Latest / Takin’ A Walk Nashville / Exploring Nashville's Music Legacy: Dave Lenahan's Journey Through Songwriting and Radio in Music City

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Exploring Nashville's Music Legacy: Dave Lenahan's Journey Through Songwriting and Radio in Music City · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Nashtille.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Hi, this is Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Walk Nashville, and today I am here with songwriter, artists,
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  Speaker 2: podcast and radio host Dave Lenahan. We're here in his
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: home in Hermitage, right outside of Nashville. And for listeners
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  Speaker 2: who don't know and Hermitage visitors can also find the
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  Speaker 2: home of President Andrew Jackson, our seventh President of the
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  Speaker 2: United States. So a lot of history here, but I'm
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  Speaker 2: excited to share with listeners Dave's story today. Dave Lenahan,
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  Speaker 2: He's originally from Cleveland, Ohio, the birthplace of rock and roll,
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  Speaker 2: and he's a lifelong musician and radio veteran of over
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  Speaker 2: forty years, working at different stations in different formats in Ohio,
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  Speaker 2: including B one oh five and Cincinnati, a station that's
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  Speaker 2: a six time winner of the CMA Awards for Large
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  Speaker 2: Market Station of the Year. And through radio he has
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  Speaker 2: met and interviewed many different country legends and then proceeded
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  Speaker 2: to move to Nashville in the twenty three where you
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  Speaker 2: now write with several independent artists. You've earned over a
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  Speaker 2: million Spotify streams.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: And in addition to songwriting, Dave, you're the host of
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  Speaker 2: the popular podcast Songwriter Connection and the host of Nashville
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  Speaker 2: Connection radio show every Friday morning on w n OI
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  Speaker 2: and Illinois.
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  Speaker 4: I believe yes it is.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Dave, there's a lot for us to discuss today.
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  Speaker 3: I'm so tired. Do I do all that?
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  Speaker 5: Wow? Crazy?
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  Speaker 3: Well?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me in your home today.
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  Speaker 5: How are you for coming to my home dinner? If
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  Speaker 5: you me it's crazy, I'm so honored.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, songwriting performing wasn't just something you decided
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: to do one day. It seems you're always performing music,
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  Speaker 2: playing with the band.
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  Speaker 4: While you were a radio host.
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  Speaker 2: Did you have a love for both being a broadcaster.
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  Speaker 4: And performer or did one come before the other.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, As a matter of fact, there were there were
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  Speaker 5: probably ten years in there where I didn't even pick
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  Speaker 5: up a guitar because I was so focused on the
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  Speaker 5: radio career and trying to make it there as I
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  Speaker 5: was helping. I was too busy being a radio star.
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  Speaker 3: But it was always there, you know, it was always
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  Speaker 3: in my heart.
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  Speaker 5: Got my first guitar when I was eleven, and my
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  Speaker 5: brother and I got them for Christmas, and he was
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  Speaker 5: a couple of years younger than me, and he picked
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  Speaker 5: up right away. He was the kind of guy they
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  Speaker 5: could hear it on the radio and then just play it,
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  Speaker 5: you know, without even taking lessons. So we played a
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  Speaker 5: lot together. We played in church, and then when I
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  Speaker 5: was in radio for a while too, it was in
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  Speaker 5: a really good worship band in Cincinnati.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 5: In fact, the bass player in that band is now
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  Speaker 5: Taylor Swift's bass player. Oh wow, names Haller. Great guy.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So anyway, it's been a neat journey.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it sounds like it.
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  Speaker 2: And I love how in your biography mentions your career
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  Speaker 2: radio is always under your real name, because you know,
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  Speaker 2: so many radio hosts have a different name from what
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  Speaker 2: they go by. So that was interesting and it just
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  Speaker 2: seems very authentic for you.
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  Speaker 5: And that was that was it, And it was a
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  Speaker 5: conscious decision. I didn't I thought about being authentic, you know.
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  Speaker 5: And it's the same in country music today. I mean,
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  Speaker 5: people can see right through if it's not authentic. So
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  Speaker 5: I always wanted to be myself. I don't know it
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  Speaker 5: was the greatest strategy in the world. But I didn't
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  Speaker 5: have to play a character on the right, you just
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  Speaker 5: that was just me. So I hope that worked. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So when you were playing with your band in Ohio,
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  Speaker 2: did people see you and be like, oh, that's also
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  Speaker 2: the radio host of that station.
