September 21st. COUNTRY MUSIC NEWSLETTER

Note: New Subscribers that would like to read old NEWSLETTERS just click the LINK below

I have re-run a chapter from my Wordweaver project at the bottom of this NEWSLETTER - Lonnie

He spent his youth in college and then in the Air Force . He did various jobs, such as working as a DJ at Radio WMAD in Madison, Wisconsin and at a Key West, Florida rock station and he spent two years with a computer firm in Chicago . While in Madison, he sang with a variety of semi-pro bands, working under the name " Jack Daniels ". He acquired his style listening to southern music on country's 50,000 watt WSM and rhythm and blue's WLAC radio.

In 1972 , he made his way to Nashville , giving himself five years to "make it" as a musician. For a time, he ran a small graphics business called The Sun Shop, then took up independent record promotions, which led to signing with the Ovation record label towards the end of 1977 .

Joe Sun made a debut of his first single on Ovation Records " Old Flames (Can't Hold A Candle To You) " which was released in May 1978 and climbed steadily up the country charts, reaching the Top 20. Further hits followed on Ovation Records with "High And Dry" (1978), "On Business For The King" (1979), "Blue Ribbon Blues" (1979), " Out Of Your Mind " (1979/1980), "What I Had With You" (1980), "Shotgun Rider" (1980), "Bombed, Boozed, And Busted" (1980), and "Ready For The Times To Get Better" (1980). By the time his third album, Livin' On Honky Tonk Time was released, the record company Ovation closed down. Joe signed with Elektra, who purchased Ovation in 1981 . At that time he recorded "I Ain't Honky Tonkin' No More". The album Best of Joe Sun was released by Elektra.

Joe recorded "The Sun Never Sets" for Sonet in 1984 , followed by "Twilight Zone" with Dixiefrog in 1986 and "Hank Bogart Still Lives" with Dixiefrog in 1989 . This album was outsold in France only by Randy Travis . In 1991 , Dixiefrog released "Out on the Road", after Sun's five-month European tour.

Sun's first solo album effort, the 1992 "Dixie and Me", on Austria 's Crazy Music made its debut. Its response prompted the 1994 CD release of Some Old Memories by the same record label.

An album and a video for Some Old Memories was released in 1994 by Crazy Music and was broadcast on SF1, a Swiss television station and 3SAT, a German/Austrian/Swiss television station.

Joe Sun released the Heartbreak Saloon CD in 1998 with Dixiefrog. He wrote twelve of the fifteen songs on the album.

Joe Sun's new video clip produced by Bamacher Video & Music Production titled "Jimmy '93" was broadcast on TW1, an Austrian TV channel in June 2005 .

Below are some of the artists I have produced so you can give them a listen to see if you like the sound I am getting and you can contact them to get a reference on how they liked working with me. No matter if you choose to have me or someone else produce your next recording project make sure you check us out. If you can't hear samples of a producer's previous work or correspond with someone who has worked with them then it is too early to be writing anyone a check. Just because someone sends you an e mail telling you they think you are the hottest thing since Garth Brooks or Shania Twain doesn't mean they are a good honest producer. Check everyone out that you do business with BEFORE you write the check and you won't end up being one of those artists that gets scammed. - Lonnie

What the rest of the world is

watching on YouTube

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Three Stooges ......................................... Foghorn Leghorn

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Funny Advertisment................Famous Trunk Monkey Ads

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Husband plays prank.......................... ............. Lion Reunion

"click" PHOTOS above

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Getting comfortable with who you are as an artist

One of the things we all eventually learn as artists and songwriters is that, even though the money is nice, none of us are really in it for the money. As soon as we can look in the mirror and mouth those words to ourselves, the sooner we can get on with our lives and appreciate the fact that, while a lot of people really do hate their jobs, we are not included in that particular crowd.

You may complain about all the years it took you to learn your craft if you are a songwriter or about all the money you have to spend on equipment if you are a musician because when you add it all up, you are lucky if you make minimum wage for a gig. Have you ever asked yourself why you don’t just quit and get a job flipping burgers at McDonalds? Well you’re not going to quit until they lay you beneath six feet of dirt, and even then, instead of singing “Amazing Grace,” you will probably have left prior instructions for the choir to sing one of YOUR SONGS at your funeral. The reason is you love the music you write or play and you like it when a fan tells you they like your singing better than George Strait or Martina McBride’s or you write songs as good as Harlan Howard or Tom T. Hall.

If you are a songwriter and you hear a song you wrote on the radio or someone tells you something you wrote really touched them or told their story, that erases a lot of rejection you have known for years.   There's always the fact that you are pretty sure ASCAP or BMI must have lost your mailing address because you never get a decent royalty check. This is just another bitter truth you constantly live with. The occasional recognition you receive from fans is why you are in the music business and not the money. Learn to admit this to yourself, and you can then begin to really enjoy being in the music business.

