#256 - Yeardley Smith (the Voice of Lisa Simpson) on Getting Asked To Do The Voice + Wanting to Be On DWTS + Eddie Stubbs on Retiring From the Opry after 25 Years

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Speaker 1: Welcome to episode to fifty six of the Bobby Cast. We're posting this a little earlier than we normally do because we're heading out for vacation, but we get an interesting episode here a little different than normal. We'll talk to Yardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons. She also has a podcast called Smalltown Dicks that we talked about. It's about detectives true crime, which I mentioned because my girlfriends now true crime podcast listener. But I know you were geeking out because the voice of Lisa Simpson. Huh, it's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so check that out. You know, we do music here nine percent of the time. But if it's not a podcast that I want you guys to check out, I think you'll like that Smalltown Dicks. But she'll talk about that, and she even gets into Lisa Simpson voice a little bit. Um and we are on music podcast, and we'll talk to Eddie Stubbs coming up in a minute, who retired from the Opery. He has been the voice of the Grand ol Operty for twenty five years and just great to talk with them. The legendary six fifty a m w SM radio personality, announced his retirement, So we talked with him for about fifteen minutes or so. I kind of love that. So we got a pretty cool but different episode. I'll mention this. There are some records coming out, that's what it's all about. And usually we'd sit here with the clips and play them all, but we're not available on this Friday to play them all. But Luke Bryan has Born Here, Live Here, Die Here. That's a record coming out. Cassidy Pope has Rise and Shine, Mary Chapin Carpenter has the Dirt and the Stars. And I'm looking at some of these other people. I don't know a lot of these folks are AMINII deep Purple Glass animals. I don't know these people are. So we're just gonna go with those three for now. So we don't have the songs of anybody else. There are three records. Let's just get going on this podcast. Let's do okay, we'll do Yardley first and the Nettie subs. All right, thank you guys, give us five stars if you if you don't mind, we'd appreciate that. Thanks. Hey, Yarley, are you hey? Really good? Nice to talk to you. A couple of things. First of all, I was, you know, reading some stuff about your podcast, Smalltown Dicks, and when I clicked it, I wanted to see what you look like because I watched The Simpsons forever and you don't normally know the faces of the voices. People do that with me too on the radio show. Sometimes they're like, I had no idea what you look like. However, I used to watch Herman's Head like great, that was one of my favorite shows, and I was like, holy crap, I know her from Herman's Head. Yes, wow, look at that. So anyway, I'm I guess I'm a bigger fan than I even thought. So it's really nice to talk to you. Thank you. I want to start with your podcast because I've just now got into listening to the true crime stuff, mostly because of my girlfriend. She's a big true crime podcaster. And I was like, man, I don't know about this stuff, but I find myself a little bit caring too much. Now. Is listen to the one called like bear Brook or something? And it didn't have an end? The podcast didn't have an end. So your podcast, small Town Dicks, these are true stories, right, that's right now? Who are the people investigating each each episode? Each story um Well. I co host the podcast with identical twin detectives Dannon Gave, And all of the cases that we cover on the podcast are told by the detective who investigated that case. And it came about because, um actually, so, I'm actually engaged to Dan, detective Dan um And when I started dating him, I never dated anybody in law enforcement. And he would come home, you know, and actually we were a long distance for about two and a half years, and so when I would go see him, his day to day was so jaw dropping. It was so like, I'm sorry, what I mean. The mere notion that the minute you leave your house somebody, first of all, you're going towards all of the things that the rest of us run from, and second of all, somebody might really willfully want to harm you is just a completely foreign idea to me. Like, when I leave the house, I go to do a pretty fantastic special job, but nobody's trying to kill me, you know. So. Um So, when the podcast came about, it just seemed like a natural fit that all of the cases should be told by the detectives who actually investigated them, because in the podcast space, not so much in the TV space, but you didn't have a lot of firsthand accounts like that, and you had a lot of If you do listen to true crime, there's a lot of rehashing of very famous crimes, and so we really wanted to illustrate the fact that big time crime is happening in small towns everywhere, just with less frequency, but the same level of reckless disregard for humanity and depravity. And it's kind of