Had
country songwriter Bobby Braddock taken the advice from his first hit song "D-I-V-O-R-C-E"
a little sooner, he might have prevented his first wife from running him deeply
into debt, ruining his credit rating. Braddock was
welcomed with open arms when he arrived in Nashville from Florida in 1964. Five
weeks in town, Marty Robbins hired him to play the keyboard in his band, and shortly
thereafter recorded several of his songs.
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In addition to the Tammy Wynette chestnut, credit Braddock
(along with co-writer Curly Putnam) with what many consider the greatest country
song of all time, the George Jones classic, "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Although
he wrote "We're Not the Jet Set" for George and Tammy, Mr. and Mrs. Braddock were
living like it until the IRS came knocking.  Your
financial train started to leave the tracks around the time you had your first
No.1 country hit with "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," right?
 Yeah,
it did. If I was earning $10,000 a year, we would live on $15,000. If I was earning
$20,000 a year, we were living on $30,000-35,000 a year. Over the years, I just
got deeply, deeply, deeply in debt. It was just awful. I can't blame it on my
wife because I let it happen. It was the classic mismatch marriage of all time,
with one exception: we got a wonderful daughter out of it. I wouldn't change a
thing.
Were
you just not tracking your bills?
Yeah.
She had come from not much money and she was just
spending through the roof and I let her do it. Fortunately,
I had a successful songwriting career, and when it
came time to sign a contract, instead of trying to
get part of the publishing for my songs, I was so
needy that when it came re-sign time, I always wanted
money upfront and I just continued to get much, much
deeper in debt.
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