Old Dogs and Children, and Watermelon Wine

By Scott Coner

Country Artist and Author

            The first lyric to a song I ever wrote was...

                        Here I am it’s at least 2:30 and I’m still up and awake

                        I can’t sleep for the guiltiness in my heart

                        Should I open the door for her?

                        Or just lie here in the dark?

                        Somebody tell me, tell me what to do….

            I was probably 12 or so. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know girls much less women. I hadn’t had my heart crushed by some evil seventh grade girl yet. And I had probably never seen 2:30 in the morning in my life.

            What I did have going for me though was lots of music. I have already shared my exposure to early pop and rock records, but there was an extreme amount of country music in my house. My mom and dad had one of those giant record player consoles that kind of resembled a casket, and they weren’t scared to play it. As adults, I don’t think we think about what we subject our kids to enough. But I am so thankful that my parents were huge country music lovers. I heard all of the really good stuff. I was exposed to albums, not singles. And I heard it in stereo with that cool vinyl crackle in between songs.

Scott Coner (second from left) works with fellow musicians in Nashville (Photo by Cyndi Coner)

            My young soul probably wasn’t prepared for the grown-up antics of Tammy Wynette singing about divorce or Loretta singing about the pill. But I drank the Kool-Aid to the last drop. I knew all about “Watermelon Wine” and wondered what happened “Behind Closed Doors”.  To this very day, I enjoy nothing better than listening to The Statler Brothers as I have biscuits and gravy on a Saturday morning. It just doesn’t taste as good without “Susan When She Tried”.

            Man, that was good music! I always laugh a little bit though when I hear some of those Conway songs like “You’ve Never Been This Far Before” or “I’d Love to Lay You Down”… Really? In curlers?... What?... But make no mistake about it. I love Conway Twitty, but if I sang something like that, I’d end up on a registered offenders list or something these days.

            I remember my mom playing the radio as she made my breakfast before school. For some reason, obvious reasons really, I remember how The Gatlin Brothers sounded so smooth and perfect as they sang about a broken lady waiting to be mended. These are sweet memories to me, and I wouldn’t trade them for any money. Those songs, those artists will always be alive in my heart. We all have that soundtrack to our lives. I am so glad and so proud that my mom and dad watched "Hee-Haw" instead of "Lawrence Welk".

Scott Coner works with Logan Schlegal (Photo by Cyndi Coner)

            I get it that the music has changed with the times. I am okay with it, but I will always remember those songs with great fondness. I will also feel some strange responsibility to make sure that those that are in my life are exposed to as much of it as possible. I heard Jack White and Jimmy Page talking about the importance of the Delta Blues in order to better understand rock. I believe that this is true as well. I also believe that we need to bathe ourselves in earlier country music if we truly want to feel where we came from and maybe get a clearer vision for where we can go.

            Scott Coner is a country/Americana artist and author who has worked with legendary artists such as Tanya Tucker and T. Graham Brown. Scott's latest video, "Sweet Mary", has been downloaded more than 125,000 times on Facebook since Oct. 6. To learn more about country artist Scott Coner, visit http://www.Facebook.com/ScottConerMusic, http://www.ScottConer.com, and http://www.YouTube.com/user/ScottConer.