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  Speaker 5: Sometimes Yeah, I have a minor celebrity in our church.
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  Speaker 5: That's kind of cool, eh, you know. But the nice
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  Speaker 5: thing about radio is people don't see your face, so
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  Speaker 5: they don't recognize you a lot.
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  Speaker 2: That's true, but yeah, I'm sure they recognize your voice
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  Speaker 2: when you were talking. Now, when you were in Cincinnati,
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  Speaker 2: you also became the chapter anader for NSAI, which is
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  Speaker 2: the Nashville Songwriters Association International. It's a wonderful organization for songwriters.
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  Speaker 2: How did you get involved with them?
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  Speaker 5: And that's eventually what brought me here. I was working
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  Speaker 5: for a station called ninety six five in Cincinnati, where
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  Speaker 5: I did afternoon drive, and one day got a call
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  Speaker 5: from an SAI and they had a huge chapter in
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  Speaker 5: Cincinnati and Dayton Wow, and they said, would you mind
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  Speaker 5: come and we want to talk about how songs are
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  Speaker 5: added to playlists and how they chart things like that.
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  Speaker 5: I said, well, let me bring my program director and
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  Speaker 5: we'll come. And I went to the meeting and there
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  Speaker 5: were sixty people in this room, maybe more and they
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  Speaker 5: were all songwriters, and I'm like, oh my god, you
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  Speaker 5: guys all write songs because I was writing songs when
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  Speaker 5: I was a kid, you know. And I just fell
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  Speaker 5: in love with these people. We were like kindred spirits.
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  Speaker 5: And I started going to the meetings and becoming a
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  Speaker 5: part of it and really getting into songwriting again, and
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  Speaker 5: eventually became one of the coordinators. And it was an
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  Speaker 5: honor to do that. And through that we were coming
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  Speaker 5: down to Nashville and writing a lot and meeting new people,
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  Speaker 5: but for different reasons. Wasn't through rating anymore. It was
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  Speaker 5: for songwriting and it was so cool, and we just
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  Speaker 5: knew eventually we were going to end up here, and
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  Speaker 5: here we are, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's great they do chapters to
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  Speaker 2: support songwriters who maybe aren't able to make it to
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  Speaker 2: Nashville right now, but they're still living their dreams, you know,
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  Speaker 2: wherever they's from.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, And I tell folks on my podcast, join at,
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  Speaker 5: I say I if you're into it, and if there
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  Speaker 5: isn't a chapter, well start one. Get a bunch of
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  Speaker 5: like minded people who love music and love to write.
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  Speaker 5: Start meeting every week. If it's just once a month,
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  Speaker 5: build your own group, challenge each other, come up with
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  Speaker 5: song prompts, critique each other's music.
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  Speaker 3: You know, that's what it's all about.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're such a great resource for songwriters. And I
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  Speaker 2: want to talk about your upcoming project. It's really interesting
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  Speaker 2: because you're currently preparing to release a new album, Absolom,
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  Speaker 2: a concept driven project inspired by a forgotten Tennessee cemetery
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  Speaker 2: that you helped uncover and preserve. Now you've released a
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  Speaker 2: few singles from this project already, and with help from
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  Speaker 2: historical researchers and songwriters, you uncovered seventy graves, which is
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  Speaker 2: really actually.
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  Speaker 5: Now, They're Historical Society in their latest email to me
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  Speaker 5: say they believe there's between seventy.
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  Speaker 3: And one hundred graves there. Oh my godness, that's something.
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  Speaker 2: What made you want to do this project?
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  Speaker 5: This is the craziest story and the craziest thing I've
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  Speaker 5: ever been involved with. It really is. I mean, I
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  Speaker 5: was going for walks around this neighborhood and right leave
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  Speaker 5: and Hermitage, Like you said, this is where Andrew Jackson was,
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  Speaker 5: you know, yeah, and I had thought and I thought
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  Speaker 5: I heard somewhere red. I always believed that all of
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  Speaker 5: this used to be owned by Andrew Jackson, but I
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  Speaker 5: found out it wasn't the case. When I discovered the cemetery,
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  Speaker 5: there was a new you know, if at the end
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  Speaker 5: of our road here to the grove, there was a
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  Speaker 5: huge wooded area. It was just wild and one day
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  Speaker 5: they started plowing it and next thing I know, they're
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  Speaker 5: building homes and you know, in this area. And so
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  Speaker 5: one day I went for a walk and I'm going
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  Speaker 5: through where the new homes were, and I cut through
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  Speaker 5: this empty lot and on the right I see this sign.
