Bryant's song
Storied Bama coach saluted in new song
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
BOB CARLTON
News staff writer
EUFAULA -- Buddy Buie has written and produced such Top 10 hits as "Traces" and "Spooky" for the Classics IV and "So Into You" and "Imaginary Lover" for the Atlanta Rhythm Section.

But few songs mean more to the Dothan-born songwriter than one that came to him on a wintry January day more than 23 years ago.

Buie and Atlanta Rhythm Section vocalist Ronnie Hammond were holed up in a cabin on Atlanta's Lake Lanier, working on songs for a possible ARS album, when they heard the news that Paul "Bear" Bryant, the legendary Alabama football coach, had died following a heart attack.

They watched the funeral procession on TV, and after it was over, they started writing the song that would become "The Day Bear Bryant Died."

I'll never forget The day that I heard the news Bear Bryant has died Funny, I thought he'd refuse I watched as they laid him to rest In ol' Alabama Oh, how I cried The day Bear Bryant died

"We wrote that song front to back quicker than anything I've ever had anything to do with," Hammond recalls. "I don't think Buddy's ever written many songs that fast, either. But it was coming from some place that was real."

Buie, a lifelong Alabama football fan, and Hammond, a Macon, Ga., native who thought Bryant hung the moon, wrote the song mainly for themselves, just as a way of dealing with the loss. They recorded a demo with Hammond on lead vocals, but later put the song away.

"We played it for friends, my Alabama friends," Buie says. "And I listened to it a lot myself. I used to get it out every so often and listen to it."

Last fall, Buie pulled it out again and played it for his friend Harrison Parrish, co-founder of the Dothan-based Movie Gallery video store chain. Parrish was blown away when he heard it and convinced Buie he should release it.

"The Day Bear Bryant Died" CD - which also includes songs by the ARS and Cook and Glenn, featuring Alabama's Jeff Cook - goes on sale throughout the state on Sept. 15.

It retails for $19.95 and will be available in Tuscaloosa at vendor booths outside Bryant-Denny Stadium on game days and at the Alabama Book Store and the Paul W. Bryant Museum.

The disc also will be available at select Movie Gallery locations in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery and Dothan and on the forthcoming Web site www.daybeardied.com.

"My dream come true would be that song being played by the Million Dollar Band or up on that big (Jumbotron) screen," the bearded, bushy-haired Buie says. "I always thought, if the Alabama fans could hear this, they would love it as much as I do."

From Orbison to the ARS

Perry Carlton Buie grew up in Dothan, where his parents, Carlton and Grace Buie, ran the popular Buie's Restaurant until it closed in 1980. His acquired the nickname of "Buddy" from his father.

He graduated from Dothan High School in 1959, and his first serious venture in the music business was promoting a Dothan band called the Webs, which featured a young singer named Bobby Goldsboro.

At 19, he booked the Webs to be Roy Orbison's backup band at for a Dothan concert, and Orbison was so impressed he took the band on tour with him and hired Buie to be road manager.

After touring with Orbison, he moved to Atlanta in 1965 to concentrate on a songwriting career. He teamed with J.R. Cobb of the Classics IV to write some of that group's biggest hits, including "Spooky," "Traces" and "Stormy." He later opened Studio One, where Lynyrd Skynyrd and .38 Special recorded.

In 1970, he formed the Atlanta Rhythm Section, and he not only managed the band but produced and co-wrote some such hits as "Doraville," "So Into You," "Imaginary Lover" and "Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight."

He's been inducted into both the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

Three years ago, he and Gloria, his high-school sweetheart, business partner and wife of 34 years, moved back to Alabama to a house they built on Lake Eufaula.

"When I was out being crazy and writing songs, she was the rock," Buie says of his wife. "She still is."

The Buies have a 100-inch projection-screen TV and on football Saturdays, they put on their Alabama caps and shirts and Buie says it's almost like being in the stadium.

Buie's wife, who attended the University of Alabama from 1962-64, is as big a Bama fan as he is.

