On The Record

"The Hardest Part"

Aug 27, 2021

The Hardest Part is among the best recording work I’ve done, in my opinion. A song cycle, it traces the ups and downs and ultimate end of a relationship. Butch and I wrote all the songs together except for the hidden track, “Cold, Cold Earth,” which I wrote alone, and loosely based them on the couple in our heads, which was my parents.

Write what you know.

We were still living in that same apartment complex where we lived when most of the songs on Alabama Song were written, but we’d moved into a two-bedroom since I’d signed a record deal and had gotten an advance, which was more money than I’d ever had. We had a writing room! I paid off my credit card debt and student loan with some of the money, and had a safety net for the first time in my life with the rest. Things were looking up in most areas.

Through the critical acclaim I’d received for my first record, I all of a sudden had more creative capitol at the label. Tony Brown is directly responsible for “The Hardest Part,” in that he basically told everyone else who worked at MCA to leave me alone and let me carry out my vision, which truthfully belong to Butch and me both — if he hadn’t introduced me to what a concept record actually was, I might not have found out at such a young age. I had a lot of musical knowledge by then, but I discovered, through Butch, that most of it was pretty mainstream and wasn’t what all the art school students (he had been one) were into. I credit him and thank him for that — the art school tendencies he dug up in me blossomed and have served me well as a creator. Kenny Greenberg was on board again as producer. I’ll always be grateful — a record like “The Hardest Part,” was sort of unheard of in Nashville at the time. Marty Stuart (who also happened to play mandolin on “The Hardest Part”) was spending time in concept record territory with his brilliant, The Pilgrim, but other than that, art records weren’t really getting made on mainstream labels around town. I’m fortunate that they gave me enough rope and I’m lucky that I swung instead of hung myself.

I remember sitting in a green chair in our tiny living room and playing what I had of “The Hardest Part,” for Butch and Kenny Greenberg — they dug it and Butch, of course, took over the lyric. The melody and rhythm was already set and we decided somewhere along the line of collecting the songs for the album that it would be the first in the sequence — we had a much more rock and soul leaning batch of songs this time and thought we’d announce out of the gate that I had made another kind of country record but that it was a country one through and through, nonetheless — and it plus a few other songs informed everything else. As a song I find it interesting — that repeat of the last line of the chorus is a classic folk/country thing to do that I don’t think I’d done before and I remember feeling like I’d discovered something upon letting the song take that form. Plus, it always had a country rock spirit. I had spent a lot of time listening to what we called California country in those days — The Byrds, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou, Rodney and Rosanne, and of course, Gram Parsons which of course meant a lot of The Rolling Stones. Well, “The Hardest Part,” always triggered “Sweet Virginia,” (RIP, dear Charlie Watts) for me for some reason, so I started doing a couple of choruses of that classic at the end of “The Hardest Part,” when I’d play it live — not only for fun, but because I wanted people to know I knew. I always feel like if I’m going to steal, I’m at least going to cop to it.

Man! That was a hot band. Will Kimbrough on guitars, Mike Daly on pedal steel, Rick Schell on drums, Rick Plant on bass, Mike Webb on keys. Almost all of them sang. We went to Europe right off the bat and had a pretty smoking show — we played both Leno and Letterman and had a pretty great time together. Sometimes too great a time. I digress.

The Hardest Part set a course for me as an artist. It was an album that was purpose built, not one that was a random collection of songs. I don’t think I’ve been able to make a record since that didn’t have a theme, even if I was the only one aware of it. I like boundaries — they make my job easier and they also hone the message, or point, of the work and make it easier to say the thing I’m trying to say, which is always what I’m emotionally juggling. I’ve said it a million times — I make art from my life. I don’t always get to choose the content.

But I can control how I deliver it. And The Hardest Part, I see now, was my first work in memoir.

What happened on this record sonically was exciting and we forged a new path. We hired Don Smith to engineer the record because we liked the work he did on Tom Petty’s Wildflowers so much. And he was an amazing talent, rest his soul, and he and we — Kenny Greenberg, Jay Bennett, Russ Pahl, Michael Rhodes, Chad Cromwell, Buddy Miller — tracked the record at Woodland Studios. More on all of that as these installments go along. I’m supposed to be telling you about the first track.

If I remember correctly, we cut this around one microphone. I love it so much I can barely stand it. And what a chorus — I love the lyric on this one.

Personnel:

Kenny Greenberg: acoustic guitar

Allison Moorer: acoustic guitar (this was the first time I ever played on a record)

Rick Plant: banjo

Joe Spivey: fiddle

Marty Stuart: mandolin

Michael Rhodes: bass

Chad Cromwell: drums

Harry Stinson and me: background vocals