shocking. And because I remember when I would say to people, oh, I'm dating a detective from a small town, like, oh, as you do like riscue cuts and trees and stuff, You're like, no, actually, there's murderer and there's you know, burglary and robbery and horrible things happened. Um. So it just was an interesting, a really interesting perspective I think on law enforcement. And also one of the artifacts of small town police departments is that they are expected to deliver the same high level of work product as a big city agency, but with many fewer resources. So you know, if you're on the swat team, you're a detective probably too. Um. And so in the back of your car, if your patrol car, you have your you know, flak vest and your long rifle and your helmet, like, oh, now it's a swat call. It's just a very, very different animal than the fifty swat guys sitting in Los Angeles where I live, waiting for something huge to happen, you know, so um I and I find it endlessly fascinating. And on my side of the table, because I'm the civilian, I also want to know, if you are the person who's going to see the worst of humanity every day, where do you where does that reside inside of you in order for you to also be able to be a father, husband, a partner in some way, just some you know, other human being on the planet. Where do you put it? Okay, that leads me to a lot of questions. I'm gonna go with this one first, where they're twins and they're both on law enforcement and they hit the same agency and they worked Dan is now retired, but they worked literally across the bullpen from each other. But Bobby, when I tell you, there were only nine detectives in the whole agency for this small town, and and two of them where your your fiance and his twin, not even just his brother who like passed him on down to him, his twin brother who made the conscious decision at the same time they wanted to be out. That's crazy to me. I know they're identical twins are actually what they call mirror twins. So Dan is right handed and Dave is left handed. Um, they both played baseball. Dan played My League baseball for the Cubs. Um. Dave was a pitcher and then he blew out his arm before he got to professional ball. But it's really, it is fascinating dating a twin. I don't know if you've ever dated twin, but they're do have this shorthand they couldn't kind of read each other's minds. It's it's it's kind of great. I kind of and I love Dave. I loved I love me some some Detective Dave so much on this podcast because you've now completed the sixth season and this is a very successful podcast. And I'm only coming to because I just now got into true crime like this. This world has been open to me recently. So at the end of each episode, are you is the crime being solved? Some of them not all of them? How does how did these things end? Or is that something you talk about? Yes, we do. We actually only cover adjudicated cases because a lot of our detectives who come on the show are still working, and we never want them to, for instance, be testifying in a trial and have the defense attorney to say, oh, so you're part of that podcast, so you're here to sensationalized crime. Um. And nor do we want them to compromise the investigation in any way. So all of the cases, I don't think we've we've never actually covered a case that was unsolved. UM. I like that honestly, because again, I listen to one. I tell you, I listen only five episodes this day thing, and at the end of it, they were like, and we still don't know, and why did that just been five and a half hours. There's no conclusion. It's so frustrating. You know. It's funny that you say that I started to watch this show. Um, I think it's on a travel channel. It's one of those It's like a true crime show, but they have a medium and then they have a detective, and the medium doesn't talk to the detective until they've both done their investigations of usually some haunted house, right the people who live there are so freaked out and they don't know how to there's like an evil spirit and so the so they usually like, yes, yes, the medium who's quite good, it seems um and really does nail a lot of stuff. And then they go to the homeowners and they do their findings and they go, yeah, so you probably should get somebody in here to exercise, and then you know, exercise the dwelling or whatever. And then you see a chiron that says they're still looking for a priest to come and exercise. The dwelling activity is still happy. I'm like, how could you do that? How could you not help these people? It's like, get rid of this massive thing that's terrifying them. I just feel I really feel cheated. It's just so wrong. Do you know what that show is called? To watch? Oh? It is, I do, I'll I'll look it up. Take a second. Yeah, yeah, it's quite good. You know what's interesting that you say your girlfriend um and I was what I was creeping on you on Instagram? I follow you and if great pictures you guys are and you're a gorgeous couple. It's mostly her. I'm just the funny guy. Yeah, we all need funny