):
what the needs are. You know, we are not a Monday through Friday
job because our are touring Fridays andSaturdays. You know, my typical day
in my week doesn't start on Mondayand on Friday. Um, you know,
it's pretty much every day of theweek. Um, and all the
time, and all the time youjust don't know what's gonna what's gonna rise.
(32:45):
Yeah. How many do you know, just off hand, how many
shows that you produce, because Iknow you produced some really large shows in
Nashville, um and around and aroundthe country, of course, but do
you know how many that you've actuallyproduced yourself. I do not know how
many shows I've produced. I've neverkept track of that. Um, you
(33:08):
know, I always this is thefunny part of something that I tell people.
I'm like, I do funerals.Well, oh yeah, I don't
want to bring that up. Yeah, I've had to orchestrate, you know,
eight or nine massive funerals, everybodyfrom Carl Perkins to Jim ed Brown
to George Jones, Merle Kilgore,June Carter, Cash, Johnny Cash.
(33:30):
I mean, name you name someartists that Freddie Fender that I've represented,
and they happen to pass on mywatch, and all of a sudden,
now I'm in the thick of dealingwith the memorials, the live television portions
of the memorials, the artists sideof the memorials, you know, everything,
(33:53):
the internments, all of that stuff. And so you know, that's
that's one thing that I get alot of calls for still to this day,
from people going so and so passedaway. Can you give me some
advice. What do we need todo first? And I'll walk them through.
Okay, here's how these pieces willplay, and here's how you need
(34:14):
to focus on these areas and knowthat these people are going to come out
of the woodworks and you need tobe very careful. And people are going
to try to manipulate the family intodoing this, but that's the wrong move,
so steer them in this direction.And you know, believe it or
not, it's not as easy asgoing to a funeral home and picking out
a casket and saying, Okay,we're gonna have a visitation on Tuesday and
(34:37):
the funeral is going to be onWednesday, you know, like a typical
family. I mean, when you'redealing with celebrity, there's a lot of
moving parts because depending on if they'regrand a lopermember, if they're a Hall
of Fame member, what's happening,You've got obligations that you have to make
sure are fulfilled not only for thefamily, but to some of the organizations
(35:00):
that you represented or they represented.So you know, there's there's a lot
of moving parts. When you talkabout producing events, A funeral is an
event. There's a lot of orchestrationthat goes into that. Then you know,
I've worked on as a side producer, if you will, on several
events in Nashville, and then I'veproduced several major events in Nashville and beyond.
(35:23):
One was the George Jones Farewell Concertten years ago thirteen, the year
that he died. We started puttingtogether it was going to be his last
concert ever at the Bridgetown Arena andI was sitting at the house with him
and he looked at me and said, Son, you know, I really
don't care what you're going to dofor that show. I'm not going to
(35:44):
be there. I said, what, George. He said, yeah,
I'm gonna go to the other sideand I just won't be there. So
you do what you want to do. And I'm like, you are absolutely
crazy. And a month later hehad passed. He knew he just so
you know, me and Nancy Jonesand a small team of people got together.
(36:06):
We had like a one hundred andseventeen artists on that show. Stayed
on time, and I wait,everybody from Megadeath to members of Sticks to
kid Rock to all the way Georgestraight In, Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson.
