All language subtitles for 101 Johnny Paycheck

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?"

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.

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.

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.

He was a hubcap thief.

Him stealing hubcaps,

they forgot to mention
it had the car with it.

Oh yeah.

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.

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.

Stole all the keys.

Got him another
car, took off again.

Took it down
to Paint Creek...

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.

Down in Music City,

Paycheck scraped by
as a backup musician,

playing with everyone from
Porter Wagoner to George Jones.

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.

Next time I'd
seen him was, uh,

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

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

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

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

Johnny Cash and,
uh, Johnny Western.

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

...recalled
an obscure Polish boxer,

Johnny Paychek
with a "K."

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.

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.

But eventually
it ran out of gas.

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

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.

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.

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.
- Yeah, he did.

He had a five-year cycle.

- Yeah, he had about four of those.
- 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."

We was in Canada,

and Paycheck got drunk
and rowdy in the hotel there.

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 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.

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,

he really would
have been short.

Paycheck's longtime
manager, Ernie Stepp,

had to stick up for Johnny
on more than one occasion.

If I'm working for you,
and if it's any way possible

without killing somebody...

I'll do it.

One time, we was coming
out of California,

and, uh, John wanted
a-- a Big Mac.

That's what he was wanting.

He was coming down off
of drinking a little bit.

I told the bus driver--

I said, "John wants
a double-decker hamburger."

Anyway, he stopped
at a truck stop,

and that's where
we were gonna eat.

I said, "No, uh,
John wants a--

a different kind of sandwich,
a double triple hamburger."

He said, no,
he's driving the fucking bus,

we'll stop where he wants.

John, he didn't come out of the back
of the bus for food, cops, or nobody.

Anyway, I shot
the bus driver in the ear.

First I hit him
upside the head.

I got him down on the--
on that front seat.

Yes, they're easier to shoot
when you get 'em down.

Yeah, if you--
if you don't get

the right kind of sandwich
for me, I'll shoot you.

Ernie not only made sure

Paycheck got
his double triple hamburgers

and kept his
bus driver in line,

he also guided him to the
biggest moment of his career.

Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome, please,

the fabulous
Johnny Paycheck!

That was a classic.
That's his signature song.

It went to number one, and the
unemployment rate skyrocketed.

It was-- All of a sudden,
that's all you heard.

It was like "Jingle Bells."

It was the battle cry
of all the working people.

John become
the working-class hero

because that was
their slogan.

The governor of West Virginia
decided to bring

Johnny Paycheck in
to support the miners.

It is blood that
has made Harlan County famous,

blood spilled in some of the most violent
labor disputes in this country's history.

People in these
mountains have guns,

and violence on a picket line
is not unusual.

As the strike dragged on
for more than a year,

two miners were shot,
one man was killed.

So they brought in, basically,

an army of state troopers,

and the state troopers lined up
and put a wall between 'em.

And they said,
"If you come across the line,

"we're arresting all of you,
and you're all going to jail,

or we'll shoot it out with you."
And it was really tense.

And all of a sudden, right out
in the middle of the road,

Paycheck walking out there
with a guitar, and he goes...

And this
crowd just explode--

I mean, the coal miners
just go insane.

He was their hero.

John spoke what
they couldn't speak.

He was the reason why
they got the contract signed

and the scabbers went home.

That was the only time
I ever seen Paycheck cry.

Damn.

For Johnny, the success

of "Take This Job
and Shove It"

had its highs...
and its highs.

And the next thing I knew,
he was just a total cokehead.

He was sucking a lot
of powder, a lot of it.

We were driving down
the road in-- in the bus,

and he'd run out
of cocaine.

So he gets on the radio.

He said, "Hey, out there,
breaker, breaker."

He says,
"This is Johnny Paycheck.

I want some cocaine
and don't care what it costs."

So, here are
a couple of truckers,

we're going down
the roads a way,

and they were going
into a rest area.

These guys brought it
back and handed it to him,

and they said,
"Here's your cocaine, man."

The cocaine they had,
I wouldn't give it to a dog.