Bobby um and and so most of our or a large portion of our audience over is women. And that's true for most of true crime. Why is it that balanced? Pretty healthy? Um, she's emotionally stable, except she wants to hear a podcast where people have been cut up and stuffed into a barrel. And I'm like, what, Like everything about you was like right on except two kids we couldn't find their heads. Only three toes remained. Who could it be? And then here I am two days later, go all right, we're gonna find the end of this episode. We still don't know. All right, goodbye everybody. What I think part of it is that most of the crimes happened to women, and that there's a kind of um cautionary voyeuristic there. But for the grace of God, go I And if what if I was in a situation? What would I do? And can I learn from the mistakes and the successes of the people to whom these things have happened. Well, she's now starting to learn a bit of self defense. I don't think she wants to fight people, but I think if someone like she's learning how if some one is coming in the house, what to do with the door? Like it has also scared her into learning how to protect herself. So I guess in the end of full circle is a benefit that she listens to these because she's so freaked out that now she's learning. Were with your fiance fiance, right, that's what you said earlier, with your fiance being a law enforcement does he teach you some of these little things to like, hey, if someone grabs you, or is he just like I'm gonna be there, don't worry about it? Both both. But for instance, he's off coaching first base for an independent minor league baseball team this summer, which he's done for a couple of summers now because he still loves baseball and he's super good at it. So when he's not here, he's like, Okay, here's the here's the drill, and so I have you know, I want you to lock yourself in this room if something should happen, of course, at the alarm at night. Um, if somebody did attack you, go for the eyes, um kick them to kick screen, fight, fight like your life depends on it, because might uh he you know, scream he's uh. And and then all kinds of things like I learned never to leave anything in my car and I kind of. I kind of didn't really leave anything in my car ever, he said, not even a charger. Or they don't let them even see the wire of your phone charger because they will break into your car on the possibility that maybe there's a device somewhere, maybe in the center console, maybe something. And so I never leave anything in my car. Um, it's been quiet and and I think, having done this true crime podcast, now I see things through a more suspicious lens. I'm certainly a little more aware of my surroundings. But Dan, when we go to a restaurant, if the restaurants super busy, or we're out somewhere, his head is on a swivel. And very early on I was like, what is your deal, dude? What about like hello? I like a little attention. He's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just now it's my default. He's got eyes everywhere, always looking for the potential threat. It's quite fascinating. Do you have nightmares after this point? Because I, like I tried to I get nightmares. I can't want scary movies. I tried to read Twilight and at nightmares. So, but if you're covering these crimes, are you ever asleep thinking about this crap, and you're waking up with your hearts beating like this. Um, I I was sort of. I'm anxious anyway, So yes, I'm always afraid somebody. I My fear is somebody's going to break into the house, and I'll I'll realize it too late, you know, like they'll be standing over my bed by the time I figure out that somebody is in the house. Um. But it's interesting when you because I also edit. We have two actual editors. You put the podcast into pro tools, but I edit on paper and give notes and um. You then sort of switch it to literally the other side of your brain, the more analytical, less emotional side of your brain, in order to make sure that everything is lining up. Sometimes, because we're not dealing with professional storytellers, sometimes they'll tell you the end in the first five minutes and you're like, great, that's okay, We're just gonna move that back alone like two minutes seventeen, create a little suspense here, um, but never change the story. But again, sometimes just rearranged the puzzle pieces. And so my job as the editors to make sure because you have to remember always that pretty much of your audience is doing something else while they listen to your podcast. So they're gardening there, walking the dog, they're going on their daily walk, they're driving, they're cooking, and so my job is to make sure that you can still follow the story even if I don't have all of your attention, and if you miss something, you're still interested enough to go back fifteen seconds to go, oh, I want what I want? Oh, hang on, and then you go back and pick up where you left off. So it's really um. So that helps kind of it's a terrible thing to say, but dis associate from the horror of it, because it really you just go People are horrible to each other, people are I agree. I was watching I watched the first episode of the Jeffrey Epstein thing last night on Netflix, and I and I watched, and I was like, I don't know if I can do anymore. