A FEW MOMENTS WITH … LEE GREENWOOD
From rock bands in Sacramento, California, to the lounges of Las Vegas, and finally to Nashville, Lee Greenwood has sung and played his heart out. Along the way, he has doubled as a blackjack dealer and a short-order cook to make ends meet. “Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands” was the song that established him in 1982. It was the second of thirty-four charted country hits, seven of which went to Number One. The song that didn’t top the charts on release was the one we most closely associate with him, “God Bless the U.S.A,” but we’ll get to that in a moment. For now, let’s just say that Lee is one of the handful of people to have written a national anthem. Not the National Anthem, but a National Anthem.
We caught up with Lee at home just south of Nashville. It was snowing and his seventeen-old-son was doing a snow-dance because school was canceled.
If someone had heard a concert by one of your first bands, the Moonbeams or the Apollos, what would they have heard?
Everything! My sister and I started the Moonbeams when I was twelve or thirteen. Our parents were musicians in the big band era, and the Moonbeams played Glenn Miller and music from that era. The Apollos were a showband. We played Broadway, pop, country, Hawaiian, rock ‘n’ roll, and we left for Vegas in 1960. We were at the Stardust for several years.
If Mel Tillis’s bass player, Larry McFaden, hadn’t discovered you in Reno, do you think you would have found your way to Nashville anyway?
Man, that’s a good question. He brought me to Nashville to write for his music publishing company. And he got me in with a booking agent, Jim Halsey, who booked the Oak Ridge Boys, and helped me get on MCA Records alongside the Oaks, Reba, and George Strait. Up ‘til the time I came here, I never considered myself a country singer. My only experience of country music was watching the country acts that came into Vegas. But then I heard Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, and right away I thought, “That’s the kind of music I can sing!” Then, when I heard my first hit on the radio, I heard what I was supposed to sound like. It was country and from then on I was country!
You were past thirty when you came to Nashville. No one over thirty gets a major label deal these days. Do you think country music benefits from a little maturity?
I was thirty-seven when I arrived here and scored my first hit, but I looked young and sounded young so I was given a pass. The thing about being younger is you have the stamina. I worked three-hundred dates a year. I was writing songs on the bus, working all the time. You need to be young to keep up that pace. It’s like women have kids when they’re younger for a reason. There’s a window of opportunity, and you need the stamina to take advantage of it.
And then you wrote “God Bless the U.S.A.”…
On September 1, 1983, I heard that the USSR had shot down a Korean Airlines jumbo jet infringing on Russian airspace. That was the catalyst, it triggered something inside me. It was this strike against innocent citizens that made me put pen to paper, and it almost wrote itself. I wrote it on my keyboard—I had one hinged inside the back of the bus. I plugged in my headphones and wrote. In fact, I wrote most of it in one day, and it flowed pretty well, but I waited until I got home to make sure I got the lyrics right. I played it for my producer, Jerry Crutchfield, and he liked it. It wasn’t in the mainstream of what I did, but MCA Records heard it and decided to go with it. We are so blessed to live in this country. Even if you lose everything in a fire or other tragedy, there’s still an opportunity to succeed again and rebuild your life. That was the theme. It was more than about the military. But I did write the key line in the chorus which referred to soldiers who have died fighting for our country and freedom. When people hear it, particularly when there’s a crisis, it feels good to me that the song gives them a sense of comfort and security.
What, for you, was your most emotional rendition of “God Bless the USA”?
Well, I’ve sung it at the White House, but the most emotional rendition was when I sang it at the fourth game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium when they had the memorial for the three-hundred firemen that were killed. Bette Midler sang ‘Wind Beneath My Wings,’ Marc Anthony sang ‘God Bless America’ and I sang ‘God Bless the USA.’ That moment, when I stepped onto the podium at the pitcher’s mound and looked out into the audience was one of the most heartwarming moments for me. Before I went onstage I said to my wife, “I don’t believe this is the right song” — because “God Bless the USA” is a song not about remorse or sympathy, but it’s a song of encouragement, hope and spirit. But, when I got to the chorus, so many people stood up and they were holding pictures of their lost firemen, and that was the moment that I knew that it was the right thing. I’ll remember that for the rest of my life.
“God Bless the USA” aside, is there a song from your career that you’d say was your next-favorite?
On one level, I guess it would be my first hit, “It Turns Me Inside Out.” Without that, there would have been no second hit, no career in country music. But the one I really like “I Don’t Mind the Thorns (If You’re the Rose.)” It was my fourth number one hit, but it had a similar message to Kenny Rogers’ “Lady,” another of my all-time favorite songs for the way it combined soft R&B and country with a great message of course.
Why did you aim your book, Proud to be an American, at the kids’ market?
I have two kids who are twenty and twenty-one now, and a seventeen year-old. I tried to enhance their education by reading with them from an early age, but I never remembered reading a patriotic book with them. Kids need to hear what patriotism is about. They study the Declaration of Independence and the beginnings of our country, but ‘Proud to Be an American’ is more encompassing. It’s about what it means to live here in the greatest country on earth.
Are you actively involved in helping returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns?
Yes, very much. I’m involved in Helping a Hero. It’s for wounded warriors and it helps them find homes that match their needs, whether those needs stem from PTSD, amputation, or whatever it may be. Home is your refuge. We’re supported by the police, fire departments, and service organizations. In seven years, we’ve built over one hundred homes in twenty-two states. We build them at the rate of two a month. And of course I’ve done over thirty USO tours.
What music finds its way to your turntable or iPod more often than any other?
You might be surprised. I love Tower of Power. That music is my inspiration. Horn-based rock. I love Blood, Sweat & Tears, as well. The big band approach to rock ‘n’ roll. Earth, Wind, and Fire, too.
What’s a day at home like for Lee Greenwood?
I get up at six AM. Get my high school-age kids out of the door. Make them breakfast sometimes. Run to the store. My wife, Kimberly, is a former Miss Tennessee, and she’s involved in pageant events in Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi, so she’s as busy as I am. Then I have business meetings to map out tours and so on. My wife and I have to meet for planning sessions so we can match our schedules, plan our vacations, and make sense out of the craziness.
Have you done cruises before?
Yes! I get to meet the fans up close and personal. Everywhere you walk around the boat, folks want an autograph or a photo. And of course I get to hang out with fellow artists. I’m especially close with Joe Bonsall of the Oaks. So it’ll be a great time. Come on ‘n’ see us!
- Colin Escott © 2016