Run, Rose, Run(36)

AnnieLee managed to get out a “Pleased to meet you” as some of the best session players in Nashville greeted her with a mix of personal warmth and professional skepticism. They’d played on more hit records than AnnieLee could count, and not just Ruthanna’s. They were virtuoso musicians, and country music history in the flesh.

Elrodd, sitting behind a drum kit, was a wiry sixty-something with a smoker’s laugh. Donna’s black hair hung so far down it brushed the top of her bass. Melissa was long-limbed and graceful, a ballerina who’d traded her pointe shoes for a fiddle. Round, white-bearded Stan was her opposite: a mall Santa in a Stetson. He gave his Stratocaster a big, amped-up strum and laughed when AnnieLee jumped back in surprise.

Ruthanna’s voice came over the speakers. “All right, AnnieLee Keyes,” she said. “I’ve got my producer, Janet, here in the control room with me, and my genius engineer, Warren, on the mixing board. Are we ready to make some music?”

AnnieLee tried her hardest to say yes. But instead she bolted into the hallway and pressed herself against the wall, her eyes shut tight. There she forced herself to take ten deep breaths. This is what you want, she told herself. You can do this. It’s going to be fine.

After another minute, her heartbeat slowed, and she went back in and picked up her guitar. “I’m sorry, everyone,” she said. “My feet have a mind of their own sometimes.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Donna said in a voice that was surprisingly kind. “We’ve all been nervy before.”

Stan nodded in agreement; maybe he felt a little bad for scaring her. “What do you got for us today, Ms. Keyes?”

AnnieLee knew that session players usually worked off a demo in order to record a track. But Ruthanna had wanted her to play her song for them live and unaccompanied. That way, Ruthanna said, everyone could build up the song together.

“It’ll still be your song,” Ruthanna had said. “But it can change and grow once other people start playing on it.”

AnnieLee placed her fingers on her guitar’s fretboard. “Okay, I start with this little lick right here,” she said, demonstrating. “And then the song’s got this really basic one, four, five structure.” She played the chords as she spoke, feeling more self-conscious than she’d ever felt in her whole entire life.

“You don’t need to explain it, hon,” Donna said. “Just play, and we can take it from there.”

“Okay. Sure, ma’am. You bet,” AnnieLee said earnestly, and Ethan shot her a look, like When did you get so polite?

She gave him a sheepish smile and began to sing.

Driven to insanity, driven to the edge

Driven to the point of almost no return



Her voice was shaky at first, but she grew more confident as she played, and by the time she got to the second verse she’d hit her groove.

When the song was over, the other musicians started talking immediately. They had ideas about the bass line and the way the fiddle should curl around the opening notes. They offered tweaks to the bridge, and Elrodd suggested slowing the tempo after the second chorus. Ethan wondered if there should be a key change as the tension rose. AnnieLee listened to their ideas in awe and gratitude. They weren’t trying to take her song away from her—they were focused on making it as good as it could possibly be.

After they’d agreed on the basics, everyone practiced their own parts for a while. Then they ran through it, with Ethan on lead guitar, Stan on pedal steel, and AnnieLee playing rhythm. She leaned into the pop filter on her mic and closed her eyes as she sang.

“That’s sounding just killer,” Ruthanna said from the control room. “Raw and driving. I think it needs more bass, though. Elrodd, I’m loving that kick drum.”

On the next run-through, Melissa added a soaring fiddle line. Later, Ethan worked out a fantastic guitar solo. AnnieLee couldn’t believe how rich the song sounded now. After three hours and multiple versions, AnnieLee’s voice had grown hoarse and Ruthanna declared it was time to stop.

AnnieLee turned to Ethan. “For good?” she whispered. “Are we done?”

Ethan stared at her. “Stop for good?” he repeated. “Try ‘for lunch.’”

When he saw her confused expression, he laughed. “Blazing-hot singles don’t come quick, girl,” he said. Then he slung his arm over her shoulders, a gesture so casual and intimate that it made her knees weak. “But you’re doing great,” he said. “I promise.”

AnnieLee wanted desperately to believe him.

Ruthanna came in, eyes sparkling. “We’ll get your vocals in an isolation booth later, but don’t even think we’re going to use Auto-Tune,” she said. “It’s better to let the audience hear you reaching for that note. Passion’s more important than perfection.” She rubbed her hands together. “Oh, this is exciting!”

“What’s for lunch?” Elrodd asked, taking a swig from a water bottle that just might’ve had whiskey in it.

AnnieLee flashed him a nearly ecstatic grin. “We’re having a big ol’ tomato salad,” she said.





Chapter

34



The Ford’s engine belched as Ethan downshifted, coming to a stop across the street from Nashville’s biggest radio station. WATC, “All That Country on 99.5,” was housed in a big brick building on Music Row, a stone’s throw away from the bronze Owen Bradley statue and its steady parade of picture-taking tourists.