Mourning A Stage Mama

kaineriggan

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Tuesday May 22, 2018 · 11:49 AM PDT

2018/05/22 · 11:49

Nashville, TN - Kaine Riggan and Rhondda Wallace appearing on the televised portion of the Grand Ole Opry.

Mourning A Stage Mama

Did I ever tell you about the time I almost didn’t make it on the Grand Ole Opry?

I was cast in a musical called “Smoke on the Mountain” at the Ryman Auditorium, which is like a Carnegie Hall for rednecks. But so much more. The history is infectious.

Gaylord Entertainment had us appear on the Grand Ole Opry (across town) as a cross-marketing effort to sell tickets to our show at the Ryman. For the first one, we would appear on the 30-minute televised portion of the Opry (which is actually the country’s longest-running live radio show).

Well, standing in the green room about 20 minutes before our time-slot, a producer brings us release forms to sign. It’s a typical release saying that the producer owns the right to use your likeness for this broadcast and any future re-use of the tapes.

Well, Bobby Taylor, who was playing my father (Burl) in the show, said, “I’m not signing anything my lawyer hasn’t had a chance to look at.”

Bobby had just had a major hit as a songwriter with “Hillbilly Shoes” by Montgomery Gentry. And given the nature of the music business, I’m sure he was right to be cautious.

But he was about to get between me and my first night on the Grand Ole Opry.

My grandfather, Willie T. Davis, died when I was four. But I have vivid memories of him sitting on the small back porch on an upside-down bucket, drinking beer and listening to the Opry on the radio.

My hometown newspaper (this paper, of course) had run a Sunday feature on this television appearance and my family and friends were watching.

I was, at that very moment, about to whack Bobby Taylor with my tightly-tuned mandolin.

Then, Steve Buchanan, the Opry’s head-honcho came in and said, “What’s this about signing the release, are there questions I can answer?”

Bobby argued his point, but how convincing can a man be in a depression-era mountaineer costume?

Buchanan (who went on to be the creator and Executive Producer of ABC’s Nashville) said, and I may be paraphrasing, “Sign it or Kathy Mattea is going on instead.”

Well, then, the room was quiet. One of those male-ego showdown-types of quiet.

And Rhondda Wallace, who played the stern-fisted mother in the show, said in the most calm and matronly voice, “Burl, we don’t want to disappoint the children.”

We all laughed, Bobby signed the release, and we were shuffled to the stage. In the most non-threatening way possible, and using character names, Rhondda saved the day.

And I felt Willie Davis’ spirit so strongly when I stood behind that WSM – Grand Ole Opry microphone and sang bouncy bluegrass hymns to a massive wall of lights.

I attended the memorial service of Rhondda Wallace in Milton, West Virginia on Sunday. She was 67 and it was complications from gastrointestinal surgery. At my best calculation, she played my Mama for 228 performances from Nashville to Vero Beach, FL.

The last time we worked together was Spring of 2014 in Wytheville, Virginia where she was the director and I had “graduated” to the “Uncle Stanley” role in the “Smoke on The Mountain” series.

I’ve always enjoyed having theatre work to fall back on when my business career didn’t pan out.

Rhondda had it written into her contracts as an actress and director that she could travel with her 30-pound cat named Zeb.

Now, that’s the kind of clout that’s earned.

This article first appeared May 23, 2018 in Riggan’s weekly column in the Henderson Dispatch.

Playing With The Possum

kaineriggan

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Wednesday May 02, 2018 · 8:55 PM PDT

2018/05/02 · 20:55

I worked at the box office for the Grand Ole Opry for my first job in Nashville after moving there alone at age 19. That summer, George Jones and Tammy Wynette were playing an early evening concert on alternating nights in an amphitheater at Opryland themepark. That was where I first met George.

George’s 1980 hit “He Stopped Loving Her Today” had been my grandma’s favorite song throughout my childhood. We would play the entire “I Am What I Am” 33-speed album in our lonely house in the woods in North Carolina and my beloved Virgie T. Davis would sing that particular song at pot-rattling volume. Her vibrato on the word “her” was at a speed that would challenge even Josh Groban.

I hadn’t anticipated that meeting the man behind the well-worn LP would bring back my emotions for my grandma’s passing when I was 12.

