WACKY WEDNESDAY: Happy Birthday Tim Wilson

Today, August 5, would have been 59th birthday of stand-up comedian and singer of funny country songs, Tim Wilson.

Happy birthday, Tim!

Wilson who died in 2014, was born in Columbus, Georgia. His early dreams involved a musical career. As he told Country Standard Time in 2000:

I moved to Atlanta in 1983 to be a songwriter, but there wasn't anybody knockin' my door down to put 'em on records. Probably cuz I was writing syrupy girl songs that nobody wanted to hear. And one night I was taking this girl that I worked with home, and I passed this comedy club, and I thought 'What the hell's that?' I saw they had an open mic night on Tuesday, and I started going there, performing there and never came back.

I put the guitar up till about '89, when I started writing comedy songs with Pinkard and Bowden. We did about seven or eight of 'em together. Then, I started accumulating so many of 'em, my wife told me I ought to put it in my act. I never wanted to put a guitar in my act cuz I didn't wanna be a 'guitar act.' But people liked it. Now when I do an hour gig, it's about 40 minutes of stand up and the rest music.

A weird career side note: In 2009, Wilson and Roger Keiss coauthored a true crime book about serial killer Ted Bundy, Happy New Year - ted: A Revolutionary Crime Theory Theodore Bundy and the Columbus Stocking Stranglings.

My introduction to Wilson came in the form of his 1999 major-label debut It's a Sorry World, which featured this classic "Chucky Cheese H*ll."

Here's an early Wilson tune,"Acid Country," for those who appreciate mushrooms, cornbread and Alice Cooper on a dobro

Talk about weird fantasies, here's "I Married a Woman That Talks Like Jerry Reed."

With his redneck persona, Wilson sometimes was accused of being "racist, sexist, xenophobic and reactionary." And indeed, some of his material probably wouldn't even be released today. But on his 2000 album Hillbilly Homeboy, Wilson reacted to the infamous racist, homophobic, and xenophobic rantings of Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker  in a Sports Illustrated interview the year before. "John Rocker, your proctologist called, they just found your head ..."

On Feb. 26, 2014, Tim Wilson died. I'm assuming he ascended that "Stairwell to Heaven" and didn't end up in "Chucky Cheese H*ll."