Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,544

This is the grave of Mickey Newbury.

Born in Houston in 1940, Milton Newbury (I can see why he went by Mickey), became interested in country music as a kid. He started a band called The Embers as a teenager, more of a vocal act I guess, and they got to open for acts ranging from Sam Cooke to Johnny Cash. In 1959, he joined the Air Force and so the music career took a pause. He got out in 1963 and moved to Nashville. He felt he had more potential as a songwriter than a front man and in this he was correct. Acuff–Rose, Nashville’s top publishing company, signed him pretty quickly once he showed them some work. He started recording his own material too–he wasn’t going to give up on that–but he was primarily focused on songwriting.

It didn’t take long for Newbury to have songs hit the charts, at least when recorded by other people. The most well-known today of his early work is “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)”, recorded by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition in 1968 and thirty years later used in The Big Lebowski to memorable effect. Like most songs of this era, it was pitched to several performers at the same time. Jerry Lee Lewis had already recorded it and so had Teddy Hill. Incidentally, that’s Glen Campbell on the guitar in the Rogers version. Shortly after the Rogers version, Bettye LaVette recorded it. Other early Newbury successes include “Sweet Memories,” recorded by Andy Williams (much later Willie Nelson would record it after he and Newbury became buds), “Time is a Thief,” with which Solomon Burke topped the R&B charts, “Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings,” which both Don Gibson and Tom Jones had hits with, and “Here Comes the Rain Baby,” with which Eddy Arnold topped the country charts. What’s really remarkable here is how far-reaching the early recordings on Newbury songs were–Don Williams, Bettye LaVette, Andy Williams, Solomon Burke, Don Gibson, Tom Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, and First Edition???? Now, that’s some musical range!!!

Based on this success, RCA signed Newbury to record his own songs. He recorded a first album that he completely disowned as trash and then recorded Looks Like Rain, for Mercury, in 1969. This is a concept album based around love and loss and connected with rain sound effects, which sounds dumb, but it was a major precursor to the outlaw country movement Newbury was about to help usher in. It also included his own recording of his song “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye,” which Jerry Lee Lewis had just had a big hit with.

Moving from RCA to Mercury was huge here. The country music executives were still trying to hamstring everyone into the Nashville Sound, replete with strings and background singers, whether it worked for their style or not. Now, I am not one of those who thinks Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins were some kind of monsters who ruined country music. Those guys produced some great, great music and those methods were just fine. The problem is trying to make everyone use the same methods. There were a number of very talented people who this kind of album was just not working for them. Among them were Mickey Newbury, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. With changes in the music-listening public in the late 60s and early 70s, the possibility for independent recording grew. All would take advantage.

Unfortunately, the politics of these guys were not necessarily better than the rest of Nashville. This forces us to deal with Newbury’s other legacy. His most famous song, and this is because it was a big hit for Elvis, is the rather awful “An American Trilogy,” which combined “Dixie,” “All My Trials,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Making a big hit out of “Dixie” in the early 70s was pretty gross. Newbury claimed it was his protest against censorship, but I’m not sure what the censorship he was fighting against here, except that some radio stations refused to play “Dixie” in the middle of the civil rights and Black Power movements, as you can imagine. Sigh, these weren’t necessarily the smartest people in the room, for as talented as they were. And it’s not as if Willie, who has good politics as generally considered by liberals, didn’t just drop a line about the KKK when discussing his buddy Klansman John T. Floores in “Shotgun Willie.” In any case, Newbury’s version of this reached #26 on the charts.

Now, Newbury probably would have been forgotten if it wasn’t for Waylon Jennings writing about Newbury’s train songs in “Lukenbach, Texas.” Newbury’s albums were barely in print by the mid 70s. He had moved to Oregon with his new wife by then, had little interest in the music industry, and had mostly just given up, even as his buddies were going pretty big. Moreover, Newbury himself looked askance at the new behavior of outlaw country musicians, notably saying, “It’s just categorising again, making a new pigeon-hole to stick somebody into. You got to be dressed a certain way, you got to be a drinker and a hell-raiser, cuss and make an ass of yourself, act like a kid. I’ve told ’em I quit playing cowboys when I grew up. I just get turned off by all that.” Can’t disagree.

But this attention did get Newbury back in the studio and recorded a bunch of albums in the late 70s. The one I am most familiar with is Rusty Tracks, which is alright, but never particularly moved me. He was around a little bit in the 80s, but still hated the music industry, plus the IRS came looking for back taxes from his years in the industry and all the songwriting money he had made. So he mostly was out of touch. He did record a little bit in the 90s, but all the years of heavy smoking were catching up to him. His last years were spent trying to breathe and recording a little bit when his voice was up to it. Newbury died of emphysema in 2002. He was 62 years old.

Mickey Newbury is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Leaburg, Oregon.

Let’s listen to some Mickey Newbury:

In If you would like this series to visit some of the people who recorded Newbury songs, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Waylon Jennings is in Mesa, Arizona and Ray Price is in Dallas. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here. I’d also note that if anyone wants to throw a few shekels into the pot for my upcoming trips to the South, it is deeply appreciated and I very much thank those who did so last week!