Bobby Don Bloodworth Biography
Emmy nominated songwriter Bobby Don Bloodworth delights fans everywhere with his new release of SOME SUNDAY. Fans of Bobby Don Bloodworth and the GopherBroke Band have been waiting for this new release for some time and there is excitement in the air as the single and video are finally set for nationwide release October, 2008.
SOME SUNDAY is an inspiring, melodic, song filled with hope for the future of our country. Providing fans with the distinctive voice of Bobby Don Bloodworth, this song touches listeners with an eloquent wish for us all to reach deep, remember the simpler times we cherish, and find a way to bring them back for future generations.
The performing bug bit Bobby Don early. At age seven he was placed on the bar of the Austin Avenue Buffet (later to be a subject of one of his ballads). A favorite hangout of his father, Fred Bloodworth, this cozy corner bar was the perfect place for workers from the nearby Highland Bakery to relax after work. The owner, Frank Cantrell, was so impressed when Bobby Don sang such numbers as Red, Red Robin with the jukebox he began paying Bobby Don ten cents per song. Eventually, as people began asking for Bobby Don to perform and missed his entertainment when he was not there, he was raised to fifty cents per song. Not a bad paying gig for a seven year old in 1958!
Bobby Don credits his love of performing to his early participation in the Kirkwood Baptist Choir. Choir director Harold Cartee recognized Bobby Don’s talents, often placing him in front of the rest of the choir thereby removing any chance for Bobby Don to develop stage fright.
Bobby Don’s love of the guitar came a few years later at a chance outing with the boy scouts. At age ten, Scout Master Billy Forrester (friend Steve Forrester’s father) handed a guitar around the campfire and Bobby Don was hooked. Bobby Don taught him himself how to play the guitar by ear. He performed in local talent shows with Steve Forrester but developed most of his guitar skills by practicing everyday – especially playing along with commercials on TV.
At fifteen Bobby Don joined his first band named Something Else. Bobby Don lived near “Tiger Village” which was then considered the bad part of town. Even though Bobby Don’s family were hard working and lived in a commercial area not connected with the notorious “Tiger Village”, the mothers of Bobby Don’s fellow band members did not want him included in the group.
Bobby Don floundered a bit after his exclusion from the band, but kept his affection for music with him. He kept practicing his guitar while attending school and becoming a certified respiratory therapist. It was through his work that he met his wife.
At nineteen, Bobby Don worked nights for Stansell’s Oxygen Service at Piedmont hospital. When there wasn’t much to do, a cot was provided to rest, but Bobby Don used this time to practice his guitar. Linda Johnson was in x-ray training and would often come down with other department workers to listen. One day, when Linda was behind Bobby Don in the cafeteria line, she started a conversation by asking him if it was his red Honda motorcycle parked beside her little white maverick in the parking lot. Even though it was the middle of winter, Linda had been eying the motorcycle for a ride and, as the cold days of winter drug on, Bobby Don had begun eying the warm heater in Linda’s Maverick! They were eighteen and nineteen at the time and have been together ever since.
Bobby Don continued doing occasional gigs, but decided in 1970 to join the navy. His musical talent was quickly discovered in boot camp by a chaplain who happened to hear him singing. He was asked to join the Navy Blue Jacket Choir which, combined with top test scores, allowed him to join a company less stringent than most. Joining about twelve other men who sang so well together no radios were needed on base. Performing with the Navy Blue Jacket Choir exposed Bobby Don to a wide variety of important people including the Disney Board of Directors. A transfer to Great Lakes, IL created another musical opportunity for Bobby Don. The Air Force had begun putting out pop band commercials as a promotional effort during the Vietnam War. The Navy was eager to follow suit and Bobby Don was asked to be the lead singer of the very first navy pop band in Chicago.
After his discharge from the Navy, Bobby Don and Linda returned to Atlanta where he was a finalist in a talent contest called”Starquest” at the popular Bistro Club. After this performance, Billboard Magazine’s Russell Shaw described Bobby Don Bloodworth as a “sensitive, eloquent, poignant singer/songwriter.” Even more important, Russell Shaw paid for Bobby Don’s first real studio time. This opportunity along with support from Aubrey Walton, a Georgia radio show host on WRAS, provided Bobby Don with the exposure he needed to increase club performances throughout the city of Atlanta. It also gave Bobby Don the confidence and outlet to begin playing his original music on stage.
1974 brought even more exciting things Bobby Don’s way as he was asked to perform the early show at Flynn’s. He was followed by well known local artist Ron Kimball and their combined talents soon brought both the performers and the club notoriety. Flynn’s became an Atlanta hot spot. Bobby Don continued playing the club circuit with bass player Steve Howell with many successes including a well received duet competition with Dirk and Tony (Tony was T. Graham Brown).
In 1980 Bobby opened the huge club Excelsior Mill and became the anticipated act for every weekend thereafter. It was also at a performance during the 1980 Olympics that Bobby Don was introduced to J. Walter Thompson Executive VP Andy Romano who was looking for just the right person to compose the Eastman/Kodak American Storyteller Campaign. Bobby Don went to work writing and recording several demos but they decided to go with a different advertising approach. Still, being impressed with his singer/songwriter talents, Andy convinced Bobby Don he should take another look at more commercial and advertising opportunities.
Bobby Don began building the Gopher Broke Band. Ron Smith was and still is the original drummer, Todd Montgomery on the bass guitar, and Doug (Flash) Gordon on the lead guitar with Bill Fleming joining in 1984 as a pedal steel guitar player. Even though only Ron and Bobby Don are left from the original band, the Gopher Broke Band has been well received since its conception and has never had the break up drama associated with so many bands.
