0:00

When you listen to yourself, like when you are

0:02

re listening to the show to edit it.

0:04

Do you sound so different you sound.

0:08

Yeah, it's honestly doing it for

0:10

so long, it's changed hearing

0:12

both of us. I get to keep telling

0:15

myself, oh man, this doesn't sound

0:17

like me. But then I listen to your voice and

0:19

it sounds exactly like I hear you. So

0:21

I think that, oh, okay, well then I must sound like

0:23

I sound. But also, sometimes,

0:26

just in the world, just your own voice, I

0:29

think it can get away from you. And

0:31

if I not, if I'm not paying

0:33

attention to how I'm speaking, if I'm

0:35

not putting some effort into

0:38

the voice that I want to have right,

0:41

then sometimes it's like your posture

0:43

slumping and link your voice agains really

0:45

lazy and gross.

0:46

That's true sometimes like now

0:49

my throat, sit up, speak normally,

0:52

not three your nows, and actually

0:55

this is I would say, this is closer to my normal

0:57

natural voice data day.

1:00

Now, this is this is how I sat.

1:02

That's your very white impression, very

1:04

white, very white wishes, very

1:07

white wishes. That's that's your single,

1:10

very white Wishes. Sing a few lines

1:12

of your new single, very White Wishes.

1:15

I went down to the store.

1:18

Oh, and I.

1:19

Bought myself some more socks

1:23

because my feet were getting

1:26

big.

1:28

And I went back to my house

1:30

and I put on both those socks,

1:33

and I also put on my hot

1:35

pink wig, and then I

1:38

danced around the room and I

1:40

said, hey, look at me.

1:42

But no one else was around. So

1:45

I was a lone kale.

1:48

And I jumped and screamed and sang,

1:51

and I took a bell and I rang

1:54

until all the neighbors came up

1:56

to my door. You

1:59

know what's that to do?

2:04

Very white was funky? Okay,

2:06

what is this country song you singing?

2:09

I don't know. I'm in the I'm in a country

2:11

song mood.

2:12

I guess today, I guess.

2:13

So talk about transitions.

2:16

We're getting right into it because

2:18

we are in. We're in. We're in the South today

2:21

in Tennessee, Kentucky. Oh

2:23

wow, Ashville.

2:24

Bluegrass and Banjo's.

2:26

Classic seventies, eighties,

2:28

nineties country pop music.

2:31

Dinah, what's your relationship to country music? We don't

2:33

really talk about this because I don't think either us has much

2:35

of one.

2:36

I mean, I don't have much one, although I have a lot of

2:38

family from Kentucky. Yeah, So there

2:40

are a lot of bluegrass lovers, a lot of gospel

2:43

records going on in Grandma's

2:45

house, and mom Mom loves that stuff

2:48

here.

2:48

Yeah.

2:48

Yeah, I did always like Johnny Cash

2:51

sure like old school country. I

2:53

never really liked pop country. That never appealed

2:55

to me. I will say, after

2:58

watching Oh Brother, We're I

3:01

loved that soundtrack. Yeah, I did.

3:04

Played that soundtrack a lot.

3:05

That got us all into like old timey

3:07

bluegrass, right like we were all like, give

3:09

me them down by the river gospel music.

3:12

Yo, I want the soggy bottom boys, but

3:14

I want to I want to party. Let's put on the

3:16

soggy Bottom boys.

3:18

Similarly like I love that Oh Brother style,

3:21

you know, real old timey, scratchy

3:23

vinyl record, big rock, candy mountain kind of stuff.

3:26

For me, I would say my strongest

3:29

relationship to country music is also

3:31

very old, not quite as old, but forties fifties.

3:34

I think, like Marty Robbins, like cowboy

3:36

music, word out in the out

3:38

in the Old West, and honest, I'll be fully

3:41

honest, this kid was born out of playing

3:43

Fallout New Vegas, huh, because

3:45

the soundtrack to that game is a lot of old

3:48

cowboy music. Yeah, and

3:50

and there was playing in the background. I think Big Iron

3:53

was one of the big songs that played in that game a lot on

3:55

the radio, and I was

3:57

like, this is kind of a pop what's

4:00

going on here with Marty Robbins And I

4:02

just when I drove for

4:04

the first time by myself out west, when

4:07

I hit the desert, I was like, this is what I'm

4:09

putting on. And I put on like a playlist and

4:12

was just jamming to these

4:14

old, you know, old cowboy

4:16

country hits.

4:17

Thank Williams je Sure that kind of stuff.

4:19

I don't know, I really connected to it. And now whenever

4:21

I'm in the desert, I feel like I need to listen to that music

4:24

makes sense.

4:25

I was just about to say this. I will never

4:27

say that I dislike an entire genre of music

4:30

right because I don't think music works

4:32

that way. I feel like music

4:35

is so much about your mood and your

4:37

surroundings and what kind of mood you want

4:39

to be in. Fully, I'm not gonna if

4:41

I'm just like pulling up Spotify clean

4:43

in the house, I'm not going to choose

4:45

country music. But there's a time and

4:48

a place where that's the only thing you

4:50

need to have on or else. It just doesn't. It just a

4:52

fits so well. It makes you feel

4:54

like, I don't know, like driving

4:57

through the desert. It's like you have the right soundtrack.

4:59

I've seen you kick down

5:01

a door and take out an entire

5:03

gang of like drug dealers and thieves

5:05

and you put on like def Leppard,

5:08

you know it, Yeah, and it's it's perfect.

5:10

What else?

5:10

I think that's pretty cool. I mean, you're

5:12

you're always like doing wall kicks and like flipping

5:15

and you know, knocking down three

5:17

dudes at a time one and you've

5:19

got some serious heavy metal going on.

5:21

Ye, it works. I totally get it. Well, we

5:23

should get into it because today's episode,

5:26

obviously we're talking about country music. This

5:28

episode was born out of a simple,

5:31

little brief, not even three sentence

5:33

message on Instagram from

5:36

our listener, Courtney May Klaus at

5:38

CM Klaus eight thirty on Instagram.

5:41

And side note, I cannot say the name Klaus

5:43

without saying Klaus Klaus

5:45

because it's just it sounds like it should be

5:48

that so Courtney message us

5:50

simply saying, listen to the story of

5:52

Sha and the story of the Butterfly sounds

5:54

an awful lot like the song Whiskey Lullaby

5:57

once you said beneath the Willow Tree.

6:00

And as people who don't know a lot about especially

6:02

pop country music, we figured, all right,

6:04

let's look up this song. It's Brad Paisley

6:07

and Alison Krause called Whiskey Lullaby.

6:09

I'm like, oh, a duet.

6:11

Are they a couple? No, they're not.

6:14

So I'm like, all right, well, nevermind, maybe there's

6:16

nothing here. But as I'm just sort

6:18

of glancing at the lyrics of this song, I come

6:20

to find out that one of the writers,

6:23

John Randall, was inspired

6:25

for some of the lyrics to this song by his

6:27

very challenging divorce from country

6:30

singer Laurie Morgan. And

6:32

whenever either of us I think finds

6:34

out that two people were married or divorced,

6:36

were like, wait a minute, is this

6:38

an episode? Was it ridiculous?

6:41

You know? Well, it

6:43

turns out, my friends, that country legend

6:46

Laurie Morgan was married no

6:48

less than six times, and

6:51

it does get pretty ridiculous there

6:53

for a minute.

6:54

So Country music King Henry, Yeah.

6:57

So thank you so much, Courtney, because from that

7:00

little offhanded reference to a song, you've

7:02

given us a full episode. Hey,

7:04

kloud, let's dive in find out about

7:06

Lauri Morgan, her six husbands

7:08

and the devastating divorce that would

7:10

lead to a country hits.

7:12

Let's get on this horse and rat hey

7:15

their friends come listen. Well,

7:17

Eli and Diana got some stories to tell.

7:20

There's no matchmaking o romantic tips.

7:23

It's just about ridiculous relationships.

7:25

I love.

7:26

There might be any type of person at all, an

7:28

abstract concept or a concrete wall.

7:31

But if there's a story, We're the second Glance

7:34

and show Ridiculous Romance, A

7:36

production of iHeartRadio.

7:39

All right. Lori Morgan. She was born

7:41

in nineteen fifty nine. Her father

7:44

was famed country legend George

7:46

Morgan. Now this is my kind of music because

7:48

George was known as a country crooner.

7:51

So he had a voice like a rat

7:53

pack Vegas lounge singer, right, just real

7:56

smooth, deep voice, beautiful

7:58

singer. But he put this talents into country

8:01

songs. Now, his daughter,

8:03

Laurie was born in fifty nine, and her full name

8:06

was Loretta Lynn Morgan. And

8:08

of course everyone is thinking, well, she was named

8:10

after my favorite country legend,

8:12

Loretta Lynn. Yeah, corect But

8:15

actually Laurie was born in nineteen

8:17

fifty nine, Loretta Lynn did not come to Nashville

8:19

to get famous until about nineteen sixty

8:21

one, so she was just named

8:24

that by coincidence. In fact, Laurie was on

8:26

Larry King's show doing an interview and

8:28

she said that Loretta Lynn always

8:30

referred to her as her namesake, which

8:32

she was very proud of, of course, but

8:35

that's not really the case. It was just kind of a

8:37

naming coincidence, just a good

8:39

sound in country name.

