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Songwriter back home among friends in Wayne County Howard Perdew and his wife Carol lost their Monticello retail business but turned adversity into a blessing. They focused on developing his God given gift of song writing and moved to Nashville to pursue it. He shared their journey and details of top songs in a visit with Mary Ellis whose name you'll recognize from her inspirational sunrise pictures. She was thinking of this story when Joe Diffie died in March because he was one of the stars who recorded a Howard Perdew song. She shares the story below. By Mary Ellis, Monticello, KY First published June 2019 in The Wayne County Outlook Howard and Carol have been back down at his old home place, on the family farm for about three years now. He says it feels like they've just sort of taken a breather, but he has managed to get a new roof on the house. It actually sounded to me like the house got a major "face lift" as Howard continued telling about painting the house, scraping the windows and getting new gutters. He laughed a little and said he did a little fix up on the outside, but "on the inside" referred to it, as kind of like living or camping out in a storage building. Howard said he was very fortunate, that he was able to buy forty seven acres of the original farm his Dad owned and he always felt that's where him and Carol would retire. He said the place needs a lot of work because his eighty six year old mother lived there til she passed and not a lot of work was done. He said little by little, they're getting it fixed back up. We took a little trip down memory lane to Howard and Carol's jewelry store years ago here in Monticello, then in the blink of an eye, it's all around town that Howard took off to Nashville. He talked of the jewelry store getting robbed and the thieves literally taking, in about two and a half hours, what the Perdew's had worked hard to accomplish in eleven years. He said he was down to nothing but a dream when they left here and had already signed a songwriting contract with folks he had been associated with for about six years. Howard said he and Carol stayed in Nashville for a little over twenty years and it was one of the most fun times he had ever had in his life. The publisher that he worked for had to renegotiate Howard's contract every year and at the end of six, Howard said his financial condition was secure enough that he could say he was going to take a little hiatus. When he did, he really liked that and cranked up his own little publishing company. He referred to it as a 'boutique' which brought about a smile. Howard said they didn't have a large staff or anything like that, just one or two writers. They were paying for themselves and the company took care of itself. Howard said that was about all he did after 1996, except to write occasionally and went on to say, he still writes occasionally, but not very much. He chuckled a little and said it doesn't take long to get it out of his system after working so many years. As we continued talking, I asked Howard to talk to me about "Pickup Man" and "So Help Me Girl". He thought a few minutes about Pickup Man saying, "where should I start?" and then said obviously the song has more than one or two or three meanings when you say Pickup Man, but the song was written for Ford truck and the commercial debuted at halftime during a Super Bowl. Pickup Man was also used by Applebee's Restaurants for their pickup service. He said they had a good time with that one and it made a lot of money. Pickup Man was also number one for four weeks in a row. Our conversation then turned to "So Help Me Girl" that was recorded by Joe Diffie as well. Howard said a couple of years later it was recorded by Gary Barlow. Barlow was lead singer for a group called "Take That" from Great Britain and Gary broke away and started a solo career. "So Help Me Girl" was the first song he recorded and it was number one here on the AP chart, but Barlow also recorded the song in French and Spanish and it went to number one in ten other countries. Howard said it was a good copyright and made money. He said those two songs have done the best for him. Early in Howard's Nashville days, Loretta Lynn sang one of his songs. Howard wrote a song that was cut by Kenny Star, a young fellow backed by Loretta Lynn, and the 1978 recording was the only song she sang on without being credited due to her record label business. Howard said Loretta thought the song called for a motherly voice and she dropped in to visit Star and said she would do it. Howard also wrote the soundtrack for "Borderlines" filmed here in Wayne County. Borderlines focused on a small portion of the Cumberland Plateau along the Kentucky Tennessee border with a background of farming, saw milling and moonshine activities during the depression. Our final topic of conversation was a subject near and dear to Howard's heart, his grandson John William. I asked about a photograph of them sitting together at the piano. My question, how were the 'piano lessons' coming along? You could feel the compassion in Howard's voice when he started talking about John William being too young to teach a whole lot, but Howard says he is just exposing him to as much music as possible. Howard said that he didn't want to push his grandson, but he's got 'music in him' from head to toe. He went on to say he loves the photograph of him and John William at the piano, that's one of Howard's favorites. The old piano was a gift and Howard says it sounds terrible, so he is being careful about what John William plays on it. He said he bought his grandson an electronic keyboard that he can take home, with proper notes, when he hits the keys. Howard said he didn't want to train John William's ear the wrong way. His grandson is three now and can already make up his own songs and can learn just about any song that Howard tries to sing with him. Howard refers to him as a very musical young man and he's trying not to push him. One of Howard's last comments was that he has always told everyone his gift from God was the 'love of music' and developing the little bit of talent he was given. According to Howard, that translated into at least enough talent to make a work day, so a professional musician could actually make a record from the work tape Howard made. This story was posted on 2020-04-02 08:02:46
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