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A local landmark for the past 59 years, Bob Kings' "King of Clubs" burned to the ground early Monday morning. The roll call list of performers in the club reads like a Who's Who of Rock and Roll - Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Sonny Burgess, Billy Lee Riley. All of them started right here. We did manage to take plenty of photographs of the pictures and other memorabilia inside the club two months ago. Sadly, all that irreplaceable stuff is now gone forever. C & J | |||||||||||
| Roadhouse burns By Lacy Mitchell, Batesville Daily Guard Staff Writer Published December 14, 2010 SWIFTON - As smoke rose from the charred rubble from what remained of the King of Clubs near Swifton Monday afternoon, Janell Marshall sat in her vehicle with video camera in hand filming what was left of a place she and many others considered home. "I worked here. This was the heart of the county. We had a lot of times, a lot of good times. It's very sad," said Marshall, a native of Swifton and club employee. "This was home away from home for many people." It also was as much of a legend as those who performed there. From Elvis Presley to Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty - virtual unknowns to the world when they appeared on the small town stage - Bob King's was a place many went to have a good time. Today the memories are all that remain, after a fire destroyed the building situated along "Rock'n'Roll Highway 67" early Monday morning. The club, which would have celebrated its 60th anniversary next year, was engulfed when firefighters arrived on scene shortly after 1 a.m. No one was inside the building at the time of the blaze, Swifton assistant fire chief Rusty Kinder told the Guard Monday morning, and crews from Tuckerman, Alicia, Hoxie and Walnut Ridge were called to assist. "The flames were 60 feet tall," Kinder said. A cause has yet to be determined and it could be days before investigators can sift through the rubble as hot spots remained late Monday afternoon. Marshall, who had worked just hours earlier before closing on Sunday, rushed to the club and arrived at about 3 a.m. after receiving a call from Anneata Drost who operated the King of Clubs (membership only) side with husband Brian. Johnny and Bonnie Russell operated the public side, King's Capri. A longtime friend of the King family, Marshall stayed with Bob King's widow, Evelyn, who lives next door to the club, as firefighters battled the blaze until 5 a.m. "Evelyn is so glad Bob wasn't able to see this," Marshall said from her vehicle as the sound of exploding bottles and cans could be heard amidst the ashes and rubble. King, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, opened the brick, one-story building on Sept. 20, 1951. Despite having had several names over the years - from the B&I Club to the King of Clubs - most people knew Bob King's. It was sold, split and renamed the King of Clubs and King's Capri in 2003. However, it's the people who passed through its doors and entertained crowds with a brand of music later called rock 'n' roll that made Bob King's nightclub a place of history to many. The idea for entertainment was something King never considered until he was approached by Sonny Burgess of Newport who was looking for places to play with his newly formed band. For $10 apiece, Burgess, Kern Kennedy, Russ Smith and Johnny Ray Hubbard performed for what Burgess called, "a redneck crowd" on Friday nights. "They'd come out of the farms and they'd get drunk. They'd bring their babies in there and they'd set them on the table and go and dance," Burgess said in 2006. Burgess recalled how the building's screened-in front door looked as if it would explode the closer he got to it when visiting the club for the first time. "There were a couple of men fighting and Bob was right in the middle of them trying to stop it," he said. "Bob was tough back in those days." On one December night in 1955, Burgess said the club was so packed that "you could not believe how many people were there." That night, a 20-year-old Elvis Presley, who had just signed a contract with RCA-Victor the month before, gyrated on King's