The Importance of Getting It Right!

Tom Brokaw, as head of the NBC News department was most often quoted with these three words “Get It Right.” As a veteran journalist, he understood the importance of “right” vs. “first” and what it meant to a quality newscast.

It happens many times in the music business that two different bands - unrelated in any way - will release different versions of the same song at the same time. And so it happened again not too long ago when Audie Blaylock and Redline (Rural Rhythm Records) as well as Larry Stephenson (Compass Records) both released new albums and each contained wonderful new versions of the old Woody Guthrie Song “Philadelphia Lawyer”.

Both versions, I'm proud to say, “Got It Right.” That is, both correctly pronounced the name of the western state in the song's opening line; “Way out in Reno, Nevada.”

I've long been a fan of the Seldom Scene's 1994 version of the song included on their “Like We Used To Be” album, but I've also been just a bit perturbed that they couldn't take the time to learn the correct pronunciation of that state's name.

I once heard a radio talk show host from Las Vegas politely, but extensively, chastise a U.S. Senator (who was on the phone as a guest of the show) for mispronouncing “Nevada”.

Now this may seem as very trivial and unimportant and you may think, “who cares about a state that is mostly populated by jack-rabbits and scorpions?”

But think back to a time when someone mispronounced your own name and how you felt about them, their sincerity and their genuine interest in you. Now, think about the last time you heard someone mispronounce a tourist location in your state and how you immediately recognized their ignorance as “must not be from here”. Mispronouncing a name tells an awful lot about us.

Why this is important to an artist who wants to sell records is this: Because, with just one little word,you have the power to turn an average person who’s never heard of you into a lifetime fan. You also have the flip side of the coin and can easily turn that same person into a negative factor, one who will not buy your product, and even worse, one who will tell everyone they know at any opportunity they can what they think about you and your mispronunciation. Face it, mispronouncing a name is offensive to those who own or otherwise have some propriety for it.

Singing it correctly ... “Way out in Reno Nevada” ...and you have a great possibility of gaining a quarter of a million new fans who live way out there in Reno... and another nearly three million who live in the rest of the state. Or singing it incorrectly and you may have just lost a lot of CD sales and the almost-impossible task of gaining them as fans at any future opportunity.

Back in 1944 when Woody recorded his version, he got it right. The very first version of the tune that I ever heard – by Rose Maddox and the Maddox Brothers had it right. Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper got it right. Tennessee Ernie Ford got it right. So the examples of how it do it right have been laid down. But what about unfamiliar place names in any other song?

Many is the time, where I've picked up a phone and called a chamber of commerce (just before recording a news story) just to ask their local pronunciation of a place or sometimes even a personal name that could have variations from one geographic locale to another. The last thing I want is for someone in that region to think I don't know what I'm talking about just because of a lack of knowledge about pronunciations.

NEVADA is pronounced: Nuh-VAD (as in MAD) – uh.   Not: Nuh-Vaw (as in LAW) - Duh