8:40

I guess, Rede Lynn just a popular name at the reta

8:42

Lynn.

8:43

Yeah.

8:43

She got welcomed into the country music biz in

8:45

nineteen seventy two when she performed

8:47

with her dad at the Grand Ole

8:50

Opry at just thirteen years old.

8:52

Laurie and her dad, George sang the song

8:55

paper Roses Together, which had

8:57

first been recorded by Anita Bryant

8:59

innineteen sixty. Okay, and

9:02

like side note, we're just gonna go ahead and call Anita

9:04

Bryant this week's villain of

9:06

the week because

9:09

in the nineteen seventies she's

9:11

the bit you made it her business to protests

9:14

against gay rights.

9:15

Wow.

9:16

She was also one of the first public figures to get

9:19

pied in the face. There you go, take that

9:21

Anita. The pie thrower was

9:23

Tom L. Higgins, who is the author

9:25

and gay rights activist who coined the term

9:27

gay pride.

9:28

Oh okay, so.

9:30

Thanks Anita Bryant. You helped

9:32

a few thousand people learn more about gay

9:34

history today.

9:35

There you go. What a legacy your life, schoal. I

9:38

didn't know who coined the term gay

9:40

pride. I thought it was just always out

9:42

there. Oh.

9:43

Also another thing about Anita Bryant, because I like dunking

9:45

on her. Vincent Price once

9:47

said in a TV interview that Oscar

9:49

Wild's play A Woman of No Importance

9:52

must be about Nita Bryant.

9:55

He Vince Price's the best. Also, apparently Johnny

9:57

Carterson like every week, had on any

10:00

to Bryant dunk. Yes, Johny

10:02

was relentless making fun of her.

10:04

I love that, Thank you, Johnny. Also

10:07

in twenty twenty one, Anita's granddaughter,

10:09

Sarah Green, announced that she was

10:11

engaged to a woman and was

10:13

having a hard time deciding if she should invite

10:15

her grandmother to the Sarah Moon. So

10:18

all the best to Sarah. I hope your wedding

10:20

was lovely and Anita.

10:22

Free anyway, So Laurie Morgan and

10:24

her dad George sang Paper Roses and they

10:26

got a standing ovation at the grand O Lobry,

10:28

but sadly, just three years later,

10:30

her father died after complications from heart

10:33

surgery. Now Laurie she's

10:35

sixteen. She went on to tour with members

10:37

from his band and eventually

10:39

she went to work for the publishing firm Acuff

10:41

Rose Music as a receptionist and a

10:43

demo singer, and in nineteen seventy

10:45

nine this led to her singing with Hickory

10:48

Records and she put out two singles,

10:50

Two People in Love and

10:53

tell Me I'm Only Dreaming, and

10:55

these both charted with Billboard's Hot Country

10:58

Songs. But by the end of the year she

11:00

had also released I'm Completely

11:02

Satisfied with You, and this was

11:05

a duet that she made with her father

11:07

using archived vocals of his and

11:09

like some some new fangled electronic manipulation

11:13

supposed to be real sweet and this also made the charts.

11:15

And then she started touring with nightclubs.

11:18

She was opening for musicians who, if

11:20

you know country, are big names like Jack Green,

11:22

Genie Seely, and Billy Thundercloud,

11:25

who I found out was a First Nations

11:28

Canadian country singer. Cool

11:30

name yeah, he had the first full

11:33

First Nations band and they were

11:35

all like or at least, you know, on the

11:37

charts or something like that, but they were all they

11:40

all they were pretty famous.

11:42

You think using someone's archived vocals

11:44

to do a duet with controversial

11:46

like them, like in

11:48

the AI John Lennon thing.

11:49

I don't think. I don't know. I don't know

11:52

because I don't find the John Lennon

11:54

thing to be that controversial myself because

11:56

they're not generating. It's

11:59

not like Lennon never took part in this song.

12:01

They found a song that he did

12:04

record and used AI to like make it

12:06

sound good, right, right.

12:08

So the name is like a hologram

12:10

John Lennon walking out and being like, eat tostitos.

12:12

Yeah right, Oh,

12:16

everybody eat tostitos.

12:19

Delicious. Here's a day in the life

12:21

of me. First, I started the day with

12:23

delicious, lucky charms.

12:27

Damn John Lennon. That's when

12:29

you get mad. We need

12:31

to get mad. Is when they start to make John Lennon say

12:33

some shit they would never say.

12:36

Imagine all the people drinking

12:38

fool just coffee.

12:41

Okay, back to Laurie. Sorry, I'm

12:44

going all over place. So at twenty years

12:46

old, Laurie Morgan started touring as a backup

12:48

vocalist for international country superstar

12:51

George Jones.

12:52

I've heard that name sure.

12:53

While she was there, she met another

12:56

young up and comer named Sammy

12:58

Kershaw, and they flew. You

13:00

know, they probably had a little fling on the you know, a

13:02

little some something, but it was nothing serious because

13:05

Laurie's real focus was on

13:07

George Jones's bassist,

13:09

a young man named Ron Gaddis, and

13:11

when he met Laurie, his baseline

13:15

hit a solid country

13:17

group or something. I don't know, I don't

13:19

know bass country music based terms.

13:22

Okay, he

13:24

he, He plucked her string

13:27

just right.

13:27

Okay.

13:28

Anyway, so she and Ron Gaddis hit it off

13:30

and they got married late in nineteen seventy nine.

13:32

No, it's not much known about their marriage. They did

13:34

have a daughter together, named Morgan Anastasia

13:37

Gaddis. Anastasia was Laurie's

13:39

mother's full name. But unfortunately

13:42

their marriage only lasted about two years

13:44

and it ended in divorce, and we don't know how

13:47

or why, or like what happened to Ron after,

13:49

but Laurie's career continued to grow. In

13:51

nineteen eighty four, At twenty five years old,

13:54

she became the youngest inductee

13:56

of the Grand Ole Opry and the next year

13:58

she met Keith whitt So.

14:01

Keith Whitley is another country

14:03

star making huge waves and when

14:05

they started dating in nineteen eighty five, they

14:08

were like the ultimate country music power

14:11

couple, right. The speed like today

14:14

non country comparison is

14:16

like Billie Eilish and

14:22

you know, one of the one of the one of the

14:24

one of the one of the one

14:26

of the one the of

14:29

the uh uh a stroke.

14:32

You can't think of a single name.

14:33

No, I've got it. It's the band the

14:36

K pop guys. Oh

14:38

the b yeah BTS,

14:41

one of the Billie Eilish and a BTS. Those are

14:43

comparable aged people, right, sure,

14:46

I don't know.

14:47

Don't know.

14:47

Damn, we're so lame when

14:50

it comes to music. We're

14:53

like, we're not that into country music. But

14:55

otherwise we also know nothing about

14:57

pop music, all

15:00

right, So anyway, it was a big deal, is all. I'm

15:02

getting that here.

15:03

You could have just said jay Z and Beyonce.

15:06

Yeah, it wasn't that big though.

15:09

Too much. That's okay,

15:11

that's too far. No

15:13

one's like jay Z and Beyonce except

15:16

Jay Z freak exactly.

15:18

How dare I est?

15:21

All right? So big country power couple. But

15:23

Keith had kind of a rough life up

15:25

to this point. He grew up in Sandy

15:27

Hook, Kentucky, which is in a dry

15:29

county, lots of dry counties in Kentucky.

15:32

You can't buy alcohol there. And what happens

15:34

is some of the teenagers there who are

15:36

in the rural

15:38

Kentucky where I don't know if you know,

15:41

but there's not a lot to do,

15:43

so they start trying to fill their time

15:46

by drinking bootleg whiskey. You

15:48

know, some moonshine out of a jar

15:50

in the backyard somewhere, and

15:53

they would race their cars around

15:55

the Kentucky mountains, which,

15:57

obviously, while drinking, is a bad combination. Once

16:00

Keith was riding shotgun in a car with

16:02

his friend, and his friend,

16:04

who was driving, tried to pull

16:07

a turn at one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

16:09

While the car wrecked and his friend, the

16:11

driver, was killed. Keith himself

16:14

nearly broke his neck and barely survived

16:16

the accident. Keith also

16:18

once drove a car off a cliff into

16:21

a frozen river. He managed to

16:23

only break his collar bone this time. But

16:25

in nineteen eighty three, Keith's

16:27

brother Randy and his father Elmer died

16:30

in a motorcycle accident.

16:32

Damn.

16:32

So just a lot of challenges, tragedy,

16:35

pain, heartbreak, and

16:37

despite all this success, which I'm sure

16:39

fueled a lot of his music, Keith

16:42

was battling with alcoholism his whole

16:44

life and depression

16:46

I'm sure as well.

16:47

But he and Laurie tied the knot in

16:49

nineteen eighty six. A year in they had a son

16:51

named Jesse Keith Whitley, and

16:54

Keith even adopted Laurie's daughter, Morgan from

16:56

her previous marriage with the bassist. Both

16:59

of their careers worre skyrocketing.