"I was there (at UA) watching Joe Willie (Namath) play," she says. "That made me a Roll Tide fan forever."

Hoping for another hit

Now 65, Buie is all but retired from the music business, which has afforded him the time to distribute and promote the Bryant song.

Before he could release it, though, he had to recover deteriorated oxide tape on which it was recorded and transfer it to a digital format. He cleaned up some of the pops and scratches and added background vocals to give it a choral sound.

"I thought Ronnie sang the devil out of that song, so we didn't fool with his performance at all," Buie says. "It's basically the original demo, just dressed up. It's still got that emotion to it."

Buie had hoped to release "The Day Bear Bryant Died" as an officially licensed University of Alabama product through Crimson Tide Sports Marketing but found out about two months ago that the UA athletics department decided to pass on it, at least for this year.

"I don't really know the reason, but it didn't deter me," Buie says. "It kind of hurt me a little bit.

"They are inundated, I found out, with like projects, and I'm just arrogant enough to believe mine is different from the rest."

So Buie has taken a grass-roots approach to promoting and selling the disc - appearing on radio talk shows to get the word out and selling it through independent stadium vendors, on the Internet and at his friend Parrish's Movie Gallery stores.

"I've been wrong before, but I've had about 30 hits that I've been right about," he adds. "This song, if heard by enough Alabama fans, will become the theme for the Bama nation. I truly believe that. I truly wish that."

E-mail: bcarlton@bhamnews.com

http://myspace.com/paulbearbryant
http://www.daybeardied.com


Hey y'all:

The website went up today http://www.daybeardied.com

Buddy has been in the music business for over 45 years and he's never sold records so this is new to all of us and we are definitely open to suggestions.

WE NEED ALL THE ****'** HELP WE CAN GIT!!!!

Thank the Good Lord FOR
Finebaum http://finebaum.com

FINEBAUM put us on his sponsored links between Talladega SuperSpeedWay
and Bama Fever HTTP://FINEBAUM.COM


Discovered another Southern Hero.

His name was Clement Vallandigham and he was a Yankee but , by God, he was our Yankee. This cat from Dayton, Ohio was Honest Abe's Yankee arch-enemy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Vallandingham

Please check out our website http://www.daybeardied.com

Take a few and drop us a line!

Best,
RR http://myspace.com/robertoreg
http://robertoreg.blogspot.com
http://atlasofalabama.blogspot.com

September 7, 2006 Robert Nix Interview with the Memphis Wake Up Crew at Rock 103
http://rock103.com/pages/crew/

D.J.: In the studio with us this morning, The Atlanta Rhythm Section's Robert Nix

[clapping, "All right, Robert!"]

Nix: Good morning guys.

D.J.: How are you?

Nix: Doing good, man. I'm ready to have a Champagne Jam with you guys!

[laughter]

Nix: Let me start this off by saying I've been listening to you hooligans and heathens on the way in and Michael Douglas, "I don't have to do this either."

[laughter]

but I'm glad y'all are having me.

D.J.: Glad to have you here. I've told this story about you guys coming in, I think it was 1977...

Nix: It was at the R & R Convention in Dallas.

D.J.: The Radio and Records Convention

Nix: Was it KLIFT radio? What station?

D.J.: I was Q102.

Robert Nix: O.K., yeah, I remember it.

D.J.: And you guys came in. I was about 11 o'clock in the morning. You came in...

Robert Nix: Yeah, I remember it well...

D.J.: And you were drinking...

[laughter]

Nix: Yeah, oh yeah. We had had the Champagne Jam the night before I think [laughter] and it was still going on!

D.J.: It was brandy if I remember.

Nix: It was Couvasier.

D.J.: Yeah, that's right!
[whoa! whoa!]

Nix: We gave those to all the disc jockeys. After you, we went all around the country giving those to disc jockeys to quit playing the song that you played...

[laughter]

Yeah, a little confusion there with the record company.

