Hank Cochran’s Hits; Merle Haggard Documentary; Joe Pug’s Arrival; Donna Beasley Reviewed

Patsy Cline had only two number one songs in her lifetime and Hank Cochran wrote both of them. The first, “I Fall to Pieces” was written by Hank and fellow songwriting legend Harlan Howard. When Harlan finished a song, he would throw the recording in a large box in his house and forget about it. One of Hank’s jobs at Pamper Publishing was to go to Harlan’s house, pull recordings from the box and pitch the good ones to artists. Harlan helped Hank finish “I Fall to Pieces” on one of these visits and Owen Bradley pronounced the song a hit after hearing Hank sing an a capella version. Patsy agreed to record the song after hearing the demo but soured on it immediately before the recording session and refused to cut it. The song was recorded only after Owen Bradley tricked Patsy into agreeing that she could record any song that she wanted if she would record any song that Owen wanted. Owen’s choice, of course, was “I Fall to Pieces.”

Cochran also discussed the songs “Make the World Go Away,” “Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me,” “Little Bitty Tear,” “Ocean Front Property,” “I Fall To Pieces,” “She’s Got You,” “The Chair,” and “A-11.”

“Billy sung a Merle Haggard song and he sung his big hit ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ and Hank was singing along in the chorus,” Cannon said. “He was so weak you couldn’t hear him, but he was joining in anyway. It was a very emotional evening.”

When the three performers stopped playing at one point, Mr. Cochran asked them not to leave and they continued. Their visit had come on the heels of a call from Haggard, so the men ended the night with Haggard hit “Going Where the Lonely Go.”

This great frog of a fellow beat me in the door, all Hawaiian shirt and flip flops and skinny white legs, and somehow I gleaned that this was Hank Cochran. He had songs to pitch — directly — to Ray Price, and he was as excited as a teenager, as if he’d never had a hit in his life.

Whether Under the Rushes has any impact with the general audience or not, it should be on the radar of the Nashville recording community, if only so they can pillage it for wildly successful cover versions [...]. Here Nashville, I’ll do some of the work for you: resilient Texas rocker “Heart Like a Wound” belongs on Miranda Lambert’s next album, and “The Little Things” is a classic Pam Tillis torch song.

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