17:01

Keith had been recording songs for a new album,

17:04

but he kind of felt like they weren't up to his standards,

17:06

so he went to RCA. He asked if they could

17:08

scrab everything and just start over and

17:11

let him have, you know, more creative

17:13

control with the writing and the producing of the music.

17:15

Right, most country music is written by other people

17:17

than the singers.

17:18

One of the time he's like, let you know, this ain't

17:20

hidden. I want to let me let me

17:23

drive this train, and they agreed.

17:25

Which is surprising. That's bold

17:27

for them to He must have had some real sway

17:29

shows.

17:30

Hey, that shows must be you know, he must

17:32

have been making good money. Yeah, so

17:34

they said, all right, And in nineteen eighty eight

17:37

he was topping the country charts with songs

17:39

like I'm No Stranger to the Rain, Oh

17:42

and don't close your e's.

17:43

Off the top of your head. Do you know any of the lyrics

17:46

to I'm No Stranger to the Rain that you could sing

17:48

us Diana? Sure?

17:49

Yeah, please, Well,

17:52

I don't know well bow

17:55

sunshine. Oh, I

17:57

don't know well about blow

18:00

Oh, but I know all

18:03

about thunder

18:06

because I'm No Stranger to

18:09

the Rain.

18:11

Totally see why that topped the charts.

18:14

Beautiful can

18:16

you? Hey, Hey, I've

18:18

got it on looping that for

18:20

the rest of the night.

18:21

It's a very good song.

18:24

No, no about flowers

18:26

anyway, all

18:28

right.

18:29

Meanwhile, Laurie Morgan had signed

18:31

with RCAs well. She put out her first

18:33

single with them in late nineteen eighty eight, and then

18:35

in nineteen eighty nine she started touring

18:37

to promote her debut album Leave.

18:40

The Light On, Oh Lovely, and

18:42

so this would have been the first time that she went out

18:44

to like tour on her own name

18:47

to sell her own music. But on May ninth,

18:49

just two days before this album was released,

18:52

Keith Whitley woke up. He made a phone

18:54

call to his mother and he had breakfast with

18:56

his brother in law Lane, Lane

18:59

was going to take him golfing and then in the evening,

19:01

Keith was planning to sit down and work on songs

19:03

for him and Laurie to sing together when she

19:06

got back. Because Laurie was still on tour

19:08

and while she was gone, she asked Lane

19:10

to keep an eye on Keith. And this was

19:13

the first time that they'd been apart for a long

19:15

time since they got married, and she knew

19:17

enough about Keith, you know, with his depression,

19:19

with his alcoholism, to be worried about

19:21

him being all alone all of a sudden. Laane

19:25

dropped Keith off at home at eight thirty am

19:27

and said he would pick him back up in an hour

19:29

for golf. When he got back to

19:31

Keith's place, Lane found Keith

19:34

face down on the bed, unresponsive.

19:37

He was rushed to the hospital but pronounced

19:39

dead at the age of thirty four. The

19:42

medical examiner said Keith's blood

19:44

alcohol level was zero point four

19:46

to seven, which they

19:48

said is the equivalent of drinking

19:50

thirteen shots of high proof whiskey

19:52

back to back.

19:53

Oh my god.

19:55

Laurie of course was crushed, and

19:57

she actually spent the next few years dead

20:00

dedicated to preserving Keith's memory

20:02

and his contributions to country music,

20:05

and in nineteen eighty four, in an interview, she said,

20:07

quote, at this point in my life, if

20:09

I met another Keith Whitley, I would walk

20:11

away because I don't think I could handle it. But

20:13

as far as him being the one, yeah,

20:16

I think we could have lasted forever.

20:18

Oh that's so.

20:19

Yeah. Get a sense for how

20:21

challenging it probably was. She's

20:24

like, I don't think I could handle it. No,

20:26

someone who's very famous and powerful

20:28

and also very depressed and an alcoholic.

20:31

That's got to be really challenging.

20:33

Well, and you know, from her perspective,

20:35

she's thinking of all of everything

20:37

while he was alive, and also having to deal

20:40

with him dying that way. Like I think she's

20:42

like also saying, I can't do that again. I

20:44

cannot be told my

20:46

brother called me and is telling me that

20:49

my husband's unrespondiyeh, and all this stuff.

20:51

Yeah, right, Like that would be really hard

20:53

to go through once, but.

20:57

It was definitely not her last whirlwind

20:59

row Man. It's in fact, that's just number

21:01

two of her six marriages.

21:04

So we're gonna come back. They do keep getting

21:06

crazier and crazier. We'll take a quick

21:08

break. We'll be right back right after this. Welcome

21:17

back to the show, y'all.

21:20

We had some good commercials.

21:23

Now they're done

21:25

and we're good. Keep on telling

21:28

you this story. Unfortunately

21:33

it doesn't end with the good. Oh

21:37

that is spoiler alert. There's

21:39

no shootings in this.

21:41

No shooting, right, dudes. Okay,

21:44

so we know Loriie, you know, very devastated

21:46

by the Keith Whitley death. So it was

21:48

a few years before Laurie started looking

21:50

for love again. But in nineteen

21:52

ninety one she had a marriage more

21:55

like her first marriage in that we don't know much about

21:57

it and it didn't last very long.

21:59

Okay.

22:00

His name was Brad Thompson and

22:02

he was the bus driver for country star

22:05

Clint Black.

22:06

I know that name, do you?

22:07

I didn't?

22:08

Yeah, Clint Black famous enough for me to

22:10

be familiar with his name when I see.

22:12

It, famous enough that should be on his tour

22:14

bus. Famous enough for Eli Banks

22:16

to know about hahu. Now,

22:18

Laurie was touring with Clint and she had her

22:20

eye on Brad. But you

22:22

know, he's the bus driver. He's

22:25

not gonna go ask out one of the hit stars

22:27

of the tour. That would be maybe a bit

22:29

presumptuous what Brad to do. So

22:31

Laurie's like, this one's on me. She

22:34

went and asked him out, and soon

22:36

Brad asked Laurie to marry him. Five

22:39

months later she did, with Clint Black standing

22:41

as Brad's best man. Pretty cool,

22:44

but it turned out that Brad

22:47

had a drinking problem that Laurie

22:49

did not know about. Man Once

22:52

she came home from a tour to find Brad getting

22:54

ready to take her son Jesse out in

22:56

the snow, and she's like, what y'all doing?

22:58

And Brad said, quote, I'm gonna pull

23:00

Jessie. I want to slip brown mastruck.

23:03

Oh, And of course Laurie could

23:05

smell the alcohol on him, even if he didn't sound like

23:07

I just sounded just smell it.

23:10

So she flipped out about this because

23:12

of course we already know she has a bad history of people

23:15

who were alcoholics. Yeah, she was also

23:18

already stressed out. She had some bad money

23:20

problems and even worse health

23:22

problems because after a few

23:24

weeks of having like constant pain

23:26

in her abdomen, Laurie discovered

23:28

that she had endometriosis.

23:30

Oh yeah. Her doctors recommended

23:33

that she have surgery to have the cysts

23:35

on her ovaries removed, but

23:37

while she was on the operating table, the surgeons

23:40

decided that it would be best for her to have a

23:42

full hysterectomy. Since

23:44

she was under of course, she could not decide

23:47

or consent to this, but her

23:49

husband could, so it was up

23:51

to Brad. The doctors went to him and were like,

23:53

Hey, should we should

23:55

give your wife a hysterectomy? You in or

23:58

you out?

23:58

Yeah, sign here or whatever.

24:00

I mean, Like, I can't imagine that's a fun choice

24:02

for Brad either, not because he's

24:04

got to not only if he ever

24:06

cares about having kids with her, you know,

24:08

that's something he has to consider. And also, oh,

24:10

I'm making this huge life changing decision

24:12

for you, but also it might it's medically

24:15

necessary and you might have to go into surgery

24:17

again later. Nobody wants to do it twice.

24:19

No, there's really this feels

24:21

like a situation where there's no way to be right yeah

24:24

or do a good yeah for real. I

24:26

feel like either way you can get in a lot of well.

24:29

He decided that

24:31

they should go for it, and so

24:33

she didn't even find out that she'd had her

24:35

uterus removed until she woke up from the operation.

24:39

She wrote that she was depressed when

24:41

she found out that she wouldn't have any more kids,

24:43

but ultimately she's, you know, a

24:45

very religious person. She said, it's it's

24:48

God's will. I'm okay with that. Plus,

24:50

of course, she was not so sure that things

24:53

were going to work out with Brad, and

24:55

she thought maybe having another kid with him would

24:57

have been a bad move anyway, and

25:00

sure enough, she filed for divorce from

25:02

Brad in nineteen ninety three, less than

25:04

two years after they got married. She

25:07

said she basically never saw or

25:09

heard from him again, although reports

25:11

say that in their divorce, Laurie

25:13

gave Brad sixty five thousand

25:16

dollars and a pickup truck, which

25:18

also sounds like a country song making sure does

25:21

I got sixty five thousand dollars,

25:23

ain't a pickup truck in my divorce?

25:26

And now I'm going on to

25:28

eat a pie.

25:29

Oh wow, I thought it was gonna be

25:31

something about like and

25:33

and a pickup truck. And now all

25:36

see is you in my rear view?

