WALT ALDRIDGE: The song is king
By Monica Collier Staff Writer Originally published in the TimesDaily Nov 2, 2017
University of North Alabama alum Walt Aldridge walks through the school’s Department of Entertainment Industry space on Tombigbee Street in historic downtown Florence.
Aldridge’s footsteps echo slightly on the hardwood floor as he passes offices to his right, then a large classroom to his left filled with row after row of computers. The next door to his right is a recording studio.
The technology housed within the exposed brick walls of the DEI represents a dichotomy between the past and present.
At the mention of “the good old days,” the question comes, “are these the good old days now?”
“I hope they are,” Aldridge replied with a laugh. “That’s what everybody always says … they don’t feel like it when I wake up in the morning sometimes.”
For the past six years, the Shoals native has served in a teaching role at his alma mater but for more than 40 years, Aldridge said he has been able to do what he loves — make music.
As a staff engineer at FAME and later as an independent engineer in Nashville, Tennessee, Aldridge has worked on more than 200 records. He has written chart-topping singles for numerous artists including Ronnie Millsap’s “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me,” Earl Thomas Conley’s “Holding Her and Loving You” and Barbara Mandrell’s “Til You’re Gone,” which were No. 1 hits.
Aldridge recently took time from his teaching schedule to reminisce about his beginnings in music, discuss songwriting and share his thoughts about his recent induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
TimesDaily: Did your music career start at FAME with Rick Hall?
Aldridge: It did. I actually went to the University of North Alabama and was in the music program. I did an internship with FAME and Rick Hall. I wound up staying for the next 17 years.
I was like that bad penny they couldn’t get rid of … I did a little bit of everything with them. It was a great opportunity for me to learn a lot of things. Rick had his finger in a lot of different things in the music business. I wound up helping him in a variety of ways and learning a lot of things that served me well.
I stayed here in the Shoals area for 25 years or so. Then I moved to Nashville for about 10 years.
I moved back home six years ago.
It has been a total of 40 years of me doing this. It seems like 400 sometimes, then other times, it seems like much less, of course.
TimesDaily: You’ve spent your whole adult life in the music business, right?
Aldridge: After school, I never did anything else. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to, because I’m pretty much the original one-talent guy. Music was really the only option for me.
TimesDaily: Did songwriting find you?
Aldridge: It did. I can’t say that I ever really set out to be a songwriter. I mean, I kind of liked doing it a little bit but I didn’t think it would be my career. I just wanted to play guitar and make music.
Both of my parents (James and Peggy Aldridge) were teachers — I find a lot of parallels there. It’s about organizing your thoughts and presenting those organized thoughts. You have to have an idea. You have to develop that idea and present it in a persuasive, concise way.
It’s the same thing as preparing a lesson for school. That might be why I’ve always stayed involved in teaching. I enjoy teaching and have wound up doing it now here at UNA.
But, I never dreamed, really, that I would ever be writing songs — especially not country songs. At the point when I became a country songwriter, I had never listened to country music.
Like so many things in life and certainly in the music business, you don’t always have the same goals the world has for you. You respond to the doors that do open. That one opened and I said, well heck, I think I can do this.
TimesDaily: Does songwriting come easily for you?
Aldridge: You know, I think that’s sort of the common conception. For me, it was always assignment writing.
I talk to people even now who think, boy what a cool job — you just kind of sit around and you get an idea or maybe you don’t and go fishing. But, I always had an office and went in every day and made appointments to write whether I felt like writing or not.
I would try to write something every day whether I felt inspired to do so or thought it was any good. Most of the time, it wasn’t.
I think, to do anything successfully — and songwriting is no exception — you’ve got to work. You have to outwork your competition regardless of your ability or whether you get lucky.
Once I determined that was what I was going to do, I did really turn the jets on, and I tried to get in earlier than my competition, and I stayed later. That was a work ethic I inherited from both my parents. I owe them a lot as well as Rick Hall at FAME.
TimesDaily: With 40 years of experience behind you, have you seen the music industry change?
Aldridge: In terms of the consumption of music now, people don’t buy music anymore. They just sort of use it.
TimesDaily: Is it more difficult to make a living in the music industry now?
Aldridge: It is. For the kids I’m teaching now, the reality of the limited number of job positions available and that trickle-down effect makes it tough.
It has always been tough, but now, if a person wants to consume music, usually they just go to YouTube or some other streaming service and listen to it for free. It’s a whole lot different now. People don’t feel the need to buy records anymore like we always did.
It’s always been that way in technologically driven businesses. There are changes when new technology comes out. You just have to bounce and follow the bouncing ball.
I guess for me, it has always been about just doing something I enjoy doing and not about making money. Ultimately, I think of it in those terms. I just want to make music, and if I get a paycheck, that’s just sort of the cherry on top.
TimesDaily: How has the music business stayed the same over the years? A good song is still a good song, right?
Aldridge: It is, and I think people lose sight of that. I really do. If I make that statement, I think people might think it’s my perspective because I’m a songwriter. But my honest opinion is — being as objective as I can be — the song is king. That’s what drives everything.
Without a good song, a good artist flounders. The world is full of great singers, and it’s full of great performers and great musicians, but it is not full of great songs.
I’ve seen really good songs drive mediocre artists to superstardom, but you don’t see mediocre songs that drive careers. That part has not changed, and I can’t see how it ever will.
It has got to be about an idea and expressing that idea in a way that people can relate to and in a way that touches them.
TimesDaily: After you having such a strong mentor as a young man, have you been able to serve as a mentor to students at UNA?
Aldridge: I hope so. Every now and then, I can see on the faces of a student or two that it seems to resonate. Every now and then, a student will come back and tell me they appreciate what I said and that I didn’t pull any punches — that I told them how it really is. If I have a value to the program, I think it’s that – I can tell them how it really is out there not how some textbook says it is. I try to always do that. I don’t think I could live with myself if I sugarcoated it.
TimesDaily: You’re no stranger to receiving awards and accolades, but this one seems special.
Aldridge: It is because it’s an award based on your body of work.
The industry is a sort of awards-happy business. I have won awards along the way, and they all mean something. But, to get an award that is based on your entire span of works and is voted on by your colleagues — whose opinions you value the most in terms of song judges — makes it pretty much top of the heap. It is an award that’s more meaningful to me.
That is the biggest distinction about it — it’s not singling out a song or even a handful of songs, it’s saying, hey we feel like your four decades of work has upheld a consistent quality that we want to recognize. I think that’s about all anybody could want at the end of their career.
TimesDaily: Was your induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame a surprise to you?
Aldridge: It was. It was a surprise and a very deep, profound honor.
When you’re asked to join a club that has Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton and people like that in it, you feel like they must have made a mistake. Seriously, I think most people who get that kind of award react the same way I did.
I’ve out-kicked my coverage here. I don’t think I can live up to this, but I went and accepted the award, nonetheless.
I was honored that Mac McAnally, another Muscle Shoals guy, handed it off to me. There’s a pride factor with that, too. All of us from this area feel the mantle of representing the area well, being part of the tradition and continuing the tradition of Muscle Shoals music.
The most remarkable thing about this little place to me is it keeps turning out good music. A lot of other music meccas have come and gone. Muscle Shoals has kept chugging along.
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