From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Sat Jun 8, 2002 2:20 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Mack Vickery MACK VICKERY (By Shaun Mather) Born 8 June 1938, Town Creek, Alabama; died 20 December 2004, Nashville, TN If proof were ever needed that living the night life with Jerry Lee Lewis was bad for you, meet Mack Vickery. Early photos show him to be a real handsome mutha, but after spending too many years partying with the Killer, he looks more like the Butcher than the Meat Man. Born in Town Creek, Alabama, his mother died when he was four, leaving his father to bring up Mack and his numerous brothers and sisters. Mack Vickery first came to Memphis to try his luck in the music business in late '57, cutting three sogs for Sun Records, Fool Proof, Drive In and Have You Ever Been Lonely. No single was forthcoming though and they remained unissued for a couple of decades. He did see releases on a range of labels including Princetown, Gone (the great Going Back To St Louis), Jamie, Afco and Playboy, even using aliases like Vick Vickers and Atlanta James. It was to be his songwriting that gave him his greatest achievements though, and he started getting regular country hits, starting with Faron Young (She Went A Little Bit Further) and Tanya Tucker (Jamestown Ferry). Other classics that have scored big for him include I'm The Only Hell My Mother Ever Raised (Johnny Paycheck), The Fireman (George Strait) and You Gotta Be Puttin' Me On (Lefty Frizzell). Waylon Jennings cut a few of his songs, The Eagle, Cedartown Georgia nad one of my favourite songs, the beautiful, I Can't Keep My Hands Of Off You. But it's as a writer for his friend and kindred spirit Jerry Lee that he may best be remembered by Shakers. The Killer has cut many of his songs from ballads like Honky Tonk Wine, Ivory Tears, I Sure Miss Those Good Old Times and That Old Bourbon Street Church to storming rockers Meat Man and Rockin' My Life Away, both of which have remained constants in Jerry Lee's live shows. Mack was present at the legendary Southern Roots session that Jerry Lee cut using just southern musicians, southern songs and southern whiskey, plenty of it. I love the story from Now Dig This by Jim Newcombe who went to Vickery's house and was shown the dentists chair in the bedroom - it's for that maytang tongue with the sensitive taste! The cover photo of his 70's album cut Live At The Alabama Women's Prison shows him one side of the prison bars with four lusty jailbirds the other side, and it's hard to tell whether they want to get out of their cell more than he wants to get in! In recent times he wrote a song with Chief Bearheart of the Perdido Bay Tribe of Lower Muscogee Creek Indians called I Knew We Could All Get Along When an Indian Sings a Cowboy Song so the humour still seems to be there. A truly magical writer, and as with the best of the Memphis crowd, a sandwich short of a picnic. Updated 23 April 2005