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  Speaker 5: It it's all beat up and bent. It looked like
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  Speaker 5: a mud thrown on it or whatever, and it said
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  Speaker 5: Absolute Gleaves Cemetery. And I go, what the heck is that?
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  Speaker 5: Because it was all woods and it was all I go, oh,
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  Speaker 5: it's we're crazy. So, you know, my walks every now
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  Speaker 5: and then, i'd go through it, and every time I
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  Speaker 5: was like a little you know, it's just something in
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  Speaker 5: your mind is very curious about it. And so one day,
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  Speaker 5: because I couldn't remember that Absolute was the name, I
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  Speaker 5: was really familiar with the absolutlying what's it was?
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  Speaker 3: It is like two families, where's the cemetery? The sign
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  Speaker 3: looked like it was pointing somewhere I didn't know. So
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  Speaker 3: one day I took a picture of the sign.
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  Speaker 5: I went home and I googled it. It came up
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  Speaker 5: Absom Leaves that he was a county magistrate, and I said, well,
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  Speaker 5: where is this cemetery? So it was like October and
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  Speaker 5: leaves are falling now, you know, late October, and I
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  Speaker 5: go over there and I said, I don't want to
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  Speaker 5: figure out where this is. And as I walk to
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  Speaker 5: where I saw this sign, I could see this little
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  Speaker 5: obelisk like pointing out from under the trees, and I.
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  Speaker 3: Go, it's right here, it's behind this sign.
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  Speaker 4: Wow.
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  Speaker 5: And it was all overgrown. I mean, there was honeycyuckle
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  Speaker 5: up over my head. There was trees, and so I
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  Speaker 5: dug my way back there and it's beautiful obelisk standing
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  Speaker 5: up and there was a little stone and it said
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  Speaker 5: absolute Leaves departed life in eighteen thirty four, and I went, wow,
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  Speaker 5: this is Anna Bellin. It's really on my interest some
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  Speaker 5: switter history. And I walked on the other side and
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  Speaker 5: it said Catherine Leaves eighteen sixty six. It was his wife,
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  Speaker 5: and I thought, what in the world. So I went
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  Speaker 5: back that evening with a saw ont of prerooming shears,
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  Speaker 5: and I just started cutting my way all around there.
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  Speaker 5: And I went back home that night and I googled
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  Speaker 5: them again and I come up there was this whole
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  Speaker 5: Gleaves cemetery site. And as it turns out that Gleaves
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  Speaker 5: family were very prominent in this area. They were contemporaries
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  Speaker 5: of Andrew Jackson. Appslom actually fought with Andrew in the
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  Speaker 5: War of eighteen twelve. Abslince's father fought in the Civil War.
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  Speaker 5: And then they came west, go west, young man right,
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  Speaker 5: and they acquired a lot of property in this area.
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  Speaker 5: In fact, there are a bunch of different Gleaves cemeteries.
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  Speaker 5: I just happened to stumble across absoluence, and so I
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  Speaker 5: made it my project to clear it. And I reached
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  Speaker 5: out to them through that website, and I found a descendant,
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  Speaker 5: a guy named Owen Gleaves, and we became really dear friends.
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  Speaker 5: He said, when I was a kid, I used to
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  Speaker 5: maintain that cemetery of some tool. Now and you know,
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  Speaker 5: I have some health issues, he said, but you have
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  Speaker 5: my permission, you have the family's permission to start clearing it.
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  Speaker 5: So I'm remember a few sleepless nights going how am
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  Speaker 5: I going to do this? This is a lot of work.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, trees had fallen down, you know. We had
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  Speaker 5: her a tornado through here, and and Owen said to me,
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  Speaker 5: if you can make it back to the old oak tree,
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  Speaker 5: Mary Wolford's buried there, I go, Who's she? He goes,
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  Speaker 5: We don't know. So that was my first path I cut.
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  Speaker 5: I spent an afternoon cut all the way back. There's
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  Speaker 5: this old oak tree. We think it's about Arbust tells
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  Speaker 5: us it could be seventy years old, so it's like
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  Speaker 5: a witness tree. It was there when Absolom basket wow.
