37 Letter from The Troubadour

Letter from The Troubadour, by Rick Regan

When a legendary country star known as "Big Bill" Jackson passes away, his son, William Jackson, Jr., and his sharp-witted attorney, Sarah Mangione, arrive at the Nashville law office of Pegram and Milburn to settle the estate. But Big Bill's long-time lawyers—the "greedy bastards" he warned his son about—are determined to delay the process, citing the need for "discovery" and "due-diligence." It's a classic battle of new-school determination versus old-school obfuscation, played out over lukewarm coffee in a converted Victorian dining room.

In this intense, single-location episode, we delve into the aftermath of the passing of music legend William "Big Bill" Jackson. Jackson Jr. is determined to claim his inheritance—the rights to his father’s music catalog and ongoing royalties. His lawyer, Sarah Mangione (Vanderbilt Law '92) , doesn't waste time, immediately challenging the firm Pegram and Milburn who have handled Big Bill's affairs for years.

The tension culminates as Jackson Jr. reads his father's final words, a powerful and reflective letter that is part-confession, part-instruction, and part-lyric .

Major Themes:

• Estate Law and Inheritance: The central conflict over the rightful transfer of a deceased person's assets and debts.
• Legal Ethics and Malfeasance: The implication that lawyers Pegram and Milburn were willing to "misplace" a document to retain control over the Estate's royalty payments.
• The Sins of the Father: Big Bill Jackson's reflective letter touches on his life choices, including "a lot of women along the way" and a history of being "on the road, on the town and on the run".
• Intergenerational Relationships: A father's final act to ensure his son, William Jr., receives his due, despite their relationship history ("I never did come back to your mother" ), and his blunt assessment of his own lawyers.
• The Music Business: The mention of music rights, publishing, and the role of record labels like Capitol Records.

What is Scripts-Aloud?

Scripts Aloud brings drama right into your ears. By using text-to-speech software, theater scripts go from the page into drama, every week. Typically 10-minute scripts are presented in each episode. It's like having a Theater Festival - right on your phone!