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, Bobby, I'm so with you. It was just and I've watched, you know, some of that Serial Killer stuff and I and I was intrigued enough to finish the whole thing, but the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, for some reason, I felt so like deeply sad in my that I thought, why would I keep watching this and continue to feel this way? And what I felt there's nothing compared to what they felt. It was just it was the only time I had listened to something like that or watch something like that and felt that way. Because when I watched the Ted bun the thing, I was like, give me another episode, can't And I don't know why I am so intrigued by that part of it, Like that would be like a your podcast type thing, but not like the Jeffrey Epstein thing. Yeah, I think you know, I completely agree with you, and I feel like the thing about people like Ted Bundy is he seemed to work so hard to create a persona that was the complete opposite of who he really was, and Jeffrey Epstein did nothing to try to conceal that. Um, did you finish it or did you watch? No? I didn't. Yeah. My girlfriend too, was like, I can't do any more of this, So anyway, I don't want to. I I don't want to talk. Can I ask you some Lisa Simpson questions? Yeah? Yeah, I love Lisa. Okay, Well, so I'm gonna let my producer because I'm a Simpsons fan. I grew up in the eighties. I mean I was born in the eighties, so obviously it was a big part of my life. But Mike d here is the biggest that I ever know. He's my producer. He's got three questions for you that he wants to ask, specifically, Mike, say hi, hey Gardley, Mike, Hey, Mike, how are you big fan? Um? I actually just read Mike Reece's book Springfield Confidential. Isn't it great? It was so good? Much about the show from that the story I love that he told him. There was about the Michael Jackson episode where he came in read his lines, but then he brought in like an authorized impersonator to do like the actual song in the in the episode. Do you imagine being so he was this lovely young um, little white guy, and Michael Jackson had hand picked him to seeing like Michael Jackson in front of Michael Jackson. Can you imagine doing an impersonation of the artists themselves right in front of you have somebody like that, like a designated impersonator if you ever get sick to do Lisa Simpson, No, actually, but we do have a guy. His name is Chris Edgerley, and he does all kinds of voices for video games for the most part, but he he'll fill in for whoever is sick that day, mostly the guys because the guy's just you know, multiple voices, but he'll also fill in for me. And how would I love to be a fly on the wall pretend like I'm not sick, just came to see Chris. What I love about Lisa's like I kind of identified her, identified with her a lot of growing adress because she was, you know, smart, didn't have a whole lot of friends, but she also had like these lines that almost didn't fit her personality. Yeah, was there ever like a like a fight you had of like, Okay, I don't think Lisa Simpson would actually say this, Yes, Um, There's only there's one incident that I remember very early on where they had I think it might have been there's an episode called Lisa's Pony, which was in the first ten years. Is a wonderful episode where Homer ends up working three jobs in order for Lisa to be able to have a pony. And in the original draft she got she kind of had a crush on the stable boy, and I just felt like it was much too mature, much too sexual. This is kind of her in satuation with this kid. And I'm like, this isn't right like this, I don't, I don't, I'm not cool with this. I don't feel comfortable with this. And so they changed it and it just became much more sort of goofy and sweet and um, as I think it should be. For God's sake, she's eight, right, um. But I will say again rare occasions, because they really get it right at a time. But two things I object to. One, people being really really mean to Lisa Simpson and her having no recourse. There was a whole um. We had a couple of showrunners who, when Homer got really really goofy and really stupid for a few years, he would also often be quite mean to Lisa, and I'm like, that's not right. I don't. I'm not okay with that, Like I need to stand up for my girl. And really, the point was, even if I didn't win the battle, it was important that I fight the fight, and and they would usually for the most part, we would be able to reach a compromise on things like that. But my premises that mean humor is lazy humor. And it's much harder to write something that's really witty and incisive and memorable um as opposed to just hurling insults at somebody. I feel like we can do better than that. One last question. I'm sure people ask you to, you