37. Night Life by Ray Price (1963)

Now this was recorded prior to the incident involving the unfortunate death of the fighting rooster, I’m led to believe.

What fighting rooster?

Have you not heard this story? I believe it’s something of a legend among country and western circles.

I don’t actually travel in country and western circles.

Well, they’re not traditionally circles one travels in oneself if one is honest, but obviously I have something to do with the genre in a professional capacity and I’ve heard the tale recounted many times.

Can you repeat it for us now?

I’ll do my best. It concerns Ray Price, who featured among his musical group a chap named Willie Nelson, who has since gone on to find considerable fame in his own right.

He’s a big name.

Well quite. But at this time he was a member of Price’s group and a firm friend. Sadly all that was to change thanks to the unfortunate demise of the rooster. Not long after this was recorded, a fighting rooster owned by Price managed to find its way into Nelson’s chicken coop where it was causing some considerable havoc. From that point on the precise details are difficult to recount with any certainty. I know there are some who claim that Nelson’s wife fired the fatal shot while others believe it was Willie himself. Either way, it’s clear that shots were fired and Price’s rooster was felled and later consumed by the Nelson’s for dinner.

How did Price take it?

Badly. He severed all communication from that point onwards and refused to record any of Mr Nelson’s music. They’d been close friends but a wayward poultry dinner destroyed their relationship permanently. I’ve always found it odd that two men could sing songs about the Wild West and the frontier life and then sever ties because one of them took a firearm to a flightless bird.

There’s no explaining country music.

Well quite. If you’re the sort of person who enjoys hearing someone yodel about a prairie then you’re clearly cut from a very different cloth as far as I’m concerned and there’s no accounting for your personal value system. I remember my father retained a firm friendship with Stepehen Forbes-Flately MBE despite a similar disagreement involving a firearm and a feathered foe.

Did your father shoot someone else’s bird?

No, he shot someone else. They were pheasant hunting together and despite the fact that Forbes-Flately doesn’t resemble a pheasant from any angle, my father was possessed by an excitable moment of distraction and shot his friend in the back. They made up of course and accepted that these things happen when gentlemen mix firearms, sport, high spirits and spirits. It wasn’t long before Forbes Flately was out of hospital and everyone was joking about the incident and slapping each other good-naturedly on the back, even though one of them had a tendency to pass out with pain if lightly tapped between the should blades, let alone slapped too hard.