What was it like working for Marty Robbins?
Pretty exciting, ’cause I loved his singing, and pretty funny. Oh, I enjoyed it, it was a big deal for me. Did he become a mentor of sorts? He was a great songwriter himself. He became a great encouragement because he recorded a couple of my songs. That gave me a little bit of faith in myself as a songwriter. So after being on the road with him for a year and a half I asked out [of the contract] and went to Tree Publishing company — which is now Sony ATV Tree — and got a writing deal there. Been there ever since. You’ve only had the one deal? Yep. Spent my entire adult life practically at one publishing company. When did you get signed there? Sixty-six. So that was really in the early days of Tree? Oh yeah! Who was there then? Curly Putnam ran the studio and was the songplugger. There were just a handful of staff people there. I don’t know, it just seemed like there was an open spot. Roger Miller was the big deal there but he had moved out to the West Coast. Buddy Killen signed me, and
