Doyle Harseth's third recording amazes him more than anyone else. He'll admit to not being a singer. Only other times he sang was in a church choir years ago, and sometimes in the shower! Doyle and his wife Blanche founded and ran a horse ranch for many years, and when Delmar Gentry moved to Arizona and bought it, they retired. Their original plans were to build a a house in town, but when Delmar offered them the chance to buy a plot of land on the ranch back from him and build their house there, they jumped at the chance! It was a way they could keep living the country life like they have for going on 50 years, and still be around horses that Doyle loves.
Delmar changed their life, and Doyle has been invaluable as a reference for Delmar's running of the ranch. The recordings usually come about after Delmar has worked with somebody else in his recording studio (that's in a reconditioned outbuilding on the ranch). Doyle likes to sit in on the sessions, and they'll go into the wee hours chewing the fat and having a few beers. Sometimes, if the beer has been particularly good, they'll get an idea for a song. Delmar does all the music and arranging, while the lyrics are worked on together.
This song came about after Doyle talked about his early days when he'd work all day and spend his evenings in the gin mills (as he calls them.) Seems Doyle had quite the eye for the ladies, single or otherwise, and that he liked to dance and was good at it, and it got him women, as there's a lot of men that don't dance at the tavern, just drink beer. We can imagine the mischief he got into, at least until Blanche came into his life, and his cavorting came to a halt!
We couldn't sit on this recording any longer! Doyle Harseth recorded it shortly after Delmar Gentry released his song Ballad Of The Hungry Horse. It's the same situation in both songs; the abuse and rescue of a horse by the two of them. Delmar's song is more restrained, although still condemning animal abuse, while Doyle's isn't We'll let Delmar tell the story:
Never seen Doyle so angry, but when someone loves horses as much as he does, he hates seeing them not being taken care of. The day we went and got him, we had papers from the police that gave us legal authority to pick the animal up. We had no problem with the owner, as he wasn't there. And I was glad he wasn't. Doyle was so crazy angry, I don't know what he might have done, and I hate the thought that I maybe would have had to go bail his assout of jail for beating hell out of the owner!
As I'm not a member of the Arizona State bar, I couldn't officially help try the case, but I did a lot of assistance with the para-legals getting all the paperwork done. Arizona does not take kindly to animal cruelty. Cruelty to animals can mean the individual that's cruel to animals can also be more likely to be cruel to people. Prisons are full of people that did serious crimes to others that had a history of animal cruelty. This particular owner already had two cases of serious animal cruelty brought against him in years past, so this time it was a felony. He's a rich bastard, so he bought the best of defense, but they couldn't save him. He's still out of jail on appeal, but he had to fork over a big chunk of money to do that! The verdict, after a long, drawn out trial, was guilty of a whole slew of counts, with the penalties being pretty rough - 5 years in prison, 10 years probation, $500,00 to be distributed to the new owners of the animals to assist in the animals care until the end of life, a $250,000 fine, and a court order banning him from ever owning any animal of any kind ever again!
Bill The Percheron
The defense came up with all kinds of bogus reasons, from hardship (hardly!) to blaming others he hired to care for the animals, and other bullshit. Truth is, he doesn't give a shit about animals, and I don't know why he insisted on having any! Besides the horse, there were a Shetland pony, pair of goats, small herd of alpacas, 3 donkeys, and an investigation ongoing that's trying to determine if he had another horse and three dogs missing that he used to own. If they find any remains of the animals buried or otherwise disposed of, and it can be determined they died of neglect and/or abuse, this guy's in more legal trouble. Doyle and I were at the trial every day, I was called as a witness, but thank goodness Doyle wasn't. He had a hard enough time holding his temper when he heard some of the defense's pleas. There were some days when we have to leave early. Last thing a spectator wants to do in a trial is to stand up and beller obscenities at the alleged guilty party!
Doyle helped me with the song I wrote, and after I had it all recorded, he asked me if hecould record his own on the subject. Well, it took us about a week of long sessions in the studio writing and trying out the song before Doyle could calm down enough to lay down his vocal. It was just Doyle and I, late one night that recorded it. He just wanted me to play a jazzy piano for him to sing with, and it worked out okay. It helped him get it all out of his system, so I'm glad we did it. The Percheron is doing well, put a lot of weight on since we've had him, grown even taller. He looks really good, and waits for Doyle and I to come see him every day. When Doyle's three Grandkids come to visit they make a beeline to see Bill. Yep, his name's just Bill, but it seems to fit him! He'll hang his big head low enough for the kids to scratch his chin!
A happy ending for this horse, that's for sure! The passion Doyle has for this animal can be heard in the recording. Delmar said it took a lot of takes for Doyle to calm the language down to the cussing that's on the recording!
Delmar Gentry continues to assist people to make recordings that are not professional musicians. This is Doyle Harseth's second record with Big And Tall Records with Delmar being the producer. The two met when Delmar was looking to buy a ranch in the Flagstaff AZ area. Delmar bought Doyle's ranch and they became good friends. They did their first recording Told Ya That My Name Is Doyle more or less as a joke, as the two wrote the song while drinking beer one night. Del gave the recording for us to audition just for the heck of it, and we thought it was good enough to release.
That brings us to Doyle's second release, Growin' Old. We're not sure how old Doyle is, but he's plenty old to be able to sing about the ills of growing old. The two wrote this song like the last one, over a few beer late at night in Del's studio. Doyle's not a large man, but you couldn't prove that by his voice. Del says it can get deep as a foghorn! A big voice, not a necessarily good voice, but with a sense of timing and feeling for the words, Doyle just may be a star in the making!
This recording was sent along to us here at Big And Tall Records by Delmar Gentry. Lately Delmar has been working with some of his employees on the horse ranch he bought that have talent. His housekeeper/cook Marie Flores has recorded a song that Delmar wrote and produced, and his head ranch hand Amos Carter has recorded two songs, co written by Amos and Delmar that Delmar plays piano on as well as producing them. He also wrote this song Told Ya That My Name Is Doyle, played the piano and produced it. We'll let him tell the rest of the story:
The recording session for the latest song we recorded of Amos Carter, Ain't Never Gonna Be Famous, was attended by a few folks from the ranch, as well as Doyle and Blanche Harseth, the couple I bought the horse ranch from not so long ago. Now originally, Doyle and Blanche were going to have a house built in town and move in there, but I offered to sell them back some land to build their house on so they could stay out here. They're both horse people, and we're boarding their horses at the ranch. They're country folk anyway, and they jumped at the chance to stay. Their house is all done, they're moved in and happy, and I'm happy to have 'em!
I've been practicing my honky tonk piano style on the upright piano in the studio, and Doyle's been bringing around a six pack every night to share. He likes to hear me play, and one night after we finished the six pack off, he told me he used to sing in the church choir for years since he was a kid. I checked his voice out, and considering he's in his 70's and used to be a heavy smoker, he's still got a semblance of a voice. We came up with the idea to change the lyrics of Amos' Ain't Never Gonna Be Famous song, and after a few nights of dinking around with it, we came up with Doyle's version. He had a lot of input with the words, while I pretty much improvised the music. We recorded it one night, just us two, about 2 in the morning. Everybody was surprised when we played it for them! Figured I'd send it a long for ya'll there to have a chuckle over!
Well, we got more than a chuckle out of it! Doyle's got a way with a song, so we decided to publish it! Doyle's got a voice deep as a foghorn in spots, and it's a good parody of Amos' song.
