By the time Kathy Mattea recorded Larry Cordle’s “Lonesome Standard Time” Cordle was established. That was in 1992. He had written nearly 10 years of hits by then.
Years later and on Feb. 5 see the man whose friends call him Cord at Down Home in Johnson City. Ideal place for a man who grew up with no electricity, though there was an outhouse on the hill.
“It was like in the ’20s and ’30s I imagine,” Cordle, 60, said by phone on Tuesday morning from his outhouse-less home in Nashville, Tenn. “It was difficult, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Lord knows most any song I’ve written comes from there.”
Call him country.
By birth, by place, in spirit and in song the only way Cordle rocks is in a rocking chair.
“I’m proud of my old Appalachian roots,” Cordle said. “My parents were God-fearing and hard-working. It was good for me. We never thought about being poor, but I guess we were.”
Like his lifelong buddy and back-home neighbor Ricky Skaggs, music enriched Cordle’s life as a child.
“Playing music was a big part of everybody’s life,” Cordle said. “Other than playing like wild Indians, that’s what we did around my house, Ricky Skaggs’ house.”
Cordle left childhood and Kentucky for the navy in 1969. When he returned, he earned a degree in accounting and stepped into a career as an accountant in Paintsville, Ky.
“I always knew Ricky was good enough to get into the music business, but I wanted to get in the business, too,” Cordle said. “So I started to tinker around with some songs. I worked for a CPA by day and had a little band at night.”
By the time Skaggs signed with Epic Records as a country artist in 1981, he had heard plenty of Cordle’s songs. One of them changed Cordle’s life.
“ ‘Highway 40 Blues’ was the very first song I had a cut on,” Cordle said of the song he wrote that became Skaggs’ fifth number-one single in 1983. “I started to get some money, and it was more than I was used to.”
That led to Cordle signing a song publishing deal upon Skaggs’ advice, which led to his move to Nashville. A career was born. Subsequent songs written or co-written by Cordle include “Against the Grain” for Garth Brooks and perhaps most famously “Murder on Music Row” for Alan Jackson and George Strait.
“It was a huge thing for me,” Cordle said of “Murder on Music Row,” a song that yearns the death of genuine country music. “It was song of the year at IBMA, SPGMA and the CMA.”
As a result, the song sparked a furor in the country industry. As pop music overtook much of country music, the song stung some like salt in an open wound. Defenders of pop-influenced country defiled the song while lovers of hardcore country defended and hailed it.
“I’ve heard George Jones say they’ve hijacked the name country,” Cordle said. “I’m happy for these kids, but there ain’t a note of real country in it. That’s my opinion.”
Kindly outspoken and blunt, that’s Cordle.
Meanwhile and off and mostly on since 1990, Cordle has led his bluegrass band Lonesome Standard Time. His latest album was 2007’s “Took Down and Put Up.” A follow-up album is on the way.
“I’ve got some really good stuff done,” Cordle said. “It’s been three years this fall [since his previous album]. Time goes by so fast.”
TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at features@bristolnews.com.
IF YOU GO
Who: Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time
When: Feb. 5, 9 p.m.
Where: Down Home, 300 W. Main St., Johnson City, Tenn.
Admission: $16
Info: (423) 929-9822
Web and audio: www.larrycordle.com
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