Bob visits Josh Turner

Josh Turner is back on the road with his "Greatest Hits" tour. Let's find out about it plus the real story behind the hit "Long Black Train" and a few hit songs that Josh passed on.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Oh, he's coming back. Infact, Josh Turner's on the line with
us right now. Josh, you'regoing to kick off our very first show
of country and Music live at RoundRock Camp on the fifteenth. Welcome well,
first of all, welcome back toAustin. Anything special that you do
when you come back to Austin,it just kind of depends, you know.
I love going there obviously. Youknow people are crazy about country music

(00:23):
down there. Yeah, and youknow, I've been spending a lot of
time in Texas this month actually,and so I've been back and forth,
but looking forward to getting there.And I'm enjoying the weather. This time
of year, We're gonna have greatweather. Josh. You can be honest
with you can tell us, youcan tell everybody, all our listeners that
Austin's your favorite city in Texas,because I know it is right, it
is absolutely see there. I knewyou were going to say that. Oh,

(00:48):
you always put on a great show. This is called the Greatest Hits
Tour, isn't it It is?And obviously you know I have the Greatest
Hits record out, which is youknow, it's kind of surreal, but
it's it's a dream come true,it's been a long time coming. I've
been dreaming of, you know,putting out the greatest hits for a long
time. But but yeah, it'suh, it's fun to be able to

(01:11):
go out and play all these hitsfor my fans who have supported me all
these years and allowed me to getto this point in my career. So
uh, yeah, we've been havinga good time so far, and we'll
have a good time in around rock. Now, let me ask, is
there a certain song that the fansjust go crazy for? When you start
singing why don't We Just Dance?Is always the one that just kind of,

(01:36):
you know, just puts a joltof electricity through the crowd. And
that's what people stand up now youwhen you sing that you don't dance or
have dancers come out on stage oranything. Right, No, No,
the fans do all the work forme. Cheap lavor. That's what we
call that, Josh exactly. Allright, let's go. Let's go back
to the first song which turned alot of us into Josh Turner fans,

(01:59):
Long Black Train. How did thatsong come about? Yeah? I was
a college student there in Nashville atBelmont University, and I had been doing
some research at the library there thatnight. They have a music library there
on campus, and when I heardthat the complete Hank Williams box set had

(02:19):
been released and that Belmont had acquiredit, I was the first one in
line to go over there and checkit out. So I literally spent several
hours just listening to this box set, and on my way back to my
apartment that night, I was inspiredto write the song. And even at
the time when I wrote it,I didn't think anybody would ever want to

(02:42):
hear it, but it just startedthe snowball effect where I played for one
person and then they would say,look, go play for this person,
and then it was just like itled to my first publishing deal, My
first record deal was the first songI sang on the Grand Ole Library title
track to my first record, firsthit, and it's just uh. It's

(03:04):
changed my life and changed a lotof other people's lives too. Certainly,
yes, so that was inspired bythe Hank Williams Senior box sets. It
was inspired. You didn't hear atrain walking back to the dorm or anything
after that or anything. Was therea certain song on that box set which
inspired it? Well, there wereso many songs on there, Like I
say, I think it's like tenCDs or something crazy, But listening to

(03:27):
it, yeah, yeah, therewas a lot of previously unreleased stuff on
their stuff from radio shows and stuffwhere it was just him and his guitar,
and it just I felt like Ihad I had been transported back in
time. So I was just kindof in a different frame of mind that
night when I wrote it beautiful.And you didn't write that for a class
project or anything like that, didyou. No, No, that was

(03:49):
on my own time. Well,I think the I think the audience gave
you an a for that, nomatter what. Yeah, I appreciate it.
There was no curve to be involvedwith that one. Yeah, is
it true? Is it true thatyou didn't write that? You want other
people to record that song? Though? No. When I first started out,
and even when I signed my publishingdeal, I had no interest in

