12 minute read
Jeannie Seely
THE SEELY STYLE
Legendary Opry Star Jeannie Seely Blends Soul, Pop, Jazz, Country & Humor
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BY BRET LOVE
IN THE FALL OF 1966, JEANNIE SEELY released her first album a few months after her debut single “Don’t Touch Me” had rocketed up the charts. Fifty-four years later, The Seely Style is still an appropriate way to describe the legendary singer songwriter. The versatile artist, nicknamed “Miss Country Soul,” recently celebrated her 80th birthday and 53rd year as a member of the Grand Ole Opry with the release of a new album (the aptly titled An American Classic) and a weekly radio show on SiriusXM Channel 59. INsite spoke with the stylish performer by phone from her home in Tennessee.
Congratulations on your recent birthday. How are you feeling these days? Well, I’m looking forward to Christmas with the grandchildren but I’m very homesick for the Opry. I won’t lie about that. After fifty-plus years it’s been my second home and I miss it. It’s been a way of life for me as long as I can remember. But on the good side, I actually do like being home. I have a cottage here on the bank of the Cumberland River. I bought it as a retirement place back in 1990. Now I just sit here and watch the boats go by and think how lucky I am.
But you’re far from retired. A couple of months ago, An American Classic was released. It’s a really solid record. Your peers might just throw out another greatest hits collection, but you obviously put a lot of time and energy into the project. It really came out of nowhere, too. I can’t believe how well it’s being received. Don Cusic, a wonderful historian and respected music professor at Belmont, called me a while back and asked if he could talk to me after a show one night at the Opry. I had no idea what he wanted. He said he wanted to do this project to show people where I’m at today and how I got here. I was just amazed. Naturally, I said yes! I learned so much from him. He came up with the idea of cutting Paul McCartney’s “Dance Tonight.” A Beatle’s song! I was like, ‘Wait - are you serious about this?’ It turned out to be a fun song and people might not expect me to do that kind of thing. I’ve been getting a lot of comments about it.
I go so far back with your catalog, I remember that you did Lennon and McCartney’s “Yesterday” on your first album. Oh wow! Yeah, I did. I had a lot of arguments from people here in Nashville about doing that. I’d moved here from California and The Beatles had made a remarkable impact on me early on. To me, I thought they were also basically doing country music but with a whole new twist. Like Harlan Howard always said, “It’s three chords and the truth.” That’s the Beatles’ music. I remember learning from all my friends who were great songwriters, people like Hank Cochran or Harlan Howard or Roger Miller or even Willie. They said if you can say so much of the story in one line, in the title, then you’ve probably got a good song. They really knew how to do that. Like “Yesterday,” you know what it’s about, just from the title. Or even “Hard Day’s Night.” You don’t have to explain it. It gives you the feeling instantly. Or “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” You don’t have to ask for details, you get the drift. They were always a great inspiration to me. Thank you for remembering that I did that, all the way back in 1966.
With your history, all you have to do is look at the calendar. You probably did something monumental on that anniversary. (Laughs) I kept reinventing myself, didn’t I?
Like The Beatles, you never made the same album twice. That’s true. I struggled a lot during my career of trying to be in the right place at the right time. So I kept trying different things and different styles of music. But I think that’s true of just about anything you do in life, you’ve got to keep reinventing yourself to keep it fresh so you won’t get old and bored.
You don’t have to worry about that. Well who ever heard of getting a recording contact with Curb Records and having a single with Willie Nelson for their 80th birthday? Is that not wonderful? I still can’t believe it. At this point in your career you could just kick back at the cottage and enjoy life. But here you are, promoting a new album in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. It’s been interesting but a lot of the ways we promote now is through technology. It’s not like back when we did “Don’t Touch Me.” Here’s a funny story about that since you go so far back. Ed Hamilton was the national promotions man for Monument Records when that song came out. He had me on the road on some pretty grueling promo tours. Back then, you had to be at a late-night club somewhere in Texas or at a dancehall or whatever. Then you had to get up early to be on the morning drivetime shows to promote everything. I remember being so tired on that tour. One time, Ed was trying to wake me up, hammering on the motel room door. ‘Are you up, Seely?’ I said, ‘Uh, yeah.” Finally, he said, ‘Do you want a number one record - or do you want to sleep ‘til noon?’ I said, ‘Could I have fifteen more minutes of sleep and just get a top five?’
Did that satisfy him? No, he said, ‘You’d better get out of that bed or I’m gonna have the maid open the door and get you out!’
Too bad some of your pals weren’t around, he might have been a little nicer. You’ve got friends in high places. Yeah, I do. When we were making this new record, Don suggested we should invite some guests because I know so many people. He said, ‘Your friends are the heavies in the business.’ I hadn’t even thought about it until he said so. But I am lucky to be able to call Rhonda Vincent or Bill Anderson or Willie Nelson or - oh, my goodness, I guess it just goes on and on. I wanted to include some of the people who have been the closest to me over the years. So we brought in Ray Stevens and Rhonda Vincent and I thought about Waylon Payne to bring in the next generation as well. He’s an incredibly talented young man. I knew his mom and dad, too. He’s had his struggles, like we all have. Willie was always there to give me a hand up when I needed it and I’m glad that I’m able to do that whenever I can. If this album brings more attention to him, then that’s a good thing.