25:38

Oh see that's pretty good. Now we got

25:40

something. Somebody call up John Randalls.

25:43

This nice.

25:47

So Brad got the sixty five K the pickup

25:49

truck. Apparently, she also gave him back all

25:51

his possessions, which included a photo

25:53

of him that said World's greatest

25:56

bus driver. Sure I would brought that back

25:58

too. I also would find no reason to keep

26:00

that if in the divorce, I

26:03

don't need this, you can have Yes, you can

26:05

have your weird picture back.

26:07

Well. Now, before Laurie's divorce

26:09

with Brad was finalized

26:11

and he had his pickup treck, she

26:14

was dating the Dallas Cowboys quarterback

26:16

Troy Aikman.

26:17

Oooh do you know Troy Aikman.

26:19

Not at all? Oh man less than

26:21

Clint Black. Do I know Troy aiks Wow?

26:23

Okay, I mean I was. You know, I

26:26

was never a big football fan, but when I was a kid, you

26:28

know, early nineties, Stephanie, Troy

26:30

Aikman was a huge name. It was like him, Dan

26:33

Marino, Oj Simpson, all

26:35

of them turned out great.

26:39

Out fantastic, still making headlines.

26:41

Because well, that's for sure, some more than

26:43

others.

26:44

Right. I think the only name in the nineties that

26:46

I knew related to sports was Dave Justice

26:49

and Chipper Jones because the nineteen

26:51

ninety six Braves won the World Series.

26:53

Oh there you go. Yeah, I wasn't in Atlanta yet. I didn't

26:55

know Chipper Jones to he moved down here, but I never knew

26:57

Dave Justice. Dave Justice and Chipper

26:59

jas also sounds like a country song to me.

27:02

Old ages to say, Chipper Jones going

27:05

down Lanta and they're entering your homes. I

27:07

don't know they're entering their own. I

27:12

think I said your homes.

27:15

Why are they coming to my house? It

27:17

sounds kind of scary, like funny games

27:19

like Justice and

27:25

they're entering your homes causing psychological

27:27

damage?

27:28

Wow? I thought maybe they were just like signing baseball's

27:31

or something.

27:37

Why are they negative? Right

27:39

away?

27:40

I really start therapy again, Really,

27:42

ship, I should look into

27:44

this. Why is like the first

27:46

thing I saw, I was like, they're trying to murder

27:48

me? All

27:52

right, You're

27:54

like, oh, it's like a nice make

27:56

a wish type is it?

27:59

But and then you go said, I'm

28:01

just like they're coming into sign baseballs and you're like,

28:03

it's my last wish.

28:06

Wow, you're so.

28:07

Right, it's so naked psychological

28:10

damage. Well

28:15

for another podcast.

28:18

Get a Better Help sponsorship over here.

28:22

We'll start another struggle what the fuck is wrong

28:24

with Diana? And it'll

28:26

just be me to asking better Help what's

28:29

wrong with me? And it'll be like, you know what, girl, great.

28:32

Question at

28:34

a ringing endorsement, Better Help. I think we

28:36

just lost our sponsorship.

28:39

Like, I just want to try to say it's better Help.

28:41

Can't just tell you what's wrong with you. You got to do

28:43

the work. I think Better Help would agree

28:46

with me. Oh

28:51

sorry, I'm feeling so silly today.

28:54

Wrong with that?

28:55

All right? So whatever Laurie was dating, the

28:57

well known everyone knows about him was

29:00

quarterback Troy Aikman. At

29:02

first, she was very disinterested

29:04

when her friend was trying to match her up

29:07

with Troy. But he was

29:09

very handsome and successful and he

29:12

did not have a drinking problem.

29:14

Check check check.

29:15

So they started dating. But it

29:17

was a lot tabloids,

29:20

gossip magazines, morning news. She

29:22

couldn't even go to the supermarket without it being a big

29:24

deal. You know, they're like stars, Y're just like us. They

29:26

eat food, you know. And so this was

29:28

a level of fame that Laurie really didn't

29:31

get as a country music star.

29:33

Right.

29:33

Also a big problem with them

29:35

was that Troy wanted kids, and he was

29:37

eight years younger than Laurie was. So

29:39

he's dating an older woman who had two children

29:42

already, who also definitely could

29:44

not have any more children. That was really

29:46

tough for him, and Laurie wrote quote,

29:48

I couldn't blame him for that. That's a big

29:50

hurdle for a man in his mid twenties. So

29:53

they broke up amicably less than a year later.

29:55

Right, So Laurie's single.

29:57

Now she's killing it professionally,

30:00

She's playing on TV. She's doing huge

30:02

concerts alongside big names. She

30:05

was on the soundtrack for the Beverly Hillbillies

30:08

movie, which had like Dolly Parton and Willie

30:11

Nelson, like a lot of big names. She

30:13

also put out a Christmas album that had

30:15

her doing duets with Andy Williams,

30:18

Johnny Mathis, and Tammy Wynette.

30:21

She even starred in a TV

30:23

pilot about a country music

30:25

singing detective called Laura

30:28

Lei Lee. The show was not

30:30

picked up for a series, and I'm half

30:32

wondering if it's not just because people couldn't

30:34

pronounce Laura Lei. Lee

30:37

reminds me of the rural drove

30:43

Laurelie Lee. Have you seen it? You

30:45

sound drunk when you talk about it.

30:46

Loy also a country music

30:50

the Tectics kind of Philly. But

30:52

I don't know. Maybe maybe they do a song

30:55

after every U, or

30:57

they do the song and they reveal the

31:01

culprit.

31:02

Oh yeah, in the lyrics they're like, turns out

31:05

David Justice and Jibber Jones had

31:07

come down to Atlanta. They were entering homes.

31:10

I knew the crime all the time.

31:14

Suspicious. You were right to be suspicious

31:17

of everything.

31:17

Yes, never trust your fellow man.

31:21

Wow in the caston

31:24

all right. Well, after dating

31:26

Troy Aikman, Laurie went in a different

31:28

direction, and in nineteen ninety four she

31:31

started dating US Senator

31:33

Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Wow.

31:35

So she's had a bassist, a bus driver,

31:38

a footballball star, and a country

31:41

music thing of course, and then now a

31:43

senator.

31:44

Wow.

31:44

She really does do be trying style.

31:46

Yeah, she said

31:48

in her autobiography Forever Yours Faithfully

31:51

My Love Story that Fred

31:54

was great. He is so great. Even

31:56

his ex wife still liked him. She

31:58

said that she liked dating older, successful

32:00

man and she felt very secure with him.

32:03

He also was very kind to her. He

32:05

pushed her to feel more confident about

32:07

her talents and her music and everything. He

32:10

lavished her with gifts. Obviously a very wealthy

32:13

man because he's a Southern senator. And

32:15

Fred was even mulling a presidential

32:17

run at that point, and Laurie wrote quote,

32:20

I would be sitting at a glamorous party and

32:22

have the flickering thought, so this

32:24

is what it's like to be a first lady.

32:27

Hell. I could handle that. Then I would

32:29

say, oops, better drop the hell.

32:35

Beautiful country singers and they're

32:38

just have you know, foul mouth, they got

32:40

no hesitation occurs in stuff.

32:41

You know. I'm into that. But

32:44

yeah, Laurie thought dating a politician was

32:46

too stifling. Sure, She wrote

32:49

quote, I cannot express myself as

32:51

a pungent, pithy country singer.

32:53

I began to feel programmed to smile

32:56

and be well political. I

32:58

put myself to the task could be in a great companion

33:01

to a stimulating and important man,

33:04

and as a result, I became

33:06

boring. I mean right there, She had to drop

33:08

the hell. Yeah, right, so that makes sense. Yeah,

33:11

she said. She felt like everything she said she had to think

33:13

about the political implications. She couldn't really

33:15

be herself. And just like when she dated

33:17

Troy Aikman, every time she went out

33:19

in public, it was tabloids and TV analyzing

33:22

everything she wore, every facial expression

33:24

she made, which I was going to say, I feel

33:26

like dating a senator is not all the way

33:28

to get out of the public eye.

33:29

Right right, the worst

33:32

direction even worse, right, she said. I used to think

33:34

I better drop the hell. Then I realized

33:37

I better drop the hell out of this relationship.

33:41

I dropped the hymn instead. Shortly

33:44

after they broke up, she started dating

33:47

another country singer and songwriter

33:49

named John Randall. John

33:52

Randall the co writer of the song A Whiskey

33:55

Lullaby. We got him, We made it to

33:58

everybody clap. So

34:00

in nineteen ninety six they got married, same

34:03

year she broke up with the senator. Yeah, so just

34:05

a quickie, quick turnaround

34:07

for ol Laurie. A year later,

34:09

she published her autobiography that we mentioned earlier,

34:12

Forever Yours Faithfully My Love

34:14

Story.

34:14

Oh okay, so she's married and she puts out

34:17

this autobiography titled

34:19

My Love Story. Well Entertainment

34:22

Weekly gave the book a C, saying

34:24

quote Morgan offers unsavory

34:27

new details about Keith Whitley's last

34:29

days and dishes the skinny on dating

34:31

Troy Aikman and Senator Fred Thompson,

34:34

but she doesn't do much soul searching

34:36

about the four marriages she's racked up by age

34:38

thirty eight, and when she fails to

34:40

even mention her current spouse,

34:43

singer John Randall, you can't help

34:45

but size him up as a future ex husband.