He said...

..."Boy, that's
some good stuff."

And he spent--
I know for a fact--

$16 million up his nose.

He'd just set there.

There's nothing worse
than a hillbilly

with a hit record.

I was with him
one time when he said,

"Don, let's rent a Learjet."

And we flew 80 mile on the other
side of the job we was going to

and had to catch cabs back
to where we was going.

He couldn't handle success, if
you really wanna know the truth.

Every time he was ready
to make it big,

he would screw up. He walked
into, uh, a meeting in LA

with the-- the heads
of Epic Records,

and, uh,
I guess Paycheck got upset

because they wasn't putting
enough money behind him

or something
like that, but he--

he just busted
in the door.

"I'm a star.
I'm a giant star."

"Bigger than Elvis." "I'm bigger
than country music itself."

Johnny's friends
are quick to note

that some parts of Paycheck were
not bigger than country music.

He did like--
like to be naked,

and why-- if you'd see
him, you'd wonder why.

So small, he should have
been ashamed of hisself.

I never heard anything about his...
teeny-weeny peenie,

because I don't want 'em talking
about my teeny-weeny peenie,

so I said shit. Uh...

Clearly, Paycheck needed
something to make him feel like a man.

He grew ten feet
when he was, uh...

riding with the Hells Angels.

Hell, the Hells Angels

took care of Johnny
like he was a baby.

They made sure
he never got hurt,

and they took care
of that boy.

Uh, you know, he liked
to play the role,

like ride a big,
bad motorcycle.

He got to be the badass
that he dreamed that he was.

We played at the Cow
Palace in San Francisco,

and Willie was on the show, and the
Hells Angels was all up there,

and he said, "Don, hey,

I think I'm gonna be a hitman
for the Hells Angels."

I said, "You set your sights
pretty high, buddy."

And here's the story
that goes with that.

In Oakland, California,
federal and local police

tried to round up members of the
Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

Late in 1985,

after wrapping up
a tour,

Johnny Paycheck
kept the party going

at a Hells Angels clubhouse
in Maryland.

It happened to be
under FBI surveillance.

Agents allegedly warned the
bikers about a credible threat

by a rival gang
to blow the place up.

Upon hearing the news, Paycheck
summoned all the courage he had,

ran into the clubhouse and grabbed
a stash of Peruvian cocaine.

He headed back home
to Greenfield,

high out of his mind, with two suitcases
full of money and said cocaine.

And he was looking for my
cousin Red Dog's daughter, Niecey,

my niece,
who was 14 years old.

And I said,
"They call her Niecey."

I said, "Here in Greenfield,
we call that statutory rape."

For
some reason or other,

he had thought that I'd
been sleeping with Niecey,

who was just like
a daughter to me.

I said,
"No, that's bullshit."

Somebody told me he was
coming over to shoot me.

Attorney Rocky Coss has a slightly
different version of the events.

Johnny claimed
the purpose of the visit

was to come see his mother
before Christmas.

He then decided to come look
for a place to get a drink.

And so he drove down 72
down into Hillsboro,

and the first bar that
he came to that was open

was the North High Lounge.

So he come in there
and he was talking

to a couple of old boys that--
we all used to grow up together.

Lloyd and Larry had both
been drinking that evening

and had several beers,
maybe as many as eight.

And you know,
they were certainly loose,

you know, as many people
are that are drinking.

Bowers wanted to meet him,
so he went up

and initiated the contact
with Paycheck at the bar.

"Hey, buddy, come here and let me
buy you a drink" and all that stuff.

They was as friendly
as they could possibly be.

Well, they didn't know
he was just totally...

...totally
gone on his cocaine.

Paycheck's version
of the events

was that Larry and Lloyd
were basically crowding him

and that Larry had
a bottle in his hand.

He took that
as being a prelude

to Wise attacking him
with the bottle.

Attorney Ralph Buss,
lawyer for the Hells Angels,

Johnny Paycheck, and owner and
operator of his own karate studio.

Johnny was especially afraid

of broken bottles.