Scripts Aloud
Letter from The Troubadour
By Rick Regan

INT. - DAY - LAW OFFICE
This is the law office in a Victorian house in a leafy
district in Nashville, TN. William Jackson, Jr. has an
appointment and has brought his own attorney, Sarah Mangione,
who has a briefcase and some folders.
A secretary greets them and brings them into the “conference
room”, which is the converted dining room in the house. They
sit and wait, sipping coffee, waiting for the others to
appear.
PEGRAM
(enters)
Ah! Good morning. Hello.
MILBURN
(enters right behind)
You’re here. Oh good. Wallace
Milburn.
(shakes Sarah’s hand)
PEGRAM
Trip Pegram, at your service.
They all shake hands.
SARAH
Sarah Mangione, Vanderbilt Law ‘92.
And this is my client, William
Jackson Junior.
PEGRAM
Yes, of course. Good to see you,
Will. Been a long time.
MILBURN
Just a wee sprout, last time I laid
eyes on you. Sorry to hear about
your old man’s passing.
JACKSON
Thank you.
PEGRAM
He was a giant.
JACKSON
Yep.
SARAH
Gentlemen, I think we all know why
we’re here.
Upon the passing of Mister Jackson,
Senior, the Estate and all of it’s
debts and assets become the
responsibility of Mister Jackson,
Junior.
MILBURN
Well now, hold on. Is that quite
right? Is that right, Trip?
PEGRAM
We’ll have to do some discovery to
determine next of kin and rightful
claim.
MILBURN
Let’s table this meeting for today
so that we can prepare some
research for a proper procedure.
SARAH
Which you will bill the Estate for,
is that right?
MILBURN
Naturally.
Of course.
PEGRAM
SARAH
Well, I’d say that’s why we’re
here, to speed up that process.
PEGRAM
We prefer not to proceed with too
much haste, lest mistakes be made,
omissions and errors.
SARAH
I’ll save you that step. In fact,
I’m quite confident that if you
take a look at the file, I’m sure
you will get to the bottom of
things quite quickly. I will give
you five minutes.
MILBURN
Five minutes?! Madam, this is our
office, not yours.
SARAH
Mister Milburn, we will gladly sit
and sip your wonderful coffee for
five minutes, while you, or one of
your juniors, walks to the cabinet
and pulls out Mister Jackson
Senior’s file. Go ahead. We’ll
wait.
PEGRAM
This is quite irregular,
Miss...Manjony? You said?
SARAH
Mangione. It’s Italian. You’ll see
it spelled out correctly on the
letterhead of the memo I sent your
office about setting a time for
this meeting. Please take care not
to mangle my name again, Mister
Pegram.
PEGRAM
Understood.
SARAH
Gentlemen, I know this seems like
we’re rushing to judgement here,
but this is really a simple, clear
matter. And my part is to look out
for the best interests of my
client, Mister Jackson Junior.
MILBURN
And we have the best interests of
Misters Jackson, Junior AND Senior
in mind, Miss Mangione.
SARAH
Very good! Then we can all agree
that a speedy transfer of the
Estate is in all party’s best
interest. Now, if you would,
gentlemen, go get the file and we
can get on with the matters at
hand.
Pegram and Milburn look at each other. Milburn nods and
Pegram goes out.
MILBURN
A top up on that coffee?
SARAH
I’m fine. Thank you.
Jackson Jr. shakes his head.
In a moment, Pegram returns with a thick file.
PEGRAM
Lot of contracts. Lot of contracts.
MILBURN
Lot of records. I’ve got almost all
of them myself.
SARAH
Very good, gentlemen. And since you
have the file, are there any
outstanding issues that would be
germane to our conversation?
MILBURN
Well, Capitol Records was his long
time label.
PEGRAM
After the early work, with minor
record companies. Those contracts
have all expired, generally the
rights have all transferred to
Capitol.
MILBURN
And we are listed as the legal
representation for Mister Jackson,
Senior, with Capitol.
SARAH
Very good. And I will draft a
letter to the legal department at
Capitol that, upon the passing of
Mister Jackson Senior, that Mister
Jackson Junior will be the
responsible party for the Estate
going forward. And that Mangione &
Partners will be the legal agent
for Mister Jackson, Junior, from
today forward.
MILBURN
Now wait a dang minute here, Miss
Mangione. We have not established,
to my mind, that your Junior
Jackson is in fact the legal heir.
There may be others, waiting in the
wings.
PEGRAM
Maybe half brothers or sisters.
Wives and girlfriends. Everybody is
going to want a slice of the pie,
Miss Mangione. We can’t just
adjudicate in favor of Junior
Jackson, just on your say-so. You
understand that we have to uphold
procedure.
MILBURN
And the law.
SARAH
Misters Pegram and Milburn, in your
file, do you, or do you not have a
letter from Mister Jackson Senior,
dated July 4, 2023?
MILBURN
July 4th? Let me see. I don’t
recall anything.
Pegram and Milburn rifle through the file. They stop at a
photocopied document, stare at it, then sift past it.
PEGRAM
No, Miss Mangione, we do not have a
letter from that date.
SARAH
And in that letter, that you claim
not to have received, and filed in
that folder, Mister Jackson Senior
clearly outlines his intention for
Mister Jackson Junior to be the
sole beneficiary of the Estate.
MILBURN
I do not recall seeing anything
like that.
SARAH
And if we had to take this case to
arbitration, and a judge were to
review that file, AND if there were
to be found such a document, how
would that reflect on your process,
on the law, gentlemen?
PEGRAM
We don’t need to be bringing any
judges into this matter. It’s as
simple as due-diligence. I think
you know that, Miss Mangione.
SARAH
And yet, something is not right,
Mister Pegram. Either Mister
Jackson Senior sent you that letter
or he did not. If he did, and your
firm has mishandled it in some way,
that would not reflect well on your
firm. Would it Mister Pegram?
PEGRAM
Hold on...
SARAH
Or, if you did receive the letter,
and read the letter, you would
realize that the Estate of Mister
Jackson Senior, and the royalty
payments ongoing, would be moved
away from your firm. That would be
an incentive to misplace such a
letter. Wouldn’t it, Mister
Milburn?
MILBURN
It’s not like that.
SARAH
And if we had to make a case,
before a judge, that this firm had
as its’ intent to keep Mister
Jackson Junior far, far away from
his father’s Estate, why that would
look a whole lot like legal
malfeasance. Wouldn’t it,
gentlemen?
MILBURN
Miss Mangione, we are just trying
to look out for the best interests
of the Estate.
SARAH
Well boys, it’s your lucky day.
PEGRAM
Oh?
SARAH
Because we have copies of Mister
Jackson Senior’s letter. Mister
Jackson Junior has the original,
but I have brought a copy.
She holds up a photocopy letter.
PEGRAM
May I?
SARAH
Not yet. I submit that the proper
action is to have Mister Jackson
Junior read it aloud, so that we
can all hear the clear voice of
Mister Jackson Senior’s intentions.
Will?
JACKSON
Now? Read it?
SARAH
Yes, go ahead.
JACKSON
Ahem.
(reading the letter)
July 4, 2023
Dear Son, William Jackson, Jr.
I am writing you this letter to acknowledge that you are my
son, and to recognize you as the proper heir for my music
catalog and ongoing royalties. It’s not a lot but it’s not
nothing.