34:47

Oo out.

34:49

I think that's insane for someone to publish

34:52

an autobiography called Forever Yours

34:54

Faithfully My Love Story and not

34:56

mentioned their current spouse.

34:58

I mean that is pretty crazy.

35:00

A little prescient maybe.

35:03

Though I don't love the judgment that I'm

35:05

hearing in not much soul searching

35:07

about the four marriages she's racked up by

35:10

age thirty eight. Yeah, now, Laurie,

35:12

I don't think that she's necessarily

35:14

the steadiest like partner

35:16

everything, but one of them

35:18

died.

35:19

You know.

35:19

It's not like she's trying to jump

35:21

from man to man or something. There's just there's it's

35:24

smacks of a judgment that I don't love.

35:25

Yeah, I totally get that.

35:28

I just wonder, you know, I have to wonder

35:30

if if it was a man who had

35:32

racked up four marriage that they would even mention it.

35:34

You know, it would just be like some dude doing his

35:37

thing. Yeah, I don't like.

35:39

I just don't. I don't see them being like he needs to

35:41

really think about what he's doing. It's

35:44

never like that.

35:45

No, you're right, I don't know. And to be

35:47

fair. On page two hundred and eighty

35:49

seven out of three hundred and one, so

35:51

fourteen pages before the end, she

35:54

does mention John Randall once. Oh

35:56

I am Yeah, she does say I married

35:59

a country singer name John Randall, and it

36:01

must have been really hard for him to see me writing

36:03

about all my ex husbands all the time. That's

36:06

it. That's the only mention of him. She

36:08

didn't like go in and add a chapter about

36:10

like, but I finally found the love of my life and

36:12

I'm so excited that that was not in there.

36:15

You think John read it and was like, okay, am

36:19

I kicking up what

36:21

you're putting down?

36:21

Is there a sequel you're planning

36:24

or Because it says my love

36:26

story and I ain't in it.

36:28

I'm not in it, so I

36:30

guess it's not my love story.

36:32

It says forever yours faithfully,

36:34

and it's not to me your husband.

36:37

So that's interesting. Now.

36:38

I will say, in defense of their smack

36:40

of judgment, that it is funny to call your

36:42

book forever Yours faithfully, and

36:45

then we talk about all these different.

36:46

Men, right right. I

36:50

do think that mostly refers to Keith, because

36:52

she's like, he died and a lot of it was about

36:54

her dealing with his death, which I understand.

36:57

But yeah, it is kind of like I

37:00

love story. But you know

37:02

who doesn't factor into my love story at all?

37:05

My current husband, a guy.

37:06

Who's ring I'm wearing well.

37:08

In December of nineteen ninety six, just

37:10

a month after their wedding, Laurie and her new husband,

37:13

John performed together on the Grand Ole Opry,

37:15

singing a duet of the song by

37:17

My Side. In nineteen

37:19

ninety seven, Laurie performed the National

37:21

Anthem at the Daytona five hundred, which

37:24

was historic because it was also Jeff Gordon's

37:26

first Daytona win.

37:28

Look get that.

37:29

She also sang let It Snow at

37:31

the White House Christmas tree lighting. Oh

37:33

and in nineteen ninety eight, tabloids

37:36

claimed she had quote a

37:38

wild ride in the backseat of a

37:40

limousine with President Bill

37:43

Clinton.

37:44

Oh scandalous.

37:47

The Laurie angrily refuted this story. She

37:49

said her only interaction with Bill Clinton was

37:51

in public for the tree lighting. Uh

37:53

huh, but of course makes sense

37:55

to be like, you know, our our swingin'

37:58

playboy president.

37:59

Well, I mean, Bill Clinton said

38:01

in January of ninety eight, I

38:04

did not have sexual relations with that woman,

38:07

so talking about Monica Lewinsky, of course, so

38:09

this had have been right. So if he was fooling

38:11

around with more than one woman,

38:13

as men who fool around with other

38:16

women often.

38:16

Do, very true.

38:18

I'm just look, I will totally

38:21

take Laurie's word for this, but

38:23

there's a part of my brain she can't convince that something

38:25

didn't happen. His

38:27

little little part of the tabloid

38:30

stuck in my head. That's how they make their

38:32

money.

38:33

I just love thinking that an actual wild night

38:35

with Bill Clinton would be like he pulls

38:37

out the sacks and

38:39

he's like it's time there whispers

38:43

whatever, and she's in the back of limousine

38:45

like hanging out the sun roof.

38:48

He's got fucking Baker Street blasted.

38:50

Yes, she's like too

38:54

wow.

38:55

Also a side note, just a little happy

38:57

story. A month after that, in April, on

39:00

Interstate sixty five in Nashville,

39:03

two dogs got loose on the highway

39:05

and drivers had to like hit the brakes to avoid them,

39:08

and it caused a huge backup that

39:10

Laurie's tour bus got stuck in. So

39:13

Laurie Morgan got out of her bus, walked

39:15

across the highway and rescued the two

39:17

dogs. Aw Hey, Lourie. She

39:20

showed up late for her rehearsal covered in mud.

39:22

Oh worth it well. Later

39:24

that year, Laurie recorded a duet

39:27

with a country singer that she knew way

39:29

back when, and he had become quite famous

39:31

himself. His name was

39:33

Sammy Kershaw. And if you remember

39:36

back when she was touring with George Jones

39:39

when she was twenty years old, she had a

39:41

little flaying with young Sammy Kershaw

39:43

before she ended up marrying the bassist Ron Gaddis

39:46

Right. Well, turns out the spark

39:48

was still alive between Laurie and Sammy,

39:50

who was also very married.

39:53

EU it's gonna get

39:55

messy in here. So before

39:57

we get to her fifth marriage, let's

39:59

take a quick break. Prepare for all this

40:01

drama and see I would eventually lead to the song

40:03

that Courtney originally sent us, Whiskey

40:06

Lullaby. Find out how right

40:08

after this, Well,

40:15

going back, y'all to the show, Jipper

40:18

joneses here and he's coming in your door. Oh my

40:20

god, get

40:22

away from this song. It's so fun.

40:25

I'm terrified of Chipper Jones showing up

40:27

of my door. So it's the late

40:29

nineties. Country music star Laurie

40:31

Morgan is married to another country singer

40:34

and songwriter, John Randall. Now

40:36

the big picture of what happened next is totally

40:39

true, but the little details are from some tabloids.

40:41

Okay, so we'll try to.

40:42

Differentiate for you. Yeah, you can take

40:45

the tabloid stuff with the large

40:47

grain of salt.

40:48

Sure.

40:49

So, according to Star Magazine

40:52

in nineteen ninety eight, Laurie was recording

40:54

a duet with another country star,

40:56

Sammy Kershaw. Now

40:58

we know Sammy and Laurie had that flaying

41:00

when they were both touring with George Jones back in seventy

41:02

nine, but she ended up marrying the bassist. Well,

41:05

Sammy and Laurie crossed paths a lot

41:07

over the years, and they kept in touch

41:09

a little. But The Star says that

41:11

during these recording sessions they were quote

41:14

flirting heavily, and they

41:16

were also going to each other's concerts. They

41:18

even did a few duets outside

41:21

the studio.

41:23

Oh that's the Star, Okay,

41:25

a little honkey tonk in the bedroom there, Okay,

41:28

okay. Now. The Star also says that

41:31

John Randall started hearing these rumors,

41:33

and, according to a friend, quote he

41:35

started calling Sammy's band members

41:37

asking what's going on with my wife

41:39

and Sammy?

41:40

Yikes.

41:41

Well they must have given him some detailed

41:43

answers, because on August

41:46

eighth of nineteen ninety nine, the Tennesseean

41:48

reported that John Randall and Laurie Morgan

41:51

were getting a divorce. Meanwhile,

41:54

Sammy Kershaw's wife, Kim, whom

41:57

he had been married to for fourteen

41:59

years and had two daughters

42:01

with, was none too happy when

42:03

news got back to her that her husband

42:05

had been fooling around with his long lost

42:08

sweetheart. On November ninth

42:10

of nineteen ninety nine, she filed

42:12

for divorce from Sammy in Nashville, citing

42:15

irreconcilable differences. So

42:17

that's you know, the divorce filings

42:20

in both cases were true. We

42:22

don't know if, like, you know, all those

42:24

about all the rumors getting back to them and

42:26

their angry responses and all this stuff that's

42:29

kind of being filled in by the tabloids. But you

42:31

know, some tabloid stuff is true.

42:34

Something I don't know is something.

42:38

Also, according to The Star, Sammy

42:40

and Kim actually had had a great

42:42

marriage. They had both been married

42:44

a couple times before, and they had both had

42:46

troubles with drugs and alcohol in their previous

42:49

relationships. So now, after

42:51

fourteen years of marriage and two kids,

42:53

they both really felt like they'd settled down,

42:56

their crazy days were behind them. But

42:58

then Laurie walked back

43:00

into Sammy's life and everything

43:03

changed, and Kim allegedly

43:06

was pissed.

