Latest / Sid & Friends In The Morning / Lee Greenwood | Country Music Singer-Songwriter on the Return of the Lee Greenwood Signature Series — Bourbon, Whiskey & Vodka
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: God blessed the usay every rally. What an amazing song.
- 0:04Speaker 1: Lee Greenwood can't believe that song is forty two years
- 0:08Speaker 1: old already.
- 0:09Speaker 2: I read this today. I love this.
- 0:11Speaker 1: You know the opening line of tomorrow all the things
- 0:13Speaker 1: were gone. I've worked for all my life turns out,
- 0:16Speaker 1: I guess. And Lee can confirm this now that that
- 0:19Speaker 1: is a tribute to Greenwood's grandparents who struggled on the farm.
- 0:24Speaker 1: So with that said, I love this guy.
- 0:26Speaker 2: What are you doing.
- 0:26Speaker 1: I'm very honored that you make it your business to
- 0:28Speaker 1: see me every time you come to New York.
- 0:30Speaker 2: Thank you the amazing Lee Greenwood, Lee, good morning, how
- 0:33Speaker 2: are you talking?
- 0:33Speaker 3: Good morning? I'm great man. I listened to every recording.
- 0:36Speaker 3: It's interesting at trivia. You may not know it might
- 0:38Speaker 3: be important to you because you'd like country music. The
- 0:40Speaker 3: singer's on that. That's the original recording from MCA back
- 0:44Speaker 3: in nineteen e mcgoes.
- 0:47Speaker 4: Yeah, Old of My eighty four. Yeah, that's the Gatlin Brothers.
- 0:50Speaker 3: Oh No, Kidd's singing background, and they were on another
- 0:53Speaker 3: label at the time. They became my friends when I
- 0:55Speaker 3: first started touring in nineteen eighty one there in Nashville,
- 0:59Speaker 3: and I wrote of course USA in nineteen eighty three,
- 1:02Speaker 3: and I asked him if they come and sing one night,
- 1:03Speaker 3: and it was actually they snuck across the streets the
- 1:06Speaker 3: studio I was recording, and nobody knows that they were
- 1:08Speaker 3: even singing on that recording.
- 1:10Speaker 2: Wow, the Gatland brothers. So that's true.
- 1:11Speaker 1: Though that first sentence of that amazing song is about
- 1:14Speaker 1: your grandparents struggles.
- 1:15Speaker 4: It is exactly true. I guess. We were on a
- 1:18Speaker 4: sharecropper's farm.
- 1:19Speaker 3: We didn't have much land, maybe five six acres, and
- 1:22Speaker 3: had a lot of fresh fruit. I didn't find out
- 1:24Speaker 3: how expensive that was till I left the farm, by
- 1:26Speaker 3: the way, and they were unable to really make a
- 1:29Speaker 3: good living, so they had to give it up and
- 1:31Speaker 3: they built some apartments on the land that we had,
- 1:34Speaker 3: and that was the only way they kept make money
- 1:36Speaker 3: after that.
- 1:36Speaker 4: But I worked a harvester and the tractor.
- 1:39Speaker 3: You know, when I was very early with my grandfather,
- 1:41Speaker 3: his name was Jackson, Thomas Jackson. He wasn't my original grandfather.
- 1:45Speaker 3: I don't know much about the Greenwood grandfather, just that
- 1:48Speaker 3: you know, it was an early divorce and my mother,
- 1:51Speaker 3: who had to work in bars. When my father joined
- 1:54Speaker 3: the navy, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor caused a
- 1:56Speaker 3: divorce between them. At military families go through that a lot,
- 1:59Speaker 3: and she couldn't handle me and my sister. So we
- 2:02Speaker 3: were raised with my grandparents, the Jackson's and Sacramento, Sacramento.
- 2:05Speaker 1: Okay, But now you're in Nashville, Tennessee. And all my
- 2:08Speaker 1: friends Tommy larryn Riley Gaines, my friend Clay Travis, all
- 2:13Speaker 1: these great patriots with you at the very top, all
- 2:15Speaker 1: live in Nashville, Tennessee.
