SONGS IN THE KEY OF ‘BLUE’
Crystal Gayle to perform at Ave Maria benefit
Crystal Gayle to perform at Ave Maria Foundation’s 12th annual Silent Auction and Concert.
Yes, Crystal Gayle’s hair is still long. “It’s something hard to get rid of, if you know what I mean,” Gayle said. “I trim it back constantly. It just grows so fast. I attribute that to my American Indian blood, Cherokee.”
The Grammy Award-winning singer, known as much for her 1977 hit song, “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” as her to-the floor-and-longer hair, will appear at Ave Maria Foundation’s 12th annual Silent Auction and Concert at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the Siena Performing Arts Center at St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School. Proceeds will help fund scholarships for residents and resident programs.
“We wanted a Tennessee artist who is a good performer known in the community,” said Frank Gattuso, Ave Maria executive director. “This is our largest fundraising event of the year. We had some donors request that she come.”
Gayle, who now lives in Nashville, was the youngest of eight children. “My mother said I could sing before I could walk,” she said. “I was born in Kentucky. I think a lot of times the music has come out of the hills. You’d get your instrument out on the porch, and it would echo through the hollers. It was part of our life.”
Her sister, Loretta Lynn, came up with her first name, which was inspired by a Krystal hamburgers sign. “She saw the name there. She liked the name. We made a joke out of it. Another reason she liked the name was it was bright and shiny, and she thought that was what I was.”
Back to the hair. “I just had long hair in high school. I couldn’t fix hair. That’s why it became long. I couldn’t afford anybody else doing it. My sisters would all the time (say), ‘Cut your hair. Fix it. Do something with it.’”
Lynn wrote Gayle’s debut single, “I’ve Cried the Blue Right Out of My Eyes.” It reached the Top 25 on the national country music charts.
Another singer originally was to have recorded “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” which was written by Richard Leigh. “I loved the song,” Gayle said. “I always say it says so much and so little. It’s not this big, wordy song.”
The song actually was inspired by Leigh’s dog. “His dog really had one brown and one blue eye.”
Gayle recorded the song in one take, and her producer, Allen Reynolds, “put some strings on it.” The song, which appeared on her fourth album, catapulted her to stardom. She won a Appearing at the Ave Maria Foundation’s 12th annual Silent Auction and Concert at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the Siena Performing Arts Center at St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School, 4830 Walnut Grove. Tickets: $100 per person. Call Lisa Bell at 901-405-3791, or go to avemariahome.org.
Grammy for “Female Vocalist of the Year.” She appeared on top stages in Las Vegas and at the prestigious London Palladium. She toured the United States, Japan, England, Canada, Ireland and Germany, among other stops. She starred in CBS primetime specials and an HBO concert and appeared in Bob Hope’s NBC-TV special “On the Road to China.”
Her glamorous looks with her prominent cheekbones, long hair and beautiful clothes didn’t hurt. “For a long time I just wore white. I don’t know why. I went into colors. I like sparkle. It was a time when everybody was wearing jeans and T-shirts and all that. I wanted to wear something more. I never went for what was in style. I always would do what I felt looked good on me. A lot of people spend a lot of money on what it is in, and it just sits in your closet.”
Gayle broke through musical genre boundaries with projects including Crystal Gayle Sings the Heart and Soul of Hoagy Carmichael, which includes “Stardust” and “Two Sleepy People.”
She used to sing in her brother’s country band and friends’ rock bands as well as in the choir. She loved Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday and Peter, Paul and Mary. “I’d sing in swing groups in school. We’d all have the Ray Conniff songbooks: ‘Three Coins in the Fountain.’ It was a wide variety of background. That’s why I could do a little of everything, and I liked it.”
Gayle seems a natural for movies, but, “I just never felt like I came across anything I was sent that felt good,” she said. “I also did not want to be a singer trying to act. I turned down things here and there. Pretty-girl roles. They didn’t care if I could act or not.”
Gayle currently is working on an album featuring “wonderful country songs I grew up singing. Things that mean something to me. The first song I did on the (Grand Ole) Opry. Just songs. That was my life. Growing up and listening. I look back, Stringbean (David Akeman), Grandpa Jones, Archie Campbell. All these people. When you look back, they were a staple for country music. Tex Ritter.”
Gayle, who was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2008, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009. Her humanitarian efforts include the MakeA-Wish Foundation, for which she recorded the official theme song. She also has been the telethon co-host of the Arthritis Foundation for the past three years.
As for that hair, Gayle apparently is not planning to cut much of it, but having long locks does have drawbacks: “It hurts when you bend over and step on your hair.”