43:08

So Kim went after Sammy

43:11

hard in the divorce, and we

43:13

did find a few details of their divorce proceedings

43:15

on rolandnote dot COM's country

43:18

music database. So on day one

43:20

of their divorce trial, Kim accused

43:22

Sammy of adultery with Laurie Morgan.

43:25

He fired back and said that she had

43:27

had an affair where a used car sales.

43:29

What Then, on day two, it

43:31

was revealed that Sammy Kershaw had paid fifty

43:34

thousand dollars to settle a sexual

43:36

harassment lawsuit back in nineteen ninety

43:38

seven. Oh man, we cannot find any

43:40

more info about that.

43:41

And I know it was like trying so hard,

43:43

but it's the only record of

43:46

that.

43:46

I mean, I guess if you settle part of.

43:48

That is the whole point is like cleaning

43:51

my soft quiet Yeah.

43:52

My record and stuff. So anyway,

43:55

so this trial just went on for weeks, and they were a little

43:57

bombshells being dropped and thrown by each

43:59

each of them and everything. But during

44:01

their divorce trial, it seems like Laurie

44:04

and John was

44:06

it have a more of a quick and clean process.

44:08

CMT dot com said, quote Morgan

44:11

will keep all her own assets and Randall

44:13

will keep his. The two have reportedly

44:15

stated that they will remain friends and possibly

44:18

work together in the future. Though it sounds like,

44:20

you know, he's all right, buye you

44:22

like famy whatever.

44:23

So by week three of Sammy

44:25

and Kim's divorce trial, he

44:27

had accused Kim of excessive spending,

44:30

saying that she logged one hundred

44:32

and eighty two thousand dollars in personal

44:34

expenses in nineteen ninety nine. Well

44:36

damn, but Sammy could throw

44:38

whatever accusations he wanted at Kim and just

44:40

nothing was sticking, probably partly

44:43

because even during their

44:45

divorce trial, Sammy and

44:47

Laurie were not even trying to be

44:49

discreet about their relationship together.

44:52

Laurie even opened a restaurant called

44:54

Laurie Morgan's Spicy Hot Chicken

44:56

Coop, which had Sammy

44:59

Kershaw's potato salad on the menu.

45:01

Wow.

45:01

At one point, Kim Kershaw dropped

45:04

this bombshell on the court. She testified

45:07

that Laurie Morgan admitted to her

45:10

that she had an affair with Sammy back

45:13

in nineteen ninety three. Now,

45:16

Sammy would have been still

45:18

married to Kim at that point because they got married

45:20

in the mid eighties. But if we

45:22

play back the tape from earlier in this podcast,

45:25

we know that in nineteen ninety three, Laurie

45:29

was feeling unhappy with her bus

45:31

driver husband, Brad Thompson, and

45:34

divorced him for sixty five thousand dollars

45:36

and a pickup truck. So

45:38

maybe that affair had something

45:41

to do with what ultimately broke up Laurie

45:43

and Brad or came about because

45:45

Laurie and Brad were already on the rocks, right,

45:48

but either way kind of adds a new

45:51

piece of info to that story.

45:53

Very true.

45:54

Well.

45:54

In April of two thousand and one, Sammy and Kim

45:56

Kershaw's divorce was finalized. The judge

45:58

head zero sympathy

46:01

for sam He's like you

46:03

are wild annowed Sammy, So he

46:05

was ordered to pay thirty five thousand dollars

46:07

for Kim's legal fees, four thousand

46:10

dollars a month in alimony, and six

46:12

thousand, five hundred dollars a month in

46:14

child support.

46:15

Right.

46:16

Kim also received primary custody

46:18

of the kids, and the judge said,

46:20

quote.

46:21

Mister Kershaw's marital misconduct

46:24

has been open and notorious,

46:26

with absolutely no discretion being used

46:28

to protect his wife and children from information

46:30

concerning his affair.

46:32

With Miss Lori Morgan.

46:34

Sorry, I love this Tennessee judge.

46:38

Should I give more this Sam

46:40

Eagle from Tennessee? Oh

46:42

no, it's.

46:44

A powdered wig that he puts on

46:46

to make his judgment.

46:53

Country Bumpkins.

46:54

He was sent there as

46:56

from the city.

46:57

From the city for being for being two by

46:59

the book, he couldn't he couldn't

47:02

work with the mobsters that were running you

47:05

know, the city Seattle, where he had

47:07

previously been a judge, and they were like,

47:09

I'm sending you to Nashville.

47:12

Like, no, fine, I'll

47:14

bring my brand of justice to Nashville.

47:17

Let's see how it works down there.

47:19

Call me barrister.

47:23

That British.

47:28

Well, anyway, you might wonder, you

47:31

know, did Sammy take that to heart, this

47:33

judge being like hella judgmental?

47:37

He was, maybe like judgmental.

47:40

That judge really pegged me I

47:43

should maybe act a little more

47:45

discretion and humility, maybe

47:48

act like a gentleman. Nope, because eleven

47:50

days after the divorce was finalized, he

47:52

and Laurie went on Live with Regis

47:54

and Kelly to announce their engagement.

47:58

I swear they are like why people

48:00

to get mad at them?

48:01

Right, Like it's not even like, well

48:03

they got engaged. Eleven days later, they went

48:05

on the biggest live morning talk show

48:07

in the world to tell literally everyone,

48:10

they will, yes, screw our previous marriages.

48:12

We're starting this one now.

48:15

First it was chicken and potato salad. Now

48:17

it's heart and soul. So

48:19

on September twenty ninth, two thousand and one,

48:21

they got married in Nashville.

48:24

Now on Larry King, Laurie did an

48:26

interview and she said, quote from

48:29

the first time I met Sammy, there was a traction

48:31

there. Nothing happened, and some twenty

48:33

years later we were both in marriages and

48:36

we decided to get out of those marriages to pursue

48:38

the love that we felt for each other. It

48:40

was tough on our family, our children and

48:42

our fans. But you know, you

48:44

only live once, which

48:47

I mean, you know, there's something to that,

48:49

and sort of like, why am I, for the sake

48:52

of

48:54

etiquette gonna

48:56

delay the thing that brings me happiness?

48:59

Right?

49:00

Something there? But also you got to consider who

49:02

you are hurting, right, and you can't always

49:04

just pursue the thing that you want the most

49:06

deeply when you've got to consider other people's

49:09

feelings and well being as well.

49:11

But you know, well, and this might be where

49:13

you know, you want some of that self analysis to

49:15

come in, get her to think to herself, you

49:18

know, my heart is a little fickle. Yeah,

49:20

maybe I don't need to marry every man.

49:24

We could just stay for a.

49:25

While and maybe you know, when

49:27

there's when I'm married to someone and I'm attracted

49:29

to someone else, I sort of ride

49:31

that out, you know, and try to get through

49:33

it and see what's going on with Yeah,

49:36

I mean, who knows what was going on?

49:39

Mind or heart hurt wants what it wants

49:41

and so on.

49:44

But a year into the marriage,

49:47

things apparently got a little rocky again.

49:49

That fickle heart reared its head

49:51

because Laurie and Sammy had

49:53

both filed restraining orders against

49:56

each other. She told Larry

49:58

King in this interview, which was after or they'd reconciled,

50:01

that this had come from pressure from outside

50:03

forces who quote didn't want

50:05

us to succeed. They were

50:08

being played against each other by either people

50:10

who you know, who were angry

50:12

about how their previous divorces went down,

50:15

or by the tabloids who were seeking drama.

50:18

She said, quote we fell for it. We

50:20

took it out on each other, and one fight led

50:22

to another and it became extremely, extremely

50:25

violent. It was very uncalled

50:27

for. Of this violence.

50:30

Can only find out that in court. Sammy

50:33

is the one who claimed that Laurie assaulted him.

50:36

But she did say that neither of them were doing

50:38

any drugs or drinking. She said, neither of them do

50:40

because they both had bad histories with it.

50:42

It was just a lot of built up frustration

50:45

and hot heads and you know, tempers

50:47

and all that. But when

50:50

she came back later to pack up some of

50:52

her stuff, you know, they saw each

50:54

other. They started to talk. They

50:56

realized that they had already gone through so much

50:58

drama just to be together, that they must

51:00

really matter to each other and they should try

51:03

and work this out. So they talked for a while and

51:05

it seemed like things were going to be okay, okay.

51:08

But even though they were later seen

51:10

acting quote unquote lovey dovey,

51:13

I guess there were a lot of PDA going on in Hot

51:16

Chicken, Cooper.

51:17

Probably trying to undo all those tabloid headlines.

51:20

Yeah, so yeah, even so they had

51:22

problem. Yeah, in two thousand and five,

51:24

the Hot Chicken restaurant closed, you

51:27

know seven Sammy filed for bankruptcy,

51:30

and later that year he announced his candidacy

51:32

as a Republican for Lieutenant governor

51:34

of Louisiana. Oh and we know, LORI,

51:37

you know, don't like Dayton politicians.

51:39

Right, you know, nice like I tried that.

51:41

By the way, he lost. Yeah,

51:44

he did not win that win.