- 2:16Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 2:16Speaker 3: Actually most of us are south in Franklin, and there's
- 2:20Speaker 3: another little hideaway because a little further up in the mountains.
- 2:23Speaker 4: It's really beautiful. The kid Rocks got a place and
- 2:25Speaker 4: a lot of others.
- 2:26Speaker 2: You know, Wow, look at that area. That is unbelievable.
- 2:28Speaker 1: I've been there. I've been to the Grand Ole Opry.
- 2:30Speaker 1: I've been to the barbecues. I've been out to Vanderbolt
- 2:33Speaker 1: University in Nashville to watch the Tennessee Titans in the
- 2:36Speaker 1: NFL actually during their training camps. And I could live
- 2:40Speaker 1: there in five minutes. And I gotta tell you, as
- 2:42Speaker 1: you talked about with me, off the air, walking the
- 2:44Speaker 1: streets in New York City and seeing some of the
- 2:47Speaker 1: trash out there in the street. Now, talking about the
- 2:50Speaker 1: people and the mayor, you're just talking about actual trash. Nashville,
- 2:54Speaker 1: Tennessee sounds great.
- 2:56Speaker 3: Nashville was beautiful and we were taking care of our downtown.
- 2:59Speaker 3: We've got a great mayor now, and.
- 3:00Speaker 4: They tell you the truth.
- 3:01Speaker 3: I was walking the street here in New York yesterday
- 3:03Speaker 3: and I was just appalled to see the trash on
- 3:05Speaker 3: the street. I got out of a car because we
- 3:07Speaker 3: take ubers around just kind of get all the media.
- 3:09Speaker 3: Yesterday I had to step I had to jump over
- 3:12Speaker 3: it to get out of It's terrible.
- 3:14Speaker 2: And you love New York, right?
- 3:15Speaker 3: I love New York. So does my wife. She likes
- 3:17Speaker 3: to actually tour the street and buy a lot of stuff.
- 3:20Speaker 3: But we still.
- 3:23Speaker 1: So Lee back in twenty twenty, you put your name
- 3:26Speaker 1: on an American made bourbon, you'll handle the very first
- 3:31Speaker 1: bottle handed, I should say, the very first bottle to
- 3:34Speaker 1: uprunt President Trump in the Oval Office.
- 3:36Speaker 2: I did.
- 3:37Speaker 1: That was in December, and then nine months later it
- 3:41Speaker 1: all fell apart. What the hell happened?
- 3:44Speaker 3: Yeah, the Wolk crowd wanted to break us, and they
- 3:47Speaker 3: kind of they kind of did for a while, but
- 3:49Speaker 3: we have a new owner now to Soldier Valley Spirits,
- 3:52Speaker 3: and we're back up and running and the people just
- 3:57Speaker 3: absolutely love the bourbon, the whiskey and the vodka that
- 3:59Speaker 3: we have. And if you folks want to have a
- 4:01Speaker 3: little bottle of this, we don't sell any in the
- 4:04Speaker 3: spirit stores. By the way, it's only online. Lee Greenwood
- 4:06Speaker 3: Whisky dot com.
- 4:08Speaker 1: Okay, that's easy, Leah Greenwood Whiskey dot com. I mean
- 4:11Speaker 1: they even wants far the son of a bitches to
- 4:13Speaker 1: close down the Nebraska distillery that made year old Yeah, Omaha, Nebraska,
- 4:18Speaker 1: started by a veteran, and we serve veterans.
- 4:20Speaker 4: We give three charities. One is, of course, Tunnels to Towers,
- 4:23Speaker 4: the Solar family.
- 4:24Speaker 3: We absolutely love them and so we give us a
- 4:27Speaker 3: portion of the profits to them. Folds of Honor also
- 4:30Speaker 3: another great charity for scholarships for children for soldiers.
- 4:33Speaker 4: And we have our own called Helping a Hero.
- 4:35Speaker 3: We build homes for wounded bowyers, over two hundred homes
- 4:38Speaker 3: in fifteen twenty years and we're going to continue doing that.
- 4:40Speaker 3: So there's several other charities we serve, but this this
- 4:43Speaker 3: bourbon we had a run off in Kentucky, we won.