If you are leaning towards McDonalds over the music business, just remember there is little chance that, after someone goes through the drive thru for a burger and fries for lunch and finishes up their Big Mac, they will actually drive back there, park and walk in just to ask who made that burger and request an autograph. Even though it may have been the best dang burger they’d ever had and whoever cooked it was one heck of a short order cook that is not a profession that draws fans much less groupies. Face it, you are probably not going to get out of the music business because you are not making enough money. Since you are not going to quit, why not stop complaining and start having fun.

I usually put a disclaimer that says there will be a few exceptions to the rule, but no need to on this article because if some musician actually did get out of the music business because they couldn’t make any money, they won’t be reading this newsletter anyway because they will not have any interest in anything to do with music anymore.

© Lonnie Ratliff

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" Spotlight" on an original song from the Lonnie Ratliff Catalog

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NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

..Joni Compretta "Before You Turn To A Memory"

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Before You Turn To A Memory

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Before You Turn To A Memory (Female Version)

lo-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=6413977&q=lo

hi-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=6413977&q=hi

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If the LINKS above do not work try this one: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6413977

Before You Turn To A Memory (Male Version)
lo-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=2773584&q=lo

hi-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=2773584&q=hi

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If the LINKS above do not work try this one: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=2773584

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"Before You Turn To A Memory"
(Lonnie Ratliff / Larry Forney)

I saw you staring out the window today
As the trees turned white from the snow
Yeah, I recognize the signs, he's back on your mind
That tear tells me all I need to know ......Now

     (CHORUS)
     Before you turn to a memory turn to me
     Let me prove my love is all you really need
     And before you run to familiar ground
     Give us a chance to turn it around
     Before you turn to a memory
     Turn to me

As you slowly wiped the tear from your eye
I could read every thought that crossed your mind
They were leading you down a road and I know where it goes
It ends with your memory left behind.....So

     (Repeat Chorus)

Bridge:
And before you take that final step
And become a memory I can't forget.....Now

     (Repeat Chorus)

Copr. Okie Acres Music (BMI)

Lonnie Ratliff

Your comments on songs are always welcome and

if you would like to record one of my songs just

E Mail me at: NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

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Links below for those of us easily amused

Drag Queen sings Tammy Wynette karaoke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSwptUJ2MMI

Jake and the Greased Pig Contest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1H9mojOLbA

Girl Riding Donkey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Femr7xsoWcA

Midget Tossing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i38X8GA0wAY

Lawnmower Racing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPQcya9KtWo&feature=related

Goose Attack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd6Tp-dTisw

Rabbit Bites Snake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9YnCIEDE1Y

South Park / Harry Potter (Ginger Kids) Rated -"R" (Language)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4yvY6vqFO0

Here's a "Live" Cam of Broadway in Nashville.

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/tennessee/nashville/

Andy Kaufman Elvis impersonation (1979 Johnny Cash show)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzl0O8rsgAM&feature=related

A Walking Tour of Nashville, Tennessee

Just "Click" Next to walk through the 10 Photos showing Nashville Lower Broadway sights

http://nashville.about.com/od/historyandsites/ss/lowerbroad.htm

Goldie Hawn explains Time Zones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7BGBa6MTI

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"When It's Too Country For Everyone Else, It's Just Right For Me"

Erin Hay

THE COLLECTION "Click" Photo to purchase Erin's CD's THE CIRCLE

"Click" Yellow Button below to play

Lo-Fi Samples from THE CIRCLE CD

Lo-Fi Music Samples from this 23 song CD

"click" on EBAY Logo below

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Lonnie's "Spotlight Songs"

"Making Plans "

Perley Curtis & Erin Hay

Making Plans - Perley Curtis & Erin Hay
lo-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=6888604&q=lo

hi-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=6888604&q=hi

If the above Links will not play try this one: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6888604

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Subscriber Roundup

This Newsletter section is meant to help introduce you to some of the other Subscribers to this Newsletter. Just click on the Photos or Banners to go to their websites where you can read about them, send them and E Mail or sign their guestbooks. Take a few moments to get to know some of these subscribers. Lonnie Ratliff

"Click" PHOTOS below

Casey Dilworth. ....... ..... Myrol (Canada) .. ...

Mike Bella .. ....Jody Lynn Mitchell (NL) .

.Linda Davis . .Karen Pendley ...

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Excerpt from my future book " The Wordweaver "

From The Wordweaver - An early lesson in loyalty

It was 1954, I was six years old and in the first grade at Sugar Loaf School which was six miles west of Antlers, Oklahoma, on the Miller Road, literally on the line on the map between the colors that indicate the Ozarks to the east and the Great Plains to the west.