stage for $450. Burgess and his band, the Moonlighters, backed the side-burned singer that night. The following year, Burgess and the Pacers recorded on the Sun record label in Memphis, releasing "We Wanna Boogie," and "Red-Headed Woman." In a 2006 interview King told a Guard reporter that Johnny Cash also was there the night Elvis performed. Cash had opened for Elvis at Swifton High School earlier that day, and "Elvis asked me if I'd give Johnny $10 to get him to sing a song," King said. "I told him no, I'd give him $20 to sing three songs." "He (Elvis) was friendly. Jerry Lee Lewis was the silly one," King said. Lewis, with his unique piano style, would play the instrument with his feet and the piano strings almost always would be broken afterwards, King said. King said in 2006 that one of the best things about the club was how good people had been to him. "When we first went in business, people were different than they are now - a lot different," King said. In the early days, when crowds got rowdy and people began fighting, King would tell them to go outside and settle it. The loser had to buy everyone a beer. "Sometimes that would settle it," Burgess said. "Everybody gets in trouble every once in a while. I don't expect that not to happen," he said. "But most of them will come in and apologize to ya and say it won't ever happen again." King never took full credit for the club's longevity; he was always the first to tell people that Evelyn was the club's lasting force. "It has lasted this long because it had some good managers. There aren't too many people who can run a club right. What I've done all my life is run that club. It's my life - 55 years behind a beer joint," King said. In 2009, U.S. Highway 67 was designated "Rock 'n' Roll Highway 67" because much of the music that came to be known as rock 'n' roll was nurtured in clubs in Jackson County and along other portions of the highway. Burgess told the Guard this morning that he was saddened to hear of the historic loss. King's is now one of two nightclubs along the highway to have succumbed to fire, he said. The original Silver Moon in Newport, where a lot of the same stars performed, burned in the 1980s even though it was later rebuilt. King's should have been named a national historic landmark, because it was, Burgess said. Even still. Bob King's legacy will live on, building or no building, he said. "Bob King's won't be forgotten because that building is gone. He will live on in rock 'n' roll history and because of the rock 'n' roll highway." While driving around what remained of the building on Monday, Marshall, who would have clocked into work at 5 p.m., still couldn't believe what she saw. "It's not going to be the same," she said, recalling times she ate King's barbecue as a child with her family. "If I hit the lottery tomorrow, I'd keep it going for Bob," she added, smiling. The club, which was adorned with photos, autographs and memorabilia of those who performed there including Twitty who became a close friend of King's, was like a community center, opening its doors to residents from other communities as well. "It was a place where all of us met and kept up with each other," Marshall said, noting that with it gone she worries that connection will be lost. "For a lot of people, this is where they came to get out of the house and do something. It was like a little community," she said. Marshall, who is now looking for another job, said waitressing, tending bar and chatting with customers wasn't like work. "It was like cleaning up your house and getting ready for company to come," she said. | |||||||||||
| Bobby Crafford: drumming for The Legendary Pacers Bobby Crafford and Dr Cecilia Netolicky Up-loaded 3 September 2009
Bobby started playing in a band about 1955. They were playing what they thought was Rhythm and Blues, such as Marty Robbins "A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)". When Bobby first started playing with Sonny, they did a bit of Country, some Elvis and Carl Perkins. In those days, Elvis would open for a Hank Snow show (Country music). 'There weren't many Rock'n'Roll shows at the time, and if you wanted to play, you mixed in with the Country shows".
