Mike Morin

After about 600 columns shared here over 17 years, I don’t have to tell you that I’m a quirky guy. Have I ever confessed in these years that I’m a sucker for those Time-Life TV infomercials? You know the ones. You get 15 CDs for 19-dollars a month forever, that also doubles as a reverse mortgage on your house. After 20 years, your house is taken but you have every song ever recorded by the Turtles, Animals and Bob Dylan. All that’s missing is Tom Selleck as host.

I’ve resisted sending money. After all, I spent 50 years getting paid to play all those songs, and on top of that, I like my house. But last night was a close call. I almost picked up the phone.

PBS ran a show called “The Legends of Country,” hosted by Roy Clark and featuring stars like Glen Campbell, Crystal Gayle, Johnny Cash and many more, with their hits from the 50s, 60s and 70s. It was a pledge drive to support PBS. I got hooked because the artists were the ones I played in my early radio career, and met a lot of country music’s icons who are no longer with us.

How many of you can claim to have been hugged by Minnie Pearl? I was 21 and worked at a country station in Detroit. I was nearly blinded when the price tag from her signature hat caught me in the eye as she pulled me to her. As a college student majoring in broadcasting, I probably would have preferred a squeeze from Stevie Nicks, but looking back, the Minnie moment was a special memory. I just didn’t realize it at the time.

One day at the station, the boss was away and I picked up the phone in his office and was told a country singer wanted to talk to a DJ…a common occurrence back then. Turned out it was Loretta Lynn’s baby sister, Crystal Gayle, who was just starting out. In 1972, nobody knew her and she was five years away from her big hit, “Don’t it Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” We talked for a long time. She’s a month older than me and, like Minnie Pearl, was a really nice person who enjoyed promoting her music by meeting the DJs who played it.

Maybe my coolest memory was meeting legendary Tex Ritter. I got to introduce him at a theater show in Detroit. From the wings, he watched me do some brief comedy before I brought him on. I’m sure I sucked, but he could not have been more kind. Forty years later, I interviewed one of his grandsons, Jason Ritter, son of the late actor John Ritter, and shared that story. I could tell he was touched that someone would acknowledge his grandpa who had been gone for many years.

I may have resisted sending $255 to buy the DVDs, “The Legends of Country” this time, but it brought back million dollar memories that made me smile.

Contact Mike Morin at mike morinmedia@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @MikeMorinMedia. His column runs the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month.

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