A Texas newspaper story began with the words, “Faded country music star Johnny Rodriguez …”
Faded.
That hurt my heart. It sounded so brutal.
From the age of 12 to the edge of 15, Johnny Rodriguez was my girlhood crush. I was absolutely convinced that one day I would marry him and my name would be Ronda Rodriguez.
I sat in class writing that name in my composition book. I even took Spanish, which was a miserable failure. A Scotch-Irish Appalachian ear cannot hear and pronounce words outside our language.
Tink tries to correct me, and I attempt to mimic it. One day, he admitted, “You really can’t hear words that are different from your Appalachian language.”
As a sidebar, historians have told me there is a conclave deep in the Appalachians where only the King’s English is spoken. It really is a gorgeous, lyrical language if you listen closely enough.
Johnny Rodriguez.
He was a star from the moment he arrived in Nashville, having been discovered by two of country music’s biggest stars, Tom T. Hall and Bobby Bare, while singing at the Alamo — the full set built by John Wayne, who financed the movie about the famous battle. They were completely wooed by the sweet, soft tenor of his voice.
Tom T. took him to Nashville as his lead guitar player, then introduced him to the folks at Mercury, his record label. In Roy Dea’s office, Johnny sang two songs.
When he finished, Dea signed him immediately and then turned him over to legendary producer Jerry Kennedy.