51:45

Also weird that he like declared bankruptcy

51:48

and was like I know how to get back on my feet

51:50

with money run for politics, which

51:52

just kind of shows you what her political

51:54

run will do for your financial situation.

51:57

That's true, But I was about to say, it's very expensive

51:59

to run a president right, I mean, not even presidential,

52:01

any any office. A

52:04

race for any office is pretty pricey. Yeah,

52:06

so it's like you kind of have to have some of

52:08

your own money too.

52:09

Well, that's one thinking is this was a play

52:11

against the system. This is one of those like I'm a declare

52:13

bankruptcy so that I have I

52:16

can debt free run

52:18

for office, and in running for office,

52:20

I can raise money, I can sell books,

52:23

whatever it is he did, because a lot of people walk

52:25

away from a run with more money than

52:27

they started with, despite having spent

52:29

millions of dollars on the run. There's a

52:31

big problem with money in the political system,

52:33

is all I'm saying here.

52:34

You're so right. So on top

52:37

of all that, even their respective

52:39

crowds couldn't get along because Lori

52:42

said she was quote unquote laid

52:44

back music, kind of like Tammy Wynette,

52:46

you know, in that vein. Sammy

52:48

meanwhile, was more like southern

52:51

rock, like a Leonard Skinnard. Okay, so

52:53

they're like, we can't even tour together because their fans

52:55

didn't mix, they didn't share interest

52:58

in the others music or whatever. So

53:01

it was just a lot of problems like that, and in

53:03

August of that year, Sammy and Laurie

53:05

legally separated. By October, LORII

53:07

filed for divorce. The next

53:09

year, some trust sued

53:12

Laurie Morgan for three hundred and twenty

53:14

seven thousand dollars in unpaid

53:16

debt, So then she filed for bankruptcy

53:18

in two thousand and eight, citing between

53:21

one and ten million dollars

53:23

in debt, which it's like, that's a

53:25

huge disparity.

53:26

There's a big difference between one and two

53:29

million dollars. In fact, there's a million dollar

53:31

difference between those two numbers.

53:33

I think, I see what your problem is is that you don't

53:35

be tracked.

53:36

She's like, I don't know, one million, ten

53:39

million, it's all the same.

53:40

No, it isn't it's it's not the same very

53:43

much, not so big shock.

53:45

Laurie was never good with money. She told

53:47

the Boot in twenty sixteen that

53:49

her bankruptcy was because, quote, she

53:51

didn't watch her own money or audit

53:54

her accountant, right that is a trap.

53:56

And if you're so rich that you.

53:58

Have so many people looking after your money, yeah, look

54:00

after them right.

54:01

That was a comment in one of these articles too, that it's

54:03

like this is not uncommon for celebrities

54:06

who suddenly have a lot of money and

54:08

don't really know how to handle it. So they have people do and

54:10

they just assume all their bills are getting paid. They

54:12

just assume everything's being handled and then

54:15

they get a letter one day that's like, hey, it

54:17

hadn't been handled.

54:18

Right, look at Shakira, right?

54:20

Was not?

54:21

Her argument was that her tax

54:23

people were doing her taxes.

54:25

Yeah, so that's pretty much. The

54:27

most ridiculous of Lori Morgan's

54:29

love life is those those first

54:31

five husbands number five, especially that

54:33

whole just tabloid

54:36

drama, divorce, cheating everything.

54:39

Afterwards, she did get married one more time

54:41

to Randy White, a businessman. That

54:43

was in twenty ten, and they seem to still

54:45

be married happily today. Oh

54:48

yeah, she's got an active Facebook

54:50

page where she almost exclusively

54:53

posts dog memes, but

54:55

she does have pictures of the two of them on a beach

54:58

and stuff, and you know, seeming to be doing

55:00

okay, I guess she does little tours.

55:02

She was like, I'm playing this music hall and Niagara

55:04

Falls and stuff like that. So I guess she's still

55:07

playing a little bit. So that's that's Laurie

55:10

and her ridiculous love

55:12

life but ridiculous

55:14

romance. Some might even say, what

55:18

But now we can finally loop

55:20

back to Courtney's original

55:22

Instagram message and the song Whiskey

55:25

Lullaby that set us off on this tangent

55:27

in the first place. Now that

55:29

we know how Laurie and John's divorce

55:31

went down, we can understand why afterwards

55:34

John was kind of a wreck. Right.

55:36

I mean, his wife, who'd never even mentioned him

55:38

in her autobiography about the loves of her life,

55:40

right, was off cheating

55:43

on him with her you know, effectively

55:45

teenage sweetheart.

55:46

She's in hot chicken with someone else.

55:49

Right. So within days

55:51

of the divorce, John also lost

55:53

a record deal and a songwriting contract,

55:56

according to an article on American Songwriter dot

55:58

com. So things a really

56:00

low point in John's life, and

56:03

he started drinking heavily after this, and

56:06

he went back to a lot of his worst habits. Just

56:08

having a really hard time and seeing

56:10

him in this state. Apparently, his manager

56:13

said to him quote, hey man,

56:15

every now and then you got to put a bottle to

56:17

your head and pull the trigger. And John

56:20

was like, uh shit, I got

56:22

to write that down for later, which

56:28

also like imagine walking in on

56:30

your friend who's like drunk passed out and being

56:32

like, yeah, sometimes you gotta do that. I

56:35

mean, it's not exactly what

56:37

he needed to hear.

56:38

Especially your manager, should

56:40

you not be like, hey man, let's clean get you cleaned

56:43

up. You know what I'm saying, Like we'll go on a little

56:45

sabbatical or something. Get your head right.

56:47

You wucking guy's face down of the toilet,

56:49

three whiskey bottles empty around him, and you're

56:51

just like, yep, it happens.

56:53

Go on a bender until

56:56

you.

56:56

Die there some

56:58

of us don't come back.

57:00

Geez, you're a terrible manager, right I

57:02

Oh. John was like, I'm going to get any manager

57:05

who cares if I liver ORed.

57:07

I Well.

57:07

John cleaned himself up, got back to

57:10

work, and he paired up with songwriter Bill

57:12

Anderson to try and put a song together. Now

57:14

Anderson had his own idea for a song called Midnight

57:17

Cigarette.

57:18

Oh no, that's country.

57:19

That is that is very country sound. He said,

57:21

quote can you imagine a cigarette

57:23

just sitting on an ash tray at midnight, nobody's

57:26

smoking it or paying it any attention, and

57:29

it just burned out. And

57:31

he kind of likens that to a relationship

57:33

where you don't hit a wall or anything. It just

57:36

sort of goes away, kind of pizzles.

57:38

Right.

57:38

We've all had one of them. Yeah, yeah, Like

57:40

neither of us are trying to say it, but we both

57:42

know.

57:43

I had one where we're like never

57:46

We never really broke up, just kind

57:48

of left one day.

57:50

It was like, all right, I guess I'll wow

57:52

see you later. And so I guess

57:55

technically I'm still dating that person, babe.

57:58

Sorry, we unbelieve the ball.

58:00

I'll text full time.

58:02

I'll text her and be like, hey, we need to make this official.

58:05

You have multiple

58:07

children, we

58:10

should break up.

58:12

We should probably break up now. She's

58:15

like, who is this no offense?

58:19

Damn wow. I actually would take a lot of

58:21

offense if she said that to me.

58:24

That would be very upset. So anyway, John

58:26

loved the idea for this song, and

58:28

he said, quote, yeah, well I

58:30

put the bottle to my head and pulled the trigger

58:32

a few times. Oh, And Bill

58:35

was like, for good midnight cigarette.

58:38

Now that's a line.

58:39

You know who told you

58:41

that, some supportive friend, I hope.

58:47

When they were telling you to get yourself clean. But

58:50

actually both lines ended up going into the

58:52

song that they wrote together, which is Whiskey

58:55

Lullaby. So y'all,

58:57

I don't think we can legally play it for you.

59:00

I do think we can go on down to

59:02

a poetry corner and give a read

59:05

of a few of these here lyrics.

59:08

She pooed him out like the burning end

59:10

of a midnight cigarette. She broke

59:13

his heart. He spent his whole life trying

59:15

to forget. We watched him drink

59:17

his pain away little at a time,

59:20

but he never could get drunk enough to

59:22

get her off his mind until

59:24

the night.

59:25

He put that bottle to his head and

59:27

pulled the trigger and finally

59:30

drank away her memory. Life

59:32

is short, but this time it was bigger

59:35

than the strength he had to get up off

59:37

his knees. We found him

59:39

with his face down in the pillow, with

59:41

a note that said I'll love her till I

59:44

die. And when we buried him

59:46

beneath the willow, the angels

59:48

sang a whiskey lullaby.

59:52

There you have it, folks whiskey

59:54

lullabye, midnight cigarette,

59:57

midnight cigarette and bottled of his head

59:59

and pulled the tree, which like, oh,

1:00:01

it's clever. But the more I hear it, I'm like, that's

1:00:04

stupid, that's

1:00:08

so rude. I don't mean that. It's fine.

1:00:10

A lot of people love that song. It's a very popular song.

1:00:12

Our dear listener,

1:00:15

Courtney may Klaus, I assume loves

1:00:17

that song. She knew it well enough

1:00:19

to make the link between the willow trees lines.