know, do the voice all the time. But Lisa Something never had a catchphrase. If there was like one line that you remember from the show to pick as a catchphrase, what would have been, Well, probably, I mean it's probably I am the Lizard Queen. It is so sad that Lisa Same Thing doesn't have a catchphrase. I mean it's kind of heartbreaking. Bart has like fifteen of them. You can't get one to my girl. The other one that people cited, I'll be in my room okay um really was a very funny, dry delivery. When I think she she just was like you, I am not I am not one of you family. Somehow I think landed here. I think my favorite was always just that'll that'll learn him to bust my tomato. That was always my favorite line. I don't know, I just always gravitated towards that line. I would imagine yardly, it's Boby again. I would have because and I have a very because you know, I do this radio show and I do things. But a couple of years ago, I did um Dancing with the Stars, and I want but I would be in the airport and you sure asked me. I would be in the airport and people would come up to me and they would go hey, and they would have known me from the radio show or from the books or anything. They'd be like, hey, you're the guy that one dance with the stars, right, And I'll be like, yeah, would you do a dance for me? And they would they I would be in the airport, or I would be at a Chick fil A and they would want me to bust out a jive. Now I can imagine if you're somewhere where there are folks, they're coming up to you going hi, um, you are the voice of one of those symptoms. Will you do the voice thing for me? Does that happen to you everywhere all the time, all the time? And usually I I decline. You know, if they asked me for a picture, I'm I'm really at the time, say absolutely, let's have a picture. But I feel like, you know, it's not a party trick, it sort of is. It's my job and it's hopefully you know, something that I've honed as a skill that is has some value to it. And it's also kind of weird just to sort of being a supermarket and go, I am Lisa Ming. I mean, nothing attracts more attention than breaking into your cartoon character voice in public. Have you had to learn say, oh, could you do my outgoing voice mail? I'm like, no, yeah, I get yeah. And sometimes people just randomly come up with their phone and they're already talking to someone and they haven't said hello, and they're like, hey, my cousin Jim's on the phone. We talked to him for a minute. And I'm just like, man, there's a whole process before the phone hand off, there's a hello and ask yeah. So you also, I guess, but people come up to you. Have you had to learn how to draw Lisa a little bit? No, that's such a funny question. Um. So I do these videos on my Instagram and Twitter called Simpson Sunday and they're really short, like two minutes three minute videos, and a couple of them I've said, okay, here's a picture of Lisa Simpson. I'm going to try to draw Lisa Simpson freehand and it's horrible and it's hilarious and there's commentary that goes along with it. And then the first time I did it, the fans were like, oh my god, it's so great, it's so bad. Can we have that? So it's like, okay, so I forget. I held it like a little contest and the winner got my really terrible picture of Lisa Simpson. Um, it's really it's it's I know I'm terrible at it. They're The short answer is I can't do it. Well, I have just one question about the Sibsons. The episode of twenty two minutes long, and I guess when you hop into a to the booth or I don't know if you're going into a boot steal or technology allows you to do it from home a bit like we can now too. How long does that usually take to knockout an episode? Well, we used to before the pandemic. We would record altogether like a radio play, which is actually really unusual for cartoons. When we did several years ago, we did that crossover with Family Guy and I because it was on their time slot, we recorded in their facility, their studio, and excuse me, I went in and did it on my own, did my lines, you know, just wild one after the other. I had. All my scenes were with Mila Kunis, but I didn't even meet her because she wasn't there that day. But for us, our executive producer James L. Brooks, who comes from sitcom and films, you know, Mary Tyler Moore and Taxi and all these incredible iconics, it comes was like, I don't know why you would treat this any differently. It's still a conversation. And I'm a big fan because even though at this point after thirty two seasons were an incredibly well oiled machine. And when I go in to do a d R, which is for your listeners who don't know when you replace dialogue that they've rewritten after the original recording session, I go in and do it myself. But in the original recording, which takes about four hours, we go through the scene four times and then if they still don't have it they want, then we'll just do individual lines as pickups. But the way, for instance, I stand between Dan who goes Homer and Nancy who does Bart. The way Dan or Nancy or Hank or