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THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013 UVALDE LEADER-NEWS 15
Kenny Rogers and Bobby Bare, to release a set of all new music, but Clement’s health issues have neces-sitated a pause in produc-tion.
If all goes as planned Rodriguez hopes to have the new music packaged and ready to ship off to record labels within the next few months, but that process might not be the hardest part of the jour-ney.
“I’ll be lucky if I get any-thing played,” Rodriguez said of his new music.
That has less to do with his absence from main-stream radio and more with the shift in country music and how it’s played, although Rodriguez said
competition with other artists, more artists than when his music was first out, will be tough.
“A lot of these kids are good,” he said, while going on to add that there is not a lot of variety on country radio.
Harkening back to decades past, Rodriguez invoked the memory of Johnny Cash to illustrate how the days of immedi-ately identifying the voice behind a song on the radio are over.
“I can’t do that any-more,” he said. “There’s some of it that I like and some of it that just sounds too much alike.”
For that reason he stopped listening to music altogether and chose to busy himself doing other things, like attempting to rope steers with friends in Texas or enjoying the solitude of fishing in Colo-rado, and only recently again reached out for that radio tuner.
“They don’t sound believable,” he said. “That’s the main problem I have with it. They don’t sound believable.”
COST OF FAMERodriguez has a long
and varied collection of experiences from which to pull from when sing-ing. His fast-moving life brought about by fame didn’t come without costs.
As high as the most exhilarating moments of his career were, Rodri-guez had equally drastic lows including an arrest for drug possession, a local murder trial – he was acquitted after a jury found he acted in self-defense – and a visit this year to the new Uvalde County Jail on charges of public intoxication after a pal left him stranded.
Even his moments of solitude are known to bring about harrowing
situations. In 2006 he was hospitalized in Fort Worth after being thrown from, and kicked in the jaw by, a horse he was riding while trying to rope an elusive steer.
Writer Austin Teutsch, who wrote “King George,” a biography of coun-try star George Strait, is working with Rodriguez to chronicle his life story. Teutsch expects the book to be available in Decem-ber.
In that book, Rodriguez hopes to shape what he wants to be remembered for – honesty.
“I want to be able to ulti-mately be honest about my life,” he said, adding that the book will focus on events that have shaped him, the people in those events, and the ideas behind his decisions.
Estimating he now per-forms between 50 and 100 shows annually, many of them private engage-ments, Rodriguez has placed emphasis on not overbooking himself, instead allowing himself some freedom to enjoy life.
Rodriguez is joined on the road by band member Gary Goss. Because travel expenses have increased he is not always accompa-nied to out-of-state shows by the rest of his band, which includes Leakey-area resident Tommy Westerman, Bruce Carter, Mike Hammock, John David Aultman and Randy Rheinhard.
“I’ve gotten to an age that if something else comes up that I want to do…,” Rodriguez, now 61, said, his comment trail-ing off.
That attitude is at least in part brought about by the discouragement and lack of motivation he felt after what he referred to as the “shooting business and all that stuff.”
Without elaborating on
that comment, Rodriguez talked of experiencing a gamut of emotions and how performing music didn’t seem enjoyable.
“I got really burnt out,” he said. That led him to dismiss everyone instru-mental in keeping a career going, including manag-ers, booking agents and spokespeople.
“I got tired of being on television, of people rec-ognizing me at the air-ports, restaurants and out there,” he said. “But on the other hand if I’m going to be in the enter-tainment business, that’s what it takes.”
Out of the glare of stage lights he has moved around, stayed with friends, and took an extended time-out at the home of de-facto manager MaryJane Losey in Colo-rado.
“I like being up there,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a whole different scene.”
TEXAS IS HOMEStaying in a small town,
reserving time to just sit and think, and sit and fish, Rodriguez enjoyed the quiet before heading back to Texas.
“Anywhere I go I always have to come back to Texas,” he said.
When asked about his hometown of Sabinal, Rodriguez paused before answering.
“It means everything,” he said. “I just don’t like going back and open-ing wounds. I stay out of there.”
Another former home of which he speaks with reverence is Nashville, but Rodriguez remarked on how much it has changed in the years since he first arrived with a little money and a big voice. Referenc-ing the influx of talented artists in recent years, he said the city has lost much of its intimacy from the
days when everyone knew each other.
Unfailingly upbeat, he spoke of his wish that he had written more during the height of his popular-ity. That said, when think-ing on his own music, one of his favorite tunes is the self-penned “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico” which went to number one on the country charts.
“I wrote that in about 20 minutes while riding in Tom T. Hall’s bus,” he said, explaining that he was recalling the days of growing up in Sabi-nal, spending time with his buddies, with whom he would hitchhike to Mexico.
Despite his reluctance to return, Sabinal holds many memories for Rodri-guez and in turn he holds in his heart its residents, specifically family and the late Evelyn Smart, who served as president of his fan club.
“She was one of the greatest people I ever met in my life,” he said.
During the 2011 “Home-grown Acoustic Country Music Concert” at the Janey Slaughter Bris-coe Grand Opera House, Rodriguez also gave a shout-out to his high school principal Charles McFarland, who was in attendance at the sold-out gathering of local musicians that included Rodriguez’s nephew Vale Rodriguez.
His nephew isn’t the only family member with whom he has shared a stage. His daughter, 15-year-old Aubry Rae, joined him in singing “That’s the Way Love Goes” during a perfor-mance last October.
“She’s been playing the piano since she was about 5 years old,” he said, citing her birth as the best moment of his life. “She knows how to play the
guitar.”Rodriguez is chagrined
that his daughter is inter-ested in the music busi-ness, an interest he hoped would not develop.
Other than the impromptu duet precipi-tated by her appearance at a show, Rodriguez has not heard her sing and hopes to delay further interest until she completes her education.
When that time comes, if her goal is to sing, he plans to support her fully.
“I know how it feels to want that, so I would be – I would help her as much as I could,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not what I want.”
That’s an attitude he said he took toward nephew Vale’s foray into music.
“The time he was trying to get in the business I was just trying to stay alive...,” he said. “I felt about him the same way I do about my daughter. I didn’t want him to do that.”
But if there’s anything life has taught him, it’s that people do not have much control over what happens.
“One of the Beatles said something. Life, it’s what happens when you’re making other plans,” Rodriguez said, adding that he was paraphrasing. “There’s so much truth to that.”
While there is a lot about his life Rodriguez remembers fondly, there are some things he could do without from here for-ward.
When talking about questions he’s heard time and time again over the years he referred to a tale told in almost every recounting of how his talent was discovered.
“Maybe that goat story,” he said, laughing. “I’ve told that one so many times I could do it in my sleep.”
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