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  Speaker 5: And it was all on Absolom's property, you know, all
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  Speaker 5: of this. He owned this property where I live today.
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  Speaker 5: So I made it back to Mary Wolford and it
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  Speaker 5: just I started climbing down that rabbit hole. I found
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  Speaker 5: on the website that there was somebody named Aunt Nancy
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  Speaker 5: buried there. Again, what the connection is to the family,
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  Speaker 5: I don't know. My friend Loretta found her her gravesite,
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: just walking through, I mean, you know, chopping her way through,
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  Speaker 5: and she gets to this tree and and another she
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: had fallen over and had broken her stone in three
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  Speaker 5: places just and all I could do was reach in
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  Speaker 5: there with my phone and take a picture, and I
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: bowled it back out and went Mary Wolford and I went,
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  Speaker 5: all right, you found Mary Wilford's berger. I knew she
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  Speaker 5: was here. And as we were clearing, we would step
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  Speaker 5: on a stone, and we'd step on a stone, and
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  Speaker 5: these were great markers.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: No, So eventually let me got the Historical Society out there.
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  Speaker 5: Owen and I and a few other songwriter friends like
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  Speaker 5: Joe Bizzelli would come out and just spend an afternoon
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  Speaker 5: clearing and cutting trees down and you know, getting to
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: the bottom of it. The Historical Society came out a
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: couple of different times. They helped me put so much
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  Speaker 5: a bit together. And what we found out is Absolom
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  Speaker 5: was the county magistrate in this area in the eighteen
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  Speaker 5: twenties and thirties, which which is kind of the justice
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  Speaker 5: of the peace. You know, some people would come to
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  Speaker 5: him to get married, to settle disputes and things like that.
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: And they said that being the person that he was,
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  Speaker 5: probably a lot of people would come to him, you know,
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  Speaker 5: with problems, and so and so died and he goes, well,
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: I've got a cemetery. You can just bury him right here,
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  Speaker 5: you know, And that's probably what happens. They tell us
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  Speaker 5: that between seventy and one hundred people are buried there
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  Speaker 5: in this small area fifty two by eighty two area.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 5: And so I still go by there every day and
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: pay my respects and take a look. It's just hard
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: to It just grows up stuff around. It grows up
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  Speaker 5: so fast. But here's the really interesting story. I couldn't
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: figure out. These are the are These are very God
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: fearing people, you know, Baptist, strict Baptist. And how we
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: know this is the circles? I sis. You notice all
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: these graves are facing east, and there's a reason for that.
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: I got, Really, what is that he goes because that's
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: where Jesus is supposed to rise when he comes back.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: So always bury their people facing east. So that was
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  Speaker 5: a big clue. But I couldn't figure out if you
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: were God fearing people, why would you name your child Absolom,
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: who was a bad guy in the Bible. If you
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: read the Bible, Absolom was David's son. He raised an
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: army to try to kill his dad and take it
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: over and died a horrible death. So I figured out,
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: why would you name your son Absolum? And so I
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: googled it and here's what they found out. And this
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: is fascinating to me. They felt they loved religious names,
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: they loved biblical names, and but so you start running out,
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: you know. So they loved the story behind the name
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  Speaker 5: more than the story of the person in the Bible.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: And so if you look at the name Absolom, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: it didn't hit me until I read this. Absolom means Abbah,
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: his father, and Shalom is peace, so his name meant
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: father of peace, and he was the justice of the
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: peace in this area. It just blew me away.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: So that became the second song, Father of Piece that
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: we released, and that was ritten by Jessica Nixon and myself.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so is each song on the album about a
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: different person that you uncovered from the cemetery?
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: No?