- 4:48Speaker 4: This is the best possible bourbon. You got to test it,
- 4:51Speaker 4: try it, buy it for a soldier. A soldier would
- 4:53Speaker 4: love to have it.
- 4:54Speaker 1: You know.
- 4:54Speaker 4: It's a moment of good feeling.
- 4:56Speaker 2: That's all that.
- 4:57Speaker 1: I love that, and you know I notice that. And
- 4:59Speaker 1: Tunnel Towers is the best. There's no doubt. In Francela
- 5:02Speaker 1: loves you. But you know you're doing stuff with the soldiers.
- 5:05Speaker 1: We've got our friend, the amazing actor Gary Sonise.
- 5:08Speaker 4: I love Gary.
- 5:09Speaker 1: He's great too. There's a loup ross soldiers. It's nice
- 5:11Speaker 1: to see Lee.
- 5:12Speaker 2: Other people get involved with me.
- 5:13Speaker 3: By the way, Gary, if you haven't seen it yet,
- 5:15Speaker 3: garrisone is narrating the film about nine to eleven.
- 5:18Speaker 2: Oh he is.
- 5:19Speaker 4: Yeah, you need to see that, folks.
- 5:20Speaker 2: When is that coming out?
- 5:21Speaker 4: It's already out, Oh it is. You can find it online.
- 5:23Speaker 4: Is that?
- 5:24Speaker 2: I know?
- 5:24Speaker 4: What can be the title of it?
- 5:26Speaker 2: We'll get it.
- 5:26Speaker 4: Of course.
- 5:27Speaker 3: It's a description about nine to eleven. Of course we
- 5:28Speaker 3: have the twenty fifth anniversary coming up. I will be
- 5:31Speaker 3: here in New York.
- 5:31Speaker 2: Oh you will be here. Oh yeah, Well let me
- 5:33Speaker 2: get to that in a second.
- 5:34Speaker 1: First, I just want to let people know that while
- 5:36Speaker 1: you're talking about how great the bourbon is.
- 5:38Speaker 2: That you make bourbon, whiskey and vodka.
- 5:41Speaker 4: And look at you and see interesting.
- 5:44Speaker 3: The whiskey and vodka are easier to distill and get
- 5:46Speaker 3: out into the market, quicker bourbon takes six years. So
- 5:50Speaker 3: we have a stash now waiting since the new owners
- 5:53Speaker 3: have taken over, and we're ready to sell it.
- 5:55Speaker 4: So that's why we're here.
- 5:56Speaker 1: This is such a great story too, Lee, because you know, again,
- 5:59Speaker 1: I think you're one of the great patriots, and the
- 6:01Speaker 1: President agrees, and.
- 6:02Speaker 2: You just thought.
- 6:03Speaker 1: And to see an American brand which was dead by
- 6:07Speaker 1: no bolt of your own, three different presidents fourteen years.
- 6:11Speaker 1: You did all you could to help promote this country
- 6:13Speaker 1: and they killed it. But to see an American brand
- 6:16Speaker 1: back again, that's a great story. This is a great
- 6:19Speaker 1: comeback story.
- 6:20Speaker 3: Well we love that, don't we. We love people come
- 6:22Speaker 3: up from the ashes as the roses of success. That's
- 6:24Speaker 3: how it goes. I'm proud to tell people about it.
- 6:27Speaker 3: And legerin with whiskey dot Com has really done well.
- 6:30Speaker 3: By the way, if you can't see it because we're
- 6:32Speaker 3: on radio here, this is a bottle that looks.
- 6:34Speaker 4: Like a World War two canteen it does.
- 6:36Speaker 3: A soldier used to carry that and have a little
- 6:38Speaker 3: water when they're deployed on the ground, they have no
- 6:41Speaker 3: way to get water, so we thought that'd be a
- 6:43Speaker 3: nice replica. It has six on it means I got
- 6:45Speaker 3: your back, and it has a little dog tag on
- 6:47Speaker 3: it with LG on it.
- 6:48Speaker 4: That's kind of cool.
- 6:48Speaker 2: It is very cool. I have to say.