Every day I could, I would stand in the back of the theater wearing an Opryland uniform and listen to George sing his lifetime’s catalog of hits. As I stood in various places around the amphitheater, it dawned on me that none of the staff or security was very concerned about my “supposed-to-be-there” status.

So one day, I had planted myself backstage when George arrived in a golf cart at about 7:20 for a 7:30 show. Maybe they kept him someplace cooler. Do you think I said, “Hey George” or “Can I have your autograph”? Well, no, I stood there and cried like a baby as I watched him sit down in a folding chair and wait for his cue. I hadn’t expected that reaction.

I stood in the stage-left wing and watched his entire set.

Then, a couple of years later, I was working as a waiter in the revolving restaurant at the top of Nashville’s Crowne Plaza Hotel when my path crossed George’s again. On this night, we were closed for a private party for Don King, who was in town promoting a boxing event at the newly opened Downtown Arena.

Don King was holding court at the party, and certainly at the height of his fame. When, in walked George and his wife, Nancy. They were guests of Mr. King, who I would learn was a big fan of George’s music.

After a couple of hours, the upper echelon of the guests were seated in the lounge area and Mr. King asked George if he could sing a song. George responded modestly that he didn’t bring his guitar, which might have thinly veiled an “I ain’t getting paid” response.

Naively, I interjected, “I have mine.” He should have known that a waiter in Nashville wouldn’t be more than a pick-throw away from having his guitar. I made a habit of bringing mine on nights with private parties because we finished earlier and another waiter and I would stay in the restaurant and play music — he played the grand piano beautifully there.

As I tried to hand George Jones my guitar, he said, “Can you play ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ in G”? He didn’t even ask if I was any good. Although, you don’t really have to be to play “He Stopped Loving Her Today in G”.

I sang the brief female “oohs” section in falsetto just like I had for my Grandma when it was still in the middle of my range.

That night, George took a photo with me and signed the guitar — not on the front or back — but on the top side of the neck so I could see it when I played it. My dad had given me that guitar when I was a teenager playing at the VFW and The Factory.

This week marks five years since George’s passing. I met him one last time driving him home in a limousine years later. And it keeps running through my mind.

This article first appeared in Kaine’s weekly column in The Henderson Dispatch.

Lamar, Leibovitz & Letterman

kaineriggan

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Thursday April 19, 2018 · 9:33 PM PDT

2018/04/19 · 21:33

"Late Show" host David Letterman waves to his audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater after announcing his retirement in 2015.

At first sight of the headline, you might think this week’s column is a story about a law firm someplace up North. In actuality, it’s a memory I’d like to share with you from my years of driving limousines in Nashville, Tennessee.

The client I was picking up had requested a van, not a limo. The fact that we didn’t have a van in our new, two-car fleet did not stop us from booking the run. For the eight hour booking, I rented a van, added a Celebrity Limousines tag to the front, and waited at the bottom of the baggage claim escalator with a sign and a smile.

The sign said “Leibovitz”. The client was Annie Leibovitz. And her driver had absolutely no clue who she was, is or does.

Leibovitz’ work as a photographer for Rolling Stone produced some the most iconic images of the pop culture of my childhood. She had photographed John Lennon the day he died, Demi Moore naked and very pregnant and countless covers for Vanity Fair, who had hired her to photograph the 1996 Republican presidential candidates, which brought her to Nashville this day.

I was driving her and a crew of three assistants to former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander’s house on Nashville’s old-money-west-side. You may remember that he ran a tight race against Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes to try and keep Clinton from a second term.

I helped the crew load the equipment into the living room of Alexander’s home where he was freshly-coiffed and looking very presidential for his photo.

After the shoot, Ms. Leibovitz and her crew had me drive them to someplace I recommended for lunch and we still had quite some time to kill before their flight back to New York. So, I gave them the full music city tour.

This was before we could google from our cell phones, but I had figured out by the way her staff and the guy running for president treated her that she must be a pretty big deal.

She asked me if I had ever been to New York and I said, “No, but I’m going my first time this Fall, and I cannot wait.” She had already commented on how charming she found my Henderson accent. And by commented, I mean she said, “My God, where in the world are you from?”

She asked what was the first thing I planned to do in New York and I said, “Go see David Letterman”. She laughed so hard that I was sure it must have been an inside joke I had missed.

“I want you to take my card, and call my office when you get to New York,” she said, handing me her card. “I will make sure you get tickets to go see Letterman”.

