Ghianni keeps music legends alive in latest book

Friday, May 19, 2023, Vol. 47, No. 21
By Tom Wood

When Tim Ghianni arrived in Nashville 50 years ago, he immediately fell in love with his new home. The city’s vibe. The music and the people who brought it to life. Especially the latter. They were all new areas to be explored, to become immersed in and followed as he launched a 34-year daily newspaper career that continues today as a freelance journalist, blogger and author.

Now, Ghianni has returned to that era in his new book Pilgrims, Pickers and Honky-Tonk Heroes (Backbeat Books, $29.95).

The book’s 34 chapters focus on some the biggest stars of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s – from Bobby Bare to Kris Kristofferson to Johnny Cash – as well as those who made the music happen – Harold Bradley and Chet Atkins – and then to lesser-known names like Perry Baggs (drummer for Jason and the Scorchers) and Funky Donnie Fritts (Kristofferson’s keyboardist), who impacted the Nashville music industry.

Within those 34 chapters of this personal, freewheeling and sometimes meandering account of that era, are the rich stories and recollections of the music industry friends he made over the decades (the index is 18 pages).

But it’s also an examination of how the city (primarily the Grand Ole Opry and lower Broadway area), the music industry and the newspaper industry have grown and changed over the decades – for better or worse.

“I wanted to tell these stories about these guys and I used this flowing style to let the thoughts come out,” says Ghianni, who grew up in Chicago and graduated from Iowa State in 1973 with journalism graduate that would eventually lead to him becoming a writer and editor for both the Nashville Banner, which ceased publication in 1998 and The Tennessean.

“When I was writing columns, I tried to do the same sort of meandering style. I enjoy trying to get as much in there as possible without boring people. Just try to carry it along.”

The title says it all

The pilgrims of that generation were many, but included Cash, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, whose impactful songs and songwriting changed the industry in many ways. Ghianni credits Kristofferson for inspiring the “Pilgrims” part of the title.

“I wanted to write this book about these people who I was fortunate enough to befriend during my journalism career,” Ghianni says. “One of my favorite songs that first got me into Kris’s music was called ‘The Pilgrim, Chapter 33’ and then he used pilgrims a lot to talk about the people who come to Nashville. And so, they’re pilgrims.

“Pickers, of course, is the guitar players or whatever kind of string instrument players that come here … Honky Tonk Heroes was a great Waylon album written by Billy Joe Shaver.

“That’s the kind of mood I got from Kristofferson’s stuff … those kind of guys, Funky Donnie Fritz, all those guys. The pickers are the Mac Wisemans, Earl Scruggs who are in there. The Chet’s who are in there. And the honky-tonk heroes are the Waylons and Billy Joe Shavers. They were all pilgrims in Nashville, everybody in here.”

The book begins with the night Ghianni met Bare and songwriter Shel Silverstein.

“The mood that’s in this book began back in 1972, when I first met Bare and Shel Silverstein and they helped me load up some bricks,” Ghianni says. “When those guys helped me, that was kind of the attitude – these are pilgrims to Nashville. These guys came here and made it big; that’s what the pilgrims are all about. And so, just to meet them and then to be in that atmosphere of old Nashville at the old honky-tonks, that stuff has stayed with me for 50 years and I just wanted to tell their stories.”

Character and characters

Lower Broadway in the 1970s was nothing like it is today, where large crowds fill the streets, the bars, music venues and restaurants with the party buses, bumper-to-bumper traffic and the high-rise hotels and condos. Back then, almost no one lived downtown. Retail businesses were closing and being replaced by adult-oriented businesses. It could be a dangerous place, rife with prostitutes, crime and grime.

“Yeah, the Nashville I fell in love with was a little bit on the seedy side, at least the Lower Broadway area and downtown in general,” Ghianni says. “I had grown to love Nashville partly through listening to Kristofferson songs and that’s kind of on the sweat and spit and seedier level of life. In a lot of cases, there’s some pretty depressing – there’s still a lot of hope in the songs but the pictures are pretty bleak – and I really liked those songs.”