1:00:23

I'll tell you. We're obviously history

1:00:25

fans, and we love

1:00:28

going to ancient China

1:00:30

and France and you

1:00:32

know, getting all these medieval love stories

1:00:34

and stuff like that. It's a lot of fun. So it's

1:00:36

nice to dive into something that I think we're really

1:00:39

truly unfamiliar with once in a while,

1:00:42

just like the country music scene, despite the fact

1:00:44

that we kind of I mean, Atlanta's a bit

1:00:46

of a bubble, but we are certainly surrounded by

1:00:48

a lot of country music around, yeah,

1:00:50

and I think we just kind of tune it out generally, So

1:00:53

it's cool to get into this story and learn a

1:00:56

different, different part of the world. Oh

1:00:59

side note, Senator Fred Thompson

1:01:01

who Laurie dated is an

1:01:04

exact replica of

1:01:07

Kelsey Grammar. What these guys

1:01:09

look? Look him up? Okay, look, I want

1:01:11

you to google Fred Thompson right now

1:01:14

and give me your immediate reaction. Oh

1:01:16

my god, yeah right. I mean

1:01:18

I'm not the first to say so. If you scroll down, there's

1:01:20

surely like four pages that show pictures.

1:01:22

They're like Kelsey Grammer, He's just playing

1:01:24

a movie or something.

1:01:26

Actually. People also ask

1:01:29

why did Fred Thompson leave Law and Order?

1:01:33

Did he have something?

1:01:34

Maybe that's a different fred Thompson.

1:01:36

That's funny. It does say he

1:01:38

was an actor, so maybe he was on Law and Order.

1:01:40

He sure was. In the final months of

1:01:42

his US Senate term. In two thousand and two, fred

1:01:45

Thompson joined the cast of Law and Order,

1:01:47

Wow, starring as a district attorney. Well,

1:01:49

anyway, it was a really

1:01:51

cool story to just stumble across. I love

1:01:53

those. Let me look up this song. Ah, there's nothing

1:01:56

here. Wait a minute, there's

1:01:58

a little bit here. Oh my god, there's

1:02:00

six marriages. Yeah.

1:02:02

My question is why Mary.

1:02:05

I feel like after the third or fourth time, I'd

1:02:08

be like, you know, well, let's just date for a while, you know, like

1:02:10

why would you want to tie the net so

1:02:12

quick?

1:02:13

I think for some people, especially

1:02:16

older generations, there's

1:02:19

this sort of idea that like, that's exclusively

1:02:21

why you date someone is

1:02:23

to marry them.

1:02:24

That's true.

1:02:25

And if after a couple of months things

1:02:27

are going well, you're like, all right, well,

1:02:29

then things are going well, let's get married and

1:02:31

then we'll have kids together. And that's why. Also,

1:02:34

I think a lot of people older generations who

1:02:36

got married a lot of and this came from

1:02:38

many years of marriage wasn't necessity

1:02:40

for comfort, which I totally understand.

1:02:43

But a lot of people will get married quickly

1:02:45

and then realize that they're not compatible

1:02:48

or they don't like each other, because sometimes

1:02:50

it takes a while to figure that out. So

1:02:53

then you got these sort of rotten marriages, these

1:02:56

grumpy old people who don't like each other,

1:02:58

or divorce or whatever happen happens, which

1:03:00

is why, of course we waited eight years

1:03:03

before we got married, just to be ex

1:03:06

sure. But again I still feel

1:03:08

like that was like holding

1:03:10

our noses and jumping in so but

1:03:12

I think it's so far it's worked out pretty well.

1:03:14

It's good to hear.

1:03:15

Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right.

1:03:17

I don't know, there is there is something different

1:03:19

about people's mindset today,

1:03:21

I guess about a relationship, it's like it's totally

1:03:24

fine too, or we even did Kurt Russell and

1:03:26

goldiehun who've never chosen to get married,

1:03:29

and they've had, you know, more commitment than

1:03:32

Laurie had with many of her actual

1:03:34

marriages. And as we've seen several

1:03:37

people who married multiple times, like Ron

1:03:39

Shephard what's his name, the most

1:03:41

married man or whatever? Oh yeah, but

1:03:43

anyway, I just think it's funny to have so

1:03:46

many failed marriages and then just keep

1:03:48

doing it. Like I feel like at some point, if it

1:03:50

were me, I'd be like, you know what, let's just you know

1:03:52

what, we're just gonna hold off, Like I don't get

1:03:54

married again, Like we're together

1:03:57

for at least a year or two before right

1:04:00

thing goes down. Especially with some

1:04:02

of them, are like there's literally a couple months

1:04:04

between it is in

1:04:06

the divorce and the marriage.

1:04:07

To me, I'm like, in her heart

1:04:10

and mind, when you

1:04:12

know divorce is a fairly ready option,

1:04:15

what is the difference between that and

1:04:18

just long term dating?

1:04:19

Right?

1:04:20

Right? I mean we're in a committed relationship

1:04:22

for two years to me,

1:04:25

the only difference between that and long term dating

1:04:28

is that you had a ceremony to say we're

1:04:31

in this committed relationship and also you

1:04:33

said in your vows till death do us

1:04:35

part or something along those lines, and

1:04:38

then did not really

1:04:40

think that because like till death or

1:04:42

discomfort or awkwardness

1:04:44

or I find somebody better, you know. It kind

1:04:47

of like yeah,

1:04:49

So to me, it's just like you

1:04:51

all you did was technically all you did was date

1:04:53

these people. You just made it legally

1:04:56

official.

1:04:57

That, which I guess is the weird party

1:04:59

because I'm it's not like you're in it for their money

1:05:01

or something. You have all your own shit going on,

1:05:04

so you're actually putting your own self in danger

1:05:07

by marrying this bus driver or this one

1:05:09

whoever, And it just seems

1:05:12

like an odd choice, I guess. But you know whatever,

1:05:14

she's happy now, so good

1:05:16

for you, Laura.

1:05:17

And she you know, a life full of adventures

1:05:19

and for her that was you know, I think she was.

1:05:22

It sounds like she was more often happy than

1:05:24

not, and that she

1:05:27

was excited each time that she got into

1:05:29

one of these relationships. They she usually

1:05:31

dated people for a fairly long time slash

1:05:34

married them for a couple of years at

1:05:37

least. It wasn't like, you know, bouncing one

1:05:39

of the next all the time. So I don't

1:05:41

know. It's certainly not my cup of tea.

1:05:44

And I don't think it was only anyone was

1:05:46

happy to get divorced so many times.

1:05:48

Yeah, and I'm not trying to say she should

1:05:50

stay with someone she didn't get into. I must

1:05:53

rather be a multiple divorce than be married

1:05:55

to the wrong person.

1:05:56

Right, but pump the brakes on getting

1:05:58

married.

1:05:58

But the marriage exactly just like just hang

1:06:00

on on that part.

1:06:02

Yeah.

1:06:03

Well, I mean, I am very glad that we got this

1:06:05

message from Courtney May because this was

1:06:07

a fun, like a kind of clib messy

1:06:10

dramas.

1:06:11

Yeah, a little bit of tabloid episode, which we don't get

1:06:13

to do too often.

1:06:13

Way, But as you say in the country music world, which

1:06:15

is very unknown.

1:06:16

To men, also just

1:06:18

goes to show that any message you send

1:06:21

us could turn into something very valuable.

1:06:23

So please.

1:06:23

You might not even think so if you're.

1:06:25

Just like man, I have the dumbest thought

1:06:27

about their episode, but I don't you know what,

1:06:29

they won't even care. We will,

1:06:31

we will. It might change our lives

1:06:33

forever, So please.

1:06:34

We might talk about it for an hour and a half.

1:06:36

Yes, So do please

1:06:39

send us your thoughts, your feelings,

1:06:42

your ideas, anything that might

1:06:44

have crossed your mind while you were listening to this episode.

1:06:46

Tell us if you've been married and divorced

1:06:49

several times and sort of how

1:06:51

you know your take on everything we've been talking about here.

1:06:53

If we're absolutely have no idea

1:06:55

what we're talking about, or if we're spot

1:06:58

on, you know, I love to hear it. Either way, shoot

1:07:00

us an email at ridic Romance at gmail dot.

1:07:02

Com right or we're on Instagram. I'm at Dynamite

1:07:04

Boone.

1:07:04

And I'm at Oh Great, It's Eli and.

1:07:06

The show is at ridic Romance.

1:07:09

Thank you so much for tuning in with us today. Thanks

1:07:11

again, Courtney and y'all take

1:07:13

a take, take it, take it, take it good,

1:07:15

take it, have it fun, have it fun there

1:07:17

at all fun and take watch out for Chipper

1:07:19

Jones and David Justice. Don't let them into

1:07:21

your homes if you see them on your right cameras.

1:07:24

Pretend not to be home.

1:07:25

All right, We'll see y'all next time.

1:07:27

Love you by all right, So long,

1:07:29

friends, it's time to go. Thanks

1:07:32

for listening to our show tell

1:07:34

your friends

1:07:35

David's uncles and dance to listen

1:07:37

to our show Ridiculous well Nance