Clyde song writer sells his sad songs
By KEN ELLSWORTH / Senior Staff Writer
CLYDE - The first sentence in an Abilene Reporter-News story
that ran 13 years ago said, "Walter C. Waggoner is a 75-year-old
country musician who's written a hundred songs, but hasn't sold
one."
That is no longer true. Now 88, Waggoner has recently sold
two songs and is starting to get a few royalty payments. He wrote
his songs a number of years back but did not submit them. Recently,
though, he saw some ads in a country/western magazine and submitted
two songs that both were accepted. He regrets now that it took
him so long to submit his songs.
"I'd have been in high cotton now," he mused earlier
this week when I visited him at his small, spare house in Clyde.
Mr. Waggoner is twice a widower and is thin and frail. He has
a daughter who lives on a farm north of Clyde and a son who lives
in North Carolina. Mr. Waggoner was once well known in the area
for the popular Country Western Musical at Truby school house,
which he managed. A guitarist and vocalist, he also was the leader
of the Clyde Nabors Band. Mr. Waggoner used to close every show
by saying to the audience, "I love you."
By trade, though, Mr. Waggoner, a World War II and Battle of
the Bulge veteran, was a stone mason. A broken leg, suffered a
few years ago, and more recent ailments have brought Mr. Waggoner's
40-year song-writing career to a standstill. What he sends in
to the recording companies are songs that he wrote and recorded
years ago singing and playing into his portable cassette recorder.
Mr. Waggoner didn't exactly write his songs. Instead, he made
them up in his head for later recording. Once, he wrote a song
while driving between Abilene and Clyde.
"You got to have a title to a song before you can write
it," Mr. Waggoner said. "I used to go to coffee shops
and carry a little notebook. I'd sit and listen. Some men and
women would be talking and say something, and I'd get my title
and write it down."
I asked Mr. Waggoner if it might be possible to write and song
and then give it a title later.
"No," he said with certainty. "You got to have
a title first."
Currently out on cassette is his song "Gathering Flowers."
The album, called "America," is a 1996 recording made
by Hilltop Records. The song, one of about 12 on the album, is
sung by Rusty Stratton. Mr. Waggoner put the tape into his player
so I could hear it. As the music played he tapped his toe to the
music.
"They never changed the music or the words a bit,"
he said with pride as we listened to the song. It went, "I've
been gathering flowers from the hillside for you dear. Everywhere
I look the beauty I can see. One by one I place them in a bouquet
for you. If I don't deliver, I'll be thinking of you."
Mr. Waggoner said, "I tell you this. I don't write fiction.
I do not. I write true to life songs."
He played another song called "What Did I Do Wrong?"
that has been recorded by Ramsey Kearney of Kearney Productions.
"I fell pretty hard for a gal in Hamlin, and that is about
her," Mr. Waggoner said, adding that most of his songs were
very sad.
Mr. Waggoner said his daughter once asked, "Daddy? Why
do you write such sad songs?"
"Betty, I just stay sad," Mr. Waggoner replied.
I asked Mr. Waggoner why it was that he stayed sad.
He looked puzzled.
"I don't know," he finally replied. "I guess
I just feel sorry for everybody."
This column covers the cities and communities of this part
of West Texas. To contact Ken Ellsworth, call (800) 588-6397 or
(915) 673-4271, Ext. 381, or write to P.O. Box 30, Abilene, TX
79604.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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