After making the “Let’s All Go to California” video I was very interested in working with Neil Lisk again. He went back to England, and played the record for his friend, Paul Cotter. Paul is a young director as well, and he got excited about coming to Nashville to shoot a video on my behalf.
He came up with a concept of filming the video all in one continuous shot. This would save money in editing, and this is the concept that he thought would work for the video, so we went with it.
Neil and he flew to Nashville, and we shot the video in East Nashville in an alley. It was guerilla-style shooting, so we had no permits, and were just trying to get it done quickly.
We recruited friends, family, girlfriends, etc. to be the extras.
In the beginning, an ex-girlfriend can be seen walking her dog, Shatzi, across the street. I missed that dog terribly when we broke up. Robert Reynolds {from The Mavericks and The Roadtrippers) and his wife Angie walk out into the alleyway, and put a guitar in his white truck………and a neighbor lady who got mad at us for moving her garbage bins nearly runs over me near the end of the video!
I had a broken toe that day, and we shot the video 19 times…..remember, it is one continuous shot, so NO EDITS! I saw the lady coming down the street, and knew she was mad at us…….but was determined that the take we were on was going to be THE take……..so, I went ahead and walked out into the street in front of her……..you can see the expression on my face, and then her drive in right behind me.
This video cost about $1,500 to make, and ended up making it into the Top 20 on Great American Country in April of 2004. CMT, VH1 Country, and CMC in Australia continue to play it as well. Not bad for $1,500, and the generous help of Neil and Paul and others.
My father, Bob Montgomery, wrote “Back in Baby’s Arms” for Patsy Cline. She was our next door neighbor in Madison, Tennessee…..where we lived when my parents first moved to Nashville. He was repairing tv’s during the day, and writing songs in our basement at night.
I recorded it on the “True” cd, and then shot this video last year.
I became friends with video director Glenn Sweitzer on myspace. We decided to do a video for “Back in Baby’s Arms”, so we set about putting the video shoot together.
In a nutshell, I invited my Nashville myspace friends to take part in the shoot, and we shot it on a saturday afternoon on my friend Danny White’s farm in Hendersonville.
About 200 friends show up. We had chicken and barbeque donated from a local bbq place, and people brought pot luck plates to contribute. We had drinks. We pulled a flatbed trailer up to the house, and put the band on top of the flatbed.
We basically had a party. Glenn got so into it that we ended up shooting two videos that day……the other video being “True”.
Friends came all the way from NY, Missouri, and Key West for the shoot! Pretty crazy. My friend shot this video of the shooting of the video…..a little behind the scenes video……pretty cool.
We shot this on the same day as the video shoot for “Back in Baby’s Arms”…………..Glenn felt like since so many people showed up that we should shoot a video for “True” as well. It actually ended up being his personal favorite.
I wrote this song when i lived in Los Angeles. This was recorded in Nashville-Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin from The Mavericks are the rhythm section, Pat Buchanon on guitar, and Bruce Bouton on steel guitar.
When it came time to add a background part, Robert, who was married to Trisha, called her at about 11pm at night. She had been singing all day, and was just pulling her car into her carport……..but she turned around and drove 30 minutes back into Nashville and sang for me for another hour or so. That was a little nerve-wracking…….producing that vocal! She is a class act…..funny, and has one of the most amazing voices out there.
Anyway, an Australian director (Ross Murphy) and i drove from Nashville to Lubbock, Texas…….filming along the way……you might recognize some of the spots along the way. You can still request this on CMT and GAC.
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Hearing a song can take me back to a place in time, and I can almost feel what was going on around me……sights, smells……every sense. Here are my top 10 songs that have place and time memories attached to them.
“Rhinestone Cowboy” by Glenn Campbell-I remember my sister having it blaring on her little 45 record player in her room. I was about 4 or 5 years old. She was 7 or 8. I remember standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Her bedroom had orange walls, and orange shag carpet. It was totally 70’s…….i just remembering hearing it, and loving the song.
“Wind Beneath My Wings“-The original demo was sung by a guy named Jim Hurt. He wrote songs for my father at House of Gold Publishing in Nashville. The song was originally an upbeat, sort of bluegrassy number, and the writers, Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley, didn’t like it that much, and so weren’t going to play it for my dad. He noticed the title and said, “what’s this”…..the said it wasn’t any good. He listened and told them to go back and demo it as a ballad. Jim Hurt sang it, and i’m not sure there has ever been a better version. It takes me back to the days in Nashville before the corporations took over Music Row. It was a different town then. Amazingly creative. Jim Hurt succombed to cancer a few years ago, but he sang the hell out of that song. The best version i’ve heard.
“How’s It Gonna Be” by Third Eye Blind-Driving away from my girlfriend’s house after we broke up…..sitting at the redlight, waiting for it to change…..this song came on, and it said everything i was feeling at that moment.
“Everytime” by The Samples-Driving up the PCH in Malibu……just past Zuma Beach……I can see the water, and this song was a happy song for me. I was having a long distance relationship at the time, and she was riding with me in my truck…finally. The sun shimmering on the water…..hues of pink and blue…..sunset. Warm outside.
“When the Rainbow Comes” by World Party-i listened to this song over and over when i drove to Atlanta to see my sister when my parents divorced. I don’t know why. It reminds me of that drive.
“Texas in 1880” by Foster and Lloyd-I listened to this song over and over on the drive to Los Angeles when i moved there in 1992. It was my pilgrimage to the City of Angels. I was 22 years old, and determined to get a record deal…..which i did. This song was positive and rocking, and it was one of the soundtracks of my drive through Texas, and the deserts of Arizona.
“Sandy Cove” by Jimmy Webb-I took my dad to see Jimmy in Nashville at 328 Performance Hall. It was just Jimmy and the piano. His music and writing are so deeply personal, and the lyrics to this song struck a chord with both my father and I. My dad was nearing the end of his Nashville career, and at that point, I felt he could be pretty jaded about music. But that night as we were leaving….he just shook his head, and said that song was amazing. It was nice to see something floor him again.
“The Color of Roses”-A few days after my daughter Ava passed away. We were planning the funeral, and in deep mourning. I was playing a few cds…….trying to think of some music to play at her funeral……..and this song came on. I was sitting on the floor, and i just broke down crying when i heard it. We held each other, and sobbed. It wasn’t perfect, but it spoke to me, and it was the song that we played after the eulogy. Beth Neilsen Chapman lost her husband to cancer, and this song came out of that experience……..Matt Rollings, who plays on some of my records, co-wrote it with her, and plays the most beautiful piano on it.
“There She Goes” by The La’s-This is the last song that was playing in the delivery room before Ava was born. I was dancing around….trying to distract attention away from the pain. Sometimes i think it was the last song i heard when i was truly happy, or could be totally happy. Blissfully, ignorantly happy. I listen to it now to take me back to those moments…….
“The Luckiest” by Ben Folds-I was staying with my friend Cindy Alexander in Los Angeles, and she suggested that I download this song. She said it would blow me away. I was skeptical, but did. It blew me away. I listened to it on the whole 50 States in 50 Days tour. Sometimes Jill and i would play it over and over on these long 15 hour drives that we were doing daily. Even when I might tire of it………Jill would say, “can you play it again?” It is one of those songs that puts me in a trance…..the good kind. It is my theme song. Smile.
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