It was also enough to lure Darius Rucker, from Hootie & the Blowfish, onto RIDE . "We were backstage at Farm Aid, passing the guitar back and forth. I played him 'Sad City' and he said, 'Dude, I've got to cut that.' I said, 'Well, we're doing it on our record. Why don't you come in and sing it with me?' And he did. Matter of fact, he stayed at my house for three days and we wrote two or three more songs -- one of them, 'Autumn Jones,' is on the next Hootie album."
When they were ready to record, Trick Pony set aside a block of time to do nothing else but the music in a Nashville studio. They turned the clocks toward the walls -- no deadlines; these session were too important to rush. Standing in a semicircle, facing each other just as they had done in countless saloons and concert halls, they found the focus they needed to bring each song to life. From the girl-talk humor of the first single, "The Bride," to the dust-blown heartbreak of "Stand in the Middle of Texas," they hit it again and again, with Chuck Howard often tossing in some spontaneous bit of inspiration, whether adding that banjo to the front of the mix on "The Bride" or bringing two drummers in to double the intensity of "Cry Cry Cry."
In a way, though, "Maryann's Song" stands out above the rest, for reasons that have everything to do with the roller-coaster emotions that Heidi was riding at the time. On the one hand, she had recently fallen in love and set her wedding date for June this year, a passage in life that allowed her infuse songs like "Nothin' to Lose" and "When I Fall" with a newfound depth of feeling. At the same time, her mother Maryann was in her last stages of the illness that would take her life in February. Anger, grief, and joy swirled through the process of her writing this haunting, gospel-flavored song in time for Heidi to lay it down and play it for her mother in her final days.
It was late at night when she opened the studio door and cut "Maryann's Song" with Keith on guitar and Pat Buchanan on slide. The crickets and nearly inaudible brook that you hear at the beginning were what the three were hearing themselves as they played and sang through the tune -- with no rehearsal, in one take. "We counted to four and went with it," Heidi says. "I was crying throughout it all. When we finished I begged Chuck to let me sing it again, but he wouldn't let me do it because, he said, he could tell the pain I was in as I sang it -- and that's what's missing from today's records. He was right: When we finished there wasn't a dry eye in the room. We all stood up and had a moment of silence. I'll never forget that moment, as long as I live."
"We actually were about an hour from going onstage on the Montgomery Gentry tour when we found out that Heidi's mother had died," says Ira. "Montgomery Gentry offered to let us cancel, but Heidi said, 'No, we're going to go out and play.' And we did that song that night. I tell you, there's a lot of strength in that five-foot-two woman."
"Maryann's Song" is just one of several cuts on RIDE that Heidi describes as "career-changing." "Up to doing this record Trick Pony was just scratching the surface. Sure, we're very country. Let's face it, no matter what I sing, it's going to sound country. But that doesn't mean we've shown all our cards. Songs like 'When I Fall' show a different side to us -- a Tammy Wynette vibe that will make people realize that we're not just a party band. And of course 'Maryann's Song' touches on something that all of us experience at one time or another.
All of which leads to one more milestone: Trick Pony found a new home in May 2004 at Curb Records, thanks to Chuck Howard's long working ties to the label and Mike Curb's enthusiasm for the band. "Mike believes in this album as strongly as we do," Ira insists. "We'd been standing by our guns on RIDE for a while, so it was great to have somebody there beside us at last."
With artists as diverse as Montgomery Gentry, Hank Williams Jr., and Kid Rock snatching them up as opening acts, with nominations last year for a Grammy, a CMT Flame Worthy Music Video Award, and five Academy of Country Music Award nominations, and their ACM contention this year for "Top Vocal Group," Trick Pony seems poised to exceed even Curb's expectations. And while new fields to conquer lie just over the horizon -- Ira, for example, is determined to be the first stand-up bassist to play through a wah-wah pedal on The Grand Ole Opry -- their roots, the source of all their energy throughout RIDE , will keep them moving wherever they go.
"I'm never going to be Celine Dion," Heidi smiles. "I'm a honky-tonker, down to the core. We're a honky-tonk band. And if that means that we get a little bit raunchy, if it means we talk about drinkin' and cheatin', if it means we sing about being in love or making love, if we sing it from the heart in a stone cold country song, well, I'm proud of that. And we've never done all of that better than we've done on RIDE."