I will Xerox this letter and send it to my lawyers at Pegram
and Milburn in Nashville. Contact them when I am dead. They
are greedy bastards and won’t come looking for you, so they
can collect the royalties themselves. They will say it is for
‘the estate’ but they will treat it like a piggy bank and
you’d get nothing. So I will send them this letter to keep
them honest, as if you could keep lawyers honest. Oh well.
Anyway, some of my songs have been big hits. I am proud of
some of the songs I’ve written, though how they came about,
sometimes I’m not so proud of that. There were a lot of honky
tonks and bar fights along the way. A lot of drunk nights and
sober mornings for sure. I can’t say that I’ve done much good
in the world and I hope you can forgive me for that.

There were a lot of women along the way. I’m not bragging,
just saying. It’s part of the deal a lot of times. And a lot
of times the women along the way make the way a whole lot
smoother. It’s a whole lot better way to go along in the
world with a warm woman with you. The cold ones just make the
world a darker place. I’ve been in that dark place too many
times with too many women.

I’d like to share some of the wisdom of a life lived, on the
road, on the town and on the run, but I’m afraid my powers of
self-reflection just leave me sentimental and thinking about
wishing I was young again. In The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus
gets kicked around the whole wide world, not knowing if he
was ever going to get home. He does brave stuff, stupid
stuff, evil stuff and everything in between. When he gets
back, his house is over run with city slickers who are trying
to steal the heart of his faithful wife. I can’t say that
I’ve had adventures on the scale of Odysseus but I have been
kicked around the whole wide world. Or at least it seemed
like it at the time. But I never did come back to your
mother. She is a good woman, though I half-suspect that she
is a witch. Not in a bad way, but like a person who can read
people’s hearts and then try to heal the heart-pains. I don’t
know how she does it or even half of why, but she reached
into my heart and eased my own pain, my own grief. That I do
know. Maybe I’ll write one more song about her. We’ll see.
When I was just north of seventeen, me and my buddy Wes
hopped on a flat-car of a train coming through town, just
like we’d seen in the old time movies. And it worked and off
we went. We were damned lucky that time, and a bunch more
times, not to have gotten crushed or split in two by those
big wheels. We were young idiots but we got lucky and no harm
came of it. We lived outside of Tulsa and it was a sad dying
place in the seventies. Oil had gone bust. There was a bone
dry drought. And something called Stag-flation, which I never
did understand, except that it put a lot of people out of
work and made a lot of people flat miserable.

When we got to Texarkana, I fell in with some boys making
music. Wes hung around through Shreveport and on down to
Beaumont in Texas. Then he turned around for home. I don’t
blame him but I didn’t miss him either because the fellas
were teaching me around the guitar and about how to make
music. By the time we got to Ft. Worth, somebody had a line
on a ranch where we could stay and play music in town. Those
were fertile days, musically for me. I wrote and recorded a
few things, for the first time. It was a real gang and
everybody seemed like we were all going to be music stars.
And some of them made it but some didn’t.
I’d met Ol’ Willie’s people by then and they said if I ever
wrote something that seemed half-good, send them a demo tape.
So I did.

And he passed that on to Young Hank, who did a version of it,
re-writing most of it, and made it better. So I got called
the number of the record company on the label and said I
wrote it. They gave me the number for his people and I was
off and running. And running, and running. Writing songs,
travelling the road, sometime back to riding the rails. As
Willie said, it’s not the good life, but it’s my life. And it
was like that.
If you are reading this in front of all the lawyers, tell
them that it’s a done deal. You’re the one, and that’s all.
Take it from there. Be good, son.
William “Big Bill” Jackson, WJ.

SARAH
Thank you, Will.
The group all look around at each other.
MILBURN
Let me see that file again, please.
He rifles through the papers. He comes to the photocopy of
the letter.
PEGRAM
Wait! Is that it? How did we miss
that?
MILBURN
It looks perfectly ordinary.
Perhaps it was behind another page.
Yes, probably.
SARAH
(smiling)
Very good, gentlemen.
MILBURN
I think we all have what we need
here. I apologize for the
confusion. Slippery fingers.
SARAH
Yes, quite. So I will look forward
to receiving the documents
outlining the elements of the
Estate, for Mister Jackson Junior’s
signature.
PEGRAM
We will draft them and send them to
your office for review.
SARAH
Pleasure doing business with you.
(to Will)
We’re done.
JACKSON
We can go? That’s it?
SARAH
Yep. Thank you, gentlemen. We’ll
show ourselves out.
Sarah Mangione and Will Jackson get up and leave.
PEGRAM
Damn shame.
MILBURN
Too right. Real money spinner.
PEGRAM
I was hoping to get a new boat this
summer.
MILBURN
Salad days for us, I’m afraid.
PEGRAM
Rest in Peace, Big Bill.
MILBURN
Rest in Peace.
END