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L-R: Rudy, Larry, Steve Gatlin (Photo courtesy of the Press Office)
Larry Gatlin’s new album The Pilgrimage, out on Curb Records Sept. 15, showcases songs that Gatlin wrote with contemporary Nashville songwriters like Leslie Satcher and Jon Randall Stewart. But the album’s centerpiece is a song that Gatlin himself wrote to honor his late friend and mentor Johnny Cash.
“Dad and I were driving to dinner in Austin and discussing me getting involved in the music side of things,” says Gatlin’s son Josh, fresh off a five-year stint in President Bush’s advance staff, and looking for a way to bring his father and uncles Steve and Rudy back to the country music forefront. “I said, ‘You’ve always had great songs and vocals and great harmonies, but you need to twist the prism a bit to get to the next level.’”
But Larry and the Gatlin Brothers, who were responsible for such classic 1970s and ’80s country hits as “Broken Lady,” “All the Gold In California” and “Houston (Means I‘m One Day Closer To You),” had been out of the spotlight a long time.
“He said, `Son, you got to realize that Nashville will never be the same as it was when we were big. After all, Johnny Cash is dead and his house burned down.’ This was shortly after the news of Cash’s house burning down, and I thought the metaphor had an interesting ring and before the dinner rolls were served Dad had the song written on the back of a placemat.”
Larry wrote the music when he got home, but shortly thereafter woke up in the middle of the night.
“He realized that he’d used the tune of [Cash’s classic hit] ‘Big River’--and panicked,” Josh continues. “He hadn’t meant to do it, but it happened. So he called [Cash’s son] John Carter Cash the next day and sang it for him and said, `I’m not asking for permission--your daddy never asked--just your blessing.’ And he said, ‘You got it--and I know my dad is in heaven smiling on you, Pilgrim.’ And that’s how that song came about.“
“Pilgrim” was the name Johnny Cash had given to Larry Gatlin, and The Pilgrim was the title of Gatlin’s 1973 debut album--which Cash wrote liner notes for. As John Carter Cash has written notes for The Pilgrimage--and produced two of its songs--Larry Gatlin sees the new album as bringing his career around “full circle.”
When Gatlin signed with Curb, though, label chief Mike Curb wanted to lead with the contemporary Christian cut “Fill Me,” says Josh, and “go that route” from a marketing perspective. But when people heard “Johnny Cash Is Dead And His House Burned Down,“ ‘They said, ‘Larry. It might not be a No. 1 hit or even chart, but it will serve as a reminder and wake people up to the fact that the Gatlins are good and viable and shaking things up’--and we convinced Mike of that.”
But the challenge remained in marketing the Gatlins--who had been absent from the Nashville scene for some 17 years--not to mention a song that was a tribute to Cash, yet had a title that was a conceivable turn-off.
“They couldn’t just come out and say, ‘We’re back!‘” says Josh. “So we started with a song that we didn’t know what the reaction would be, that wasn’t even in the market but was just a song title--and started a Web site, took out banner adds and adds above the urinals in every bar in Nashville to get people’s attention, negative or positive. Frankly, it was mostly negative the first month or so because all people knew was the title and they thought that whoever was behind it was saying something bad about Johnny Cash!”
Josh adds that some articles and blogs did in fact respond with “How dare you say that about Johnny Cash?” “But we garnered some attention, and people saw we had the blessing of John Carter Cash, so they reserved judgment,” he says. “We put a little information up on the site, and when the single was released and people heard it, there was a collective sigh of relief: ‘Now I get it! That’s really cool.’ It wasn’t just another old guy who was pissed about the new kids coming to town, and they realized that they missed the Gatlins and their harmonies. So it gave us the neat twist and hook we needed instead of ‘Larry and Steve and Rudy are back!’--which wouldn‘t have worked.”
Most exciting, Josh reports, was the enthusiasm of Curb staffers after finding out the Gatlins were behind the song.
“They were playing it in the hallways every time we went up,” he says. “And the head of marketing was so blown away by Dad’s stories about working and hanging out with people like Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller that we included little anecdotal stories about some of the songs."
A lot of these spoken-word bits concern Johnny Cash, "since he had a greater influence on my father than anybody,” says Josh. “And it was great for me because I grew up hanging out with Johnny and June Carter and John Carter Cash--but it had been some years since I’d seen him. We’ve become close friends now and it’s like a childhood memory rekindled.”
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