I mean, it was the spectrumof rock meets country and everybody came
for the love of George Jones andit was phenomenal. And you know,
(36:30):
fast forward, you know. Iwas part of Kenny Rogers final farewell show
at Bridgetone where where we united Kennyand Dolly for the very last time on
stage, and it became an unbelievabletelevision moment that aired a couple of years
ago on CBS and also was partof a documentary bio type show on Kenny
(36:53):
Rogers. Those were moments of greatnessof saying, look at what we were
able to produce and create. Mostrecently, I produced a multi artist show
honoring Lee Greenwood for his forty yearsof hits, and we're producing right now
and it'll air here this year ontelevision that George Jones still play in Possum
(37:17):
Music and Memories of George Jones thetenth anniversary of his passing celebration with Dirk's
Bentley Whinona, Brad Paisley, JamieJohnson. I mean, just a great
grouping of artists, Tanya Tucker,Justin Moore, Sam Moore, A lot
of people are going to come togetherand sing George Jones songs. There's gonna
(37:37):
be some cool moments. Jamie Johnsonand Why and are gonna sing Golden Ring
and Sarah Evans and Easton Corban aregoing to do I was country when country
wasn't cool, and so that willbe on television to keep the memory of
George Jones and his music alive.So those kind of projects are fun to
me because they have a beginning andthey have an end. So you know
(38:00):
what you're starting with and you knowwhat your end game is, and it's
all that metal stuff that becomes thepain in the rear that we have to
deal with. But we get throughit and when you see the endgame of
what finally came about, You're going, Okay, everything was worth it,
Yeah, because I see the endgame and now I'm loving this right.
(38:20):
So is that your most proud momentwas the George Jones memorial? Is that,
like I mean a ranking in topten, let's say, of a
career status. Is that near thetop or at the top? That was?
That was one of those top youknow, defining moments. I will
say probably the biggest defining momentum thatI would say that probably personal and a
(38:44):
heart perspective. Number one would begetting jim Ed Brown and the Browns into
the Hall of Fame. Oh yeah, because Jim had jim Ed had been
diagnosed with cancer. Um he hadovercome the cancer, it came back,
and I got the phone call tobring him to the CMA for Sarah Trey.
(39:05):
Hearn the CEO to let him knowthat he had been voted into the
Hall of Fame, and so Itold him we had to go to the
CMA, and I got his daughterand I said, oh, we've got
to do an interview down there.Will you bring him and meet me there?
So we got there, and makea long story short, we walked
into Sarah's office and he had aball cap on and he sat down and
she said, okay, so youready to go do your interview and he
(39:25):
said yes, And she said,well, I've got a couple of questions
I wanted to ask you, anda few things to tell you first about
what we're going to talk about.And she said, first one is is
congratulations, you're the next member ofthe Country Music Hall of Fame. And
literally he fell back in his chairand his ball cap flew back, and
it was like what It was atearful, emotional moment. And then he
(39:50):
was sworn to secrecy because he wasn'tallowed to tell anybody until the official announcement.
We did that. We had alittle party that night at this house
after the announcement, and then hegot sick again and he was not going
to live till November to be ableto get the medallion around his neck and
(40:12):
actually become a member. Because howthat works is the CMA makes the announcement.
As soon as the CMA has donewith the announcement, the Hall of
Fame takes over and they start theystart planning the medallion ceremony, and when
this medallion is placed over your neck, that's officially when you become a member
of the Hall of Fame. You'rea member elect during that time period of
(40:37):
the announcement till the medallion ceremony,So he was a member elect, but
he wasn't an official member. AndI got the phone call from Becky and
his from Becky his wife and Kim, his daughter, and said, listen,
Dad's probably got a week left unfortunately, that doctors are telling us,
and we want you to come upto the don see him. And I
(41:01):
came up and I patted his handand we were talking and a little Brenda
Lee had just come up and waslaying in the bed with him, and
they were talking about old Arkansas TVshows and things that they had done,
and it was a very cute andspecial moment. And I said, well,
Jim Ed, I did what Ipromised you. I got you in
the Hall of Fame. And I'mso excited and he just smiled from ear
(41:23):
to ear and Brenda, being amember of the Hall of Fame, was
like, yes, I'm so proudof you. And it was a great
moment. And I walked out ofthere going but he's not a member,
not a member. And so Icalled Sarah Trehern and I said, Sarah,
we need to do something. Isthere a way we can do the
(41:43):
medallion at the hospital? And shesaid, let me call Kyle Young at
the Hall of Fame and see,so she called Kyle and calls like,
it's unprecedented, We've never done it. And does Kurt even have the authority
to make this phone call? Itbecame a controversial thing, right, and
it was like, what we're tryingto do something for a man who's dying,
(42:05):
all right, you know? Andand and so Sarah called me back
and she said, well, Kyle, first off, asked if you had
the authority to make this phone call, and she said, I know you
represent Jim Ed, and but isthis what the family would want. I
said, absolutely, Yeah, hungup from Sarah, pick up the phone.
