Mack Vickery

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 on 8th June 1938, 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 songs 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 Goin' 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 who took She Went A Little Bit Further, a co-write with Merle Kilgore into the top 20 in 1968. The song has been covered by Hank Williams Jnr., Ernest Tubb and Sammi Smith. Later he collaborated with Kilgore again for Let Someone Else Drive, which went into the top 10 for John Anderson. Following the Faron Young success he returned to the charts via Tanya Tucker who hit number five with Jamestown Ferry. Other classics that he's written include I'm The Only Hell My Mother Ever Raised which Johnny Paycheck took to number eight and You Gotta Be Puttin' Me On by Lefty Frizzell.

Waylon Jennings cut a few of his songs and with both of there left-field personalities it was a match made in heaven. If Waylon wasn't such a prolific writer himself I'm sure he would have sought more of Mack's work. The most recent Vickery song he covered was 1991's, the The Eagle, which has been taken by the public as a patriotic number with the Eagle symbolising America. Cedartown, Georgia is a great tale of a revenge seeking husband whose woman has been caught cheating on him ñ Waylon took it to number 12 on the country charts in 1971. My favourite though is the stunningly beautiful, I Can't Keep My Hands Of Off You which Waylon cut in 1974 for his Ramblin' Man album. It's a love song with some terrific, sensual lyrics backed with some great tear-in-yer-beer steel by Ralph Mooney - one of the best moments in Nashville history in my humble opinion.

But it's as a writer for his friend and kindred spirit Jerry Lee that Mack Vickery will forever hold a place in my heart. 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 1973 Southern Roots session that Jerry Lee cut using just southern musicians, southern songs and plenty of southern whiskey. Jerry Lee has an absolute ball with Meat Man and no one on earth was better placed or prepared to shout out the bragging innuendoes of his sexual prowess. Make no mistake, neither Vickery or Jerry were talking about animals and butchers. It was at this session that Jerry Lee also cut That Old Bourbon Street Church which was something of an unusual song for Mack, but again the chemistry between writer and interpreter is spot on, with Jerry Lee delivering a soul-drenched take.

Equally as good was his biographical rocker, Rockin' My Life Away which Jerry Lee cut in Hollywood for his new deal at Elektra. Jimmy Guterman sums it up succinctly in his book listening to Jerry Lee Lewis; "Mack Vickery's Rockin' My Life Away was a wonderful autumnal rocker that immediately became Jerry Lee's statement of purpose and all-purpose theme song. The sparkling lyrics vacillated between the obscure and the bizarre, but the feel was right. What did those words mean? The first line of the song, after all, was "14, 25,40, 98," and the lines rolled out of Jerry Lee's mouth as if they had some deep meaning. In fact, Vickery had conceived of the song as a Specialty-era Little Richard-style rocker, with the first line scooping up tension like a quarterback calling signals before a play. But in Jerry Lee's music, how something is said is far more important than what is said, which is part of why Rockin' My Life Away was so intense and enjoyable. "Watch me now," Jerry Lee shouted before his solo, and in a few seconds he erased five years of bad memories." I would say that's about right!

George Strait is one of the rare breed of modern country singers who doesn't write his own stuff, choosing instead to use the mass of songwriters at his disposal. His albums have always shown that he has his favourite writers like Dean Dillon and Bob McDill that he turns to whenever he enters the studio. Mack Vickery is another who has supplied him with a number of tracks throughout his career, from My Old Flame Is Burnin' Another Honky Tonk Down and She Knows When You're On My Mind to the award winning top-tenner, The Fireman. Hank Williams Jnr's is another whose early albums were peppered with Vickery compositions, and as with Jerry Lee you could see a kindred spirit existing between the two.
In 1989 he won the MCN (Music City News - later the TNN) award for Song Of The Year for "I'll Leave This World Loving You which had been a hit for Ricky Van Shelton. It is one of those delicate songs that has touched the hearts of many, and has been used at funerals and on hymn sheets. The partnership also proved success on Who'll Turn Out The Lights a number that had been done by Ronnie McDowell who had also cut Hot Burning Flames that Vickery had penned with Hank Cochran and Wayne Kemp (Kemp has been a long time collaborator with Vickery).

George Jones cut another clever number for his I Lived To Tell It All album called I'll Give You Something To Drink About, the type of song that Vickery excels at writing as much as George Jones does singing. Another Nashville legend to use his work was Johnny Cash who cut Vickery's God Bless Robert E. Lee for his Johnny 99 album.

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. He made a welcome appearance at the Jerry Lee Lewis Convention which celebrated his 66th birthday, joining the Killer on stage for Can't Rock No More, Meat Man and Will The Circle Be Unbroken A truly magical writer, and as with the best of the Memphis crowd, a sandwich short of a picnic.

Shaun Mather
December 2002
Shaun.Mather@btinternet.com


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Date & Source	Label & Number	V	Titles {& References to LP/CD List}	As By	Matrix Numbers
1958/Oct. copyright	Princeton 101		High School Blues {b,c,i,p,t,u} We're Not Engaged Anymore	1 1	G346 G347
1959/Sept. (Bb est.)	Gone 5075		Lovers Plea {q} Meant To Be {q}	1 1	G 576 G 575
1960/Feb. (Bb est.)	Gone 5085		Goin' Back To St. Louis {b,l,o} I'll Never Love Again	1 1	G-622 G-623
1960/June 27 Bb pop rev.	Gone 5093		Hawaiian Stroll {j} Fantasy	1 1	G-668 G-669
1964/May (Bb est.)	Jamie 1278		Action Speaks Louder Than Words {k} These	2 2	J-VVI-1 J-VVI 2
1966/Jan. 22 Bb pop rev.	Afco AF 520		Bell Bottom Jeans Soldier Boy	3 3	SK4M-6276 SK4M-7362
Additional Tracks on Comps
1957 (Sun Rec.)	Sun unissued		Drive-In {a,d,h,r} Fool Proof {e,f,g,m,n,r,s} Have You Ever Been Lonely {r}

1. as by Mack Vickery
   
2. as by Vic Vickers
   
3. as by Mac [!!] Vickery