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From Out West #36 By Chuck Woodbury SEE UPDATE AT END OF ARTICLE LEWISTON, Idaho -- I walked into a cigar shop and the guy behind the counter sang me a country song. I was killing a little time, waiting to be interviewed by the Lewiston Morning Tribune, when I spotte
So, I decided to check it out. A half hour later I was swept into a hidden, state-of-the-art digital TV and audio recording studio listening to a country music star sing me his newest song. In pint-sized Lewiston, Idaho, for Pete's sake!!! The performer was CD McCloud, the "singing cigar store cowboy." He's a personable, talkative, 6-7" fellow in cowboy boots and a baseball cap who sells cigars half the year with his mother in the old J.C. Penney store in downtown Lewiston -- next door to Conway Rent to Own, where the motto is: "Want to deal? See Uncle Sidley." He sells cigars, that is, when he's not on the road doing concerts, usually as the opening act for guys like Ricky Van Shelton, Hank Thompson, Billy Joe Royal and Clinton Gregory. His first three single releases on country radio reached the top 5 in the National Independent Top 40 country music charts, launching CD McCloud toward country music stardom. Unknown to most of his cigar customers -- most of whom don't even know he's a celebrity -- is his basement recording and TV studio. Where J.C. Penny customers once shopped for shirts and socks, CD now records songs and tapes television programs. For a while, he syndicated a TV show called Nashville Northwest: the stages are still in place, hay bales and all. CD gave me a tour, and when we got to the control room, he sat me on a stool, handed me headphones, and then cranked up his recording studio and let the music fly. As I sat wide-eyed, the cigar salesman of a few minutes ago, along with the taped accompaniment of his Nashville band, performed his latest tune, "Hollywood Squares." It has a Texas swing beat that set my foot a tappin.' "It's going out to 2,600 stations," this week, he said later. His other hits include "Silver Stallion," "Cowboy In The Saddle," "She's Livin' It Up," and "Don't Get Behind in Your Lovin." This Christmas he'll release a country remake of Big Crosby's classic "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas." "I'll bet I'll top the country charts on that one," he said. (1998 update: He didn't.) As CD and I relaxed in a backstage area, he told me about cigars and country music. He opened the cigar shop 23 years ago after graduating from Lewiston's Lewis-Clark State College. There was no tobacco shop in town, and somebody suggested he open one. So he did, plunking down $400 to convince the store building owner that he was serious. "When I first got this place I asked myself 'how the heck am I going to fill it up?' Now I ask, 'where am I going to put everything?' " Within a year, his mother Bessie McCloud-Smith got involved and today she owns the business, although CD and the rest of the family -- brothers, nieces and nephews -- help out. CD's the expert cigar buyer, and takes an occasional trip to Central America to make deals. Right in the center of G&W Cigar & Tobacco is the huge humidor that lured me into the store in the first place. It's the largest one in Idaho. "I'd guess we have about 15,000 cigars in there," CD said. Cigars sell from a buck to about $25 each, and they come from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. But not Cuba, of course, because of the embargo placed by President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis. CD thinks the imported cigars of today are just as good as those from Cuba. "There's a mystique to Havanas," he said. "But what happened is that a lot of the cigar families moved out of Cuba, and they took their seeds and their manufacturing ways with them, and now they're producing the same quality of cigar." HIS MUSIC Although CD has been a musician since he was a child, it wasn't until ten years ago when he won $50,000 on the European version of TV's Star Search that it became his primary profession. Oddly, though, with all his hits, CD doesn't have a recording contract or even a single album. He told me it has to do with the right deal coming along that will help him reach the big time, yet allow him to keep the independence he treasures. As it is, he's plugging along, bolstering his fame with each new hit, and earning an income from airplay royalties and concerts. He dreams of the big break -- a guest appearance on, say, the David Letterman Show. "I can envision myself riding a horse into the Ed Sullivan Theater, playing my guitar and singing," he said. After that, he reasons, the recording industry may come to him with a sweet deal. "There's a big difference between when they come to you and when you go to them," he said. Until then, anyone who wants to catch CD's act, should listen to the radio or visit him in Lewiston, where he'll gladly sell them a cigar, autographed even. Television and record producers can contact CD at 1-800-328-2801.
©2000 by Out West Newspaper. Do you have any comments or update information about this story? E-mail Chuck Woodbury
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