I called Kim and Beckham like here'shere's the questions being asked. Is
(42:30):
this what you want? And theywere both in tears on the phone,
going absolutely. I said, okay, I just want to make sure that
if you get that phone call behindthe scenes saying we got a phone call
from Kurt Webster, are you okaywith this that we're all on the same
page, Like, Kurt, ofcourse we are. I'm like okay.
So I called Sarabacks. I've talkedto the family. Yes, okay.
(42:53):
So then another phone call went toKyle Cole said, we only can do
it if we have a sitting livingmember of the Hall of Fame come because
they have to present the medallion.Okay. Well, on my pr roster,
I had Brenda Lee, I hadseveral Hall of Famers, so I
(43:15):
it was like dollar prayer, dollarfriend. I got on my phone and
I started dialing around. I calledBill Anderson and Bill said, I said
one o'clock today or tomorrow. Iforget the timing of it. I said,
can you do this? And hesaid, well, I have a
dentist appointment at that time, butthat dentnist appointment can wait. I will
(43:39):
cancel that. Don't you worry.I will be there. I picked up
the phone. I said that partcheck it off your list, Sarah,
Bill Anderson is going to do it. Yeah, right, She called Kyle.
That was done. Kyle got thescript of how they actually what they
read and how they induct and inour minds it was offset. Nobody was
(44:02):
going to know anything, I believeKyle is. Sarah called Ricky Skaggs and
a few other Hall of Fame kindmembers and people in the business or friends
Opry members at the time. Idon't know if Rickie had been made a
member or not at that point theHall of Fame, but he was an
Opry member. And we all camearound and walked into the room at the
(44:23):
same time, and Jim ed waslaying there and a big smile on his
face, and I said, well, Jim, I brought some friends with
me, and Sarah took over insteada few words. Kyle said a few
words, and then all of asudden they just started in and it was
(44:43):
tears amongst the entire room. Andwhen Bill Anderson placed the medallion around Jim
Ed's neck in that hospital bed andeverybody held hands, and then we're saying,
well, the circle be unbroken.That right there was probably the number
(45:04):
one highlight of my career in life, because I knew that it wasn't going
to last long and that he wouldgo rest in peace, knowing that his
music and his humanity and who hewas as a person would live on forever
(45:27):
as a country music Call of Famemember, And that I knew in my
heart no matter what people thought,if I had authority or not, or
what took place, I did whatwas right at the time. Yeah,
I pushed the envelope to do somethingunprecedented that had never been done before,
(45:47):
and it's still never been done since. Because it was the right thing to
do to me. To me,that's really what matters. And so that
that I know that, you know, what I did God's work. Yeah,
no matter how religious somebody is orisn't out there, it was like
I knew that moment, I wasdoing God's work, not my work.
(46:10):
And and and so you know thenthe fact that when I was, you
know, a kid, I wantedKenny and Dolly to perform again because I
always wanted to go see them inconcert, and I never got to.