D.J.: I know I've told this story a number of times but if you haven't heard it, the gist of it is, back in '77 somebody somewhere discovered that if you sped up, somehow they figured this out, that if you sped up "Imaginary Lover", it sounded just like Stevie Nicks.

Robert: Exactly.

D.J.: And these guys come in for this interview. The whole radio world is in Dallas and half these people are at the hotel with their radios turned on listening to this interview, and so I said,"Have you heard about this?"
They said,"Yeah, we heard about it."

"You wanna hear it?"

"Yeah, lets hear it."

So I put it on and you guys...

[laughter]

Nix: We tried to squelch that thing.

D.J.: I don't remember if it was you...

Nix: It was me.

D.J.: You said,"What are you doing to our music?"

[laughter]

Nix: It was me. It started off with a little piss but it ended up great. What can I tell you. There was a guy in New York that did this thing. Took a 45 single and sped it up to 78 and he played it and it sounded exactly like Stevie Nicks. It was eerie.

D.J.: I have a little sample. Would you like to hear it?

Nix: I'd love to.

[laughter] I'd love it now.

[ play sped up version of "Imaginary Lover", voices heard over the recording "You be the judge", "Spooky!", "Spooky!"]

Nix: Isn't that incredible! Wow, I'm telling you!

D.J.: It's amazing!

Nix: I should have married her and she'd be Stevie Nicks Nix!

[laughter]

D.J: "What'd ya do to our song, man?"

["What a wee-atch!" "She's a wee-atch!"]

female D.J.: Could you sing like her if you just sing fast?

[laughter]

"Let me get my vice grips out!"

[laughter]

Nix: That's great!

D.J.: It's just weird how much it sounds like Stevie Nicks. Did you ever talk to her about it?

Nix: I talked to Mic Fleetwood about in and Mic, I think he gotta little pissed about it because he thought she was out doing demos with other bands or something...

[laughter] They had just gotten everything together about them. They were up and down all the time. So ROLLING STONE actually did an article on all this. It was great, man.

But, thanks to you and people like you, the P.R. ended up being great for us so we went on a little "Imaginary Lover" Tour and went around to radio stations giving Dom Perignon and Courvasier to everybody. I'm sorry I didn't bring you guys any this morning.

D.J.: That's all right.

Nix: I think Hal had it all last night.

D.J.: Oh, you know it! He did!

[laughter]

Robert Nix: I wanna tell you about those McCormicks. They all look just alike. Every one of them. You can tell. Must be some kind of inbreeding or what!

D.J.: You got that right!
You know you and I have another connection and I happened to see this guy. He comes by here and he's still promoting records, Noble Womble.

Nix: Oh God! Noble "Large Time" Womble!

[laughter]

Nix: I wrote that song...
I got that title from Noble when I was in The Candymen with Roy Orbison and we were playing in Shreveport, LA. He was in the Air Force and he used to come in and say,"Hey man! LET'S HAVE A LARGE TIME TONIGHT!"
So I took that title and wrote the song "Large Time" which was on The Champagne Jam album.

D.J. : Right.

Nix: And Noble Womble ended up in Dallas. He worked as a promotion guy. I could tell you some Noble stories but we're not going there. They'd be Super X rated.

[laughter]

female D.J. : Oh he's told us one!

D.J. : He'd end up in one of those secret prisons Bush's got!

Nix: If you see Noble, please have him get in touch with me.

D.J. : I will. I'll give him your contact information.

Nix: Alright, man!

D.J. : He doesn't look...
He used to look like a big mountain man with the big beard and the long hair. Now he doesn't look anything like how he used to.

Nix: He had a funny way of getting records played you know...

D.J. : I've told this story about when he crapped in the guy's trash can.

Nix: He did that. He did it. Naw, he did it on his desk too and took the 45 and set it on it and the next day it was on the air!

[laughter] That's LARGE TIME!

D.J. : Noble was a wild man.

Nix: Oh yeah!

D.J. : And still is in his own way.