Interview with Bobby Crafford - 2nd September 2009 Dr Cecilia Netolicky
What would you list as your favourite Pacers' recordings? "Find my Baby for Me", because to make it work it needed background voices. Roy Orbison walked in, so he sang background for us. When we were touring around Sam Phillips let us come through and record. One time our piano player couldn't get off work so Charlie Rich played piano, another time Billy Lee Riley walked in and played harmonica. Do you see Rock'n'Roll as more than a music style? Well, it gets in your blood. Once you've been in music I don't think you can get out of it. They kept saying it would be a style, and it would go away. To me now, Country is what we used to play. Blue Grass is the only music now that is early Country. I don't know what's going to happen to old style Rock'n'Roll music. Maybe, the only thing that's going to keep it going is Country. How do you explain the current interest in 50s and 60s style Rock'n'Roll/Rockabilly in Europe, Japan and Australia, from all age groups, compared with the current situation in the cradle of rockabilly, Arkansas and Tennessee? There are a lot of museums popping up in the South, and lots of older people returning to play it. A lot of the older guys wouldn't be playing if there wasn't the interest. We play a lot locally. We're already taking bookings for next year, and Sonny's 80. We ask ourselves, are we going to be able to play next year? In Japan in November it was packed. They had good bands of their own, but they love the music. The first time we went over we couldn't believe how crazy they are about it. The first time we had bodyguards. They were afraid the fans may be over zealous. Spain has a lot of shows. Our first trip there was three years ago. We sold every piece of merchandise we had. Some guys there owned a recording studio. On way to beach they asked us to pop in a record one song. We went in at 10am. At 12pm we got Cokes and candy bars and recorded a full session. We'll release that at the festival in Spain next week. I never dreamed we'd be doing this now. Socializing with big names. It's really a great feeling to have these friends and be able to do this. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to. Sonny and I talk about this. We wonder if the next generation will value the things we've achieved, and collected. We're very lucky to be still touring, and thanks to all of our fans, we love you!
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| By LARRY STROUD - Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard September 3, 2009 (posted with permission) The Aug. 30 benefit concert at the Silver Moon in Newport, Arkansas, for the family of the late Billy Lee Riley was not just a concert, it was an EVENT. The Moon was packed, with lots of people standing, blocking the view of the stage for those who carried their own chairs inside to sit at the back. The Moon seated 400 for the 5 1/2-hour long benefit, which meant there was no room for dancing until after about 3:30 p.m. when the crowd began to thin just a little, opening a couple of small dancing spots. I kept going back and forth because it was as exciting outside as inside, and as exciting inside as outside. I missed some of the musicians' performances. For instance, I didn't see either Dale Hawkins of "Susie Q" fame or Ace Cannon perform. However, I took pictures of Hawkins talking with some folks outside and I saw Ace Cannon perform a few years ago when the King of Clubs at Swifton was the setting for part of the filming of "Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records," the feature length television special and DVD of Sun Records performers from the 1950s. Riley died Aug. 2 after a lengthy illness, leaving large hospital bills. Sunday's benefit show was being planned before his death, and organizers decided to go ahead with it. Sun alumni Sonny Burgess of Newport, one of the organizers, was afraid so many people would show up that they couldn't get inside. If that happened, those who couldn't get inside sat outside, and everyone outside seemed happy. Actually, I think everyone actually got inside for probably as long as they wanted. Burgess said once the news of the show got on the Internet at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame's Web site, bands and performers began calling wanting to be on the show and at least one fan from Australia called. Several from Sweden attended the show, including performer Teddy "Thunderbird" Hill and Johnny Sandberg, who arranged a Newport/Memphis trip for himself and others from that country. Two of Riley's Little Green Men - his band in the '50s, named after one of Riley's hits, "Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll" - showed up to perform: Sun session drummer J.M. "Jimmy" Van Eaton and pianist Smoochy Smith, who was a Little Green Man for about a year. Little Green Men band members wore coats made from the green felt