I traveled to New York for the first time completely by myself that Fall. My friends had backed out, but I was determined.

I was much more educated about who my Nashville photographer client had been when I called her office and told the receptionist the story. She (the receptionist) called me back about two hours later with instructions for how to get my tickets.

She had me pick them up in her name.

I’ve always quite enjoyed arriving overdressed. This occasion was no exception as I arrived at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in coat and tie, walked to the front of a line of tourists in flannel and fannie packs and said with my head held high, “Two for Annie Leibovitz, please.”

This article first appeared in The Henderson Dispatch.

Directing Drama: Comparing Downtown Economic Development to Producing Theatre

kaineriggan

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Wednesday March 14, 2018 · 11:01 PM PDT

2018/03/14 · 23:01

photo by CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN - Henderson Daily Dispatch... Kaine Riggan in front of his office at the Downtown Development Commission in historic Henderson, North Carolina. The clock and firehouse were built in 1908.

Someone said to me this week, "Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Henderson is dead."

My immediate answer was about loving my job and appreciating time with my Mama and my family, some of whom are quite elderly. And my belief (and observation) that this town is on an upswing.

Anyway, it made me ask myself why I love having the responsibility of leading a resurgence — or if nothing else, a betterment — of my hometown.

I love being across the street from my junior high school, working in a landmark building and cleaning up the streets where I once delivered the local newspaper with my best friend. I remember so many of the faces from that route.

I love getting praised and cussed out within 40 paces by two equally passionate people. And possibly deserving both.

I really like good biscuits.

And peace, but not boredom.

And I love visiting my grandmas at Elmwood and Sunset when I just want to stand and think — and remember them.

But if my grandest passion is producing a show for the stage, what is it about this job that brings me that same passion?

It's the same thing. I'm staging a play. And it's called Henderson.

The set is awesome. It just needs some paint. And better lighting.

And the cast is the best part. Did I mention that it's diverse? It's a box office dream.

It's about race, and it's not — do you know what I mean?

Anyway, all these people are trying to make a living and support their families, and manage their vices, and the love stories are worth the price of admission.

One of the landlords is going up on the rent so there's a big musical number with a lot of stomping. The costumes are sparkly. The faces are beautiful. Did I mention it's diverse?

It has an interesting political sub-plot, but all the characters are likeable, so you can see both sides, and you empathize and maybe even recognize a little of yourself in them.

And there's a villain. There's always a villain. There must be a villain.

The problem with this production is the budget. I can make it entertaining on this budget, yes, but I can make it fabulous with a little more money. Maybe we need more sponsors.

I try to do the same thing in my job as I do directing a show. I observe and give advice to help people make good decisions without getting in their way too much. And when someone is missing their mark or messing up the big picture, I discuss it politely, or preferably privately ... ever conscious of the ever-present ego.

Now, all I need you to do is buy a ticket. If you can afford it, a season ticket. Here's how the theater business works: You buy a season ticket and they can afford to bring better shows — the ones you would drive to a big city to see. It doesn't happen the other way around, though. You first have to make the investment and buy the ticket.

And have dinner at one of our restaurants before the show. They will all be open prior to McGregor Hall shows. Walk from the restaurant to the theater. The more people see people walking on Garnett Street, the more people will realize it's safe to walk on Garnett Street.

We will keep it clean and attractive and safe. It's getting better every day. Come be a part of the upswing. Did I mention it's diverse?

This article first appeared in The Henderson Dispatch.

Dolly Parton's Houseboy

kaineriggan

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Friday March 09, 2018 · 2:11 PM PST

2018/03/09 · 14:11

Visiting backstage at the 2003 Governor's Awards in the Arts are, from left: Rich Boyd, executive director of the Tennessee Arts Commission; Dolly Parton; Gov. Phil Bredesen and First Lady Andrea Conte; and Ann Smith, chair of the Tennessee Arts Commission. photo by Kaine Riggan

For two years in my early twenties, I had the great honor of working 9 to 5 cleaning toilets for the person who penned that very tune.

Seriously, I was Dolly Parton's houseboy.

I had started a cleaning company (well, printed some business cards and put them on the bulletin board at Kroger) only two weeks earlier, and I got a phone call from Ira Parker who wanted me to come on a Thursday and give a quote for a weekly cleaning. She told me to bring some help, and plan on staying all day, if the price was right.

