John Schneider’s New Album Inspired by Devastating Louisiana Floods

John Schneider has enjoyed a multi-faceted career, with success in television, film, and music. It’s been a while since the man who shot to stardom as Bo Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard has released new music. He returns this week with a new disc, Ruffled Skirts. A disc of songs inspired by the recent floods that his home state of Louisiana suffered, he tells Sounds Like Nashville that the music on this album is very different than what he has released in the past.

“This is really the first time that the music that I’m doing is representative of life rather than thinking ‘Oh, this is a good song,” he insists. “I’ve lived every one of these songs, so it’s an entirely different kind of an album. People’s responses have been great. I guess they are hearing a truth. I don’t guess there is any such thing as ‘the’ truth, but there is a truth, and it’s ringing true.”

One of the most powerful songs on the album is the sobering “How Do You Stop The Water.” Schneider performed the song during an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in October 2016, and received a strong reaction from the crowd. He feels it’s one of the best songs he’s ever been a part of and says that the recording of the song was very memorable.

“You don’t realize it until you’ve actually cut the song, but when I listened to it back – I recorded the song just a few minutes after I found out my mother had passed away. So, there’s something very tangible about the sorrow in that song – but when I heard the song back, I thought ‘I would put this song up with ‘he Stopped Loving Her Today,’ ‘Miss Emily’s Picture,’ or ‘Live Like You Were Dying.’ I think it’s that kind of a song. It’s an experience. It’s not just a tune.”

During our chat, Schneider also recalled his emotions when it became apparent that his area was in danger for the second time in five months last August. “I remember thinking ‘It certainly couldn’t be as bad as it was in March. That’s when we had the hundred-year flood. I had jokingly on several occasions said ‘I guess I’ll be a hundred and fifty-six when the next flood comes along.’ Little did I know it was going to be three months away. I kind of looked at it in disbelief. There’s a chart that we look at here that shows when the rivers are going to crest, and at what level they would crest. All you can do is try to think about what you can possibly salvage that’s lower than four feet in the house or six feet in the barn. It’s crazy. There comes a realization that there’s not anything you can do, so you go and help somebody else since your stuff is already destroyed. You get in your truck, and if it will go through the water, you go and try to help someone else find higher ground.”

Though the time period was tragic for Schneider and many of his neighbors, there were some positive aspects of what happened. “It’s not a time that I would wish on anybody, but in a very real way, I’m glad it happened. It brought a strength out in me and an ability to help put words together that will accurately paint the picture. I don’t believe I had that before. I also think that in many ways it healed the racial tension between the populous and the police in Baton Rouge, which is where the song ‘An Act of God’ came from. We were in a bad way down here, and were headed down a very nasty rabbit hole, and I believe the water came in and washed that away. There’s a little bit of good in everything, I suppose.”

Not all the songs were inspired by the flood, although he did borrow one from the Johnny Cash catalog that was perfect – “Five Feet High & Rising.” Of covering the 1959 hit, he said he received permission – from “The Man In Black” himself!

“John told me years ago that anything he had in his shoe box of songs was mine if I ever wanted to cut it. When this flood happened, a friend of mine said ‘You’ve got to do ‘Five Feet High and Rising.’ So, we did it. When I listened back to it, I thought it was Johnny Cash, and I’m not doing anything intentionally that sounds like a John R. Cash impersonation. It just seems that way. I think he’d be very happy with the whole record. I think with that particular cut, he’d be smiling from ear to ear.”

Schneider also revisits his television legacy with the rousing “Every Friday Night,” a song that he says will stir some memories for those who tuned into CBS each week from 1979 to 1985.

“When I heard this song, it was a song in the first person. It said ‘I was only twelve. But, I was raising hell every Friday night. So, I got with the writer and said ‘This is a great tribute to all those folks that used to, still do, and always will watch ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ -the ones that painted their bikes orange, and got into trouble for jumping in and out of their parents’ car windows, just like Bo and Luke.”

Schneider knows that he will forever be identified with the hit show, and he’s fine with that. “It would be crazy to fight that, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. I love the show. I would rather people come up and say ‘You’re John Schneider. You played Bo Duke’ instead of ‘Hey, Bo,’ but that’s just how it goes.”

The ending of the song features a salute to the late James Best, who played the Dukes’ nemesis, Rosco P. Coltrane. Best, who passed away in April 2015, left a huge impact on Schneider – as well as many other actors. “I learned a tremendous amount from him. The world would not have had Quentin Tarantino were it not for Jimmy Best. He was a longtime member of Jimmy’s acting class. He was an amazing guy and inspired many people. When people think he was only Rosco, he was – absolutely, but there was a very serious side to Jimmy Best – a very calculated side, and so much talent there that I don’t think was hardly touched at all. When you look at what he and Sorrell Booke did as the team of Boss Hogg and Roscoe, I would put them beside Harvey Korman and Tim Conway or Abbott and Costello. Their physical comedy was brilliant, and their timing was unmatched by anybody. We miss them both deeply.”

Of course, Ruffled Skirts isn’t Schneider’s first Country project. He placed thirteen singles in the Top-40 of the singles chart from 1981-1987, including four number ones. His first chart-topper, 1984’s “I’ve Been Around Enough To Know,” remains a classic. “That was the first record I did with Jimmy Bowen,” he recalls. “I just happened to be around the right people that rubbed off on me to be able to sing that song. It was really far beyond my experience level at that point. As far as being around enough to know, and having a song that sounded like it was the truth, I think it was the people who surrounded me. Jimmy Bowen had produced Frank Sinatra. Conway Twitty was at the recording session a couple of times. He wanted to hear the music that I was cutting because he loved ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’”

He remembered that he asked publishers to show him something different than they thought he might cut. “When people were pitching me songs – I was going around town with a guy named Don ‘Dirt’ Lanier – people were playing me songs that you’d expect from some cocky kid from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’ I said ‘I want to hear the most unlikely song, the last one in the world that you would pitch for me.’ They thought for a few minutes, got this cassette out, and said ‘You’re not going to like this,’ and it was Bob McDill singing. I knew early on in that song. I was so delighted when it took off. I’m sure it had a lot to do with Dukes, but the next record, ‘Country Girls’ went number one, and I think that had less to do with Dukes, and more with the guy singing the song. People forget there were five albums on MCA. Every now and then, someone will say ‘What was the hit you had?’ A part of me – not braggingly – will say ‘Which one? All of them were top ten, and four were number one.”