Grammy-winning recording artist B.J. Thomas rendezvoused in Nashville for his first album with indie label Wrinkled Records. The aptly titled The Living Room Sessions unleashed 12 of Thomas’s greatest hits like “Hooked on a Feeling”, “Eyes of a New York Woman”, “I Just Can’t Help Believing”, and “Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.”

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Thomas successfully straddled the line between pop, country, gospel, and adult contemporary in his impressive 59-year oeuvre, notching 46 charting Billboard singles. …

Tony Brown found himself playing piano on a Folgers jingle session that he’d been hired to do in 1983. George Strait had been signed to MCA Nashville for only a couple of years, while Brown was ensconced at RCA in artist and repertoire. Seemingly a flash in the pan introduction over coffee, a decade later Brown’s label boss Jimmy Bowen was lured away to Capitol. Strait’s producer’s transfer serendipitously placed Brown at the helm for an imperial phase of new traditionalist country smashes. Bookended by Pure Country and Love Is Everything, the duo’s studio partnership lasted 21 years, more than…

Short in stature but overflowing with intellect and determination, Elvis Presley sideman Tony Brown was bullied in school. Even as the third son of a fire and brimstone preacher advanced up the ladder into a MCA Nashville record label kingpin, his childhood tormentors were not forgotten. Vicarious revenge was attained through repeated screenings of Charles Bronson films. Serendipitously, Brown bumped knuckles with the twilight-approaching Death Wish action hero at a Whitney Houston fundraiser in New York City. …

“Even If I Hold It in My Hand [Hard Luck Story]” was conceived by the Everly Brothers during the 1967 sessions for their 14th studio album The Hit Sound of the Everly Brothers. Deemed too taboo for its suicidal subject matter, the song, accented by a mind-blowing, extended Glen Campbell guitar solo, remained buried for three decades until Rhino’s box set Heartaches & Harmonies [1994]. The exhaustive Bear Family chronicle Chained to a Memory [2006] tracked down take 10 [versus the previously released take 2] which eliminated Campbell’s solo for an unplugged arrangement preambled by cello. …

None other than Elvis Presley rode motorcycles with Mamas and Papas mastermind John Phillips in Palm Springs, heard a demo of solo debut John Phillips [John, the Wolfking of L.A.] before its April 1970 distribution on Dunhill Records, and wanted to record the Top 40 country rock hit “Mississippi.” Colonel Tom Parker vetoed the notion, indignant that his sole client would wanna associate with a damn hippie. The long-buried anecdotes originally emerged in Phillips’ best-selling 1986 memoir Papa John and were recollected in the liner notes of the expanded Varèse Sarabande reissue of Wolfking.

An unlikely teaming upon first glance…

That’s Tony Brown’s boogie woogie piano licks anchoring Elvis Presley’s final single “Way Down.” Entering the entertainment field as a Southern Gospel accompanist, by the nineties Brown had transitioned into a Nashville power player presiding over MCA and Universal South. His production credits range from George Strait, Vince Gill, Reba McEntire, Lionel Richie, to boatloads more. Prior to Barry Gibb’s reimagined duets LP Greenfields exceeding expectations with a Top 3 placement on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, Brown met with the “New York Mining Disaster 1941” song weaver at his Miami home. …

When not supervising Blu-ray commentary tracks for such action flicks as The Valachi Papers and Chino, two-time Charles Bronson biographer Paul Talbot found the time to grapple with the bullshit-eschewing Death Wish architect’s early sagebrush sojourns Empire and The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. That kindled a page-turning romp through other infrequently examined facets of Bronson’s 50-year career on a Tinseltown marquee. Ride back to the past chapter of the interview [“Scholar Paul Talbot Chronicles Badass Action Hero Charles Bronson”] if you’re just joining the rodeo.

“Do You Believe This Town” was Roy Clark’s overlooked July 1968 social commentary on covert rural prejudice, recorded several months before Jeannie C. Riley’s much-ballyhooed “Harper Valley P.T.A.” A nameless pastoral community is not as it seems. Town pillars, from the mayor to the chief of police, are knee-deep in hypocrisy. The church deacon “preaches brotherly love every Sunday, and forecloses loans on widows’ homes every Monday.” The final verse is even more scathing — “Do you believe they burned a house down yesterday…if the folks who lived there had a-known their place, they could still be hangin’ around.” The…