So I enticed two unemployed musician friends with $60 cash and matching Kmart polos to join me for a day's work. All I knew was that there were 23 rooms and it could turn into a weekly account.

We pulled into the pea-gravel driveway and parked beside the tennis court, as directed. The back door led into a beige, brick-floored kitchen where we were greeted by Ira Parker whose real hair looked like it could have been the inspiration for one of her boss' famed wigs.

I'll never forget the moment I realized whose house it was. Just off the kitchen was a very small office with lots of light. On the desk was a 5x7 photograph of the entire cast of Steel Magnolias seated around the film's director, Herbert Ross. This was clearly not a press photo, but a candid shot.

Suddenly, I realized I was in Truvy's house.

For the next two years, Dolly would remain my best client – every Thursday at her Brentwood house from 10-5 and most Tuesdays cleaning the bus, the office or the lake house. She also introduced me to Rhonda and Trace Adkins who became my Fridays.

The house had three floors with an elevator, a salon, a massage room with a hidden door, a game room complete with the first Dolly Parton pinball machine made and high-pile carpet which we raked with a carpet rake before we left at the end of the day so that no footprints showed. This was also very helpful for telling which rooms hadn't been touched all week.

Her Rolodex was, to my estimation, the most impressive thing I had ever seen – home phone numbers, in her handwriting, for James Garner, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, who at that time, she shared a New York apartment with, I was told.

When I started Celebrity Limousines with a business partner in 1997, Dolly shared several cards from that Rolodex and wrote us a letter of intent from her companies and pulled strings to get one from Sony Music which helped gain the financing for the first two limousines.

She remains the most generous and genuine boss I have ever had. Even though my favorite answer to her directives was often, "Reba would never treat us this way".

As her Imagination Library now reaches the children of Vance County, I'm in awe of what she has accomplished. In 2003, I produced the Governor's Awards in the Arts at the Ryman Auditorium where we honored Dolly. In the dressing room, she met then-Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen (Democrat now running for US Senate) for the first time and pitched him hard on state appropriations for the young organization while he giggled like a school-boy.

She then went on stage and told the sold-out crowd that she was so proud to meet the new Governor in her dressing room and she couldn't wait to "See if he's gone put his money where his mouth is".

In case you're wondering, he did.

This article first appeared in The Henderson Dispatch.

Gone Are The Whip-poor-wills

kaineriggan

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Saturday March 03, 2018 · 9:39 PM PST

2018/03/03 · 21:39

The Eastern Whip-poor-will is in decline, threatening to forever-change the underscore of summer nights in the South.

The logging trucks are hard at work hauling out the thicket of pine trees that have towered over the land of my childhood in Kittrell. While I understand that harvesting timber is a necessary part of the maturation process and the local economy, I can't help but notice that as the forest landscape has changed over the past three summers in the southern part of Vance County, so has the musical underscore.

The lonesome sound of the whip-poor-will that Hank Williams crooned about is gone.

I have fond memories of the Summer of 1988 when I was learning how to sing harmony for the first time and would spend hours finding the low and high harmonies for the male whip-poor-will's mating call. The faithful repetition of the nocturnal bird's song, as it turns out, allows for a generous sampling of vocal and whistle-tone free-style.

But it seems that since the trees have rolled out in mass, horizontal Peterbuilt parades, the lead singer has left the band.

According to the Audubon Society, the Eastern Whip-poor-will belongs to a group of nocturnal insect-eating birds known as “nightjars” because of their nocturnal habits and the jarring aspect of their vocalizations. Their name is also their lyric.

Its population has apparently been in decline for decades, blamed mostly on insecticides for diminishing its food supply and logging practices for habitat loss.

Whip-poor-wills perch on branches or sit on the ground where they fly up to catch beetles, mosquitoes, gnats, and a variety of moths. Relying primarily on vision, the birds are most active on moonlit nights when moths and other nocturnal insects are backlit against the bright night sky.

Following the lunar cycle, they lay two eggs on the ground, usually along the edges of a forest near a clearing. The male and the female take turns guarding the nest and the eggs hatch about ten days prior to the full moon.

Multiple studies have recorded the elusive birds' decline in Northern states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia and they were designated as a threatened species in Canada and Ontario.

