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whiskey river (take my mind) i introduction 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv i i 12/11/06 9:58:38 AM THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK whiskey river (take my mind) iii The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk by johnny bush with rick mitchell foreword by willie nelson University of Texas Press, Austin introduction 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv iii iii 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM iv copyright © 2007 by the university of texas press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2007 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html ∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper). library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Bush, Johnny. Whiskey river (take my mind) : the true story of Texas honky-tonk / by Johnny Bush with Rick Mitchell ; foreword by Willie Nelson. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes discography (p. ), bibliographical references (p. ), and index. isbn-13: 978-0-292-71490-8 (cl. : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-292-71490-4 1. Bush, Johnny. 2. Country musicians—Texas—Biography. 3. Spasmodic dysphonia—Patients—Texas—Biography. 4. Honky-tonk music—Texas— History and criticism. I. Mitchell, Rick, 1952– II. Title. ml420.b8967a3 2007 782.421642092—dc22 [B] 2006033039 whiskey river (take my mind) 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv iv iv 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM Dedicated to v John Bush Shinn, Jr., my dad, who encouraged me to follow my dreams. introduction 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv v v 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK contents vii foreword by Willie Nelson ix introduction xi acknowledgments xix prologue xxi -1- I Love You So Much It Hurts 1 -2- The Pipeliner Blues 15 -3- Forever and Always 29 -4- Crazy Arms 43 introduction 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv vii vii 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM -5- Night Life 59 -6- Devil’s Disciple 77 -7- The Other Woman 93 -8- The Sound of a Heartache 111 -9- Undo the Right 127 -10- You Gave Me a Mountain 143 -11- Whiskey River 157 -12- Man with No Soul at All 175 -13- Time Changes Everything 189 -14- Please Talk to My Heart 207 -15- Home to Texas 219 johnny bush discography 239 viii selected reading list 243 index 247 permissions 253 whiskey river (take my mind) 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv viii viii 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM ix foreword By Willie Nelson J ohnny bush. Good friend. Good drummer. Good singer. Good levitator. Johnny Bush and I go way back, at least fi fty years, to when I was a deejay at KBOP in Pleasanton, Texas, and playing clubs in and around San Antonio. I played in his band, and at one time I was also his personal manager. I was mostly a guitar player and John was the singer. I remember we played a club in San Antonio called Al’s Country Club. The owner later changed the name of the club to Mugwomp’s. We asked him why he changed the name. He said, “The mugwomp is the meanest animal on the planet. It is like a huge dog with a head introduction 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv ix ix 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM on both ends.” We asked him, “Well, how does it shit?” He said, “He don’t. That’s what makes him so mean.” Later on, Johnny played drums in my band. We called ourselves the Offenders. Then John started fronting my band, and Paul English played drums behind John until I came on, and Johnny went back and played drums. Then Johnny started recording on his own, and we started calling him “Winnie Mac Pigshit Bush,” a name he still loves to this day. And then Johnny wrote “Whiskey River.” He has been exceedingly wealthy ever since. He doesn’t need to sing anymore, or write books. He only does it to serve his public, which he deeply loves. So, John, in the words of Dr. Ben Dorcy, “If you need a friend, buy a dog.” And if there is anything that I can ever do for you, forget it. Yours in country music, x Willie Nelson P.S. Me and Texas and the rest of the world are very proud of Johnny Bush. Love forever, WN P.P.S. Oh. About that levitation act. Apparently some stories cannot be told even in a tell-all book like this. whiskey river (take my mind) 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv x x 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM xi introduction Rick Mitchell T he Encyclopedia of Country Music, compiled by the Coun- try Music Foundation in Nashville and published by Oxford University Press in 1998, has this description of Johnny Bush: With his early musical associations with both Willie Nelson and Ray Price, singer-songwriter John Bush Shinn III was a minor but signifi cant fi gure in 1960s and 1970s Texas honky-tonk. Bush’s most enduring claim to fame is the song “Whiskey River,” which he wrote and had a Top Twenty country hit with in 1972. With a vocal style hauntingly—perhaps damningly—remi- introduction 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv xi xi 12/11/06 9:58:39 AM niscent of Ray Price, Bush enjoyed minor chart success between 1969 and 1981 on Stop Records and RCA Records, as well as various independent labels. But his career was more than once hampered by a severe neurological condition that affected his voice . The entry, written by veteran country music critic Bob Allen, goes on to mention Bush’s early years playing nightclubs around Houston and San Antonio, his apprenticeships in nationally touring bands led by Nelson and Price, his Top 10 solo hits “Undo the Right” and “You Gave Me a Mountain,” and Nelson’s subsequent adoption of “Whiskey Riv- er” as an in-concert theme song. The brief entry concludes by noting Bush’s 1998 “comeback” album, Talk to My Heart. All true, and fair enough as far as it goes. So why is a “minor fi g- xii ure” in country music such as Johnny Bush writing his own book? The fi rst response to that question is for me to suggest that you read the book. As told in Bush’s colorful—at times, extremely color- ful—fi rst-person narrative, the work provides its own best artistic jus- tifi cation. Bush proves himself to be as masterful at telling a story as he is at singing and songwriting. Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky- Tonk is the story of the golden age of Texas country music in the 1950s and ’60s—where that music came from and where it has gone. Bob Wills, Moon Mullican, and George Jones are part of this story. So are Charley Pride, George Strait, and Junior Brown. Over the course of the past half century, Johnny Bush has crossed paths with virtually every- body who is anybody in country music, and at some point they all turn up here, usually accompanied by a priceless anecdote or two. The book is also an unfl inchingly honest accounting of one man’s life, the “kid from Kashmere Gardens with mud on his shoes,” as Bush refers to himself. In fact, I can’t recall another country autobiography— and I’ve read quite a few of them—in which the author has been so brutally honest, both in assessing his own personal shortcomings as well as in stating his professional opinion of what has become of the music to which he has devoted his life. Bush minces few words when discussing his disdain for mainstream contemporary country music, which in his view has gained the world only to lose its soul. This is no smiley-faced Nashville whitewash job. Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk is everything a whiskey river (take my mind) 00 Bush rev pg proofs 000i-xxiv xii xii 12/11/06 9:58:40 AM book about country music ought to be and almost never is. Bush’s tale is equal parts funny and tragic, smart and stupid, happy and sad, sacred and profane. Johnny Bush’s stature within the tradition of Texas honky-tonk music cannot be accurately measured by an objective appraisal of his national chart successes. No, he is not a household name like his friends Ray Price and Willie Nelson. Nor is he Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Hank Thompson, Lefty Frizzell, or George Jones, although he’s known all of them and shared a bandstand with most of them in a career spanning more than fi fty years. But to those people everywhere who really know and love coun- try music, Bush is more than a household name. He is a hero. Back in the day, before media conglomerates and programming consultants gobbled up the dial in every major market in America, you didn’t necessarily hear the identical radio playlist in Fort Worth and xiii San Antonio that you did in Nashville and New York. Bush’s records might have gone Top 10 or Top 20 nationally, but they went straight to No. 1 in every city and town in Texas, as well as in many other markets across the South and West.