You’ve had a long history of mentoring and supporting young artists. I was laughing about that a while back. Somebody said to me the other day that they were surprised that I have so many young friends. Well, I’m 80 years old, if I’m gonna have any friends at all, I’d better make friends with some younger people!
Humor has always been a staple of your act. I just like to make people laugh. I learned that from Roger Miller and from Little Jimmie Dickens. You can have a funny song and then a sad song and if you do it right, the audience will go along with you. You can be funny and then sing a really serious ballad. Roger could play “Do-Wacka-Do” and then turn around and do “Husbands and Wives.” That’s what’s missing today. You know, while we’re shut down, Circle TV are doing the shows at the Opry, but the humor isn’t there because there’s no audience. They’re great shows though, but you can’t beat that live Opry experience.
The first week of the shutdown featured an empty Ryman and you were a part of that eerie broadcast. I was. I sent an email to our president and said, ‘Please tell me you’ll do a broadcast even though we’re shut down. We can’t lose the history of never missing a show.’ So Bill Anderson, Connie Smith and I were on the first one in March. Mandy Barnett was also on the bill. Somebody said, ‘Well how can you all do a show with no audience?’ But we do have an audience. They’re all over the world. Millions of people are in that audience, they’re just not in the building. For me, it was just like doing a radio show. I do four hours every Sunday on Willie’s Roadhouse on XM so I just pictured the people who were listening. As far as I’m concerned, they were there!
Jeannie Seely’s new album and catalog favorites are available direct from the artist at JeannieSeely.Com.
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COLLEGE SPORTS IN THE YEAR OF COVID-19
A Conversation with Charlie Cobb, Director of Athletics at Georgia State University
BY DAVE COHEN
ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES ACROSS the country, following the onslaught of COVID-19, while the academic side focused on shifting quickly to online classrooms, college athletics had to shift gears as well and figure out how to respond to the challenges of being able to schedule and play games, if possible at all, in the midst of a world-wide pandemic. INsite’s Dave Cohen talked with Charlie Cobb, director of athletics at Georgia State University.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in late March no one had any idea how it would affect college athletics at that point. It had just shut down college basketball’s Final 4. What have the last six months been like for you as athletics director? It feels like an eternity doesn’t it and yet we’re still in the midst of this. I was talking recently with some kids on our women’s soccer team. I said back in the spring when this first started March, I thought we were going to be taking an extended spring break. You know, maybe two weeks and then we’d be back to normal. We had just finished the basketball season, so we had a little bit of finality there. I had no idea that we were financial sacrifice for their son or daughter. staring at canceling all the spring sports, That’s one example during Covid. academics and classes moving online. Summer really was interrupted in terms of College football is back to some extent with the norm of how we operate, how everybody some of the conferences playing games. operates. I came in with the thought that Georgia State and the Sun Belt Conference as we got to August and September we have forged ahead with a plan and it seems were going to be back to some semblance to be working. of normal and to realize that we were Shawn (Elliott) and his football staff and nowhere close to being back at normal and coaches have done a really good job getting trying to make it work as best we can. It’s our guys ready. I tip my hat to Bob Murphy been challenging. and our athletic training staff. Throughout the summer they’ve given us reason to be It has been a tough situation for those competitive with our sports this fall. It’s student athletes who, in some cases, lost given us a chance and the kids have done their senior season of eligibility. what they’ve needed to do to take care of It’s hard to even fathom that within a themselves and their teammates. It’s going span of a couple of days March to look different and it certainly Madness and the basketball conference tournaments were shut down and canceled and then to quickly transition to having to cancel all the spring sports and not play out of an abundance of I’VE LEARNED THAT THE KIDS ARE RESOURCEFUL AND THAT THEY ARE MUCH STRONGER will be challenging but at the end of the day I cannot imagine, with all the parameters we have in place from a safety standpoint for people, that if I were an athlete that I wasn’t allowed to caution. I’ve learned that the kids THAN WE WANT TO compete. There’s a mental health are resourceful and that they are GIVE THEM CREDIT component to that as well. Just much stronger than we want to FOR BUT THERE a natural part of people who are give them credit for but there HAVE BEEN SOME competitive and play sports that have been some tough challenges for our student athletes. As we get into the Fall, we’ve made some rules that this is essentially TOUGH CHALLENGES FOR OUR STUDENT ATHLETES. they need to exert that energy and enthusiasm. To be able to provide that for our kids and our staff, selfishly, has been great. As a free eligibility season for kids I told them back in June that if to play in the Fall to kind of mimic what we were going to have a chance to play that happened in the Spring. If you’re a baseball it was going to be up to them. At around or softball player or a golfer, you have to 2,500 Covid tests our positive rate is around wait a whole calendar year to get that year 1.7 percent. We’re (Sun Belt) one of the back whereas in the Fall you start school conferences that is trying to play this fall and you are going to play, like football. It’s and I think if you take a snapshot of today really delaying “life” for a year if they want that it was the right decision based on how to come back and play. We had 40 or 41 kids we have been able to manage what’s going impacted and, I think, 26 decided to come on. There’s no certainty as to what’s going back. Not any of those kids are on a full to transpire into the winter and the spring. scholarship so now it’s on families to make a There’s no guarantees.