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: No, from there.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: I just started recording songs that you know, I write
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: a lot of songs, and I got a lot of
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: indie cuts, but not a lot of major cuts, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: So I thought somebody needs to record these, so I
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: started recording them on my own, and so the rest
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: of these songs, we did two here in Nashville with
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: Cedric Israel, who did a wonderful drop. In fact, you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: he produced Father of Peace and Abslon and he brought
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: Joe Spivey in from the Time Jumpers to play violin
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: fiddle on Appslom and just turned out so great. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: so he did the next one. It was fantastic, and
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: then long Coats. My friend Alan Sanderson, his wife and
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: I write a lot of songs for Namis Tylan Ray.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: She's a great singer. And he is a Grammy Award
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: winning engineer and producer in San Diego. And this guy
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: has worked with everybody from Elton John and Michael Jackson.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: His stories are amazing. In fact, we did a podcast
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: with him. We tell all these great stories and just
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: for the heck of it. One day, Alan, you got
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: your own studio in San Diego. It's called Pacific Beat.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: It's really cool. It's just a few blocks up from
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: the beach. I said, well, would you be interested in
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: recording some of my songs? And love to have you
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: if you my producer. He goes, dude, I will put
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: together a great man. You come out to San Diego.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: We're recorded out there, and that's exactly what we did.
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: So the next four songs we recorded out there and
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: they had nothing really to do with it absolom, but
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: they were just fun songs, you know, Like I always
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: wanted to do my version of Baby I'm Gone. That
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: was my big cut. Chancey Williams cut that and was
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: cut by a four other artists, and then finally my
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: own version that I recorded in San Diego, So that
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: was one of the first that we cut, and we
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: did a video and that was so fun. And the
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: one out there right now is called Diane's Barstool. We
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: shot the video recently at Betty Luz not too far
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: from here, is one of my favorite bars, and just
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: had a blast on it.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: So you know what I'm you know, I tell people
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: say how you doing, I.
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: Say, I'm living the dream. I always wanted to do
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: this right here, and the podcast is my mix of
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: my two loves of broadcasting, specially interviewing people and songwriting.
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: So I'm just doing everything I love and I'm staying
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: real busy. So Mark Allen Barnett coined this term retire up.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I feel like I did.
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: I'd be tired up.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you have so much going on.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited for this album.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Walk Nashville podcast. Welcome back to Taking a Walk Nashville.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Country music is all about the storytelling, and you certainly
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: did this by uncovering graves in a cemetery. Do you
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: have a projected release date for this album?
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't right now because I'm with I
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: sang this little India label and this wonderful publicist named
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: Jill Pavel, and she's just been wonderful in getting the
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: word out about my songs and also my podcast. She's
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: just been just wonderful. And so we've been doing a
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: lot of strategizing and I've been still recording, so we're
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: thinking about a new concept. Maybe it won't even be
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: called absolute. You know, things changed so fast in the industry, right.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: So We've got a couple of new songs that we've
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: recorded that I'm really anxious for people to hear. One
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: is called Wildflowers that we wrote with Cayrie Phillips and
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: turned out so good, so you know, we may extend
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: it a little bit, but we were hoping for a
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: January release. There's one more song from San Diego that
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: we've got to release. It's called First, and that was
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: just This past year was just nuts for me. I
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: just cannot begin to tell you good and bad roller
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: coaster in February is when we went out to San
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: Diego to record. But also in February, I lost my mother,
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: you know, and she had been sick with Alzheimer's and
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: her cancer came back, and it was so hard on
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: my dad. You know, he was the main caregiver, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: God bless I love him so much. My dad just
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: turned ninety and he did everything for us, you know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: and I would feel guilty not, you know, being so
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: far away up in Ohio. They're up in Ohio, and
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: one day I was visiting and we had this really
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: heart to heart talk, you know, about life and everything.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: And the song that came out of it was First,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: which is going to be released in January, and it's
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: kind of sad listen with Kleenex. And so I came
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: out of that conversation again Jessica and Nixon an amazing songwriter.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: I helped writing that. As a matter of fact, she
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: sings background that and a las Yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, we're looking forward to hearing your new
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: single from that. I'm not sure if you've done this
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: already or I thought about this. Maybe you should even
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: record music video or music performance in that cemeteryya, I think.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: That would be Well, it's actually we did. The absolute
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: video is out there. Okay, check it out on my
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: YouTube page. Just google it and it'll come up. But
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: my friend who's documentary filmmaker, Martin Buchanan, now has them
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: three of my videos, and that was the first one.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: And we actually went into that cemetery. Well, I'll tell
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: at one point he took a little drone and he
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: went went up over the sign and down into the
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: cemetery and you can see all the graves and it's
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: check it out. And oh and by the way, Owen
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: Gleaves he was my dear friend who also he died
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: like a week after my mother and I missed him
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: so much.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: He he.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: As I was clearing the cemetery and I was doing
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: eighteen thirty four style, I'm chopping it by hand, and
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: all these couplets started coming into my head. You know,
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: his family owned this property, you know, from Wilson County
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: to the stone. All these rhyming cup I must have
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: add about twenty e one and I just record them
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: in my phone and I couldn't figure out how to
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: attach them all, you know, I you know, we're looking
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: for a good and one day Owen meets me at
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: the cemetery. He pulls up in his truck into the field.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: He hops out of that truck, does a little jigging,
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: and he goes, absolute absolute what you doing in that ground?
