Madrigal

Hello. You ever hear of this guy,

Johnny Paycheck?

No?

You don't like country music, do you?

You think it's corny and twangy and kind of stupid.

Well, you could be right,

but it's always good to keep an open mind.

You know, Johnny Paycheck here sold over 10 million records.

That's on par with people like NWA and Gwen Stefani.

In the early '90s once, I was watching TV,

and there was all this hubbub on the news

about NWA and gangsta rap

and how it was just too violent.

I got tired of watching this,

because I actually like NWA and gangsta rap,

so I switched over to the Country Music Channel,

where I saw Johnny Paycheck being interviewed.

And he had just gotten out of jail

for shooting a guy, like, he really shot a guy.

And I thought, "Why isn't anybody worried about Johnny Paycheck?

Why isn't Connie Chung picking on him?"

Mike Judge: Johnny Paycheck was a dirt poor kid

who pulled himself out of poverty with his music,

became a working-class hero,

and almost killed himself and one other person,

that we know of, in the process.

And he looks a lot like Charles Manson.

Mike: Greenfield, Ohio,

birthplace of the detachable horse collar,

Johnny Paycheck,

and these three guys,

the Adams Brothers...

Don, Gary, and Arnie...

Paycheck's backup band for nearly two decades.

The first time I met Johnny Paycheck,

I was like four years old.

One of my brothers had him under a tree,

kicking his butt.

We just hung out together,

'cause we lived in the...

the same neighborhood, in the country.

I remember one time when he came to the house,

he brought a guitar with him,

and he sat in that kitchen and sang and sang and sang.

A couple years after that,

me and Gary got in a talent show in Greenfield,

and we needed a guitar player,

and so he played guitar for us and, uh, and we lost.

Gary: Lost to a woman that pantomimed,

so that was rough to take.

Of course at that time, he was Donny Lytle.

Donny Lytle.

He had several different nicknames

that a lot of people would call him.

In his youth, uh, a lot of people

referred to him as Hubcap Donny.

Gary: He was a hubcap thief.

Him stealing hubcaps,

they forgot to mention it had the car with it.

- Arnie: Oh yeah. - (guys laugh)

He had a little, uh, criminal element to him.

When he was in Greenfield one time, uh,

he went downtown and, uh, got drunk,

and he went and broke into a car lot.

Arnie: He seen the car out there on the lot

that he liked, so he went in and found a key for it,

took it for a drive and didn't like it,

so he brought it back, went in, got another one.

This time, he got the whole key board.

Don: Stole all the keys.

Arnie: Got him another car, took off again.

Took it down to Paint Creek...

Don: - And took all the keys and throwed 'em in the creek.

He got in a little trouble over that.

Once he got out of jail, he was gone.

He took off for Nashville.

Mike: Down in Music City,

Paycheck scraped by as a backup musician,

playing with everyone from Porter Wagoner to George Jones.

Gary: He was kind of like a country music Mozart.

You know, he played guitar, lead guitar,

uh, steel, and, uh, drums.

He was an excellent bass player.

Probably the best in Nashville in his day.

He was a great singer.

Gary: Next time I'd seen him was, uh,

he had come back, and he had changed his name to Donny Young.

Mike: Donny Young wasn't exactly burning up the charts...

...so he decided he would change his act.

Gary: - Back in them days there was a Johnny Dollar, and a...

Arnie: Johnny Cash and, uh, Johnny Western.

Mike: Donny's manager, figuring he'd cash in on the Johnny trend...

...recalled an obscure Polish boxer,

Johnny Paychek with a "K."

Gary: From that point on, I mean, he totally believed

he was Johnny Paycheck.

You couldn't talk him out of it. Saying, "Okay, Donny."

Or every time you'd call him Donny, he'd get mad at you.

I think he had an identity crisis.

Mike: He legally changed his name to Johnny Paycheck,

and his career took off,

but deep down inside, he was still Hubcap Donny.

Paycheck was, uh, playing with Patsy Cline.

I think that was... that was down in Texas someplace,

a big country music park, and he got to drinking.

He found her keys and he just went out,

got in her car, and took off.

And when he'd get to the gate,

they would shut the gate on him.

There was only one entrance to it.

They said, "Just let him go. He can't get out."

And he went past that gate a half a dozen times,

and he just drove around and around...

...and around inside the park.

Arnie: But eventually it ran out of gas.

He had a total disregard for the law when he was drinking.

Mike: Old habits die hard,

but somehow he managed to pick up a new one.

There was, like, a couple of 24-hour pharmacists

there in Nashville, you know what I mean.

The drug of choice back then was them Old Yellers.

We'd go to the jam sessions,

and Paycheck was always up there playing bass.

Well, we'd stay up for three or four days

just to get in tune, and then jam for three or four more.

- (horn honks) - Mike: Between the speed binges

and stints in jail,

Paycheck found himself broke and homeless.

Then he met a man named Swamp Dogg.

Umm...

Excuse me.

My song, I wrote,

"Don't Take Her, She's All I Got,"

single-handedly

put Johnny Paycheck on the map,

'cause he wasn't nowhere near the map.

Swamp: That single did a shitload of sales.

People were buying the hell out of it.

We made a fortune with that motherfucker.

But, anyway, I digress.

Paycheck had a way of destroying hisself about every five years.

I mean, you could look for it.

I mean any... he'd get up, things would be going pretty smooth,

and then he would... he would just totally...

- he was hellbent on self destruction. - Gary: Yeah, he did.

He had a five-year cycle.

- Yeah, he had about four of those. - Gary: Yeah.

Yeah, and was clean-cut, you know,

and then "Don't Take Her, She's All I Got,"

and he just as tame as... doing everything like a businessman,

and then all of a sudden, he put that hat on,

and I thought, "Okay, the five years is up. I'm going home."

- (yelling) - Gary: We was in Canada,

and Paycheck got drunk and rowdy in the hotel there.

- (thuds) - (police sirens wail)

So, the hotel people called the police on him,

and they come down and they hauled him off.

Anyhow, we went down to get him out the next morning and had to pay the fine.

Paycheck didn't even have a shirt on,

had to go to court without a shirt.

...and that little deal there where they all get up

and all hail the queen, something like that.

Paycheck went, "Fuck the queen."

I think Johnny Paycheck was the real deal

when it came down to being a gangster,

to being a thug, and he could've...

he could've been a Crip... very easily.

We just did things the way we wanted to,

and, uh, somebody didn't like it,

we'd tell 'em where to kiss it.

Johnny... didn't take no shit.

Mike: In October of 1976,

Johnny released what many considered to be

the quintessential outlaw country record,

11 Months and 29 Days.

This was a reference to the length

of his latest stint in prison for check fraud.

This charge earned him a new nickname:

Johnny Bad Check.

A psychiatrist might be able to figure out

what caused all Paycheck's troubles,

but his friends have their own theory.

Paycheck was a little feller.

He was intimidated by anybody over four feet tall.

He had that little man complex.

I guess he would have a Napoleon complex,

'cause he was short. Hadn't been for that hat,