My Friend Died on 9/11 -- Pumping Gas

9/10/2017

Outside the Ryman, 1975: David Skepner, Loretta Lynn, wet scribe

There was so much horror in America from 9/11 that I certainly did not think about David Skepner. But every year when crisp weather reminds me of a lovely morning in 2001, I think about him.

David was Loretta Lynn’s manager-for-life, a Beverly Hills guy come to Music City. He was assigned by the home office of MCA to supervise her career, and he moved to Nashville and helped turn her into a worldwide star.

In 1972 he fielded a request from the New York Times’ Appalachian correspondent – me – for an interview with Loretta, who was already dominating country music on her charm, beauty and voice. He did not invent her but he made sure she got the attention she deserved.

I knew her music, of course, and found out from a two-fisted county judge in Eastern Kentucky that Loretta had pulled her band off the road to play a benefit in Louisville for the families of 38 coal miners blown to kingdom come in the Hyden disaster I covered. I was touched by her zeal to make some money for her people.

Loretta won the Entertainer of the Year award in October of 1972, the first woman to be honored. The next morning, she did the national dawn TV shows and then Skepner ushered me into her room where she was tucked back into bed. I got a great interview – everybody always did – and the great Charlotte Curtis gave it prominent display in the NYT.

Two years later David decided the world needed a Loretta Lynn bio – and he promptly asked Pete Axthelm of Newsweek to write it. Ax had done a great cover story on Loretta but he couldn’t do the book (we would always laugh about that when we met) and so I got the call.

That meant, time on the road with Loretta.
David was the gatekeeper – a big dude, probably 6-foot-3 with matching persona and a big iron on his hip, as the song goes. I don’t believe he was ever in the service but he was a big military buff, who wore olive jackets and blue caps with Navy insignias and belonged to a pilots’ association.

Travelling with Loretta, security was always an issue, particularly when Mooney Lynn, her husband, was not around. I had been around guns in the mountains, but whenever we were indoors David would put the huge pistol (I have no idea what type) on a nearby table. I asked him if he could point it in the other direction – and cover it with his ball cap -- and he laughingly obliged.

David could be officious -- but he made things happen. Her book, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” leaped from her verbal ability into a best-seller, as David had known it would. And so did the movie, with so many talented people falling into place. A lucky boy, I was along for the ride.

At some point, David and I became friends. I moved from Kentucky back home to New York and we stayed in touch. Whenever I went to Nashville, we would meet at a Thai restaurant near Vanderbilt and he would catch me up.

In 1986, Loretta and David stopped working together – her call. He managed other acts (Dixie Chicks, Riders in the Sky) but whenever she needed professional advice – from somebody she could trust -- she would call David, and he was fine with that.

Weeks after 9/11, I called a friend in Nashville for something or other, and she asked if I had heard about Skepner, which sounded ominous, and she filled me in:

When 9/11 started to happen, David went into emergency mode. As a military guy, he undoubtedly saw this as war, and he wanted to be prepared. All circuits in full-red-tilt operation, he rushed down to gas up his car because…you never know…and as he stood there, pumping his own gas, he fell down, dead before he hit the ground.

Normally, David Skepner’s passing would have been noted in Music City but not in those first horrible days. Eventually, an article said David had one sister, but gave no more personal details.

Loretta went into a shell after Mooney passed in 1996 – so I never talked with her about David’s passing. But I used to call a few friends down there and we would talk about him as a force of life, who kept things together for Loretta.

Now, every year when 9/11 approaches, I think about David Skepner. Of all the people who died that day, I knew him best.

Backstage, anywhere, David kept watch over Loretta

Janet Vecsey

9/10/2017 07:00:14 pm

What a sad story. But of course interesting. Want to share it on FB, but unable. I saw it earlier (maybe Laura shared). But the stories go by so fast it's hard to get them back.

Mendel

9/11/2017 10:48:59 am

Beautiful, George. Careful descriptions in the face of indiscriminate violence makes the world a kinder, more gentle place.

May David rest in peace.

Alan Rubin link

9/11/2017 11:51:11 am

George—I always enjoy your ability to put meaning into the lives of the many important unknown people behinds the scenes.

Although I grew up in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, I became a fan of country music at age ten while listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio Saturday evenings.

Sandi and I both enjoyed the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 50’s and 60’s. Many greats got their start at Gerde’s Folk City and country music could be heard from time to time in the smaller clubs and churches.

I often watch our recording of the Coalminer’s Daughter as it never loses its appeal. Another gem is the audible book recording which was read by Sissy Spacek. It feels like I’m listening to Loretta Lynn.

