Jana KingKurt L Moore
know how you think. Well, I am here to tell you that you have known her for years. At least you have known of her. Well, sort of. She has been in your home, your car, and your bedroom, probably your kitchen and bathroom too. Yes ladies, she has been with your husband as he was driving to and from work, at least her voice has been. Let me explain. Jana King is the voice, for example, of the child singing, “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner.” She is also the beautifully clear voice behind every State Farm agent in America when she lets you know that “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Jana has also been just about everywhere music counts. She was a regular on the “Ralph Emery Show” on TNN. She was with “Music City Tonight,” “Nashville Now,” “Crook and Chase” and “Dancing USA.” Jana has appeared on more shows than most professional talk-show guests. Just a few of her credits include, the “CMA Country Music Celebration,” the “Super Bowl,” “Cotton Bowl,” the “CMA Awards Show,” and so many others that it would literally fill a small book. Not to mention, she has performed at the Kennedy Performing Arts Hall of Fame Awards in Washington, D.C. with Roy Acuff and Johnny Cash and has done work with the London Philharmonic. Jana is also a registered critter, having completed graduate studies in music and music theater at Texas Tech U. and has had one of the songs she completed, as a songwriter, nominated for a Grammy, after being recorded by Etta James. After hearing all this, I would imagine you might be surprised to learn that she lives right here in town. I recently visited Jana at her home in Branson. Jana and her husband Dennis live in a modest home that is tastefully decorated with some very different stuff. For example, how many homes do you know of that sport a full life-sized statue of the Blues Brothers. Actually theirs is the only one that I know of, or have even heard of. It does not take much to put the “gee golly” into an old farm boy like me but this also added the “gee whiz” and “wow.” The other thing one will notice about their home is that the pictures that are framed on the walls are, for the most part, not photos at all. Well, some are but most aren’t. Jana has a collection of gold and platinum records that would probably outshine even the biggest of the big dogs in the music industry. You see, she has backed most everyone on the Who’s-Who list of musical performers. I have a list of some of the stars she has backed on their recordings and I do not have space enough in this article to name them. You name the performer and she has probably worked with him or her at one time or another. The thing I noticed most during my visit was Jana the person. She was extremely nice and very cordial to me. She was the perfect hostess, serving me coffee and making certain it was always fresh. She was very charming, relaxing to be around, curious to a fault and had the most sincere eyes I had ever seen. Her eyes said it all, they were, of course, the windows to the soul. I visited Jana on a warm summer day and she and I sat and talked for a long time. The following is but a sampling of our conversation. Jana: “A country Texas girl who studied music all her life and ended up making a career of it. She worked many years behind the scenes and now is a Bransonite and loving it.” Kurt: “Jana, you have been in show business quite a number of years. What is your all-time career high that you can remember?” Jana: “The all-time musical moment when I am pinching myself and asking myself if I am really standing here dreaming. Roy Rogers came to town, right before he passed away, to Nashville, and decided to cut what turned out to be his last album. On that album at the end, he wanted to close it with “Happy Trails.” They had a group come in and lay down a real good, solid harmony track with him and Dale, to make “Happy Trails” sound clean. I am standing there singing, “Happy Trails to you” and I am pinching myself because I was a little girl watching him and I could not believe I was doing this. I would never have dreamed I would have ever sung that with him. Oh my, it was like an out-of-body experience.” Kurt: “Of all the people you have worked with throughout your long career in the music business, what one person has been the most influential in your life?” Jana: “Minnie Pearl. Minnie Pearl, she was on our show, the “Ralph Emery Show” once a week. We shared a dressing room and she was the grandest, the grandest of all ladies. She was intelligent, she was educated and she wasn’t anything like you saw on stage. She was a lot of fun and she was a true lady with style. She’d walk into a room and she had a knack for making everybody happy. I loved being around her. A lot of times when I was around her when she had cancer, you would never have known it. It was an honor to get to know her.” Kurt: “If you had it all to do over again, what would you change?” Jana: “I would have probably taken more time to write. I used to write a lot of songs and concentrate more on my career plans. I didn’t.” Kurt: “How would that have changed things?” Jana: “Pam Tillis is my dearest friend and she tells me that I made the right choices.” Kurt: “You made the right choices.” Jana: “I did.” Kurt: “You enjoyed your life.” Jana: “I did.” Kurt: “Tell me how the State Farm thing got into your life.” Jana: “I started in Dallas. I was teaching school and doing a little theater and I had done a little commercial work in Lubbock, Texas, actually while I was in college. I paid my way through college singing commercials. When I went to Dallas I started with another company that was really big in television and radio IDs all across the country. Like (singing) “WBEA your kind of country.” Janie Frickie was doing it, but she had just moved to Nashville so I took over her spot accidentally. So in time the jingles got larger and went national. Like Allstate, several beer spots, Chevy—the heartbeat of America, Oscar Meyer Weiner, (singing), “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner,” and then there’s (singing) “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is There.” Kurt: “You have a wonderful voice. Tell me a little about your years with Ralph Emery.” Jana: “Ralph is so underrated for what he has done for country music and for people. He would make people stars. They’d come on the show and be a nobody, for instance, Randy Travis. This is before Randy had a record deal. Ralph would go on and on about him and make you want more of Randy Travis. Next thing you know, Randy has a record contract.” Kurt: “Tell me about the Nashville age curve.” Jana: “I think they made a mistake, they limit themselves tremendously. For instance, when Ralph was taken off the air—he was on the air 10 years—because they changed their format to go for younger demographics and three years later, there is no TNN. What does that tell you? I sing for Branson audiences now and I ask them, how many of you folks remember TNN with Ralph Emery and they just scream and roar. They remember the show and they miss it. I am bombarded after doing a show here in Branson with people coming up to me and saying, we miss that show—there is nothing to watch anymore.” Kurt: “When the last curtain is called, the last guitar strummed and the last song sung, how do you want people to remember Jana King?” Jana: “That’s an easy one. I want to be remembered as someone who is fair and always thinking of other people. You really learn a lot about how to treat people when you see the true stars, the big stars and how they are. People I have worked with like, Garth Brooks, Tom Jones and Neil Diamond. For instance, Neil Diamond will walk right up to you, call you by name and ask you how you are doing today. He would do that with the cameraman, the people holding the cable, the people in the back sweeping the floors. Garth Brooks would be the same way. We were recording a Christmas album and we would take a break. There were 12 singers. Garth would be there in his sweat pants picking up after us. This is the Garth Brooks who has sold over 100 million records, but he doesn’t think of himself that way. See you really learn a lot when you are around the true stars.” I felt after visiting with Jana that she is a “true star.” Success cannot always be measured in millions of records sold, numbers of concerts or numbers of fans. Real success is measured in who and what you are personally. Jana, is a “True Star” as a person, and I am proud to call her my friend. Editor’s note: Jana King is appearing with Pam Tillis this fall as Pam is appearing with Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers. Their show is at the Welk Theater on Hwy. 165. For show times, reservations or information call: 417-337-7469
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