And that was part of Ghianni’s exploratory mission: meeting the artists on their own turf.

“They weren’t just coming (downtown) for special events. They would be there because of the Opry, generally, or they’d be down there because Ernest Tubb had his record store down there and they’d be doing something there.

“So, you’d go down there and you’d see these real artists performing in these seedy clubs. There was something about Nashville that grabbed a big chunk of my heart even in 1972 that I just liked the city. I still like Nashville … but it’s not the city I fell in love with.”

Music brings them together

Ghianni’s favorite group of all time is The Beatles and he often wears a John Lennon “Give Peace a Chance” T-shirt that pretty much says it all about the author’s worldview. His love of country music and its mostly conservative musicians (at least that’s the widely held perception) would seem like a square pegs/round hole fit.

But Ghianni explains his many friendships with artists who don’t share the same political persuasion with a chapter about when the long-haired hippie first met the long-haired country boy, Charlie Daniels.

“You’re right, I don’t hold their political views,” Ghianni says. “I saw Charlie change from the long-haired country boy to the very evangelical Christian, right-wing (Donald) Trump guy. But I always liked Charlie as a human being.

“I would pick up the phone to talk to Charlie. He was still good, old Charlie. He was still the same human being. We didn’t have the same political views and I’m sure he knew that. But the majority of these folks were much more conservative than I am and that’s fine.

“As long as they’re honest as human beings … I don’t know what’s the right answer, so I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong. I know what I believe. But that’s OK.”

Daniels died in 2020, and his passing exemplifies the reason Ghianni felt compelled to write this book.

“I got to this point where these fellows started to die. And I realized that if I didn’t tell these stories – they’re pretty much all forgotten by now – but I had these stories in me and I want to make sure that they weren’t forgotten,” Ghianni says.

One artist that’s no longer with us and whom Ghianni will never forget is Peter Cooper, who died last year. Cooper, who wrote the foreword for the book, was hired by Ghianni as The Tennessean’s chief entertainment writer. A noted music historian, Cooper went on to launch his own career and also worked with the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Cooper is mentioned throughout the book, and offered feedback on Ghianni’s chapters while it was being written.

“He was my best friend in Nashville,” Ghianni says, choking back his emotions. “Peter had a lot of really good friends but I thought of him as kind of a little brother or a stepson or something. It was more close to my heart than any other person other than my family.”

Keeping the legends alive

While Ghianni’s book is a sometimes a hard, bare-boned look at Nashville, the journalism and music industries, it is also a love story. And a ghost story. It offers inspiration and insights into a bygone era and a bygone Nashville.

“It is and that’s part of it. I really wanted to write this book for a long time to save these guys’ memories and everything,” Ghianni says, “but it’s also about Nashville. These people are for the most part gone – not all of them – and I wanted them to be remembered.”

As the Banner’s entertainment editor, he often wrote stars’ obituaries. Ghianni recalls how Chet Atkins became his key resource for collecting quotes about those who had died. It began with the Dec. 31, 1997, passing of pianist Floyd Cramer.

“I didn’t even know who to call, so I looked in the phone book and there was Chet Atkins and his number. So I just called him,” Ghianni laughs. “I would always call Chet up until the point where he died (in 2001).

“He and his wife joked that one day I’d call there but he wouldn’t be able to answer because he’d be dead. He was a woodcarver by hobby and he hand-carved his nameplate that sat on his desk with the RCA building,” Ghianni says. “His wife gave me that nameplate when he died, and I have that in my office now. I still think of Chet very fondly.”

Nashville, the music industry and journalism have changed so much over the last half-century that one can only wonder what it will be like 50 years in the future.

Ghianni, who began his career as a sports writer, says Nashville will get a major league baseball team to join the NFL, NHL and MLS pro franchises.

“(Nashville) will look like any generic big city, although the Lower Broad club district will spread. I have worries about whether all the faceless glass high-rises will still be standing. The Nashville Stars will be an MLB power,” he predicts.

“But there will still be a taste of my musical friends in the air.”