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: And my eyes opened up and I'm going, what did
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: you just sing? Do it again? And he did, That's
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: exactly what I'm looking for, Owen, and that became the
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: chorus of the song. Well, absolum apps on what you're
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: doing in that ground. So on the very beginning of
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: that cemetery you will see the marker apps and leaves
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: departed light. You'll see that, and then all of a
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: sudden we switched to oh and go in apslum apps
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: what you're doing in that ground?
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: So that's amazing.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that you got the idea for it
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: when you were in the actual cemetery.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: So definitely check out the music video.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Is there a place where people can read through everything
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: you've uncovered from the cemetery?
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Is that an ongoing.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: Project, so it's it's just an ongoing project. There are
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: websites for Gleab Cemetery and if you if you look
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: go up, you can find the Absloum Gleave Cemetery. I'll
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: tell you where it is and everything. So I can
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: get back out there do some clearing well curring. You know,
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: we had all summer's worth a growth.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's wonderful.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And you know, you think you know Tennessee right in
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: the middle of the Civil War, there's got to be
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: so many cemetery just in Tennessee in general with on
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: March Grave.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I had learned my Buddiesho just lived here
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: for a while and I was telling me about your Yeah,
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: you'll find cemeteries here, as if it was nothing, And
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: I went, well, but I found this one. Yeah, this
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: one I'm I'm going to take care of. So yeah,
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: I'm sure there are a lot. But you were so
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: cool about I mean, he died before the Civil War,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: but his wife lived through it, Wow, right through the
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: whole thing. So I just I just fell down the
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: rabbit hole. I could read everything I could you know
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: about that family and about about head rejection too, So
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: it's very interesting.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there's so much history in there, good
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: and bad. Yeah, definitely a lot of good and bad
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: history intertwined there. In addition to this and your own music,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: you know, you've got your podcast Songwriter Connection going on
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: at the same time. It drops weekly with Nashville songwriter Guest.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: I even got to be a Bowers women.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Behind the lyrics.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: People can hear that episode.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: It was so great to have you, which I love
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: what you're doing with that and Judy and.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: And Delaines de Lainey Gus.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I love her voice.
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: You guys are awesome together. I'm so excited for that
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: project to get released.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited for it to come out to next year.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And you know your own podcast, you've interviewed hundreds of
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: songwriters on it. How did you even come up with
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the idea for this podcast?
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: No, it's cool.
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: I got it was during COVID and I got a
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: call from the guy who should do traffic on my
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: radio show in Cincinnati. And I love him as Lenna Harvey,
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: we used to have a blast on the radio. And
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: he calls me out of the blue and he goes, hey, man,
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: would you come and be on my podcast? I go,
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: you've got a podcast, Land, he is, yeah, man, we'll
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: just do it's a zoom thing and and uh it's
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: it will have fun, just like the old days. And
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: they went interesting. I said, I'll tell you what, Land,
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: I will do it on one condition.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: It's what's that I see?
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: You tell me everything you know about podcasts, because I
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: have this idea of I want to do one about songwriting.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: And it's just started right there. And I started doing
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: my research. I was up late nights, wasn't sleeping much.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: I had this thing called polymyelgia, which affects all your
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: joints and the only recure is through predna zone, a
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: big dose of preadda zone. The problem with the preadoism
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: Have you ever had any kind of that steroid kind
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: of things? You don't sleep very well, you know, you're
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: just antsy. So I'd use that time to just research
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: podcast break everything I could about it, you know, find
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: a host, the whole thing, you know, and what kind
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: of equipment are you gonna use? And I just took
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: four or five months doing nothing but that, And then,
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: of course you know how it goes. You start, Okay,
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: we're gonna are we doing it? I guess we're doing this,
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: so you start lining up people that you that you
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: think would make good guess in. My first guest was
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Billy Lee. He wrote Gary Allen's big hit, The One,
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: and has been a dear friend for a long time.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: I said, we're gonna use you as a guinea pig,
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: and that was the first episode and then we were
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: off and running and it's just been a blast, and
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: we're to the point now we're almost a three million
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: as we record this, we're almost a three million streams.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Wow, that's amazing.
