Billy Yates Does it All His Way

Interview with Billy Yates
By David G.Mills

David: We're with songwriter Billy Yates, and we're at his office in downtown Nashville, Music Row. Right off the bat... George Jones... did you enjoy listening to him growing up?

Billy Yates: You know, I did listen to a lot of George, and I also listened to a lot of older music. My parents house burned back... about 4 years before I was born, and the radio station gave them a bunch of old records. They were new records then... now they're old. So I grew up listening to those. I did listen to a lot of George, there was a lot of George in that. We had a Sunday morning radio show, and we did the gospel songs on that radio show. Of course George, as did Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, and a number of other artists always did a gospel album every once in a while, so there was a lot of that stuff that we did as a family group. I always thought that George was such a great stylist, and such a great singer so...

David: What was it like when you got the call that George was going to cut one of your songs?

Billy Yates: You know... the very first one... of course, "I Don?t Need Your Rockin Chair"was my first cut... period. In fact, it was within the first handful of songs I ever tried to write.

David: Not a bad way to start. You write a song, and George says I'm gonna cut it, then oh... we're gonna release it as a single on radio... with a video...

Billy Yates: And we're gonna get the whole world to come and sing on it with us, so... yeah... watching it all come together. It's kind of an interesting storybecause we wrote the song... Frank Dycus, is a dear older friend of mine, and a great songwriter, and really a mentor for me as far as songwriting goes. He called me one afternoon and said I've got a great idea. Let's write a song for George Jones called "I Don't Need Your Rockin Chair". And I knew... as green as I was at
songwriting, that it was a great idea.

David: He did that song last night...

Billy Yates: Oh Really?

David: Yeah... he kicked butt last night at the RCA label show. The crowd went wild after he finished the song.

Billy Yates: Good...