- 6:50Speaker 1: Just the packaging looks looks amazing. And you did mention
- 6:53Speaker 1: nine to eleven. Yeah, so I was on the here
- 6:56Speaker 1: that day with a guy named don I miss You
- 6:58Speaker 1: remember him?
- 6:58Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, of course you do.
- 7:00Speaker 1: So the night before, the Giants had played the Broncos
- 7:03Speaker 1: Monday Night Football. This was September tenth. They rewarded the
- 7:07Speaker 1: Giants who got killed in the Super Bowl by the
- 7:09Speaker 1: Baltimore Ravens the next year with a Monday night game
- 7:11Speaker 1: and the Giants got killed again by Brian Greasy and
- 7:14Speaker 1: the Denver Broncos. And they flew back to Newark Airport
- 7:17Speaker 1: the next morning. And my old buddy Jim Bosselo was
- 7:19Speaker 1: the coach of the Giants. He was a great Patriot too.
- 7:22Speaker 1: He actually said that as they were pulling into the
- 7:25Speaker 1: terminal that United flight ninety three was heading towards a runway,
- 7:29Speaker 1: and we know what happened there in Pennsylvania, he said,
- 7:32Speaker 1: Sid I would go to work every day to watch
- 7:34Speaker 1: film with the Giants, and the same cars were there
- 7:38Speaker 1: all day and all night because those people died balking
- 7:41Speaker 1: their car.
- 7:42Speaker 2: Rible.
- 7:42Speaker 1: But the other big sports story from that time was
- 7:46Speaker 1: that the Yankees went to the World Series. Now we
- 7:48Speaker 1: know they suffered a brutal loss, the one bad played
- 7:52Speaker 1: by the amazing Marianna Rover in his whole career, and
- 7:55Speaker 1: they lost to Arizona.
- 7:56Speaker 4: But it went seven games.
- 7:57Speaker 2: They won seven. But let me take it back to
- 7:58Speaker 2: Game four.
- 8:00Speaker 1: I believe Game four, Lee Greenwood, the great Lee Greenwood,
- 8:03Speaker 1: you sang that amazing song at Yankee Stadium.
- 8:07Speaker 3: Right, you know, And I talk about looking at the film,
- 8:09Speaker 3: I do look back at that and it was a
- 8:11Speaker 3: cold day.
- 8:11Speaker 4: By the way, I was very somber.
- 8:13Speaker 3: I see me walking out on field, and I've got
- 8:16Speaker 3: these black gloves on my hand because I was so cold,
- 8:19Speaker 3: and I don't sing well when my hands get cold,
- 8:21Speaker 3: and so that was the only regret. I wish I
- 8:23Speaker 3: didn't have those gloves on, but I was very somber.
- 8:25Speaker 3: I wore the red white and blue leather jacket and
- 8:28Speaker 3: the reason and people said, you can't wear America's colors
- 8:30Speaker 3: and clothing if you remember that time, and and like, well,
- 8:33Speaker 3: this time I am. I want the rest of the world,
- 8:36Speaker 3: A billion people are gonna watch me on TV sing.
- 8:38Speaker 3: I want them to know America's not on its knees.
- 8:40Speaker 3: We're wearing our colors and we're coming for you. Those
- 8:43Speaker 3: people who sent those planes into the trade towers. So
- 8:46Speaker 3: it was a it was a big moment. I was
- 8:49Speaker 3: I've got a chearful thinking about it at the moment.
- 8:51Speaker 3: How many people had lost. Three thousand people lost their
- 8:53Speaker 3: their lives in the trade towers. And I'm like, I'm
- 8:56Speaker 3: determined to sing this without without cheering up.
- 8:58Speaker 1: You know that's sweet, No, I know it was. I
- 9:01Speaker 1: remember seeing those people with signs in the stadium. They
- 9:04Speaker 1: were they were actually families of victims.
- 9:06Speaker 4: We did Fireman's Memorial Yankee Stadium.
