Visits to the Alley had been few and far between. Maybe 40 years. It was different then, the Alley. The Captain’s Table, The Embers, Brass Rail and other historical entertainment venues drew some extraordinary nightclub talent back in the day. Mostly people you never heard of, though, or who might have been well known but more on the local level. There was the colorful guitar-playing Ronnie Prophet, a Canadian cross between Vegas Wayne Newton and Vegas Elvis. As part of a visible Nashville music duet in the late 1960s and ’70s, I was awed at some of the superior talent that played down there. Not just the familiar stuff of legends already made―Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer, et al; most folks knew about that. It was Bobbi Jo Walls and Judy West gracing their enchanting piano-cocktail bar settings that drew throngs of steady regulars, many of them businessmen from the then-thriving downtown area. These and other antediluvian thoughts of the Alley swirl in my head walking to the gig.
Once inside, my wife Caroline and I are told that the club’s event coordinator and host (two different people) will be there shortly to answer important questions, like, When do I go on? This particular writer’s night stipulates that the talent arrive at the venue by 6:30 p.m. to be assigned a time to play between 7 and 9. With the universally accepted knowledge that nothing of any significant consequence will possibly come from the evening career-wise, a short three-song stint is the given format. I hope to get on and get off stage early. To be assigned a later time slot, thereby dragging out the evening sitting amongst the club’s patrons comprised almost entirely of other participating songwriters, would turn what we surmised was a tolerable jaunt into an anguish-laden evening of unending eternity. Are we on yet?
To our great relief, I snag the opening slot. The host is preoccupied setting up video streaming but casually asks my name. Deafening metal music flattens the room from the sound check in progress at the other end of the club.
“Doesn’t that bleed over into this room when both stages are playing?” I ask the bartender. “Nah, the sound drops off about halfway,” is her reply. Riiiiight. If soundproof doors could seal off the open space between the two facing stages, it would only slightly cut the decibel level!
I’m plugged in and ready to play as the clock hits seven. The evening’s host steps to the mike and says, “Please welcome… Tim Ross!” But as I step toward the mike, he tarries for some introductory conversation.
“Tim, tell us a little about yourself.”
“Let’s go with Alan Ross for starters, and we’ll call ourselves square,” I tell him, making a humorous attempt to correct the misnomer without flogging him for it. No reaction on his part, so I briefly tell those assembled at the club about the early Dot Records years with the folk trio Children of Rain, later followed by the Philips label release as Ross Legacy back in New York in the mid-to late-Sixties; how I came to Nashville as a result of the promotion trip on the Philips’ recording, in June of 1969, and decided to move to Music City with my then-duet singing wife, Pam; how I’d segued into the music of my father’s heritage, Scottish folk and Celtic, about 20 years ago, and that I would now do one of those pieces from my Scottish CD.
WHAT'S IN A NAME
The name gaffe is not unprecedented but still amusingly rare. Usually, it’s a just a simple misspelling of my name, complicated by the fact that I’ve added the contraction “wm” for William―my first name―in front of my middle name (which I have gone by for 67 years) as a defense against being swallowed up by the vast anonymity of the Internet and its appallingly infinite number of Alan Rosses. In the music business, “What’s in a name?” is all about the never-ending toil spent cultivating that name and the eventual branding that takes place over time. Will that name be remembered by the masses? Indeed, will it even be pronounced correctly? After 46 years of playing the name game, my industry recognition factor nearly nonexistent, I could do worse than to be called Tim Ross.
If you think about it, a botched name really only registers if you’ve heard of the person; if they actually have a name of some renown. I went around Atlanta one November day in 2007 with Pro Bowl running back Warrick Dunn, a 12-year NFL player for Tampa Bay and the Falcons, when he appeared at four brand new Habitat for Humanity homes, giving away down payments like Santa Claus and stocking first-time owners’ new homes with furniture, computers, food, appliances and the like. It was a well-coordinated event, with partnered support from area sponsors, Dunn’s Foundation, and Atlanta Habitat for Humanity. But I vividly recall the Atlanta Habitat executive director being called up to the microphone to impart a few words to the media that had tagged along for the philanthropic occasion. Insufficiently prepped for her speech, the woman embarrassingly referred to Dunn as “Warwick” three times during her comments. The media appeared to graciously overlook her faux pas.
Back at the gig, the room is filled with two separate publishing groups of 20- and 30-something songwriters and their friends. I am the lone outsider―no publishing affiliation and no recent chart-busting hit. But my opening Scottish jig turns heads, Caroline tells me afterward. “You captured the room.”
And lost it just as quick. Changing the next play at the line of scrimmage, I audible to a classical-sounding folk ballad I penned in 1968. Three female songwriters sitting at the first table in front of the stage, boringly enduring it all―(Sigh) Are we on yet?―pull out cell phones and start texting not five feet from my face, insensitively oblivious to my presence.
An upbeat boogie-rock piece brings back some of the crowd on my final number. In the back of the room, nearly lost in the shadows, a treasure catches my eye: my oldest son has received my short-notice text that I was to go on imminently, beaming himself to the club in time to catch the last two tunes. It’s a warmer feeling than even the nice reception the songwriters-in-waiting give up, as the host again steps to the microphone with noticeably keener enthusiasm than initially displayed in his opening introduction. As I exit the stage, behind me, in a voice of practiced urging, the emcee implores the patrons one last glorious time:
“Tim Ross, everyone!”