We were living out in the country and share cropping peanuts on Miss Melton’s place. It was in the fall and everyone was starting to thrash their peanuts. It took a pretty good crew of people to run a stationary thrasher, and my dad and mom were working on Terry Don Pfaff’s thrashing crew helping thrash other farmer’s peanuts and trading out their labor so Terry Don would come thrash our peanut crop. This barter system was a pretty common practice in Southeast Oklahoma where no one had any money.

My mom had told me that day when I came home from school they would probably still be in the peanut fields but not to worry because they would be home soon, and she would leave some cookies for me on the table. That all sounded fine to me at the time, so I didn’t have a worry to my soul that day when I headed off to school.

Sure enough, when I got home from school there was no one there, but the cookies were right there on the table like my mom had promised, so all was well in my six-year-old world.

I remember that after I ate a couple of the cookies, saving some for later, I made a point of changing out of my school clothes into my play clothes.

At this time I was feeling pretty grownup, being all alone at the house, so I found some old leftover cornbread in the kitchen and took it outside, called the chickens and crumbled it up and spread it on the ground for them to eat. We didn’t have a pen for our chickens, so they just ran around the place, always looking for food and we, in turn, were always running around the place looking for where the chickens hid their nests if we wanted to have any eggs.

I was pretty much enjoying my situation of being all alone at the house and feeling much more mature than my six years due to all the responsibility that had been laid upon my tiny shoulders. If my Mom and Dad had shown up during this well lit envelope of time, everything would have been just fine, but sometimes fate can rock the boat, and fate was arriving quickly with the setting of that Oklahoma sun, and my little boat was heading directly into the dark storm.

I remember Mom saying they would be home before dark and since it was not really dark yet I kept telling myself to not worry; they should be home any minute.

It was right about this time I started telling myself I wasn’t scared and that I had nothing to worry about and trying my best to convince myself that that was true. As the sun dropped lower and it grew darker this would become a pretty hard sell for my run away imagination.

I remember that I was as worried about my parents and thinking that one of them may have gotten hurt. Working around a peanut thrashing machine was pretty dangerous work, and I was able to create some pretty gruesome scenarios that would have done the future novels of Stephen King proud.

Like I said, my first thoughts were for my parents’ safety, but I didn’t have to dwell on them very long before I started to think about myself, and the darker it got the more scared I became.

I knew my parents would be coming home, that is, if they were ever coming home again, from the west up the dirt road that ran by our house. They had taken our wagon and team to Terry Don’s to be used to haul peanuts from the fields to the thrashing machine and, since we did not have a car, that would be how they got home.

I decided I would walk down the road to the top of the hill in the direction they would be arriving and I could see way down the road as soon as I got to the top of the hill about a hundred yards west of our house.

I called my dog as I set out toward the top of the hill where I could get a good view down the road and figured I would see our wagon when I got there. It was a pretty big disappointment as I topped the hill with no wagon in sight, and there was no doubt now that it was definitely getting darker by the minute. I stood there at the top of the hill for as long as I could see anything down the road, then I called my dog, and one dejected scared little boy turned for home.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I heard something rustle in the woods off to the side of the road and away ran my dog to chase whatever demon it was out there lurking in the dark. That was the last I would see of my dog for the night, and it was one sad , lonesome little boy that walked the last few steps back to the most scary house in Pushmataha county.

When I walked in the door I realized I was no better in the house than I was outside, because it was darker in there than it was outside. We did not have electricity, and I had been warned more than once not to ever touch the kerosene lamps we used for light. I had enough sense, even at six years old, to know that trying to light the kerosene lamp was way too dangerous, and I could end up burning the house down or breaking the thin glass lamp globes and cutting myself, plus I was not even sure I knew how to light one, anyway.

Instead of just sitting there in the dark, I crawled up on my mom and dad’s bed and buried my face in my mom’s pillow and just started crying and hoping I could go to sleep and wake up and my mom and dad would be there and my world would be right again. Unfortunately my story was to get a lot worse before it got better. Just as I was about to drift off to sleep I heard something underneath the bed, and, by this time, I was so scared I was way beyond reason, and I knew it was bound to be a rattlesnake.

I lay there with my head buried in my mom’s pillow too scared to move but knowing somehow I had to get off the bed and out of the house before this imagined rattlesnake bit me. It got quiet underneath the bed and I decided to make my move. I eased to the foot of the bed and jumped out to the middle of the floor and headed for the front door. When I got to the front door I opened it then looked back to see my little kitten coming out from under the bed where the rattlesnake was. I scooped him up and headed outside. It would be a couple more days before I even thought of the possibility that Kitty was probably the “rattlesnake” under mom’s bed.