I had to watch all the RealLove HBO specials and all the things that
were on tv UM. And whenI moved to Nashville and I got to
start representing both of them, toknow that I was the catalyst and the
(46:35):
one who actually put them two backtogether on that stage for the very last
time, and we got to seethat final performance. You know that ranks
in the top five because I movedto Nashville with a hope and a dream
to work for Kenny and Dolly.Yeah, I worked for them. I
(46:57):
lived my dream. I got thatdone. But to know that then I
closed out that dream and put themtogether for the last time in October of
twenty seventeen, and at that pointthey never performed ever again, and poor
Kenny passed away subsequently a few yearslater. It was like, Okay,
(47:22):
you know, it's a perfect exampleof if you dream it, you can
live it, you can do it. And that's kind of way the way
that I look at my careers.That was a pipe dream. I'm fourteen
fifty and sixteen years old in Phoenix, Arizona, and I'm like, I'm
going to town to work for KennyDolly, my mom and dad are like,
yeah, yeah, yeah, sureI am one day and all of
(47:44):
a sudden it happened. Yeah.And then knowing that the very last time
they got to perform together was thatmoment. And I'll back up just a
quick second. I got to seethem perform one other time together, and
that was when I was executive producerof the Dolly Pardon Smokey Mountain Rise Telethon
(48:05):
that we won an Emmy. Fourwas when the Wildfire's happened. We got
one day out of her schedule toput the telethon on, and I'm like,
you can't have this without Kenny andDolly. And I literally called Kenny
and said, Kenny, we're shapingthis on this day live. Can you
be here? And he said,well, I'm in Detroit the night before
on the Christmas tour. That's myone day off, and I'm in Pennsylvania
(48:30):
the next day. I'll get thebus driver to give me to Nashville and
I'll get to Pennsylvania. Tell DollyI'll be there. So knowing that,
okay, all of a sudden theydid the telethon as just like a fast
I prompt to throw together thing becausewe got to raise money to help all
(48:50):
those wildfire victims. You know,it was a great moment to say,
ah, they did it. Iwould have never thought that a few years
later I would have been the catalystto put them together for the final time.
But all in all, I knewthat I did that, and that
was another highlight of my career becauseit put the bow, if you will,
(49:13):
tied the bow on the end ofthat part of my career. Like
that's why I came to town.That's how that part of that career ended,
and now I can do other things. What is it about the growth
of Nashville that did you expect it? First of all? And second of
all, do you have like thehot spot quote unquote that you like to
go to places? Well? WhenI again, when I moved to town,
(49:37):
it was so wonderful because it waseverything was based off of the Three
Streets sixteen, seventeen and eighteen knownas Music Row. You could literally walk
from house to house and those houseswere turned into office buildings and you could
pretty much get all your business doneon three streets, whether it was banking
(50:00):
with the music industry, whether it'sstarting to a management company, whether it
was talking to the booking agents.Everybody was in these little houses and turned
into office buildings and it was veryeasy to work within. Everybody knew each
other, it was very simple.As time has gone on, those houses
have become big condo complexes. Um, there's just been a lot, if
(50:23):
you will, of growth on musicgrow that music grow. Isn't music grow
anymore? That's just realities right now, it's very industrialized. There's still a
few homes. They're like Crystal Galeso has her office and studio and in
a home building. Um, thereare others that still do, but not
(50:45):
everybody. And so seeing that growand everything you expand out, this is
kind of like, wow, whathappened? But then also you know covid
has turned everything into people from homeand people getting rid of offices all together.
Because we are a relationship business andwe are very much a lunch and
(51:07):
dinner type business where you go andmeeting and get your deals done that way.
So there are a lot of Um, there's been a lot of growth
that way. The scary part isis looking at downtown where you pull off
the freeway off of forty and yougo there are seven skyscrapers. Um,
I mean nice skyscrapers, crane inthe air, building building, these skyscraper
(51:30):
hotels in these buildings, and I'mlike, wait a minute. We never
had a skyline like that. Wenever had New York City or or you
know, Austin or LA with allthese big buildings in one small area.
And we all just knew the BatmanBuilding, Right, you want to get
you down, Like you want togo to downtown Nashville, you want to
get to the Honky Talks, lookfor the Batman Building. I was like
(51:52):
done, and so that was it. You know. Um, I've been
blessed. Um. I work withSteve Smith, who owns Tutsies Honky Tonk
sent from Rippies just you know kidRocks, Um, several Honckey Tonks all
through downtown and UM, I've workedwith him now twenty plus years, and
(52:16):
a growth of what he's been ableto build has been absolutely phenomenal. I
mean he was he was, youknow, um, a single guy owner
if you will, of establishments andjust started growing it from one thing to
the next. And um, allof a sudden, Oh, we're gonna
(52:37):
take over this location, We're gonnatake over that one, And all of
a sudden, you know, hisbusiness has started booming, and then all
of a sudden, we're we're expandingTutsies to three floors and we're growing,
we're building. I'm like, ohmy goodness, this is this is phenomenal.
