A little bit country

I grew up on the floor of a "country & western" radio station with a father who was an on air personality of the first radio station in California. In those days, my father was considered as much a celebrity by his listeners as the performers themselves. One of his main duties was as Master of Ceremonies for most of the biggest events and concerts and consequently he spent a great deal of time with many of the performers, and often so did I.

Two years ago at Christmas, I begged my father for two of his prized possessions, Willie Nelson's cowboy hat - that he traded Willie for (I was told it was because Willie liked my dad's hat better) and one of the Nudie suits my Dad had custom made for his MC'ing days - a beautiful black suit with big white stars and to my delight he finally gave in. I got to wear the hat to a Willie Nelson concert a year or so ago, and I have a few ideas about where I may wear the suit soon.

Recently, I visited a museum of sorts that has a bunch of Nudie's suits on display and other similar memorabilia that was like walking through parts of my own memories, reminding me of the many famous musicians and movie stars I got to meet when I was little and throughout my growing up.

Nudie became famous because of his work and became known as the "Rodeo Tailor" but he made custom suits (most flashy - some not) for the famous for many years, in fact if memory serves me correctly, he made all of the clothing John Wayne wore in his movies. I have been thinking about Nudie quite a bit lately and what a nice man he was - he was so kind to me when I was a small child. He had the coolest backyard, with a huge playhouse for his granddaughters, full size statues of horses that we could play on, a stream with a bridge and in the stream was little gnomes and frogs and such, it was a small country version of Disneyland for me. He made me a rhinestone t-shirt and let me play in the shop where I remember meeting the Kendall's who happened to have just hit it big with what at the time was my favorite song; "Heavens Just a Sin Away" (funny I had no idea what that meant at the time).

All that to say that I stumbled across his website today and it just made me smile, he is a part of a history that many of you may not even realize you have seen his work. Check out the site, there are some great pictures! Be sure to check out his custom cars too, there aren't too many like those out in the world and it sure would be fun to ride in one again, although I doubt I'd fit in the saddle anymore! :)

Nudie The Rodeo Tailor

To top it all off, I am heading to Nashville in 3 weeks, to complete the walk down my country memory lane - really only odd because somehow I have never managed to visit there before. I admit that often I am not a huge fan of much of today's country music, but much of the old stuff is so intertwined with who I am, I am practically a walking old country jukebox. I cannot wait to see the grand ol' opry, some of the local songwriting bars, and just soak up a little of the shared history!