In 1988 Bobby Don took another turn in his musical career by composing songs for the Alliance Theater production Faust for President. Bobby Don was supposed to write just one song, but got so excited he wrote the hit song King of the Cowboys in one night. The director was so surprised and impressed he eventually contracted Bobby Don to write eight of the musicals songs and the finale.
Bobby Don thought he was on his way to the top of the music industry and says when asked about this period in his career, “I thought I was going to be a star the next week, and I still think I’m going to be a star next week.” Still, one of the biggest thrills for Bobby Don was hearing other people sing his songs on stage.
The natural next step was for Bobby Don to head to Nashville. In 1990 Bobby Don and Atlanta songwriter Kathy Reed headed out to see how far their talents would take them in music city. Incredible good fortune looked down on them when they met Jimmy Rose at Al Jolson’s Masterlink Studios who asked them to play at Nashville’s premier singer/songwriter venue – the Blue Bird Café!
The next day they started shopping tapes around. One of the first studios they went to was Denny’s Den owned by the Denny Music Group. In a unique move, Bobby Don went back to where he was staying and wrote the song Pandora Please to try to convince the receptionist Pandora to get his music passed on to John Denny. The plan worked. Upon hearing the song Pandora immediately pulled John out of a recording session and to Bobby Don’s surprise John Denny reacted very emotionally to the song. While Bobby Don wrote the song to convince Pandora to listen to his music, it actually told the story of John and Pandora’s romance. Bobby Don and Kathy were asked to return in one month to record an album.
Bobby Don and Kathy began their first Nashville recording but were interrupted when Alison Krauss’s record company needed the studio. With time on his hands, Bobby Don wasn’t sure what to do until Studio Manager/Recording Engineer Ric Landers took him small mouth bass fishing on the Piney River. Not only did this calm his nerves about the entire recording process, but it also created a friendship that has lasted through turbulent times to come and ultimately the release of this CD.
The release of Midnight Stories marked Bobby Don’s arrival onto the professional recording scene. He continued recording and playing with the GopherBroke band over the following years while the band perfected their sound and made a few band member changes.
Then one Friday, an urgent call came for Bobby Don to create a commercial song by Monday. The only input given to Bobby Don was that it was a tune for a plant nursery and it should get people to reconnect with playing in the dirt. In typical Bobby Don style he wrote the tune in fifteen minutes, and spent the rest of the weekend whitewater rafting with wife Linda.
Randy Pike, then President of Pike Family Nursery, liked the song so much he overrode any objections. This proved to be a wise business decision since the song was listed in the Atlanta Business Chronicle polls as the most popular local ad campaign for eight years in a row. It was retired after eight years, but Bobby Don will still have people walk up to him and talk about their memories of this tune.
The Pike Family Nursery Commercial proved to be a financial success for Bobby Don as well allowing him to purchase property in the North Georgia Mountains. Moby in the Morning, one of the most listened to country radio stars, asked Bobby Don to perform the commercial live and reported back that it was the only advertising jingle that received repeated requests.
One final perk from the Pike Nursery Commercial came in 1994 – 1995 when the Atlanta Symphony asked Bobby Don to play with them during Children’s Music Appreciation.
In 1998 Bobby Don and Linda moved up to Blue Ridge, GA. Bobby Don needed time to heal from the pressures of recording, studio work, and the business practices inherent in the music industry. He began to work on bringing alternate musical styles to his new home town of Blue Ridge.
1999 brought an especially exciting event as Bobby Don worked with Trisha Yearwood on a Georgia Public Broadcasting special titled Main Street Georgia. Bobby Don penned and performed the theme song titled \'Small Town Main Street\' and that song was nominated for a 2000 Emmy.
In 2000 Bobby Don’s mother, Jessie Mae Kimbrell Bloodworth, became ill with multiple medical issues. There was no question in Bobby Don’s mind that he needed to be with his mother during this period. He remained as her caretaker in Atlanta until her passing in 2002.
When Bobby Don returned to the North Georgia Mountains, he realized how much he needed to seriously work on his songwriting again. Slowly, Bobby Don started to feel the same excitement about music as he did when he was seven. He began throwing himself in to various private projects including commercials, musical theater, local song events and, his favorite project of teaching songwriting to seventh and eighth graders at the Fannin County Middle School.
In fact, Some Sunday was written in 2006 during a run of Foxfire at the local Blue Ridge Community Theater. The song was written to give American servicemen a chance to voice their confusion on how our country forgot all the mistakes made during the Vietnam conflict. Bobby Don’s own disappointment in witnessing such events in his lifetime is weaved throughout the song.
Still, Bobby Don was haunted by the lack of progress in his career. It was at this point that Ric Landers stepped back in to Bobby Don’s life. By keeping up correspondence, he continually encouraged Bobby Don to work on his music and get it recorded. Since Ric was facing traumatic events in his own family at the time, it was a good match for these two souls to work on a project while recovering from their individual wounds. Ric created a mobile digital recording studio business upon his exit from a ten year stint in corporate America and then brought it down to Blue Ridge. Ric set up the studio in Bobby Don’s barn. Slowly, methodically, the music took over, developed, and eventually brought both Ric and Bobby Don back to the simple pleasure of producing and performing quality music for fans everywhere.
This CD is more than a collection of inspiring melodies and thought provoking words. It is a testament to the art of survival and the ultimate healing power of music for us all.
The current Gopher Broke band consists of Ron Smith on drums/vocals, Jed Dotson on lead guitar/vocals, Paul Kusmer on bass guitar, and Tami Baker as back up singer. Bobby Don thanks them and all his loyal friends and fans that have made this CD possible.
Bobby Don Bloodworth Biography written by author Janelle McCarthy (Every Girl Needs a Hatbox)who blogs Absolute Favorite Video and Song at Riding The Notes
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