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Burns’ manager in the early ’60s, but Word’s association
with Burns came first when Burns cut Word’s telling
ballad
Bottom Of The Bottle
in 1959. Word could have
been talking about Burns (and may have been) when
he wrote
“I’m at the bottom of a bottle, trying to
crawl back to the top
.
”
Buddy Word was born Dewey Marlin Word in Smith
County, Texas in 1928. Not a performer, he was married
to a country singer, Margie Word, who would cut several
singles for D, lead her own bands during the 1950s & 60s, and
tour the Southwest with Burns and others. According to her daughters, she also had a
lengthy affair with Lefty Frizzell. Buddy Word wrote some classic Texas honky-tonkers,
the best known probably being
The Last Town I Painted
, cut originally by Danny Ross
in 1959 then covered by George Jones. Most of Word’s songs were published through
Pappy Daily’s Glad Music and Glenn Barber’s 1958 D release
Hello Sadness
appears
to have been the first of his songs recorded. Margie signed to D in 1959 and Buddy hit
stride that year, too. Ross released
The Last Town I Painted
on the local Minor label (it
was later reissued on D), followed by Jones’ cover on Mercury, and Burns cut his
Bottom Of The Bottle
and
Leave The Door Open.
Whether it was Burns’ wariness of Pappy Daily, or Daily’s wariness of him (or
both), the songs Word wrote for him were both published by and released on Bob
Tanner’s prolific San Antonio-based TNT label. Word’s association with Burns would
continue into the United Artist sessions, when Burns would cut a half dozen songs
either penned or co-written by him. Buddy Word died at 60 in Florida in 1988.
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