Nix: Boy, I'd love to see him.

D.J. : So you're working with an artist down Southhaven.

Nix: Alison Heafner. www.alisonheafner.biz/
She's from Batesville.
She's a home-grown girl and she's one of the best singer/songwriters I've ever seen. She's got the....
She articulates like Carly Simon or somebody and writes stories like William Faulkner and sings like Tina or Janis so she's an incredible live artist and she's going to be doing some shows with us also and DEEP SOUTH http://www.myspace.com/deepsouthband
http://deepsouthlive.com/

D.J. : You guys gonna be playing around here anytime soon?

Nix: We play here November 4, I just found out, at the Gibson.

D.J. : Oh great!

Nix: So you guys got a bunk on the bus. All of you!

D.J. : We're done! We're done! That'll be good. That's family stuff!

[laughter]

Nix: I'm sure Hal will have a hundred people..

D.J. : You know he will. I'll tell you right now, we're prolific!

other D.J. : Oh Hal's in the band? Hal McCormick?

Nix: Yeah.

D.J. : I didn't know that.

Nix: He also plays with Alison in a band called Bloodsugar and that's how he got the gig with us. I saw him play and everything and Alison said,"Y'all need to get him with y'all."
He's one of the finest guitar players in the world. In the world.

D.J. : He is. I agree.

Nix: I'm telling you man!

D.J. : Do you know who taught him to play?

Nix: Who?

[laughter]

D.J. : He got past me pretty quick...

[laughter]

D.J. : The few chords I showed him he did. One day he asked me if he wanted to play the guitar so I said, "I'll show you."

other D.J. : Let me guess. You showed him how to play either "From the Beginning" by...

D.J. : No, no, it was more basic that that. It was like the G, C, D thing...

other D.J. : Oh "Horse With No Name"

D. J.: And he was using bar chords before I was...
He was moving and going.

Nix: He's something else and we got another guy in the band, Chris Hicks from The Marshall Tucker Band. Incredible. I call them "bookend" guitar players. We got Hal on one side and Chris on the other and it just goes and goes and goes. He lifts us old guys up...

D.J. : Well he has too. Big mule. That's strong.

Nix: Well, we're doing like 30 hits we wrote and/or produced or played on, you know, so it's a great group, man.

D.J. : Well you're founding members of Lynyrd Skynyrd....

Nix: We got Artimus on drums.http://www.apbband.com/
I play drums. We have "bookend" drummers too. And then we have Jimmy Hall http://www.jimmyhall.net/
http://www.ktb.net/~insync/wet_willie.html
from Wet Willie, Hank Jr. and Jeff Beck Group, you know on vocals, lead vocals...
On keys, Dean Daughtry from the Atlanta Rhythm Section. We cover all those songs.
Hey Dean, this goes out to you, good buddy.
Dean had surgery yesterday down in Huntsville and I think they're listening by way of Internet.

D.J. : I like this! It says, "A SOUTHERN ROCK REBELUTION!"

other D.J. : Rebelution. That's good.

Nix: Alison came up with that. Alison Heafner down in Batesville, y'all!

D.J. : She's a wordsmith.

Nix: She's a wordsmith from the word "Go!"
I'm telling you. So we're writing good songs together. Hal's writing stuff with us also.

D.J. : Do you have recordings yet?

Nix: Yeah, I got some stuff over there.

female D.J. : You brought something for us?

Nix: Yeah. I got Alison's stuff. I got DEEP SOUTH.

D.J. : Could you do Alison's stuff acapella right now?

[laughter]

D.J. : Can you do it Stevie Nicks style?

Nix: It's a little early. I need some Courvasier.

[Disc jockeys unsuccessfully try to call Noble Womble]

Nix: Rodney Justo from the Candymen who played with Roy, he and Large Time were big buddies, man. I was gonna tell a short story about a thing they did in Shreveport at the Whiskey A Go-Go when we played there. Oh these guys!
You know, back then all the girls had the bouffant hairdos and everything. Well Noble Womble and Rodney Justo took these candles off the tables and they'd go around and dump 'em out in their hair. And it was just a mess, man, and the girls would come in with their sugar daddies with their minks on and everything. They got wax on their minks and they'd say, "Put some more on!" Nuts! Nuts! Nuts!

