Evidence of the chemistry between Daley and me. She brought her guitar and her voice, I brought me, and Sam sat behind his motherboard and slid knobs up and down. Oz controlling all the levers. Smiling on the other side of the glass. After the fourth time through, he pulled off his headphones and said, “I believe that’ll do it.” I didn’t like Sam and I didn’t trust him, but when it came to sound production he had a gift. Listening to the playback, it was obvious he’d captured the essence of Daley. Her first single hit radio stations the following week where, thanks to the hype from the Ryman show, it immediately jumped to number one. And stayed there. Unbeknownst to me, Daley had credited me as the songwriter. She told Sam that while I’d given her the song to sing, it was mine. With my first royalty check, I bought a D-28 from Riggs with a price tag of twenty-two thousand. He sold it to me for fourteen.
