Q&A by Brad Balfour
Timed to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of McCartney’s “Junior’s Farm,” Lauren Braddock’s story might strike your fancy –especially if you’re a Beatle’s fan or love country music. This Nashville singer/songwriter blends colorful autobiography and Gen X nostalgia in her new single, “The Green, Green Grass of Junior’s Farm.” Penned with and produced by her dad, Bobby Braddock — the Country Music Hall of Fame songwriting legend — the tune recalls the 50-year anniversary of former Beatle Paul McCartney’s six-week working holiday at the 133-acre Wilson County, Tenn., farm of Braddock’s frequent collaborator, Claude “Curly” Putman, Jr., and wife Bernice. Paul had taken to calling Curly “Junior,” and that inspired McCartney to write “Junior’s Farm,” which would become a Top-Five hit just months after their visit in October 1974. Recalls Lauren, “As a Beatlemaniac, that thrilled me! When I was little, I remember saying I wanted to be a magician, like Daddy.”
There’s certainly no shortage of magic in the hundreds of songs her father has written and had recorded. Scores of artists including Marty Robbins, Tammy Wynette, Jerry Lee Lewis and Toby Keith, are among those who have performed his songs. The only living songwriter to have written number-one country songs in five consecutive decades, Braddock celebrates standout lines in more than 80 country masterpieces.
Braddock signed with music publishing giant Tree in 1966, the year Lauren (nicknamed “Jeep”) was born, and the same year Tom Jones had a global smash with Putman’s “Green, Green Grass of Home.” Two years later, Braddock and Putman scored their first Number One as co-writers of “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” the hit recorded by Tammy Wynette. In addition to his songwriting, Braddock also produced country superstar Blake Shelton’s first three albums and co-produced the fourth.
So, when daughter Lauren played “The Green, Green Grass of Junior’s Farm,” for him, Braddock couldn’t help but contribute to its realization. Produced at Sony Music Publishing Studios, the single features some of Nashville’s A-list musicians, including drummer Chad Cromwell, bassist Mike Brignadello, keyboardist Mike Rojas and Bobby playing mini-Moog. Don Henry, who produced, sings and plays guitar on Lauren’s joyously Beatlesque “Hippie Farmer,” the single’s B-side, also plays guitar, banjo and contributes backing vocals to “The Green, Green Grass of Junior’s Farm.” A fellow Beatles aficionado, Henry is a prolific tunesmith perhaps best-known for the 1990 Grammy-winning hit, “Where’ve You Been,” co-written with Jon Vezner and recorded by Kathy Mattea.
The following exclusive Q&A was conducted via email this mid August just in time to celebrate the summer and this song.
Q: Comment on the idea of carrying on the family tradition.
My father’s first big gig after moving to Nashville in 1964 was touring with superstar Marty Robbins as his piano player. When I was very little, accustomed to falling asleep to the sound of my dad’s piano in the wee hours of the night, I used to say that I wanted to be a “magician” like my dad when I grew up. I’m sure that I meant “musician,” but witnessing the act of him and his cronies creating for a living definitely felt magical and left a big impression on me.
When I was a teen, I would go to this music industry hang-out called “Tavern on the Row” with him where you might see people like Johnny Cash on any given night. My dad would instigate games around the table with me and his songwriter buddies of making up limericks — with each person contributing a line. If you wanted to hang out, you had to be quick and keep up!
I’m happy to be keeping the family tradition, writing on my own and occasionally with him today. He and I just got our first cut together by a major recording artist last year — Kenny Chesney — which is slated to be on his next album.
Q: When did you first know you wanted to write music?
LB: It wasn’t really a conscious decision but it was something I kept coming back to. I always loved to write but it started out as poetry. I have great admiration for poets like Maya Angelou and Dorothy Parker who were both fierce writers/poets.
In the third grade I wrote a faux campaign song to the tune of the Libby’s Libby’s Libby’s commercial jingle which garnered a lot of attention from the adults in my sphere. The gist was how the candidate wouldn’t “make Watergate” but he ironically did end up being about as corrupt as Nixon! Things like that encouraged me as a young writer.
I found a piece of one of the first poems that I wrote as a seven or eight year old and took it to my producer Don Henry years later and we wrote a song around it called “If I Was Your Man” that was recorded by Blake Shelton among others. The line was “If I was a cloud I’d have baby raindrops and they’d feed the treetops if I was a cloud,” it’s the first line of the song and was our jumping off point. So I knew I wanted to write music when I was young but I wanted to do other things artistically as well, focusing on writing music more after I got out of school.
Q: Did performing come first?
LB: Yes. As a small child I was too hyper for piano lessons and opted for art and dance instead and then acting and moved to New York as a teenager to go to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. So acting/musical theater did come first although writing was always present. I was always writing songs in my head but I didn’t learn to play guitar until later and started playing my own music in coffee houses and acoustic clubs in LA in my early twenties.
Q: Having a father deeply involved in music can be good or bad depending on circumstances — sounds like it went well for you but talk about how it worked out both the good and bad?
LB: When I was a baby my dad was working on music late one night and my mother said that it might wake me up and he said I’d need to get used to it. I did!
No real negatives except for the possibility of people thinking you are a “nepo baby.” I told a hit songwriter once that I had gotten a Blake Shelton cut and he said “of course you did” knowing that my dad was producing Blake but honestly dad had nothing to do with it and was shocked when Blake heard it independently and told him he wanted to record it since it was not country at all.