(04:11):
getting other people to record my songs. And funny story I had. I
had gone home for spring break orfall break, and I was at my
sister's softball game in South Carolina andI get a call from my publisher and
he says, hey, Josh,I got great news. And I said,
really, what is it? Hesaid, I just got a long
black train on hold for Alan JacksonAnd I said really and he said yeah,

(04:33):
he said, isn't that great?I said, no, that's terrible.
I said, go take it offhold. He said, wait what
I said? Yeah. I said, I don't want Alan or anybody else
recording that song. That's my song. And so he had to go crawling
back and say, hey, guys, sorry, we're going to have to
take that song back. And sowho knows what my career would have been

(04:56):
like if if Allan had cut thatsong first. I don't know. I
can't to hear Alan singing that isAlan made a comment to you about that
song? Is he you know thatyou love? And I don't even know
if Allan ever heard himself. Ijust know that his team or somebody.
I don't know if Allan himself didit or or what. But but yeah,
I had to. I had todo as Barney five says, and

(05:16):
nip it in the butt. WellI'm glad you did, because that introduced
you, you know, your musicand your voice to the And speaking of
voice, I don't we've talked aboutthis before, I know, and it's
hard to believe, but you actuallyhad trouble with your voice when you were
in college. I did well.Actually was before uh college I had developed

(05:39):
a lesion on my right vocal cord. The I guess it was right before
I graduated high school and and Ijust thought my dreams were shot. I
thought, my my, you know, dreams of having a career in country
music were over. And but Iended up at the Vanderbilt Voice Clinic there

(06:00):
in Nashville, and they helped mea lot, but they opted not to
do surgery. They said, youknow, the Lord does better healing than
we do, and so they putme on a vocal rest for a whole
year, which was torture, butI did it, and I started working
with a classical vocal coach and continuedthat when I started at Belmont and just

(06:25):
worked through it day by day.What was your voice like before you had
the lesion? Was it as deepas it is now? It didn't have
near the texture. I didn't havenear the range. I didn't it just
it didn't. It wasn't as healthyas as it is now. Because the
blessing in disguise was after I starteddoing all that training, I started realizing,

(06:46):
like what I really had because Iwas using it in the right way.
I was taking care of it,and you know, just I wasn't
trying to sing out of my rangelike I had been before, which is
a big reason why I injured.It was because I was pushing it so
hard and just didn't know there wasa proper way to think. Just an
amazing story, man, Wow,I learned the hard ways. I really

(07:09):
enjoyed the cover album that you dida few years ago. A good friend
of mine, Monie Warden, reallyenjoyed it because you covered the song that
he wrote for Straight Desperately. Yeah. Yeah, rubs, Yeah yeah.
Country State of Mind is the nameof that record. I'm very proud of
that record. You want to man, it's one of the best. Yeah.
I just love how that all cametogether and and just never never thought

(07:31):
that I'd ever have an opportunity tomake a record like that, but but
yeah, it turned out great.Yeah. I think with your vocal range,
you can sing anything in the world. You know, I try.
One of these days, I'm gonnaI'm gonna get the opportunity to meet Michael
Bolton and tell him that he's theonly person I can't sing along to okay.

(07:54):
Any any any hits that other peoplehave had that you missed that you
were pitched this song? You said, Nah, this isn't for my voice.
Any stories. Yeah, Jamie Johnson'sIn Color was pitched to me and
I passed on it. Why didI don't remember, honestly, but I'm

(08:15):
sure there was a reason. Andthen there was also there was a Montgomery
Gentry song and I'm drawing a blankon the name of it right now.
Uh lucky man. Uh. Thatwas another song that I had passed on.
Funny story. I don't know whyI passed on that one either,
but I remember hearing it on theradio on the way to town one morning

(08:35):
and I called. I texted mymy producer, and I said, I
said, Man, I said,have you heard this Montgomery Gentry song?
This is a great song. Hesaid, yeah, you passed on it.
You want to listen to those songsagain when they're handed to you,
you know, greatest hits to ourunderway. The album is out. Get

(08:56):
it and join us as we welcomeJosh Turner first off Country Music Live at
Round Rock Camp and that is comingup this Friday. You don't want to
miss it.