D.J. : Took candlewax and dumped it on 'em...

Nix: Yeah, all over them. Large Time started that. It got to be a ritual there.

D.J. : Well, things have calmed down in the record and radio business a lot since those days. Back in '77, it was anything goes. Today we're just worried about our prostates.

other D.J. : Which are in no good condition! I can tell ya!

Nix: Sounds like a Viagra commercial.

D.J. : Nobody jogs anymore because your prostate will just fall out...

other D.J. : Well it's an awesome project you're involved in and it's called DEEP SOUTH.
Jimmy Hall, Artimus Pyle, Robert Nix, Hal McCormick, Chris Hicks and Dean Daughtry.
Founding and former members of Skynyrd, Wet Willie, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Marshall Tucker Band.
All together in a Southern Rock Rebelution.

Nix: You got it!

female D.J. : You're gonna play here in November.

Nix: November 4th. I believe we're playing the Gibson.

D.J. : Excellent. Let us know man.

Nix: I certainly will. You guys gotta bunk on the bus! All of you!

D.J. : A bunk on the bus, baby!

[laughter]

Nix: Everybody but Large Time though. We're gonna bar him from the city.
One more thing I wanna add. Joe Boogie who plays keys with is also from Memphis. Hal calls him a "Memphomaniac." The McCormicks got names for everything.

D.J. : Robert Nix, thanks for being with us this morning.

Hey y'all:

Check out the latest on Alabama History at http://atlasofalabama.blogspot.com/
Remember that the 200th Anniversary of Aaron Burr's arrest in Alabama is coming up in February.

Mal Thursday and Jeff Miami are back with another super installment of "FLORIDA ROCKS AGAIN!!!"



Florida Rocks Again! #19: Love, Love, Love
It's summertime, and the unmistakable smell of love is in the air...OK, so it smells a lot more like hate and war out there, but FLORIDA ROCKS AGAIN! is going to beat ceaselessly against the tide with a show where every song has the word "Love" in the title. Starring the All-Time Greats from the Sunshine State, rocking the usual garage sounds, plus some tasty fuzz pop, folk blues, deep soul, and heavy rock flavors. Produced by host MalThursday and the incredible JeffMiami in living monophonic sound. To listen, go to http://www.floridarocksagain.garagepunk.com
and hit the "podcast" button.



TASMANIANS: Love, Love, Love
ROEMANS: Love (That's What I Want)
TRACY PENDARVIS: Give Me Lovin'
IMPACS: You're Gonna Need My Love Again
STEVE ALAIMO: Love's Gonna Live Here
BIRDWATCHERS: A Little Bit of Love
SHADES INC.: Who Loved Her
LITTLE WILLIE & THE ADOLESCENTS: Lookin' For Love
WE THE PEOPLE: Lovin' Son of a Gun/Love Wears Black
HATE BOMBS: A Love Like That
HOYT AXTON: Bring Your Lovin'
CANADIAN ROGUES: Do You Love Me
DECEMBER'S CHILDREN: Lovin' Things
DOUBLE IMAGE: Power of Love
HOUR GLASS: Power of Love
JAMES & BOBBY PURIFY: You Don't Love Me
MOUSE & THE BOYS: Love is Free
DAVE PRATER: Love Business
WAYNE COCHRAN: Some of Your Sweet Love
BLUES IMAGE: Lay Your Sweet Love on Me
TROPICS: Talkin' 'Bout Love
ECHO: Love Me Two Times
FRED NEIL: Send Me Someone to Love



J.M. Dobies
Producer
Florida Rocks Again!
Industrious Communications Inc.
P.O. Box 1975
St. Augustine, FL 32085
http://www.floridarockagain.com