- 9:09Speaker 3: First three hundred firemen were killed, and it was Mark
- 9:13Speaker 3: Anthony sang America. The beautiful Bette Midler did the wind
- 9:16Speaker 3: beneath my wings, and I sang, God bless you. We
- 9:18Speaker 3: say we were written the dugout hugging each other and
- 9:21Speaker 3: crying before I went on stage, and my wife Kim
- 9:25Speaker 3: was there. And then we did the police the memorial
- 9:27Speaker 3: for Bernard Kirig, who was the police commissioner. We just
- 9:30Speaker 3: lost him, unfortunately, and he put that together. That was
- 9:34Speaker 3: at Carnegie Hall, and then of course we would come
- 9:36Speaker 3: back to New York and work at the Stock Exchange
- 9:38Speaker 3: every year.
- 9:39Speaker 4: To honor the families and the kids. We were singing
- 9:42Speaker 4: that that first Christmas.
- 9:43Speaker 3: We're on a poldium outside of the Stock Exchange on
- 9:46Speaker 3: the street, snipers on the buildings, you know, just for protection,
- 9:49Speaker 3: and they funneled these little kids upon stage. Well, how
- 9:52Speaker 3: nice to have a little audience as we sing some
- 9:54Speaker 3: Christmas songs. He said, oh no, every one of these
- 9:56Speaker 3: is an orphan. They lost kids and parents in the
- 9:58Speaker 3: tree towers. So it just continued to be and we
- 10:01Speaker 3: did that for four or five years and it got
- 10:03Speaker 3: a little better. It got a little better every year.
- 10:05Speaker 3: He see a little bit more optimism about people and
- 10:08Speaker 3: not another terrorist attack. Make no mistake, folks, The reason
- 10:11Speaker 3: we didn't have another terrorist stack in New York or
- 10:13Speaker 3: anywhere else in this country because our soldiers went to
- 10:16Speaker 3: war to find the terrorists and they did one hundred percent.
- 10:18Speaker 1: Also the NYPD, the FBI, people like Ray Kelly over
- 10:21Speaker 1: the years, but you're a hundred percent right. We went,
- 10:23Speaker 1: we found these guys. So we've got a big galo
- 10:26Speaker 1: again this year. WABC happens to fall on that night
- 10:29Speaker 1: you sang last year, love to have you back this year,
- 10:31Speaker 1: I would well come, Oh good, because it's on that
- 10:33Speaker 1: night nine to eleven. The name of the the movie
- 10:36Speaker 1: is the heroism and resiliency of nine to eleven, from
- 10:39Speaker 1: tragedy to triumph.
- 10:40Speaker 4: That's so tragedy to try the you go so that
- 10:43Speaker 4: night we got the ABC dollar.
- 10:44Speaker 2: If you're there, that would just make it great. It
- 10:46Speaker 2: would never be great.
- 10:47Speaker 1: But during the daytime, you're going to be down at
- 10:49Speaker 1: the actual site.
- 10:50Speaker 2: Is that what you're doing.
- 10:51Speaker 3: They're putting the schedule together now, and that'll bit the
- 10:53Speaker 3: pleasure of the president. Of course, I'll probably be in
- 10:55Speaker 3: Dallas the night before we have an event there as well,
- 10:58Speaker 3: be with you on the tenth the and see we'll
- 11:00Speaker 3: be there, yeah, and then it's supposably to fly into
- 11:03Speaker 3: the city here the next morning, so I we'll see.
- 11:05Speaker 2: That's going to be a hect a couple of days.
- 11:07Speaker 2: And I remember you being with I was with you
- 11:09Speaker 2: in Milwaukee.
- 11:10Speaker 3: For the Milwaukee let me tell you, you know, I
- 11:13Speaker 3: had no idea and that this is the musical thing.
- 11:16Speaker 3: This kind of just give you a little trivia. The
- 11:18Speaker 3: band was playing live there, worked for me for ten
- 11:21Speaker 3: years when we did our USO tours, when I met
- 11:24Speaker 3: my wife on a USO tour, And they're called six
- 11:26Speaker 3: Wire now and they tour around three of the guys
- 11:29Speaker 3: from Texas, one from Alabama, one from Indiana, and they
- 11:33Speaker 3: know how to sing, how to play my song God
- 11:35Speaker 3: Bless you U, I say, which I was asked to sing.
