Against The Grain

1. Against The Grain
Songwriters: (C.Jackson/L.Cordle/B.Bouton
Publishers: Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc. ASCAP

1988. A very good year for me. I’ve been in Nashville for three years. Carl Jackson tells me he has a song idea he would like me to co-write with him. Carl, session steel guitar wizard, Bruce Bouton, fiddle-great Glen Duncan and I, have a record deal with Capitol Records, Nashville. At the 1st writing session, Carl & I, together with Bruce, convene at Carl’s in Hendersonville, TN. Carl had earlier told me he thought we should ask Bruce to join us in the creative process, since we were going to be recording together.
At that session, Carl has a great melody idea that we are quickly drawn to. We begin to hammer out the first verse & chorus. We all think we are on solid footing with the lyric & adjourn after a long day, with plans to reconvene a few days later.
Before we can get schedules together to work on the idea more, Carl writes the 2nd verse & excitedly calls to read me what he has and to say hey! We need to get together to finish this song.
Bruce cannot make the next scheduled writing session but Carl & I get together and finish the song. It is not done in time to make the Capitol sessions but our deal with them falls apart anyway. Later, our publisher, (Polygram Int’l Publishing Co.), wants us to demo the song. Carl calls Vince Gill to play electric guitar on the session, Emory Gordy, Jr. plays bass, Bruce on steel, Glen on fiddle, Carl on acoustic guitar, Steve Turner on drums and I sing the lead vocal. It turns out just like we had hoped.
Thanks to our good friend, Bryan Kennedy, multi-gazillion selling artist Garth Brooks gets pitched the demo. Another great friend, Debbie Nims (Later Debbie Allen) makes sure it gets heard. Garth decides to record it & it goes on his multi-million selling album, ‘Ropin’ The Wind’. Bruce plays steel on Garth’s record. He asks Carl and I, to do the background vocals. The rest as they say, is history. Thank you Garth.