He had a tremendous acuity

of imminent danger.

Yeah, during that process is when
the hat exchange took place.

Johnny was wearing
his Johnny Paycheck tour hat.

Bowers had a--
I believe, a camouflage hat.

Larry Wise is wearing
a Jack Daniel's hat.

In Highland County,
I mean, people--

lots and lots
of people wear hats.

You know,
I wear hats quite often.

Lloyd indicated
that he liked Johnny's hat,

talked to Johnny about it, and
ended up they exchanged hats.

It appeared to be a fair
and clean exchange of hats.

I remember the hat was a big, big
deal to him and definitely a threat.

Then shortly after that-- Wise,
uh, was a part-time taxidermist,

and he said he had
a great turtle soup recipe

and you know, he suggested
that Johnny might,

you know, enjoy having
a meal cooked by Larry.

Well, it-- really, Paycheck
was kind of hungry and--

and Lloyd had said, "We got some turtle
soup out in the-- out in the truck."

I heard that they had a little
disagreement on how you make it.

Not, uh, "Was it there?"

Or "Who had it?"
That's what I heard.

Paycheck made the
comment that well, you know,

made him sound like, "I-- they
thought I was some kind of a hick."

That kind of
insulted Paycheck.

Like, I don't know why that
would insult him, but it did.

It was not intended
as an insult.

It was intended
to be friendly

and offer hospitality,
a unique dish.

All right now, I gotta tell you, you
gotta go out and catch this turtle.

And you cut him
out of the shell.

Now, he must still be alive,

but if he don't, you cut his
head off, take his guts out.

He's still got skin
on his tail,

because that's how they have sex.
A male turtle-- With their tail?

Yeah.
I didn't know that.

A male turtle has got
a dick in his tail,

and the female turtle has got
a pussy in her tail.

And he gets up-- Seem like you
know an awful lot about turtles.

Oh listen,
I'm-- Here, I have fucked

every kind of animal,
woman there is

but a turtle, and I tried.

I never had turtle soup, but
Johnny apparently considers this

to be the third and final
insult and erupts.

Gun is fired.

It hit Larry Wise
right in the forehead.

Thankfully,
he was hardheaded

and kind of went around it
and it came out the scalp,

and it goes through the hat.

The hat flips off
onto the floor,

and he started bleeding.

It just barely
went under his scalp,

you know,
wasn't nothing serious.

Wise, fearing for his life,
runs out the door.

According to one
of the witnesses,

he was booking it
down South High Street.

Johnny, for reasons
that no one knows,

scoops up Larry's hat,
the Jack Daniel's hat,

runs out the door
with the gun, yells at Larry:

"Come back, Larry!" Said, "I
won't shoot you no more."

Johnny gets in
his car and takes off.

During that time,
he looked over

and he saw the gun,
he threw it out the window.

Drives back
to Larry Adams' house.

Well, the hat is found
when the police search his car

with an incriminating
bullet hole in it...

...sitting there on the seat.

Paycheck claimed he didn't
know how it got there.

And the police went in...

...and made the arrest.

Paycheck needed money fast.

Through his buddies
in the Hells Angels,

he contacted Ralph Buss
to raise the $50,000 bail.

I personally called
Johnny Cash...

...and he answered the
phone as "House of Cash."

And I said, "Mr. Cash,
I represent Johnny Paycheck."

He says, "'The House of
Cash' is a misnomer."

Then we contacted
Jerry Lee Lewis,

who actually did
a fundraiser for Paycheck.

We got a check ultimately
for $1,400.

Somehow between
Merle Haggard

and some of his other
Nashville cronies,

Paycheck made bail

and was finally released from county jail.

On New Year's Eve,
there's a party going on

at the Sunnyside Bar, which is about
five, six miles west of Hillsboro.

There's
about 200 people in this bar.

Paycheck shows up there.

He walked in there,

and he had a T-shirt on
that said "Kill 'Em All."

As he's coming up on stage
there and putting the guitar on,

some smart aleck
out there in the crowd

went and busted one of the balloons.

