Hoyt Axton Revels in Return "Home"
by David Loftus
[This interview first appeared in the Roseburg
(Oregon) News-Review on June 24, 1990; photo by
Mike Anderson, courtesy of the News-Review.]
"I have to come back. Once you've lived in Oregon it gets in your blood and you have to come back."
It has been almost 20 years since country singer and songwriter Hoyt Axton made his home for two years above Idleyld Park, 21 miles east of Roseburg, Oregon.
Today he maintains a 220-acre spread 25 miles east of Los Angeles in the Newhall Canyon area. There is also a home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, "just down the road from Mandrell and Johnny Cash."
But he found himself back in Roseburg Saturday to perform for Forest Celebration '90, the timber industry rally organized to protest the long expected listing of the northern spotted owl as a threatened species, which occurred Friday.
"They told me what it was and I said, yeah, I'm for the timber industry. The timber industry is the people in it. I've been an environmentalist for years, but there comes a time when you got to take a stand. It's more important for a family to have food on the table."
Axton was resplendent in a green Pendleton shirt beneath a black leather vest covered with stitchery, and dark blue slacks held up by a belt with a huge silver buckle.
Following a 105-minute set of familiar hits, an a capella blues or two, and other favorites, he was generous with his time for fans who wanted to chat and get autographs.
He said he didn't get up to Glide any more because "too many game wardens up there. The last deer I shot was up here, in 1971."
But though he planned to return to Los Angeles after this show, Axton said he would be back in Oregon on Tuesday. "I'll be hanging out at (Ken) Kesey's place."
Axton wants to collaborate on a film about the first Pendleton Round-Up, which a black man named "Nigger George" Fletcher won in 1916.
"The judges wouldn't give him the presentation saddle, so the angry crowd took his hat, tore it into little pieces they sold for $5 apiece, and bought him a better saddle than the presentation saddle," Axton said.
Some of the singer's compositions were big hits for other artists: "Joy to the World" and "Never Been to Spain" for Three Dog Night, "The Pusher" for Steppenwolf, and "The No No Song" for Ringo Starr.
Asked if he ever resented this, Axton said never.
"I'm a songwriter. And if you can take a song from your living room and someone gets a hit with it, that's the answer to life for a songwriter."
He noted mischievously there are plenty of royalties coming in for 20-year-old songs -- "nice ones."
Shell Oil issued a golden hits collection last year with a guaranteed sale of $2 million. The inclusion of "Joy to the World" meant "54 grand in advance royalties. It was so nice to get that money and send it to the IRS."
That's a far cry from the early days when he received a total of $800 for his first big hit, "Greenback Dollar," recorded by the Kingston Trio in 1962.
His own recording label, Jeremiah Records, is dormant now because various companies owe it $700,000, Axton said. "That was money we needed to keep it going."
Asked about the inspiration for that record label name, he said: "Jeremiah was an expedient of the time. I had the chorus (for 'Joy to the World') for three months. I took a drink of wine, leaned on the speaker, and said 'Jeremiah was a bullfrog.' It was meaningless. It was a temporary lyric. Before I could rewrite it, they cut it and it was a hit."
Also known for acting appearances in "The Black Stallion" and "Gremlins," Axton has just finished a movie called "Space Case," in which he appears with Ray Walston of the old "My Favorite Martian" TV series [and shortly thereafter, "Picket Fences"].
"I save the world in this movie in a spaceship battle like 'Star Wars.' It's wonderful. It'll probably come out directly on video," he concluded with a self-deprecating grin.
Asked if he has ever been to Spain since he wrote his hit, Axton said not yet. "I quit going to Europe because they don't have cheeseburgers or meat loaf, and they don't have enough ice machines."
Axton said he has recorded 27 albums over the years. "That includes a 'How To' for JBL speakers back in '67."
What would he be doing now if he hadn't made it as a songwriter and singer?
"Probably digging ditches. I couldn't drive a log truck. I don't know how these guys do it. I've never seen a log truck with any tread on the tires."