OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - Even as a child, Jim Weatherly’s two loves were clear to the world.
Weatherly, a former Ole Miss football player and Songwriters Hall of Famer, died Wednesday. He was 77.
Depending on who you ask, Weatherly’s public life can be defined two ways. He was a quarterback and key contributor on the 1962 Ole Miss football team, ranked by ESPN as one of the 150 best teams in college football history. And he was the songwriter who penned Gladys Knight and the Pips’ career-defining hit “Midnight Train to Georgia.”
There was never a point where Weatherly was just a songwriter or just an athlete. As his childhood friend and college roommate, Ray Bedingfield remembers those two sides of Weatherly’s personality were always there.
“On Saturday mornings we’d go out and play a little sandlot football and Jim would always bring his ukulele,” Bedingfield remembered. “Always brought the ukulele. It was in his blood early on.”
RAISED IN PONTOTOC
The Mississippi-native was raised in Pontotoc. He was always a gifted athlete and musician who played football in high school, but he also performed music in bands on the side to make some extra money for his cash-strapped family.
Bedingfield described their upbringing as a classic 1950s experience. They went to the movies together on Saturday mornings. They played with cap guns together, where one time Weatherly shot out one of Bedingfield’s teeth.
The fastest Bedingfield ever saw Weatherly run was after he threw a plank of wood into a neighbor’s pecan tree to try to get some nuts down but the plank came back down and nearly bonked Weatherly on the head.
“Anyone related to his younger years, they were always anxious or excited to be able to talk about him and share stories about his past and their appreciation for him,” said Jeff Roberson, Weatherly’s cousin and a longtime Oxford-based writer who co-wrote Weatherly’s autobiography, Midnight Train.
OLE MISS DAYS
From Pontotoc, Weatherly headed to Oxford. He played for Ole Miss from 1962-64, throwing for 15 touchdowns and running for 11 more. In 1962, he ran for the game-winning touchdown in the Egg Bowl to secure Ole Miss’ only unbeaten regular season in school history. The game-winning run came on a busted play where Weatherly missed the handoff so he kept the ball for himself.
“After he missed it, he kept on running,” Bedingfield remembered. “He hid the ball on his right hip. It just so happened that he scored a touchdown. I asked him about it afterwards. I said ‘Jim, what happened on that play?’ He said ‘Well, I’m not sure. And I don’t want to remember because it turned out too good.‘”
Football was always Weatherly’s first priority during the season. But he never truly abandoned music. Bedingfield remembers a night where assistant coach Frank Kinard was going around the dorms for a nightly check and Weatherly was playing with his guitar instead of studying his playbook.
Bedingfield didn’t want to finish the story of what Kinard said to Weatherly when he caught him, but he did say it was the loudest he’d ever heard a dorm door slam.
“Jim had a rare gift of charisma that was evident in his easy laughter and happy spirit,” said Dr. Robert Khayat, former Ole Miss chancellor and Weatherly’s teammate in a university statement. “As the heir to the quarterback legacy of Hall of Fame head coach John Vaught, Jim exceeded all expectations while inspiring another generation of Ole Miss faithful. We knew his future was in entertainment, and he would create the definition and scope of that word as he moved along.”
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
After college, Weatherly moved to California with dreams of playing music on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He spent his early days broke, but unlike the titular character in “Midnight Train to Georgia,” L.A. didn’t prove too much for Weatherly.
That drive lead to Weatherly writing songs for not only Gladys Knight and the Pips in the early 1970s, but also country music legends like Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers and Ray Price. Price alone recorded 38 different Weatherly songs.
“We were just made for each other,” Knight told the Clarion Ledger. “At that time African Americans weren’t into country music, and he really helped us know it and love it. What I loved most were his lyrics, not just his melodies. You could live through his lyrics.”
Roberson says Weatherly always stood by and liked “Midnight Train to Georgia.” It was his signature song just as much as it was Knight’s. But Weatherly was much prouder of his full body of work. By the end of his career he had written songs for everyone from country music legend Garth Brooks to pop star Neil Diamond to indie folk icons Indigo Girls to jam rockers Widespread Panic.
“What Jim always said was ‘(I wrote) this little country song called “Midnight Plane to Houston” that got changed to this R&B song called “Midnight Train to Georgia,” and I’m so glad it did,’” Roberson said.
Weatherly is survived by his wife, Cynthia.
“Here’s a guy that had a lot of athletic talent, he followed his dream in music and if you look at all the songs he’s written, most people have no idea,” Bedingfield said. “They think in terms of one song. But a lot of them were hits. Still, if you could envision two kids 8, 9 or 10 years old every Saturday with a football and a ukulele, that’s Jim.”
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