SkiP HappEns Podcast
Skip Clark is a dynamic and captivating podcast host and radio personality who has left an indelible mark on the world of broadcasting. With a voice that can command attention and a personality that oozes charm, Skip has become a beloved figure in the world of entertainment. His passion for storytelling and his ability to connect with his audience shine through in every episode of his podcast and every moment on the airwaves.
Skip’s journey in radio began decades ago, and he has since evolved into a seasoned professional who effortlessly navigates the waves of the media industry. His deep knowledge of music, pop culture, and current events keeps his listeners engaged and coming back for more. Skip Clark's enthusiasm and authenticity make him a trusted voice in the world of podcasting and radio. His dedication to his craft and his commitment to providing quality content continue to make him a standout in the world of broadcasting.
SkiP HappEns Podcast
A Journey Through Country Music with Crystal Gale
Crystal Gale, the iconic voice behind "Don't Make My Brown Eyes Blue," takes us on a heartfelt journey through her storied career in country music. From her humble beginnings performing at local rodeos to receiving prestigious awards like the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1977 and 1978, and the American Eagle Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2017, Crystal opens up about the moments that shaped her path. She shares touching memories of her induction into the Grand Ole Opry, a special event graced by her sister, Loretta Lynn, and reflects on her family's significant influence on her success.
Crystal's passion for music is as strong as ever, and she talks about her busy tour schedule, including upcoming stops in Glen Falls, New York, and Rhode Island. We celebrate her enduring impact on country music and the authentic emotion she brings to each performance, which continues to resonate with fans across generations. This episode is a warm tribute to Crystal's remarkable legacy and a testament to her genuine connection with her audience. Join us for this special conversation with a true legend of country music.
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My name is Skip Clark 92.1, the Wolf in the Inner Harbor Media Group, and if you take a close look at your screen, she's my right, your left, the one and only Crystal Gale is here, thank you. Thank you, so awesome to see you. I do a lot of these interviews and I very seldom get starstruck, but I am right now in awe. You are absolutely stunning. You're beautiful. The hair over the, I mean you still have all that, I still have some hair.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you I don't know how it gets caught on everything.
Speaker 1:This is cool to have you actually come over. You are a legend in a lot of different ways. You were the CMA Female Vocalist winner in 1977 and 78, just a couple of years ago, you had the American Eagle Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2017. Does it seem like it was that long ago?
Speaker 2:It really just feels like you turn around and time is gone. Yeah, Because I can remember thinking when I was younger oh, 30 is old, Because I hadn't gotten to 30 yet. And then when I got there it was like, oh, it's not that bad.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. We don't worry about age anymore. No, we don't worry.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, hey, the alternative. So you know we're honored that people have listened to my music through the years and still listening and come out.
Speaker 1:And I love it when I hear some of those old songs. You know the one that you pretty much wrapped up with earlier Don't Make my Brown Eyes Blue and I told you before we went out with the lights and the cameras and all that that I played that I'm going to show my age here a little bit more. When that was given the radio to play and it went flying up the charts, I played that as it was climbing the charts and I had the biggest crush on you. I'm just saying look at, look at this woman. She's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2:Well, when that song came out for me, I was out on the road and I was working on Sydney Iowa at a rodeo for a whole week and they would pull us out in the middle of the rink, you know, and um, and we do our show and then it pulls back out, but people started. It was just a different atmosphere. When that song came I was like, wow, there I'm. I realized they must be playing this song. I didn't know what it was doing Cause you know you're out in the road and just busy and nobody tells you.
Speaker 2:No, no one tells you. I know I was honored, though.
Speaker 1:You kept an eye on it. Yeah, excellent, that went all the way up to the top and then it stayed there for quite a while, which was pretty, pretty cool. Tell us about your induction into the Grand Ole Opry. Your sister helped you out with that right.
Speaker 2:Yes, In October might've been. I think it was October, november of the year before 16, 2016,. Carrie Underwood came up the Ryman and I was performing and she wanted to sing Brown Eyes with me. So we sang that together and then at the end she asked me if I wanted to be a member of the Opry and then I was so honored when my sister inducted me into the family. I mean, that was really special and that was at the Ryman also, and you know that was the first place I performed. I actually was about 17 when Loretta she had gotten sick and Mooney talked him into letting me sing in her place, and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I just just talking about. I know, as a matter of fact, you were telling a story up on stage about your sister and all that and we had some people stop by the booth and they said I got to walk the other way, they had tears coming down. I mean, you and your sister just meant so much to so many people, the hearts of so many, it's country, the way country was meant to be, and the coal miner's daughter, I mean let's just you know.
Speaker 2:Well, we had some special parents and they were good. We have four brothers and three sisters, eight in our family, and my mother would have had 20 if she could have.
Speaker 1:Busy lady.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was, you know, she kept us together.
Speaker 1:How did all this start for you, though? Was it your sister? Or how did all this start for Crystal Gale?
Speaker 2:Well, I grew up singing. My mother said I could sing before I could walk, so music was part of my life and in Kentucky music was a part of everybody's life. They'd sit on the porch, play the guitar, sing, and you could hear them at the next holler. But it was something that I just loved and I know I would have been singing somewhere somehow, maybe just in church. But my sister got my recording contract with Decca Records, owen Bradley. He produced my first session yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And then it didn't take long for me to realize, for me to make it on my own, I had to find a label that believed in me and I was there because of me and not just being a sister of, and not that anything was wrong with that, but you know, you know you have to, you have to have the people behind you.