Q: Growing up in Nashville, and with your family tradition, who were the influences outside the family?
LB: As a kid my dad introduced me to the music of Hank Williams, Ray Charles and the Beatles among others. I loved Melanie and Cher and the Eagles and Elton and the BeeGees as a ‘70s kid might and I loved musical theater too… Grease, Rocky Horror, etc. As a young teen in the early ‘80s after getting into John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy and then being devastated by his assassination, I did a deep dive into the Beatles’ music becoming pretty much thoroughly obsessed with them. I also got very into punk rock and new wave. I loved Aretha Franklin and REM, the B52s, Prince and Edie Brickell.
Country music was always there too and there were wonderful female role models for writing like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton (I like to call her the Dolly Lama!) A perfectly crafted song is always very exciting to me whether it’s Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Jo” or Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”
Beyond my dad, who is truly my hero, I grew up surrounded by so many incredibly talented songwriters and I’m sure that influenced me. Harlan Howard. Sonny Curtis who one time out at dinner with us whipped out a guitar and started playing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song which he wrote and sang and then Buddy Holly songs (he was also a Cricket!) Roger Miller, who my theater friends in NY couldn’t believe I knew and my roommate freaked out when he called my apartment to make sure that I was coming to see his play “Big River.” John Hyatt. Matraca Berg and Rafe Vanhoy who both wrote their first number one songs with my dad when they were very young. John Prine. “Uncle” Ron Hellard. Deborah Allen. And Don Henry who ended up being a very important person in my musical journey.
Q: Are there folks you want to perform with — and what various tales of collaborations can you talk about?
LB: Since my current project is completely McCartney inspired and influenced and the Beatles music got me through so much, top of mind would be Sir Paul. That would be a dream come true! And if I am magical thinking perhaps I can invite John Lennon to the party? I always felt a spiritual connection with him as well, there was even an article written about a seemingly paranormal experience I had with him in a UK metaphysical paper called “Chat! It’s Fate!” But that’s another story!
When I lived in L.A. as a young adult my close friend/cowriter Sandy Bell introduced me to Jeff Buckley before he became the legendary rock icon he is now known as and he played on our demos for us.What an incredible talent. Michael Clouse (his recording partner at the North Hollywood studio where we made the music) told me that years later “Buck” was listening to one of my songs they had recorded with me called “Stud Muffin” and was laughing his butt off. That makes me smile to think of! I should pull those recordings back out!
I have written with and performed with a lot of people I deeply admire but much of what I do is very personal and quirky so I do my own thing. Or bring in someone trusted like Don Henry. After experiencing infertility and a near-death birth experience in 2004 I wrote a book called “A Journey to the Son.” Don wrote a song for every chapter with me and that became a one women show. It takes a real “brother” to have the sensitivity to co-write songs about your in vitro fertilization experience and post partum depression with you!
Q: You have roots there but are there further moves in mind? back to NYC or elsewhere?
LB: I love it here but as my son gets older and gets out of school I am open to spending more time elsewhere. NYC is always a possibility for theatrical projects. The coast beckons sometimes (my Braddock ancestors were privateers and Florida pioneers!) As I wrote about in the song “Hippie Farmer,” the fantasy of having a big no-kill animal shelter where you can take in a ton of strays and have baby goats running around appeals to me sometimes too but I could do that in good ol’ Tennessee! Realistically though I don’t see me and my Jersey-born Manhattan transplant husband bailing hay anytime soon. So for now, instead of doing it myself, I’m just going to just give a portion of the proceeds from my project to the Gentle Barn, an organization that saves and rehabilitates farm animals and then people in need of a cow hug can come visit them for pet therapy – a win win!
Q: Growing up you had lots of animals surrounding you — tell me a few stories about them — there’s a kids picture book or two in there. I have had a lizard but i wasn’t a very good pet owner you must be a master with them
LB: Leaping lizards, love it! That made me literally lol.
As an only child my pets were almost like my siblings, in fact I had a Siamese cat that I named “Brother.”
For a minute I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian but then I decided I was way too emotional about them and could never put one down.
I wrote a song once called “A Walk Down Sesame Street” about how as a literal child of
D-I-V-O-R-C-E (song my dad and Curly Putman wrote for Tammy Wynette) I would gather my animals (both real and stuffed) on a blanket that became an imaginary boat in front of 70’s television shows to escape the childhood angst that can come from observing parents fighting/splitting up. I idealized shows like the Brady Bunch and Sonny and Cher for their domestic bliss. Little did I know that Mr Brady had no interest in Mrs Brady and Sonny and Cher were also on their way to a divorce!
I went through a hermit crab phase and I would take them with me when I went with my dad to visit his publishing company (Sony/Tree) to share with the secretaries (though I’m not sure everyone shared my affinity for them). Dad did not like it when one day I went in with him and chose to wear a T-shirt which, next to a big cartoon hermit crab, stated “I’ve got crabs!” I couldn’t understand why that bothered him!
Braddock’s “The Green, Green Grass of Junior’s Farm” will be available on September 6th through major digital outlets. This interview was conducted via email in anticipation of the single’s release.
For more info, go to: www.laurenbraddock.com