Songwriter Gives Tips on Making Hits

He discovered a star--Tennessee Ernie Ford--and has his own on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

So, when his wife died in 1989, Cliffie Stone, who wrote songs, managed careers and starred on television, figured he had contributed enough to his lifelong passion--country music. He figured wrong.

Stone met another love, and they were soon married, and at 74, he has published a book.

Titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Songwriting But Don’t Know Who to Ask,” the book, released in January and co-authored by his wife, Joan Carol Stone, details his approach to writing lyrics and melodies and marketing songs. The idea came when he responded to a fan’s written request for advice about the music business.

“It started out as a letter and over a year later, it became a book,” said Stone, who spent $22,000 to publish it himself.

His songwriting credentials are formidable. Stone, of Canyon Country, wrote or co-wrote dozens of songs, including four collaborations that reached the Top 5 on Billboard’s country charts in the late 1940s. “Divorce Me C.O.D.,” with Merle Travis, made it to No. 1 in 1946. Other hits included “No Vacancy” and “New Steel Guitar Rag.”

From 1946 to 1960, Stone was the Ed Sullivan of country music, starring in “Hometown Jamboree,” a weekly one-hour special featuring songs and sketches. The show, broadcast on television and radio, presented rising talents such as Johnny Cash, Eddie Arnold, Tex Ritter and Ford.

“He’s been the guy who discovered talent,” said drummer Archie Francis of La Crescenta, who played with Roger Miller and Freddy Fender in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “He knows what kind of music people like. He knows what country people are all about.”

Stone is perhaps most recognized by country music fans for his association with Ford.

In 1948, he first heard Ford give his daily newscast on a San Bernardino radio station and recommended he apply for a similar job at KXLA in Pasadena. Ford got the job and was also given a one-hour show--”Bar Nothing Ranch”--that gave him a chance to display his wacky, hillbilly personality. Ford then appeared regularly on “Hometown Jamboree,” and in 1949 he signed a recording contract with Capitol Records.

As Ford became more popular, he needed a manager, and Stone was the natural choice.

In 1955, Ford recorded “Sixteen Tons,” which had been written and performed by Travis in 1946 without much success. This time, though, Ford’s appeal turned the song into a major hit. Four decades later, with its tale of hard-working laborers unable to stay out of debt, the song has lost none of its relevance.

In his book, Stone writes that “Sixteen Tons” had all the elements essential for successful songwriting.

“This was a song that had a buzz line or cue line in it, a lyric line which stood out above the rest and unconsciously made people remember that song: ‘I owe my soul to the company store,’ ” Stone wrote.

Stone’s relationship with Ford, despite all its financial rewards, forced him to entirely neglect his own performing instincts.

“I was Johnny Carson and he was Ed McMahon, and then there was a total reversal,” Stone said. “I was frustrated because my light was no longer shining. I needed my own light.”

He stayed with Ford because the money was too tempting to turn down.

“I came out of a Depression, and I never turned down a job in my life,” Stone said. “So when Ernie started to make big money, I realized I had four children and a wife and this is what I should do.”

In his later years, until last summer, Stone served as director of Gene Autry’s publishing companies, which held the rights to various recordings in country music.

He is currently working on another book. This one will be filled with stories about the people he’s met in country music.

“I’ve produced hundreds of albums,” Stone said, “but a book will lay around someone’s shelf for a long time.”