Ernest Tubb

"I'm just driftwood on the river floating down the stream."

We have movies now that are centered on the music of a particular artist, the Beatles, of course, and others, including one now with the music of Abba.

But I don't think there's been one yet for the music of Ernest Tubb. In the mainstream, the place we're all "floating down," Ernest Tubb seems to be about forgotten. I don't listen to country radio, but I suspect he's not on the average station's playlist. Ernest was definitely old school, and his school let out a while back.

I used to see him on some great Grand Ole Opry reruns on PBS, I think it was, some shows from the '50s (in color) that used to be on. He had a real simple style. Songs usually have a basic format, and with some of the country stuff the song's skeleton is obvious, even poking through. That was true of Ernest Tubb's songs.

On the show, he had a guitar picker named Billy Byrd. And you knew he was Billy Byrd because in nearly every song there was an instrumental break, and Ernest always called Billy forth with a lazy drawl, "Billy Byrd."

Country artists back then had almost a country preacher style about them. They were used to being around country folks, who liked to be thanked and assured that you were all friends and neighbors. There was a lot of this sort of talk between songs.

I used to have several Ernest Tubb 78s, some 45s, and an album or two -- I probably have some of them still, but who knows where. I think I even have an Ernest Tubb songbook somewhere; that one I believe I could lay my hands on. I used to have a cassette of his greatest hits, but I'm sure that's gone.

There was an Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville. And maybe it's still there.