Rod Erickson: An entertaining life

Rod Erickson has been entertaining the citizens of North Idaho - not to mention the rest of the country - for more than 40 years. Born in 1938 in Beaver Lodge, Alberta, the Spirit Lake resident figures he'll keep on doing what he does best as long as he can strum.

Several months ago, the Ericksons sold their Fireside Lodge - a bed-and-breakfast, gift shop, restaurant and RV park - to the City of Spirit Lake, along with the property on which the 6,000-square-foot building sits.

In 2011, Gov. Butch Otter signed a proclamation declaring Rod and Nancy Erickson Day in recognition of the couple's "selfless contributions to Idaho's heritage."

This interview was conducted at the Erickson home in Spirit Lake and at the Fireside Lodge.

Where did you get your first break?

When I started out, I first played in the bars for dancing.

Then I got this big job in Sacramento - it was the first time I'd ever seen a palm tree. There were 8,000 people in the audience and Tex Williams and Jerry Lee Lewis were the headliners. I didn't think I was going to be the very first act, so I was just backstage waiting around when suddenly the DJ introduces me. He says, "You may not know this guy, but he has the number one song in town. So let's give a big hand for Rod Erickson."

And he had to introduce me three times because I couldn't even remember where I'd left my guitar. By the time I found it, I had to run out on stage and I was out of breath and the first thing I did was drop my pick somewhere. The audience thought I was supposed to be the comedian.

But when I did "She Taught Me to Yodel" I got a standing ovation. That song was in the Top Ten worldwide in country music.

So, who did teach you to yodel?

You know, they had all sorts of cowboy shows on the radio when I was a kid - lots of cowboy yodelers. Stu Davis was my hero. And Roy Rogers was a good yodeler, too. The reason they make fun of it now is not everybody could do it - if you wanted to excel at it, you had to study.

So I got some training from the head of the music department at Gonzaga, Dr. Jean Wardian, and she was an opera teacher. My teacher told me, "You should never perform to the people - you're visiting and sharing with the people, instead."

What's special about yodeling?

For cowboys, yodeling was a happy sound and they'd sing to the cattle and it was one of the things that kept the cattle calm. As far as I know it was just a happy sound and cowboys love making happy sounds and having fun with it.

You're still performing at cowboy poetry gatherings. Are they as good today as in the old days?

If you haven't lived a lifetime, you don't have the stories and that's what's happening with cowboy poetry. You have to have lived it.

Cowboy poetry got big for a while, so I've done a lot of that, but they don't have the venues for music they had in the old days. The younger people don't have the stories or the songs. No Johnny Cash, no Marty Robbins and no George Jones.

Can anyone make a living off music?

Yes, once in a while, you do make some money, but the music business was not a good way of making a living for me. I worked as an electrician in the union halls in Spokane.

Here's the reality. I wrote this song - my "big money song," I call it - about the prodigal son going home to bury his mother. It was a big song in Canada in 1975. It got the biggest reaction ever to a country record in East Canada. And then it sat around for 18 years before really taking off in Spain.

In the end, I took home $167.00 for it.

The lifestyle of trying to make a living as a musician is kind of scary. When I worked out of the union hall, I had 44 years of doing that. Nice to have a pension. Wasn't any pensions in the music business. Wasn't even any Social Security - most of the guys didn't pay it. When you retired, there was nothing.

What was your childhood like?

I was raised in Alberta part of the time on a homestead and part of the time in a small town up there. I grew up hunting and fishing and there were six of us kids.

We had bullies in our school until they picked on my kid sister. I took care of it right away and then there were no more bullies.

When I was just past the 10th grade, we moved to Pinehurst, Idaho, and I worked for an uncle who had a TV system as a lineman-technician. When I turned 18, I went into the electrical apprenticeship program.

How did you meet Nancy?

We met in church and have been married 56 years. As a teenager, that's where you'd go if you were looking for the pretty girls. My folks were Pentacostal.

Nancy was also the State of Idaho 4-H Cherry Pie Winner for two years straight back in the 1950's.

When did you start singing?

My folks were a musical family and my brothers played guitar, but as a kid, I never had any time for that stuff - too busy fishing and hunting.

We bought our first guitar in 1957 - it was a $10 guitar from Nancy - a Christmas present. I got a book with the guitar chords and just kept strumming it until I got it. Tried to take lessons once and the guy told me, "For what you're trying to do, you just need to learn the chords."

What about touring?

In 1972, I went on the road with Grandpa Jones, Johnny Paycheck, Stringbean and LaWanda Lindsey. We worked with radio stations. What I mean is, we did live shows, but the radio stations were doing the promoting.

We traveled usually by bus, plus the equipment truck and I volunteered to drive the equipment truck. But after a while things went wrong with the tour when the cast started outnumbering the audience.

I always carried a hundred dollar bill in each boot for emergencies and I left Charlotte, N.C., one morning at 8 o'clock and was back in Spokane early afternoon. I picked up a union card and was making journeyman's wages the next day.

They never did get that show going again.

Did you ever go back out on the road again?

I'd go intermittently after that, but for the most part I was back to being an electrician.

Funny, I'm on the road more now that I've retired. We go to Southern Arizona in the winter, but the generation is changing. A lot of the modern day songs don't say anything.

When we do our shows down there, it's not the young people who come.

And singing can tire you out. If you're singing from the bottom of your feet, the way you're supposed to, at the end of the day you'll be tired.

What about the Fireside? Why did you sell it?

Nancy and I took it over in '89. I'd been playing music there since 1970 when Angie Barden owned it. We never did run a bar in there - the other businesses in town said we'd never make it, but we did.

In the '80s, we'd play music every night whenever you had customers who wanted music. We'd just jump up and do it for them. Toward the end, though, we only did the holidays.

It was time to move on and Nancy was getting tired of being tied down to it. It's one of those things that sooner or later you have to give up and it's better to do it at the right time.

I'd rather see it as a park than anything else. The city had nothing on the water and I'd like to see the kids using it. They need a place to fish and that's more important to me than more condos.

What were the specifics of the sale?

Urban Renewal bought about 400 foot of frontage,

which was one and two-thirds acres. The lodge came with it, but I'm not sure what they're going to do with it. It was built in 1907 and then moved here in 1945. It was part of the Panhandle Lumber Company.

Are the songs you write the same as the stories you tell?

Basically I'm oldtime country. I just tell it like it is.

The ways the stories come across, they're about visiting and sharing. It's a little bit like family - you're part of the circle.

Oldtime music told stories and had meanings. Love stories now, a lot of them don't say anything.

Any cowboy wisdom you want to pass along?

Never let fear or common sense hold you back.

For information on future performance dates: www.roderickson.com