um you know Julie who does Marge says, the line is going to inform the way I respond, and so that's my preference. But and the coronavirus hit, we all started to record from home. So because I do the podcast, already had really good equipment and that seemed like a pretty good setup. But I really hope that at some point we get back into the studio altogether. I just think it gives it a a texture that you can't manufacture on your own, just because you know, if I was next to you, Bobby, and I said, well, then you would have a reaction to that, versus if I was next to you and I said, hey, how are you right? Yeah, we we dealt the same in our studio. We were all working from homes for a while, and there's definitely a vibe difference in just the production of what we were doing. Well, I didn't know what a d R meant, so thank you. And I also, if I'm admitting to myself, I had to google what adjudicated meant when you were talking about that earlier. I'm being completely completely transparent here. Listen, Yarley, it's been so nice talking with you. Everyone. Check out Small Town Dicks, the podcast and Small Town Dicks. That's a detective, it's a true crime podcast. These are big time crimes happening in anonymous small town cities, and I'm gonna check it out yardly. It's it's been so cool to talk to you. Like I said, when I recognized you from Herman's Head, I was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm looking forward to this one a lot. So thank you for your and I'm gonna I'm gonna follow you back on on Instagram. So yeah, I don't I love it, but thank you so much for having me. What a what a pleasure? Can I just ask you, I really want to be on Dancing with the Stars. Should should be ever all be able to be that close to each other again? Can you just tell me what that was like? Was it great? Was it fun? Was it everything? Well? Do you have any dancing I had no dance experience at all like you have a little. I took tango for several years. I think you'd like it because you're training. If you're like me, I I valued the time to be able to work with one of the best in the world. I mean I never would have been able to do that in my lifetime, to go and train with a dancer every day. Um, I was still doing my radio show and I was touring a little bit, but um, it was for me twelve hours a day because I had no experience. I didn't know what the what the words meant. It was like when you said adjudicated when they were like okay, I had to google all the words to know. Like a sage, I don't know what the stuff meant. So for me it was great and that it was a really positive experience where I got to train with the best and learn. I never got great, I got to be okay. I ended up winning because I won because the people right. Because I also realized, just like in life, you can't just be the best at something, You've also got to be the person that people want to work with or want to root for. So that was kind of my goal. But I would if this weren't uber rating, I'd give it four and three quarter stars. Like I loved my experience on that show. Yeah, I'd love hearing that. I would say if I wasn't an actress, I would be a professional ballroom dancer. And not because I'm so great at it, but I would That just sounds like happened to me. I had no idea that it was as tough as it was until I watched it with my own eyes, and it is extremely I would love for you to do it, do you know. I mean, I can put a text into a couple of producers, Arlie, just say the word do it. Do it. And when we're back from non Corona and listen. I don't know if they're gonna have having this season this year. I think right now they're they're flirting with the bubble idea where they're gonna put all the dancers in, which was what we basically lived in any way. But that's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to text the producer today and say, next season, don't sleep on Yardly. She's a professional dancer. She just hasn't been exposed to enough professionals yet. Okay, ' hardy. Good to talk to you. Hopefully we'll talk against soon in the future. It all right by Arlie. Thanks Eddie. How are you? I'm doing fine? Bobby? How are you, sir? You know I'm I'm really good. It's a real treat to talk to you over on my side of things, because I gets to talk to you sometimes on your side and things in your domain. But it's a real pleasure to have you over here. Well, it's a real pleasure to be with you. I was thinking just the same thing. You know. I'm used to seeing you out at the opery frequently as a as a performer. In course, your presence there has been heightened recently with your involvement with Circle Television too. So you always do a great job whenever you've been around, and it's always going a treat to visit with you, and I'm looking forward to chatting with you here today. Well, I got a couple of questions, you know. First of all, Yeah, I would think that today would be an emotional day because today it's it's Wednesday, we're recording this Is this the last day of the show? Yes, this will be the last day of