I DIDN’T GET THE JOB AT OPRYLAND. SEVERAL MONTHS after the audition, though, I received a phone call. “Is this Jimmy Barber?” a man asked.
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“My name is Mike Whelan from Opryland Music Group in Nashville, and I was one of the judges at the Opryland Theme Park audition. I got your name and number off your application.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied skeptically.
Mike said he wanted to get together to talk.
“Uh-huh, sure.” I thought my friend David was prank-calling me. “C’mon, David,” I said. “Stop playing games, or I’m going to hang up.”
“Well, this is Mike Whelan; write this number down before you hang up the phone,” Mike said. He rattled off a phone number.
I wrote the number but remained suspicious. We talked further, and I told Mike that I was planning another trip to Nashville in a few weeks. “I could come by your office while I’m in town.”
“That would be great,” the man replied.
Before we hung up, I asked him to repeat the phone number one more time. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t David rambling off a fake phone number, and if he could remember it, then it might not be a prank call after all.
Mike Whelan immediately said the numbers again, exactly the same way he had said them five minutes earlier.
That was the moment when I thought for the first time, This might really be a music executive from Nashville calling me.
I ARRIVED IN NASHVILLE ON DECEMBER 16, 1996, A COLD, winter day, and checked in at the Best Western hotel near Music Circle, part of Music Row. I drove down the Row the evening before my appointment and found Opryland Music Group (OMG), a three-story, red-brick building with dark, tinted windows. I wanted to know where the company was located so I could be sure to get there on time.
The following morning, the closer it got to ten o’clock, the time I was scheduled to meet with Mike Whelan, the more nervous I became, pacing the hotel room floor and staring out the window.
I arrived at OMG on time, and the receptionist, Jamie Green, kindly instructed me to have a seat and said she would notify Mike. I was in awe of what appeared to me to be one of the most opulent office foyers I had ever seen and was blown away by the fancy surroundings and the magnificent marble floors. Shortly afterward, the receptionist told me to go on up to the third floor, where Mike would be waiting on me.
Once the elevator doors closed, I took a deep breath and said a prayer. I smiled and said, “God, I wish Bea could see this place.” When the elevator doors opened on the third floor, I got another shock. On the walls in front of me were framed albums of songs that OMG had published, albums by stars such as Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. I even spotted “The Hokey Pokey.” Seeing those iconic records on the walls made me even more nervous.
Mike Whelan met me in the hallway, firmly shook my hand, and invited me into his office. He was a stocky guy who looked more like a football player or a power lifter than a music guy, but we spent the next half hour or so discussing my music. He didn’t ask me to sing a note; he simply wanted to talk with me. “Do you write your own songs?” Mike wanted to know.
“Well, yeah, I’ve written at least five or six songs,” I answered naively.
A glint of a smile crossed Mike’s face, but he didn’t respond negatively. I didn’t know that most successful songwriters have written literally hundreds of songs, not six. But I was so clueless about the music business that I didn’t even understand the role of a music publishing company.
The meeting went okay, but nothing tangible was decided.
MIKE AND I KEPT IN TOUCH OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. He called me one afternoon and said, “I’m going to send you some songs to learn, so you can come out here and record them during your next trip.”
I didn’t understand why he wanted me to record someone else’s songs, but I agreed to do it. Every day for the next few weeks, I anxiously checked the mailbox, looking for the songs Mike said he would send.
Nothing. The box was empty. I called Mike dozens of times, and the receptionist told me, “He’s in a meeting,” a phrase I later learned was Nashville-nice for saying, “He doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”
Finally, several weeks later, I received a package from Opryland Music Group. Inside I found three songs, each one written by Skip Ewing. I dubbed those three songs over and over, filling an entire ninety-minute tape.
I listened to those songs constantly, day and night. I wore earphones to bed with the songs playing softly in my ears as I fell asleep. I listened to the songs while working out on the road with the prison work crew as I kept watch over DD White and the other convicts. Every time the ninety-minute tape stopped, I flipped it over and pressed play again. I learned those songs backward and forward.
On May 15, 1997, I was back in Nashville, at the Opryland Music Group Publishing Company. Mike Whelan welcomed me, and we walked down to the studio, where he introduced me to the engineer, Bill Harris. “Call me when you guys have finished recording the three songs,” Mike told Bill, “and I’ll come down to listen to them.” He looked at me and said, “Jimmy, I’ll see you later this evening.” Mike waved good-bye and closed the heavy studio door.
Bill Harris was a kind, patient, old-school Nashville engineer. He had recorded hit songs for all sorts of artists. He positioned me inside a studio vocal booth and went back into the control room. Once Bill got the equalization and volume levels set on the microphone, he asked, “Are you ready, Jimmy?”
“Yeah, sure am.”
“All right.” Bill pressed the red record button. I sang one warm-up pass so Bill could check his levels, then one take per song, and we were finished.
Bill called Mike and said, “Hey, Mike.”
“Yeah?”
“You may want to come down here and hear this,” Bill said.
Surprised, Mike responded, “Y’all are finished already?”
“Yeah, man.”
Apparently it was uncommon in Nashville for a vocalist to record a song that fast, accurately nailing the notes the first time, in one take. I didn’t know that most artists “build” a song in the studio, laying down the vocals one line at time, and it can often take all day to sing one song. Sometimes it takes even longer, until the vocalist gets each part correct, and if the artist never gets it exactly right, through the miracles of electronics, the engineer can fine-tune the vocal until it sounds perfect.
Mike came down to the studio and listened to each song. As far as he was concerned, we were done. “Let’s go to lunch,” Mike said.
We went to a restaurant, where Mike talked much more than he ate. After the meal Mike promised he’d call me to let me know what the other guys at the company thought of my voice and if they wanted to sign me.
THE FOLLOWING MONTH WAS THE LONGEST MONTH OF MY life. I was constantly checking my answering machine at home and looking in the mailbox for any signs that OMG wanted me.
Finally, Mike called and asked, “Jimmy, how much money do you make working at the prison?”
“I make about twelve hundred dollars a month,” I said.
“We can pay you two hundred and fifty dollars a week, if you’d like to join us.”
I could not believe Mike Whelan was offering to pay me for doing something I was happy to do for free. Better yet, he was willing to pay me almost as much as I was making by risking my life every day at the prison. I didn’t have to debate my next step.
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” I answered quickly, not even trying to sound cool, “but I’ll need to give the prison a one-month notice.”
“Great,” Mike responded. “I’ll get a formal agreement to you soon.”
One more month, and my life would never be the same—but not for the reasons I hoped.