It didn’t seem quite as dark now after my ordeal inside the house, so I hung on tightly to my kitten and heard my dog barking out in the woods. I was pretty disappointed with the dog’s loyalty, but I sure was wishing I had just a little bit of his courage right now.

I headed down toward the barn and crawled up on the pole fence making sure I didn’t let Kitty get away. Our old milch cow, Roz, lifted up her head from the empty feed trough like she thought I would have the answers as to who was gonna feed and milk her.

I felt a little better now sitting here on the fence surrounded by Roz and Kitty, and, for a while, I just sat there quietly, but that feeling did not last long. I got to thinking about how hopeless everything was for me and missing my parents so bad I just couldn’t hold back the tears, and I just kept petting the little cat and wondering what was gonna happen to me.

I finally stopped crying and just sat there quietly watching the world turn black. I am not sure how long I sat on the corral, probably closer to fifteen minutes than the lifetime it seemed at the time, but then the silence and darkness was broken by a car headed up to our house from the East. I remember the last awful thought I would have that night was that someone was coming to tell me something bad had happened to my parents.

As the car drew closer I saw that it was Terry Don’s old Chevrolet and when they stopped and opened the door the car’s interior light light up the most beautiful sight I had ever seen in my life. There was my mom getting out of the car and right behind her was my dad.

I was so relieved I almost started to cry again and when my mom called out “Lonnie!,” my voice broke when I hollered back, “I’m down at the corral.”

I started to put the kitten down ‘cause I knew they would know I had been scared if they saw me hanging on to it, but then I remembered how I felt when my dog had deserted me earlier tonight, so I just held on to the cat and petted it so he would know how much I appreciated his loyalty, and I was not about to caste him away now that everything was okay.

Mom came down to the corral and climbed up on the fence and sat real close to me and started to explain how they had had to work much later than they ever expected, and they had left the team at Terry Don’s and had him drive them home so they could get back to me as soon as they possibly could. I told her it was okay . She took out her handkerchief and wiped my face. She asked me if I had been crying, and I said “A little bit.” She hugged me a little tighter and said “Me too,” and we both sat there on the corral and petted the cat together.

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Buying a house in Nashville ?

If you are thinking of moving to Nashville and need to buy a house I recommend you get in touch with my buddy Craig Stahl.

Some of you will know Craig from his 13 years working with Alan Jackson and also as my partner in Okie Acres Music & Studio.

Give him a call when you need property in Nashville or sign up for his Newsletter

I hope you enjoyed our first issue of Roadie Real Estate.com. Please email me your thoughts and suggestions. If you liked it

please hit the forward e-mail button at the bottom of the page. Please visit my website at www.RoadieRealEstate.com I would love t

o help you buy or sell your next home or help you with any of your Real Estate needs. If you are not moving anytime soon,

please keep me in mind to be of service to friends and family. I really appreciate your referals.

Craig Stahl "The Roadie Realtor"

615-578-9175

rocksolidproperties@gmail.com

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"Click" PHOTO to listen to

" Country Music's King "

Erin Hay

Featured song is Erin Hay "Country Music's King" written by Jon & Jerry Gray and is the current release on Gary Bradshaw's Western Heart Promo. compilation CD. gbradshaw3@cox.net

Produced by Lonnie Ratliff NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

List of "Studio Pickers"

Drums: Steve Holland

Upright Bass: Dow Tomlin

Piano: Rodger Morris

Guitars: Vaughn Lofstead

Steel Guitar: Perley Curtis

Fiddle: Jim Unger

Harmony: Christy Cornelius

This song will be on Erin's next CD entitled "Blue Country Song" which we hope to have finished this fall.

Send any comments about "Country Music's King" to Erin at : ErinHay2002@Yahoo.com

Country Music's King - Erin Hay - "click" Links below to listen

lo-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=6647375&q=lo

hi-fi URL: http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=6647375&q=hi

If the song will not play using LINKS above try this one: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6647375

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Dixon DeVore http://cdbaby.com/all/devore

Imprinters To The Stars Since 1985

Since 1985, we have been imprinting and/or embroidering apparel, pens, cups, keytags, mugs, Tote Bags, Equipment Stickers, CD Carrying cases and thousands of other products for Bands, Artists DJs and Promoters. We have our own in-house art department and can take the simplest idea and morph it into aneffective, multi-color design. You'll wow 'em in Vegas!
We know The Music Business.

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Artists release your songs worldwide on

Gary Bradshaw's WHP Compilation.

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Artists if you need a little help getting your latest record off the DJ's desk and

on to their turntable you might want to contact Sherry.

She speaks the DJ's language fluently.

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Artists looking for someone to help you with your CD Cover artwork, printing and pressing your CD ? Check with Karen Bruno at Amazon Audio

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