Speaker 1:You do, you do. Do you ever pull out the old masters and just listen? Or maybe you and your husband get together on a on a night where you got nothing going and you just kind of said, you know what, do you remember when?
Speaker 2:I have. I have listened to pulled out some demos that I had done actually for the Wilburn Brothers publishing company and they helped me. You know, go in the studio and learn how to work the mic in the studio and then that just gave me an extra part of my life of being in the business, being around the greats. I mean the Wilbur Brothers are so wonderful, I mean their harmonies were so special.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. I want to go back to Donut. Make my Brown Eyes Blue a little bit, because I have some notes here. It was recognized by ASCAP as one of the 10 most performed country songs of the 20th century. One of the 10 most performed how?
Speaker 2:does that make you feel I'll take anything?
Speaker 1:I love it all, I love it, I love it. And what about your duet with Eddie Rabbit? You and I, that was wow.
Speaker 2:Just you and I. Eddie called and said, hey, will you do some harmony on one of my records? And he sent it to me and I said, well, I called him. I said, eddie, I'll do a little bit more than that if you don't mind the answering and the verses, and it just all fell together. Eddie had already recorded the song Normally you would work together but he had recorded it and then he asked me to be a part of it, but you didn't do it together.
Speaker 1:No, so you did your part. One location Eddie did his part, I went to the same studio that. Eddie recorded, but you did it separately and then they mixed it together.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, they played Eddie's and then I sang, and actually I only that was really a first take. I only redid a couple lines. They wanted me. I had to match him a little bit better, so that was it, and I was just and those were the days, you know, when you can do that what do you think of today's country?
Speaker 1:because I mean, you're from this time, you know a place in time. That country was really like a country, if I could say that. I know it changes. Everything evolves. We, you know, I mean even with the Wolf, we play everything. I mean we go back to Alabama, we go back to Berks and Dunn, of course, who we're still touring, but and here you are, but still there's a lot of newer artists.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of new artists. To me, country music is so popular. That's why it's so many different sounds, that you're hearing so many different. Everybody wants to be a part of country music, from LA to New York, I mean, they're all just coming to Nashville recording a song to be country, which is great because they love it and it just makes it a bigger audience.
Speaker 1:Bigger audience.
Speaker 2:But that means you also have not the straight ahead country as we had before. But as long as they do not forget that Exactly and still play it and be a part of country music, then it's okay.
Speaker 1:I like that. You know, when Beyonce did what she did here not all that long ago, there were a lot of different opinions on that, but the way I looked at it, I'll tell you how I felt and maybe you will agree or disagree, but I looked at it as somebody coming from a different genre of music bringing their fans into the country format which could only make our format bigger, definitely, and and I look at that it was like Brown eyes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if they had not accepted me, my song was Brown eyes was number one in the cash box charts, number two, I think, in Billboard, and and it was like if they had not accepted me it wouldn't have gone over right, and so it's both ways, yeah, and so I feel lucky with that talked a lot about music, but the name crystal.
Speaker 1:I want to hear the story about how you got the name crystal, and I also know that I mean after fact. When you got the name Crystal, you had a Crystal shop. Yes, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Well then, crystal came from being on the same label as Brenda Lee. My real name's Brenda, so I had to change it Right and Loretta saw the name Crystal on a Crystal hamburger chain. She said I love that name, but she also said later in life she said it was a chandelier. It was named after a chandelier. But the Crystal hamburgers they're pretty good hamburgers Really.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of it. Maybe it was from back when.
Speaker 2:wherever, whenever, Well, they might not be here.
Speaker 1:Right, right, everything's kind of, but you had a crystal shop, correct?
Speaker 2:I had. We closed it. I'm not sure how many years ago, but we'd had it for 20-some years. I have so much respect for retail people. I mean that's not easy. It's hard work and it wasn't hard work on me, but it was hard work and everybody else, my husband especially. I just went shopped, you know, I know he's doing what all of us guys do on that phone he's checking his scores, his records checking his fantasy football maybe and all that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, see, Checking his fantasy football maybe and all that. Yeah, see, he's not listening at all.
Speaker 2:I know he's busy, bill there he goes. Okay Checking, okay Was that business, so anyway.
Speaker 1:So where do you live now Real quick, before I let you go, crystal, where do you live now?
Speaker 2:We live in Nashville, tennessee. You live in Nashville and we've lived there. Both my children were born in Nashville and you know it's a place to go to and be if you wanted to get into the business. And of course you know my sister Peggy was here in Nashville, my brother Jay Lee, and so we had family down there. So it was just the next step in my. We were in Bloomington, indiana, where my husband graduated from IU and then he went to Vanderbilt University.
Speaker 1:And where'd you guys meet, like in Nashville?
Speaker 2:No, in Wabash Indiana, Really Very nice. So in high school it's been love ever since.
Speaker 1:God bless you. Thank you, Crystal Gale. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know you've got a lot to do, a lot of places to go. Where are you heading from here? Do you get to go home or do you?
Speaker 2:No, we're going to Glen Falls Glen.
Speaker 1:Falls, glen Falls, new York oh wow, you don't know. And then Rhode Island.
Speaker 2:And then Rhode Island. Then you're home and then head out west.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, crystal Gale, you're a legend, you're a lifesaver, you are just a remarkable woman. I appreciate everything you've done. No, no, because it's people like Crystal and you go through all the different generations of country music. It's people like her that really put us in the right direction and you know the songs that she does, as you saw her do this today on stage and just so heartfelt and just it's real. I'm getting. Look, I get the chicken noodles. Look at chicken noodles girls right there. Yeah, anyways, everybody give it up for Crystal Gale. Thank you.