Two hundred people
dove under the tables.

And somebody asked him,
said, "John,

why did you shoot that guy
in Hillsboro last week?"

He said, "'Cause the son of a
bitch had it coming! That's why!"

And every one of those
people that heard that

showed up in court
and testified against him.

The trial was like
a three-ring circus.

There was a TV camera.
There was a photographer.

There are reporters

from newspapers
from all over Ohio.

And amid all that there were
some groupies, you know,

you wouldn't
describe 'em as hot

except that the weather was warm.

The judge presiding
had one arm.

He had lost his left arm
in a farm accident.

The judge also had a tendency sometimes to
get headaches. He was sensitive to light.

Uh, he was very-- very concerned about
sunlight coming into the courtroom.

So he would quite often
on the bench wear sunglasses.

Two pairs of sunglasses.

Either prescription,
or he'd have a clip-on,

and sometimes
he'd put on both of them.

Well, Johnny Paycheck
walked into the courtroom.

He really didn't make any effort to try
to clean himself up for the trial.

His clothes didn't look good.

His hair was long,

and I would describe it as scraggly.
He had a beard.

And it was much, much too large.
It wasn't trimmed.

He looked dangerous
or close to psychotic.

He had a curious resemblance
almost to Charles Manson.

I went to court with him,

and, uh, you know,
they went through--

the prosecution went through
their little thing there.

And then we had-- we took
off like an hour for lunch.

Well, me and him just went across
the street there...

...at a bar and set there
and got about half drunk.

Come back in, and he said, "You
wait till my attorney gets him."

He literally believed

that there was
gonna be 3,000 Hells Angels

come riding over the hill
and rescue him.

They was gonna bust him
out of the trial there

on their motorcycles and ride
off into the sunset with him.

So, Ralph Buss calls
Johnny to testify at his own trial.

He felt that this would be
one of those cases

where testifying was
a good move. It was not.

He was so high.

Well, during the
cross-examination,

he was trying to portray himself
as a peaceful, nonviolent person,

and yet he had an album
and a song called

Armed and Crazy.

This fact, combined with
Johnny's unusual behavior

and appearance
in the courtroom

had a not-so-surprising
effect on the jury.

Things got progressively worse.

Johnny's on the witness stand,

and for some reason
he picks up this large gun

that's laying there, and he
raises it above his head.

And he does this
whirling thing with the gun.

When that happened,
Ralph just went pale.

It was all over. The end.

My heart sank,
and I visualized him

already wearing the handcuffs,
schlepping down the hall.

About, um,
two and a half hours later,

Johnny Paycheck's
found guilty,

and he is sentenced to seven to nine
and a half years in Ohio State Prison.

So the judge said,
"Okay, that'll be seven years"

or whatever it was,
and as they're leading John off,

and he said, "I'll be out
in two weeks!"

And he went directly
from the courtroom to jail.

When he was in the
Chillicothe prison down there,

he somehow or another
got Merle Haggard

to promise to come up
and do a concert.

They've asked me
to come out here and introduce

this gentleman I've known
for about 25 years.

I've been doing time
with him on the streets.

He said going to prison
was the best thing

that ever happened to him.
He said, "That saved my life."

And it literally did.

And it gave him, I think,

the inspiration to do the best
song that he had ever written

as far as I'm concerned...

...was "The Old Violin."

Yeah, it's really kinda--
kinda hard

when you set there and write
your own funeral song.

Yeah, yeah. All right.

It makes me cry also,
just like they are,

because you can't help
but love the guy.

He was such a genius.

I talked to him a few times
on the telephone before he passed,

and I said, "Man,
I got some great songs.

I'd like to come to Nashville
and... and do 'em."

You know, Johnny Paycheck was a
pretty rough scoundrel and outlaw.

He had good points
and he had bad points,

but in the end, his good
points outweighed the bad.

The last thing
he said to me was,

"Hey, Gary,
I owe you one."

I said,
"You don't owe me nothing."

- Whoo!
- All right!