406-245-0734

The Western Way Magazine

Story by Rick Huff

Courtesy of Western Way Magazine

Fall 2003
 

So I'm on the horn with ...y'know, TJ Casey? You probably know him. I mean he is getting airplay for his CD "Blue Montana Skies"

on over 500 stations. (No kiddin'!) 'Course I feel I know him well enough to be on a first initial basis. "Actually around our place he's

"Teej" like O.J. Sikes has become "Ohj.") Anyway I'm talkin' to him on the phone since I do this column on Western Music

broadcasting success stories and I SOMEHOW get the feeling "Teej" just might be one.

Here's the preamble that fortified Casey's constitution. Being taught his first three guitar chords at age 5 by his Mom, TJ initially

tried 'em on Western songs - "Red River Valley" and the like. He entered his poetic phase at 14. Songwriting too - about the

surrounding sagebrush and trees and wind and snow... "I won't say they were good songs'" TJ laughs' "but they were decent."

As he grew so did his performing skills. He recalls his mid-teens found him "playing behind the chutes at rodeos, at brandings, small

honky-tonks, anywhere they'd let me set up and play for tips or whatever." More developed songs, a well-developed sense of wanderlust

and Lefty Frizzell's lead guitarist Abe Mulkey hauling him outta town "propelled" him to Nashville at age 18. Was TJ ready???!!!! "Abe was

ready to get me signed up with one of the biggest booking agents in the business. It all about scared me half to death!!" So the young

man did go West, at a dead run, next entering all kinds of national and international performing and writing contests, taking 32 trophies

 and awards across the course of just four years "all because somebody said I should do that kind of stuff to be where it's at!" But "at"

still wasn't where TJ Casey wanted to be.

Fast forward through Bakersfield bars, returning home, returning to Nashville and songwriter nights, returning West, appearing at poetry

fests, nearly freezing to death sleeping in his "76 Ford in minus 32-degree Elko, only being thawed when Riders in the Sky hero Ranger Doug

offered him the use of the band's vacated hotel room... and even past yet another opportunity that might have been pursued when music

producing giant Jimmy Bowen once proposed backing for a record deal to Casey. "I just didn't ever do it," he muses.

So now I'm on the phone with TJ because I do this column on Western Music broadcasting success stories and his CD "Blue Montana

Skies" is getting airplay on 500 radio stations! A Grand Canyon-sized skip? Not really, because along the winding trail... besides the saddle

sores and good stories... he's picked up some real good ways to get from "here" to "there." As TJ Sez on: PROFESSIONALISM: "I started

 doing concerts and then did an album in 1986 in a sort of back bedroom 4-track studio in Lincoln, Nebraska. The owner/engineer played

back-up guitar and his wife provided standup bass. It came out on cassette and was okay for what it was, but I'd never submit it to radio

stations today. Some people still do that and expect airplay and it ain't gonna happen." INSTRUMENTATION: "Most Western singers

don't have the reverb and fancy effects "even if we wanted 'em". We just have our voices and that's what the people listen to - who we

 are and what we are. But going the extra distance and money to enhance what we do is absolutely necessary to get on the radio. I'm

not talking Nashville formula here, but professional musicians, professional mastering, even possible digital enhancement will all pay off

if you bring enough talent and ability to the table yourself. PROMOTION: "We paid a promoter for 14 weeks of pushing when "Blue

Montana Skies" was first released October 1, 2002. The label's owner promoted it the Country route without much success, but Bill Wence

Promotions in Nolensville, Tennessee, took it Americana, the A3 stations, and college stations and it really worked. And my wife Marcie

has done a lot of follow-up, not being a bug about it, but just asking 'did you get it?' and 'are you on it?' We sent out over 300 of the first

thousand CD's to deejays!"

I KNEW there was a reason I called this guy.

TJ also brings up another issue... a troubling one. He's published, he's in good standing with BMI, and he's not seeing proper residuals

for all the airplay. And he knows why. "We've got to push BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC to finally recognize Western as an official music

genre. We're being lumped in with Bluegrass, Folk, and Classic Country and we'll never see accurate representation in the royalties that

 way until we get it solved."

Ironic, isn't it? Our Western breakthrough artists may have to "breakthrough" all over again...
 

BACK TO TOP