And so now when we sit andhave our meetings that we talk about
how much things have grown and whathas happened, you know, it's what
(53:00):
are we doing next? Yea,and and you know what are the new
pieces? You know, Um,you've got on Broadway now a lot of
the buildings are celebrity driven bars andclubs. You've got John Riches, You've
got Luke Bryan's, You've got JasonAlden's, You've got Flora Georgia Lines,
you've got mirandas you know, mostof the Eric kid Rocks. Everything has
(53:22):
a name on it now Garth Brooksis getting ready to open his and Eric
Church has got one launching. Soyou know, Um, before it was
just business guys owned a honkey talk. Yeah, Robert, it's become it's
become part of the music establishment oftheir enterprise. Those brands are now taking
(53:42):
over those pieces because we've become thebachelorette capital of the world. Um,
you know, the TV show Nashvilleback in the day opened a lot of
those doors. It made Nashville lookfun, you know, So all those
seasons of that show, whether youlike it or not, it really opened
up a lot of those doors thatpeople paid attention. So there's you know,
(54:07):
there's been so much growth, andyou know with growth becomes problems.
Yeah, you know, whether it'shigh priced hotels, whether it's you know,
crime, whether it's whatever. Butit's in every city. So you
can't put the negative and bring itdown because you've grown in creating positive moves.
You know, you have to lookat and go. It's part of
(54:28):
it for me because I've been inFlorida for so long. When when the
NFL decided to hold their draft thereon Second Avenue or Broadway rather and thousands
and that tens of thousands of peopleshowed up for that draft, I thought,
Man, we have really entered anew world. Oh absolutely, yes,
(54:52):
you know, we definitely have um, you know, expanded into a
more um non just country enterprise.We are now um seen by corporations as
the place to be. So you'rewe're seeing conventions and um big events come
(55:12):
to town. They're they're talking aboutrebuilding this stadium so we could host a
super Bowl one year. Um.You know when when when they're starting talking
about things of that nature, allof a sudden, it's like, whoa,
we're no longer. We're no longerfanfare as we knew. You know
where you're going to pig Barns andsigning autographs and you know, well,
(55:35):
we're well beyond that now. Don'tget me wrong, I loved me some
fanfare. I love the old dayswhen it was pig Barns and every artists
wouldn't find autographs were the good day. But now it's so commercialized and so
big. Um. The team mayhave done a phenomenal job with expanding it
and bringing so many stages and somany artists and so many opportunities for people
(56:00):
to be heard, but now it'sjust like it used to be all contained
at the fairgrounds. Now it's acitywide event and there's again pluses and minuses
to it. It's phenomenal. It'sit's one of the things where you go,
wow, they have really taken thisand grown it. I remember,
you know, you have to thinkback. Fan first started with three little
(56:20):
ladies that ran Loretta's fan club.You know, the Johnson's sisters in Conway,
Twitter getting together and doing a littleshow for the fans. And they
had a company called IFKO, theInternational Fan Club Organization, and it just
grew from there to where all thefan clubs started participating and they got their
artists to come and all of asudden, fan Fair was born and and
(56:44):
now it's massive. So you know, again it's we've become a corporate world
where everything's bigger, and you know, and again you take the goods with
the beads, you can't you can'tknock it, but then take the money
from it. You got to embracesit and say, whatever happens, happens,
let's go. If it's wrong,we got to fix it. If
(57:05):
it's right, we gotta win it. So let's go, you know.
And every essentially that's where we wherewhere we have become, you know,
such a notable city that everybody's watchingwhat we're doing and wanting to come here.
Yeah. Well, Kurt, Ireally do appreciate your time today and
just want to say I appreciate youand thank you for coming on. Absolutely,
(57:25):
thanks for having me. You've beenlistening to the Nashville Hype podcast.
I'm your host Paul King. Youcan find us at the Nashville Hype dot
com. We're on all the socials, and the podcast can be heard on
Apple, Spotify, Google, iHeart, and many other places. Thank you
so much for tuning in.
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