my employment with with Rhyman Hospitality Properties, which of course owns WSM Radio and the Grand Ol Operate. How you feeling today going into that last show? Well, it's, uh, it's it's sort of a mixed bag, if you will, very reflective, very thankful. Uh, you know, so many experiences having been with the company and as an announcer with the offering for twenty five years, but twenty four years ago this month started hosting the Evening Shift at WSM, and that's a that's a long run. So we've had a lot of magical experiences over the years. But on the other hand, I'm looking for word with great optimism to to what the future holes. My wife, Debbie and I are very much looking forward to getting out and doing a lot of things we've wanted to do and go do some traveling, and we've got some dreams that we want to live and things we want to share. Things she's like to do individually, some things I'd like to do individually, will do them together, of course, But we're just very much looking forward to this and have a little more time to do it, and on top of that, while we're still in relatively good health to do so. You know, for folks that are listening and don't understand that the amount of time that Eddie has been doing this night show, that is such a level of success to can to stay on there for over twenty years, Like guess somebody who's doing it and trying and grinding it out every day. Like I tipped my hat to you, that is something that very very few people in the whole world have ever done, and especially at your level. Well, thank you Bobby for saying. That's one thing I'm proud of is in the almost ninety five year history of WSM, there's never been a longer tenured host in the evening shift, and in the history of Nashville radio overall, there was only one other personality, man named John rich Board, who played rhythmon blues music on w l a C late at night in the evenings. He was on, I believe for twenty seven years before he retired back in nineteen seventy two. So I'll play second fiddle to John Orenge. He was great what he did for what I gathered. You know, back to first radio job three, you made twenty bucks per show. Now, when you first started, wasn't on karts or records. How were you guys doing the music? Then we played music exclusively from records. My first radio jobs a w Y I I and william Sport in Maryland, fifty five miles from where I lived, and it was near Tagersound, but I lived in Gayporsburg, Maryland was my hometown. But we played on records and that was it. That was it. Yeah, Elbow one of those things and then you're like, oh my goodness, and you gotta run back to it. Did that ever happened? Uh No, I never got called with my records down uh there, but did at other places. That just that seems scary because you you nudge one of those things, the whole radio station goes crumbling down. Yeah, they're they're very delicate, that's for sure. You played fiddle back in the day with the Johnson Mountain Boys. Now did you ever step into the circling before at the opera? You mean, oh, yeah, I was. We were blessed a guest on the opery several times, and that was a great thrill. That was a dream that we had that, you know, the one that we might become members of the opera. And I had a dream as a kid the first time I came there on a summer vacation after between eleven and twelfth grade, I said, one day I'm going to be on that stage. And I was years later in the eighties as as a fiddle player, but I never dreamed that, you know, seventeen years later almost I think it was seventeen years to the weekend, I was becoming an opera announcer. So that was it was a dream come true to get to be able to do all that. And he when did this voice happened? Because I hear you talking, I thought, Man, if I could have had this voice, I wouldn't have had to be as as dippy as I am. If I had just had the perfect voice, like Eddie here, where were you? Eleven twelve? When did this thing finally set into where you're like, I can do this now? Well? I always had a deeper voice, And uh, it wasn't something that I nurtured or went to broadcasting school to to to try to work on to make it better. If I had, it probably would have been a lot better. But I give all the credit to God. I mean, he gave me the talents that I have, Bobby. And as to when it came in, you know, I don't know. I guess like most you know, adolescents, your voice changes when you're twelve years old, twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen, maybe. But I always had a deep voice, BacT, you know, as far as I could remember. I don't have anything with me as a kid, you know, talking on it. But it's just it's just what God wanted me to have, Man, I want you wanted me to have that kind of voice and set us dound like this. This sound like the Peter Brady episode when he goes to puberty on the Brady Bunch. That's my whole life right there. I saw it. But you got you got the listeners, and you got the fans, and you're you're the most powerful broadcaster and country music. So it's a it's a thrilled to be able to chat with you. There's