George Vecsey

9/11/2017 03:49:22 pm

Thanks to Janet and Mendel. Alan, when the movie came out, I was invited to the "grand opening" in Louisville, where I used to live.
Loretta and Sissy did a little concert at the party afterward. Sissy -- a very nice person -- mastered Loretta's little genuflection at the punch line of a song. It never failed to crack Loretta up.
Oh, their accompaniment came from Levon Helm, who played Loretta's father in the movie. Levon was so happy as a backup guy. So sweet.

Altenir Silva

9/15/2017 08:51:41 pm

Dear George,

Thanks for sharing this incredible story. You always know as to write with emotion and information. Very cool and inspirational.
My condolences for all people of 9/11. This date has changed the world.

Best. Altenir (from Brazil)

bruce

9/19/2017 10:05:13 am

george,

good piece.

life is a crap shoot.

and the older you get the more you understand that.

bruce

Russell

2/12/2018 10:25:09 pm

I stumbled upon this tonight by chance and it fills my soul. David was my Artist Manager professor at Belmont University here in Nashville in the late 1990’s. I was quiet but David pressed me out of my shell.

I took David to a few Titans games over the years. Those are some of my favorite memories with him. I’d just sit there and listen to him. He always wore his Navy issue bomber jacket. His Navy buddies dubbed him “Showtime” and it was stitched on a patch on said jacket. There’s a photo from one of those Titans’ games. You can see Steve “Air” McNair lined up under center and off in the distance you can spy old Skep with his Navy bomber jacket and blue Navy cap. Always makes me smile.

His funeral was held at the Ford Theater in the Country Music Hall of Fame a couple of weeks after 9/11. His “Showtime” Navy bomber jacket was displayed on stage. One of his old friends said he’d just finished his book on the music business. It was titled “They Ain’t Comin’ to Your House.” I’ve tried to track down the manuscript but haven’t had any luck. A US Navy Admiral spoke at length about Skepner and how he’d bonded with so many Navy fellows over the years through Loretta’s involvement with the USO. The Admiral finally broke down into tears. The last time he saw Skepner, they were boarding a ship and a young Navy midshipman saluted Skep and called him “Admiral.”

Anyhow, Skepner always spoke so highly of you and those “Coal Miner’s” days. He was a one of a kind and I’ll never forget him.

Take care and thank you for this wonderful article.

George Vecsey

2/13/2018 08:36:42 am

Dear Russell: Wow, what a lovely note. I'm so glad you found this. I didn't hear about David for many days, until Loudilla Johnson called me and asked if we were okay, and then she asked, "Did you hear about David Skepner?" At that point, she said, there hadn't been anything in the Tennessean (when it was still the Tennessean and had not been Gannett-ized) I'm glad there was a memorial for David.
I know how much he loved teaching at Belmont. Hope your career is going well. George
georgevecsey@gmail.com

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
More and More, I Talk to the Dead--Margaret Renkl

NASHVILLE — After my mother died so suddenly — laughing at a rerun of “JAG” at 10 p.m., dying of a hemorrhagic stroke by dawn — I dreamed about her night after night. In every dream she was willfully, outrageously alive, unaware of the grief her death had caused. In every dream relief poured through me like a flash flood. Oh, thank God!
Then I would wake into keening grief all over again.
Years earlier, when my father learned he had advanced esophageal cancer, his doctor told him he had perhaps six months to live. He lived far longer than that, though I never thought of it as “living” once I learned how little time he really had. For six months my father was dying, and then he kept dying for two years more. I was still working and raising a family, but running beneath the thin soil of my own life was a river of death. My father’s dying governed my days.
After he died, I wept and kept weeping, but I rarely dreamed about my father the way I would dream about my mother nearly a decade later. Even in the midst of calamitous grief, I understood the difference: My father’s long illness had given me time to work death into the daily patterns of my life. My mother’s sudden death had obliterated any illusion that daily patterns are trustworthy.
Years have passed now, and it’s the ordinariness of grief itself that governs my days. The very air around me thrums with absence. I grieve the beloved high-school teacher I lost the summer after graduation and the beloved college professor who was my friend for more than two decades. I grieve the father I lost nearly 20 years ago and the father-in-law I lost during the pandemic. I grieve the great-grandmother who died my junior year of college and the grandmother who lived until I was deep into my 40s.
Some of those I grieve are people I didn’t even know. How can John Prine be gone? I hear his haunting last song, “I Remember Everything,” and I still can’t quite believe that John Prine is gone.
-----
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/opinion/death-grief-memory.html
Jan. 30, 2023

My Friend Died on 9/11 -- Pumping Gas

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