- 11:37Speaker 3: When the President elect, who wasn't president yet, it wasn't
- 11:41Speaker 3: elect walk in the building with a big bandage on
- 11:43Speaker 3: his right ear. We'd got shot in Butler and so
- 11:46Speaker 3: it was a moment when I had I was given
- 11:48Speaker 3: the freedom to introduce the president to this point. They
- 11:51Speaker 3: could have been anyone, they could have chosen any political
- 11:54Speaker 3: pundit to do that, and they said, Lee, just speak
- 11:56Speaker 3: from your heart. And I had no script. And so
- 11:58Speaker 3: when he walked into tunnel, I told the band, I said,
- 12:01Speaker 3: you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk,
- 12:02Speaker 3: So don't play the ending of the song just keep going.
- 12:05Speaker 3: And I waited until the President very cautiously, confidently walked
- 12:10Speaker 3: to his spot, and the audience is going crazy, you know,
- 12:13Speaker 3: applauding his courage, his fight.
- 12:16Speaker 2: You know.
- 12:16Speaker 3: I was it to be there, and I'm watching his son.
- 12:18Speaker 3: I'm watching Junior in order to get eye contact when
- 12:21Speaker 3: the moment to finish the song, because I didn't want
- 12:24Speaker 3: to do it prematurely and I didn't want to end
- 12:26Speaker 3: before he was in place. So there's a little bit
- 12:27Speaker 3: of a timing there to that. And had I not
- 12:30Speaker 3: had six fire with me, wouldn't been able to have
- 12:31Speaker 3: done that.
- 12:32Speaker 2: So amazing.
- 12:33Speaker 3: Yeah, So we finished, and I see the poster here
- 12:35Speaker 3: in your in your office, uh here in the studio
- 12:37Speaker 3: with the Milwaukee that was That was fantastic.
- 12:40Speaker 2: That was an amazing week.
- 12:41Speaker 1: And you I was there for your performance and you're
- 12:43Speaker 1: always amazing. Come on, you're the best, you really are
- 12:46Speaker 1: and driven to TEARI is actually moments ago.
- 12:48Speaker 2: That was that was true. That was not It wasn't rehearsed.
- 12:51Speaker 1: And that's how Lie Grimwood feels about nine to eleven
- 12:54Speaker 1: in American and all of our great heroes. He's just
- 12:57Speaker 1: that terrific of a guy. So on the way out
- 12:59Speaker 1: one more time. Let's people know where they can get
- 13:01Speaker 1: this amazing bourbon and whiskey and Vodko all.
- 13:04Speaker 2: That good stuff.
- 13:05Speaker 4: That's it.
- 13:05Speaker 1: Come back year.
- 13:07Speaker 3: Lead, We're back. It's bourbon, whiskey, vodka. It's Lee Greenwood
- 13:10Speaker 3: Whiskey dot com. Lee Greenwood Whiskey dot com. That's really easy.
- 13:13Speaker 3: Get some and if you, if you taste it, you
- 13:16Speaker 3: really like it.
- 13:16Speaker 4: And I know you are. Buy one for a soldier.
- 13:19Speaker 1: I love that idea and I will see you hopefully
- 13:21Speaker 1: nine to eleven.
- 13:22Speaker 3: That for the anniversary of nine to eleven, right here
- 13:25Speaker 3: in the city. Thank you, Thank you green God bless
- 13:27Speaker 3: you man.
- 13:27Speaker 1: Then, Oh God bless you. Every time you come to
- 13:29Speaker 1: New York you'll find you.
- 13:30Speaker 2: One of these dudos. I appreciate you.
- 13:31Speaker 4: I will be here.
- 13:32Speaker 2: You're a great man. Thank you, Thanks my.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Man, Lee Greenwood. God blessed to you. Stay hosting that
- 13:36Speaker 1: for us on nine to eleven. I guarantee it.
- 13:38Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to Sit In Friends in the Morning.
- 13:42Speaker 5: You can hear Sit in Friends in the Morning weekday mornings.
- 13:45Speaker 2: It's six.
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- 14:03Speaker 5: and X see you next time for a new episode
- 14:06Speaker 5: so you never have to wonder what the heck
- 14:08Speaker 2: Is going on here