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: We're about to do our second live one in front
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: of a live audience at the local and day drinking,
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: early evening drinking. Yeah, and it'll be a blast. We're
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: gonna have Randy Brooks. Randy Brooks wrote Cramwell got run
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: over by Ery. You hear it every Christmas? Right, You're
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: about nor by Heart and we're going to get the
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: story behind that song and any others so nice.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll be a great episode.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: There's hundreds of episodes for people to dive in on
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: your podcast on Writer Connection, so people can check out
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that in addition to your own music and upcoming album
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Absolum Dave. I always like to ask this on my podcast.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Since it's called taking a walk Nashville, I think I
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: might already know the answer. But do you have a
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: favorite place to take a walk in Nashville? Is it
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: the Absolum Cemetery?
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: It is really is? Yeah, Hello, I'll walk there. Yeah,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: very cool.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Is it open to the public now because people walk
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: through it, they'll find it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's in the back of this field, one
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: of the only empty fields left in the Hermitage area.
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: And it's at the very back of that field.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll see the sign.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: So are these unmarked gravestones are they being populated with names?
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: Now? Are you keeping them as they are?
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: We're keeping them as and there's just no way to
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: tell who's who. The ones that are marked are absolute
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: and Catherine Mary Wolford underneath the tree to the right.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: We repaired that sign. It's you can see that it's
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: been gluted three but it stands about this tall now, uh.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: And then Mary Wolford under the tree. And we just
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: left that stone leaning up against the tree as we
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: found it.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: So but yeah, you can walk through it. And like
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: I say, there's some more growth. I got to get
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: up there.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we also wanted to talk about though I'm sorrying
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: how what crazy year it was. So also in February,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: I'm getting off the plane from San Diego and I
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: get a call from my friend Shantel Ogden. She's a
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: sink supervisor and a great songwriter and a great emo
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: shan I do, yeah, She said, give me a call
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: when you get a chance. So the next morning I
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: texted her. I say, you're good for a call. Boom
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: calls and we caught up. Because I didn't talked her
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: for a while, I thought, you know, we had once
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: she'd been on the podcast. I don't even she wanted
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: to be on the podcast again.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: She has no.
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you know this, but I've been
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: a sink agent for so long and I'm thinking I
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: can write these movies. So I wrote a Hallmark kind
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: of movie for Christmas called Music City missilete And.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I said, that's great.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: Shantell, She says, I think I got a part for you.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: I go meet, did you ever do any accurate? I said, yeah,
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: but it's been a long time. She goes, well, I'm
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: gonna send you a script. You just read this into
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: the phone and we'll let you know like, okay, so
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: I did, and Son of Again I got the part.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: So that movie launches tomorrow as we record this, and
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: it'll be available to rental by I believe it's Amazon
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: in Apple Plus, and I think eventually it's going to
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: be on the Faith and Family Network.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So very cool, congrat.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: I mean it was such a stretch. I got to
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: play a songwriter guy named Tom Martin. Now, the difference
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: between Tom Martin and me, Thom has had a lot
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: of number ones and Grammy at least one Grammy, which
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: I am because you know, if I did, I'd be
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: sitting right there that Grammy right there under my lava lamp.
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: So but anyway, no, and so that was a blast.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: So it's been a did I tell you it's been
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: a crazy year.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: It's it sounds like it.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're multi talented from podcast host, radio, hose, songwriter, artists, actor.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Now I got my own IMDb.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Great maybe Graveyard Diggery one of those things.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well day.
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much for being on taking a walk
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: Nashville today. I am definitely going to check out the
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: music video for Absolom. Looking forward to that album coming out,
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: and people should also go listen to your podcast songwriter Connection.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: So thanks again for having me here today.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: I am so honored.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you for coming to me.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with singer
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: songwriter Sarah Harrelson, and check out our other podcasts, Music
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Save Me, Comedy Save Me, and Taking a Walk. Available
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: your podcasts