According to these reports, nightjars, as a group, were found to be experiencing the steepest decline of all insectivorous birds and overall whip-poor-will detection declined 42 percent in the last six years.

Also, their thirteen-state breeding range is clearly shrinking fast as the Audubon's climate model projects this species to lose 78 percent by 2080, threatening to evict them from North Carolina altogether.

In 2007,the Center for Conservation Biology – a cooperative of the College of William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University - formed the National Nightjar Survey to collect current nightjar distribution and population data. The NCWildlife Resources Commission is a partner in this effort.

"On scheduled moonlit nights, volunteers conduct standardized roadside counts by driving and stopping at 10 points along a predetermined route," their website reads. "At each point, observers count nightjars seen or heard during a six-minute period."

There is also a great page on the survey's website (http://www.nightjars.org/learn/) that allows you to hear the calls of the eleven species of nightjars, including the Eastern whip-poor-will. You can also sign-up to collect 2018 data in your area as the birds migrate back to Carolina in the Spring.

This two-hour time donation could make for a romantic (and free) date night – just saying. Please remember to decline the ensuing snipe-hunting invitation.

Randy Travis bragged in song that a country boy's love is "Higher than the pine trees growing tall upon the hill, and longer than the song of a whip-poor-will." Here's hoping that song continues.

- This article originally ran in the Henderson Dispatch.

Delusions of Fame

kaineriggan

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Saturday March 03, 2018 · 9:26 PM PST

2018/03/03 · 21:26

A video monitor shows school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, center, making an appearance before Judge Kim Theresa Mollica in Broward County Court, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Cruz is accused of opening fire Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., killing more than a dozen people and injuring several. (Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)

The kids are doing it for the fame. Media has made fame the ultimate validation. And at that age, didn't we all desperately seek validation?

I heard this years ago in a discussion group in Santa Fe and thought it was a stretch. To blame mass shootings on the media seemed a bit like someone had passed the peace pipe one-too-many times.

But as I watch the news coverage and instant fame that comes to the troubled teens who commit these crimes, I can see why the copycat strategy has taken hold. We are rewarding their actions with the validation of fame.

My teenage niece would agree that I show my 43 years when I complain that she shares too much on social media. But to her, and most of her generation, I suspect, the number of likes for a social-media post often lays their next day's course of action.

In a recent press release from psychiatrists at Western New Mexico University, they call this the "media contagion effect".

"Recent analyses of media coverage followed by copycat incidents indicate a media contagion effect," report Jennifer Johnston, Ph.D. and Andrew Joy in "Mass Shootings and the Media Contagion Effect".

The report goes on to say "Most shooters desired fame and wished to emulate a previous mass shooter... Rampage shooters, who are almost all white men in early adulthood seek power and dominance that they perceive is their right, but perceive they are being denied, for various reasons, by society."

In this40-page report, strong evidence is presented to make the argument that "identification with prior mass shooters made famous by extensive media coverage, including names, faces, writings, and detailed accounts of their lives and backgrounds, is a more powerful push toward violence than mental health status or even access to guns."

We are hearing the discussion on gun control gain media attention, particularly involving assault weapons' accessibility. But if these doctors are right, we would be better-served to lose media attention on the shooters, themselves.

That would never happen from a legislative directive. Media outlets would be screaming the first amendment as loudly as the gun lobby is screaming the second. It would only work as a code-of-ethics paradigm shift adopted collectively by mainstream media to report the crimes but limit the attention on the criminal. A Gentlemen's Agreement among journalists, if you will.

Enter your own joke here about the likelihood of finding a gentleman.

Zeynep Tufekci, a UNC psychologist and columnist who writes about the intersection of technology, culture, and politics for the New York Times, has also been covering the media's contribution to the copycat shootings for a while. "This particular type of mass murderer is killing for the infamy," he said in recent tweet.

If I learned one thing in eighteen years of living in Nashville and eighteen months of living in Los Angeles, it was that people will do anything in the pursuit of getting famous. That has probably always been the case. What has changed is the role media plays in our lives – perhaps even the sheer volume of it. And to an eighteen-year old, this is the only way they have known it to be.

This most recent young man in Florida sought attention at school and was rejected, he sought attention on social media and was ignored. Was he seeking that same attention with his actions last week? Did we give it to him? Are we contributing to the delinquency of their delusions of fame?

-This article originally ran in The Henderson Dispatch.

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