{"id":9356,"date":"2013-04-05T11:05:57","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T18:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=9356"},"modified":"2013-04-06T18:04:29","modified_gmt":"2013-04-07T01:04:29","slug":"songwriter-merle-kilgore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2013\/04\/songwriter-merle-kilgore\/","title":{"rendered":"SONGWRITER MERLE KILGORE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Merle

Merle Kilgore, Cindy Walker, BMI\u2019s Frances Preston<\/p><\/div>\n

SONGWRITER MERLE KILGORE<\/b><\/h1>\n

The Tall Texan<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n
\"Merle

Merle Kilgore with Elvis Presley<\/p><\/div>\n

Hard to believe that it\u2019s been eight years now since we lost that cuddly bear Merle Kilgore, best known at the end for being Hank Williams, Jr.\u2019s longtime manager\/cheerleader\u2014though he had also worked with Hank, Sr., carrying his guitar at the Louisiana Hayride when he was 14.<\/p>\n

But Kilgore also had great success as a songwriter, most notably for the late Claude King\u2019s huge 1962 country hit \u201cWolverton Mountain,\u201d which he co-wrote with King, and Johnny Cash\u2019s \u201cRing Of Fire,\u201d which he co-wrote with June Carter. And now that legendary 1960s rock \u2019n\u2019 roller Tommy Roe is back on the road, he recalls another Kilgore composition, \u201cThe Folk Singer,\u201d a little morality play (folk singer gets famous, dumps country girlfriend, loses voice and career, comes back to country girlfriend) that was a minor U.S. hit in 1963 but reached No. 4 in the U.K.\u2014where The Beatles opened for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big record for me in England and Europe,\u201d recalls Roe, who was touring the U.K. on the strength of his 1962 U.S. chart-topper (and U.K. No. 3 hit) \u201cSheila.\u201d \u201cDidn\u2019t do that well here in the States, but it was one I really enjoy singing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for The Beatles, Roe\u00a0and fellow headliner Chris Montez of \u201cLet\u2019s Dance\u201d fame wisely switched places with The Beatles, who had just caught fire at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am proud of my short history with The Beatles,\u201d continues Roe, \u201cand when I tried to get my record label to sign them to a record deal and was turned down, I gave up trying to be a talent scout! I thought they were the best act since Elvis, and when the president of the company told me they sounded like shit I was devastated. Six months later they all thought I was a genius!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Merle

Merle Kilgore with Johnny Cash<\/p><\/div>\n

Kilgore, meanwhile, served as president of both the Nashville Songwriters Foundation and the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame. He was also named an honorary State Senator for Tennessee\u2014and he was nothing if not political.<\/p>\n

Asked once whom he favored, Hank, Sr. or Jr., he responded, \u201cWell, Junior is more versatile. But Senior was more focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Bessman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SONGWRITER MERLE KILGORE The Tall Texan Hard to believe that it\u2019s been eight years now since we lost that cuddly bear Merle Kilgore, best known at the end for being Hank Williams, Jr.\u2019s longtime manager\/cheerleader\u2014though he had also worked with Hank, Sr., carrying his guitar at the Louisiana Hayride when he was 14. But Kilgore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[6249,6245,4338,1879,6244,6243,6247,5786,3818,6248,6246],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9361,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions\/9361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}