Why Johnny Paycheck Sucks

Alright - before all of the Greenfieldians get riled up by my picking on our favorite son, hear me out. I really don't think JP sucks, just needed a segue into my weekly blog. While I haven't had anywhere near the musical run-ins as some of you, I thought this story needed telling. Filo Beddoe boys will enjoy this, I'm certain. It goes like this . . . .

Several years ago (when Filo Beddoe was in its pre-stardom era) we played a birthday party outside of Greenfield. The crowd was mostly locals, rowdy bunch as usual, and after a couple of hours of obscure classic rock and originals, they were ready for some "drinking music." We tried to oblige the crowd, through out a few Skynyrd tunes and such, but that just wasn't enough. Midway through a Doors cover this guy walks up to the stage (and by stage I mean hay wagon). He just kinda stands there, waits for us to finish the song and then proceeds with his question. "Do you guys know any country songs?" An innocent question enough it appeared at the time. We all looked at each other trying to remember the chords to Rawhide or something when our drummer says, "hey, I know a Johnny Paycheck song we could do." Turns out a couple of weekends before we had made an attempt at playing "Old Violin" at a cookout. At this point we looked at each other and seemed to mutually consent to give it a try since at this point in the night we probably could have played Tiny Tim and gotten away with it. However, as we looked back at the dude who made the request we noticed he was just staring at us with an erie, blank look on his face. Maybe he didn't hear us, we think - "hey, we'll do a Paycheck song, how about that?" Again the dude was silent. Only this time, we can tell his expression is changing from dumbfounded stupor to growing irritation. Bordering on full-blown pissed off. This awkward pause finally gives way to an explosion of hillbilly rhetoric that still rings vividly in my ears to this day.

"THAT'S THE SON-OF-A-BITCH THAT SHOT ME!!" In that instant we all realized that we had just suggested to the one-and-only Larry Wise (who was actually shot in the head by Johnny Paycheck in a bar in Hillsboro in the 80's), that we play a Johnny Paycheck song. What are the odds??!! At any rate, the profanity-laced lecture we received following that revalation concerning "who he was" and "you boys must think you're pretty funny, etc" all seems to fade into the background for me now because we were pretty much lost in the hilarity of the situation the rest of the night. I'm not sure we got through one song after that without busting into laughter like a bunch of jr. high girls. I still can't believe it happened to this day.

Needless to say, we didn't do the song.