Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

Comment
on this story

Losers' Luncheon?

Mayor Victor Ashe, whose tradition has been to host election winners at a luncheon to congratulate them and welcome them to the official government family, is taking a new tack this year. Besides the winners, who've already been feted, Ashe has invited the unsuccessful candidates in the recent city primary and general elections to a luncheon Friday in his conference room on the City County Building's 6th floor. From mayoral runner-up Madeline Rogero to perennial loser Boyce McCall, they're all invited. The letter of invitation says the mayor wants to applaud their willingness to engage in the elective process and express his appreciation to all those who enter the public arena, including those who weren't successful. Since Ashe couldn't run again himself, he probably identifies with the unsuccessful group as much as those who won.

Preserving the Legacy

Jimmy Quillen was a thrifty man. And when the late Republican congressman from the 1st District in upper East Tennessee died recently, he left behind a hefty estate. His wife preceded him in death, and since the Quillens had no children, there was much speculation about what would happen to the millions Quillen had amassed during his many years of public service. One eulogist at Quillen's funeral—Zach Wamp—addressed the issue head-on, and took a poke at another penurious congressional representative in the process. "Zach said that Jimmy had decided what to do with all that money so it wouldn't get spent," recounted one GOP loyalist. "He willed it to Jimmy Duncan." Duncan's the also famously impecunious 2nd District GOP congressman.

Don Gibson, R.I.P.

Don Gibson died Monday in Nashville at the age of 75. Sometimes known as "the Sad Poet," Gibson was born in rural North Carolina, dropped out of elementary school, started listening to recordings by jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, picked up some guitar, and moved to Tennessee to work in radio.

All the obits in the national press have mentioned the one heroic day in June, 1957, when, dejected in a trailer after a repo man had confiscated his vacuum cleaner and TV, the 29-year-old Gibson wrote two songs destined to be not only country, but pop standards: "Oh, Lonesome Me" (recorded by many performers including, in the '90s, the Kentucky Headhunters) and "I Can't Stop Loving You" (which would be a major hit for Ray Charles in 1963).

The feat is legendary in songwriting circles, and mentioned in an R.B. Morris recording. Though some careless chroniclers have given Gibson's herculean feat a Nashville setting, we have it on good authority that Don Gibson's legendary trailer was just outside Knoxville—on Clinton Highway, in fact. Gibson was, at the time, an entertainer employed by WNOX, when the radio station was broadcasting from its relatively new headquarters at Walker Springs.

On another only slightly less heroic day between beer-joint gigs here, Gibson wrote "Sweet Dreams," later known as the melancholy Patsy Cline ode. Like most talented musicians, Gibson moved to Nashville, where he found deserved success, but he never had another day like the wondrous one in the trailer. Maybe it would help all of us if somebody would repossess our TVs now and again.