Country Music Month: The Texas Connection - Mac Davis

I was a Mac Davis fan the minute I heard, what was for me, his first song on the radio on KLIF, The Mighty 1190, in the early '70s. That song was Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me - a damn good tune. I don't know what's in the water in Lubbock, but it must be something good. Besides Mac Davis, Lubbock has given such superstars as Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings. That's a trio that Lubbock has so kindly shared with the rest of the world and we should be thankful for it.

Scott Mac Davis is one of my personal all time favorites. Besides his great musical abilities, when I saw him in a movie, he was so damn slick. (Audience shouts: How slick was he?) He was slicker than greased owl shit on a glass doorknob. I mean the guy oozed "cool". I remember watching his Emmy-winning TV show back in the day and it was a riot. Great music, some real funny stuff and, if memory serves me right, eefin' and eiffin'. One of my favorite parts of the show was when Mac let the audience give him a subject for a song and out of the blue WHAM! Mac would ad lib a verse that was flat funny. I tried to find some clips of the show, but my search proved futile. Dammit.

Not only was Mac a great singer, he was also a helluva songwriter. You might recognize one of these songs written by Mac - a guy from Memphis did OK with Memories and In the Ghetto. And let's not forget Don't Cry Daddy, another Mac Davis penned tune. Bobby Goldsboro also had a hit with one of Mac's songs, Watching Scotty Grow. The story I heard about Watching Scotty Grow was that Goldsboror wanted to record the song in the worst way, but wanted to change it from "Scotty" to "Brian" or whatever his son's name was and Davis said "No way, Jose. This was written for my son Scottyand that's the way it is". Bobby relented and it turned out pretty damn good for both guys.

In addition to the songs scattered throughout the post here are some other Mac Davis songs I really like:

• One Hell of a Woman    
• Stop and Smell the Roses
• It's Hard to Be Humble (with the Muppets)
• Hooked On Music 

I wish I could list all the great songs by Mac Davis, but that would take a while. I do have for your listening pleasure a YouTube page of them. Look around that page and a flood of memories will come gushing to you. Like Mac wrote, "memories pressed between the pages of mind, memories sweetened through the ages just like wine....sweet memories".