room for all of this, Bobby, and what we do? You know, Well, I saw Dirk's write something really not. Dirk's a good friend of mine and Dark's loves you. Did you get a chance to see what Dirk's had written about you on Instagram and and Twitter and all that? No forgetting I'm I'm I'm a seventy eight RPM kind of guy in an iPod world, so I don't be all that fake. We're making those in fifty seven by the way, seventy gates. So but I I haven't seen it, but I would like to. Dirks has been very kind to me. Yeah, I mean he wrote a whole lot and he said, you know, I'll just read you a piece piece of it. Here. He said, when I was hanging out at Station in and really starting to dig deeper into the music. Two of my biggest teachers were George Jones and Eddie Stubbs. Who else goes back? I can replace just the steel guitar solo of the song that he spun on vinyl to explain to the listener the importance of that musician's contribution to the success and greatness of the song No One. So he wrote a lot more too. But I thought, you know, a guy like Derek's who was just an eight plus guy aside from being a great artist, his words we were pretty touching. And I know you and Dre Derek's have been pretty close over the years. Well that's really flattering, and we have. He started listening to me when he came to Snashville from Outain, Arizona. He was a college student at Vanderbilt University, and you know, it was always neat to have him around. You know, he was just one of these guys. It was just a sponge and just wanted to soak up everything he possibly could. Who was it, Eddie that you would get nervous to talk to, because you know, here we are two thousand twenty and we we hear about all the legends now, but who wasn't When they walked in the room, you'd be like, oh boy, here we go. This is about to be something. I got that way a little bit with Earl Scrugs early on because he was such a childhood hero of mine. And I wait, act, you know, I was nervous being around Rape Price. That was before I ever came to Nashville. I was back in the early nineties when I was working in radio in Washington A W A m U and getting to be in the presence of these people, you know, for the first time and meet them. Uh, you know I would, I would definitely. I was definitely nervous. I guess anybody would be, you know, at that at that point in tom with you being able to bring on so many people on that opery stage, especially for like the first time they get to play the opera stage. When you look back, who was it that maybe you had seen or or part of their performance, but the crowd just absolutely went bonkers for way early in their career, and you were able to go, man, this is about to be something. Josh Turner stands out very strong in my mind. Um, I was there the night that he made his debut at the at the Rhyme and Auditorium. He was a brand new artist, didn't have a record out or anything at that point, and pet Fisher of the manager of the operate at that time, put him on the show. And he came out and sang long Black Train, and that voice was so unique and so special, and you know, he just had a very uh what's the word I'm looking for. He just had a presence about him that with confidence he was who he was. And you could tell that this guy wasn't just a great singer with a deep boys and a great song, but you could tell this guy was an artist. And there's a big difference between a singer and an artist. Not every performer as an artist, but I could sense that and he you know, he got a standing ovation that night. He was halfway up the stairs to his dressing room and they had to go get him after after he'd done his song. He didn't realize that he was being called back. That's awesome. I have two more questions for you, because I mean I could spent three hours here. I feel like we should do a whole kinburn series on you, Eddie. To be honest with you. But I got two more questions for you. Number one is over the years, any cool memorabilia from the opery that someone maybe had given you or an artist would leave behind, or you keeping anything as a memento from the opery. I'll tell you, Bobby, that's that would be a hard question to answer because I've always been a student of the music and a collector and a fan, and I've got a lot of memorability that I've bought, and I've gotten things that people have given me over the years, lots of special things that you know, pictures, song books, things like that. So it would be hard to at PenPoint to say what is my most treasured artifactive opering memorabil you. I do have one item it's tied to the opery, so to seak, and that's a seventy eight record on Columbia Bio Uncle Jimmy Thompson, who was the man who was the first person to play on WSM the field an hour's worth of air time playing old time titled music because somebody didn't show up, and that's what led to the birth of the Grand Old Oprey. So having one of Uncle Jimmy Thompson's seventy eight. You know it wasn't his personal copy, but those records are very scarce. I have one of those. Is A is something that's very meaningful.