like that on pool tables, and boy, were those coats hot, Smith said. Burgess and his legendary Pacers with Sun session guitarist Travis Wammack and occasionally accompanied by J.R. Rogers of Walnut Ridge on guitar were onstage as the backing band for much of the afternoon, although some acts brought their own guitarists. That arrangement kept the show moving and kept various bands from causing down time to set up their own equipment; all they had to do was bring their guitars onstage. Rogers, an Arkansas state legislator, introduced and pushed through legislation that recently got Arkansas Highway 67, which runs past the Silver Moon, designated as Rock'n'Roll Highway 67 because Elvis Presley, Burgess, Jerry Lee Lewis and other legendary figures who created or helped fashion the sound of rock'n'roll performed regularly in the 1950s at clubs along the route. The highway keeps the designation as it crosses several counties. The late Johnny Cash's drummer, W.S. Holland, Carl Mann ("Mona Lisa"), Larry Donn, Teddy Reidel (who performed "Judy," a song he wrote for Elvis Presley) and a surprise guest, Sleepy LaBeef, also performed at the benefit. "I heard about it and pulled into the parking lot and saw Sonny and said, 'Can I do a couple of songs,'" the crowd-pleasing LaBeef told the audience. My son, Rockin' Luke LeWolfe Stroud, a Jerry Lee Lewis style pianist/vocalist, closed the show with "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin," backed by Jeannie & The Guys (Jean Hendrix on drums, Doug Greeno on bass and Marcus Graddy on lead guitar), with Rogers also joining in on lead guitar. Sun donated Riley T-shirts for sale, which were popular with the crowd. The General Lee and Ben "Cooter" Jones of "The Dukes of Hazzard" television show were also on hand for photos in front of the Silver Moon's artwork of a wolf howling at the Earth's moon painted on the front of the building. Oxford American magazine was filming the EVENT. Outside, attendees were as apt to bump into well-known music personalities as to bump into the guy next door. I visited with LaBeef and other performers, and spent much of my time outside promoting Rockin' Luke, one of the featured artists at the upcoming Grand Opening of Rock'n'Roll Highway 67 show to be held in conjunction with Depot Days on Sept. 26 on Front Street in Newport. That event starts at 2 that afternoon and continues until 10:30 p.m. Along with Rockin' Luke, the grand opening show will feature Burgess with the Pacers and Wammack, the Derailers, Cannon, Rogers and his All-Stars, the Dunham Family Band, magician Jimmy Rhodes and Jason D. Williams. Vendors, crafts booths and concessions will be available, and fireworks are scheduled for 10:30 p.m. Music is free all day, organizer Henry Boyce of Newport said. Rockin' Luke with Burgess as his lead guitarist will perform at the Caldwell (Arkansas) Cotton Pickin' Festival the previous day, Sept. 25, about 6 p.m., where Rockin' Luke is opening for Burgess and the Pacers. And on Oct. 3, at the northern end of Rock'n' Roll Highway 67 in Randolph County, Rockin' Luke will perform at 1 p.m. on the downtown main stage at the Rock'n'Roll Highway 67 Music Festival in Pocahontas. Burgess and the Pacers will play on the same stage at 3 p.m. and Rogers and his All-Stars go on the Skylark Drive-In stage at 7, followed by Billy Joe Royal on the same stage. Maybe some folks from Australia and Sweden will show up at those events. Rockabilly music is hoppin' again along Rock'n'Roll Highway 67. ---------- Larry Stroud is the associate editor of the Batesville Daily Guard. He can be reached at larrydstroud@yahoo.com or at the Guard office at (870) 793-2383. ---------- |
| By Lacy Mitchell - Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard September 2, 2009 (posted with permission)
However, Riley's death at the age of 75 on Aug. 2 is something hard for Beutner to imagine when asked about how he felt upon hearing the news. "I could get tears in my eyes," he said. Following his performance, Mann, who had a million seller with "Mona Lisa" on Sam Phillips' Sun label in 1959, said, "Billy Lee was a favorite of mine ... I used to do just about every one of his songs." While a bittersweet day without Riley there to join him and others including "Cooter" (actor Ben Jones) and the "General Lee" from TV's "The Dukes of Hazzard," Mann said he was proud to have been a part of the musical celebration. It was also something he thought Riley, who also had hits with "Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll" and "Trouble Bound," would have also enjoyed. "I am just proud that we could all get together and help Joyce (Riley's wife) out," he said. Even though there were plans to hold a benefit for Riley before his death, Mann said when he called Burgess to tell him the news that Riley had passed away, it was agreed that the show must go on, and would go on, to honor him and help his family with medical bills and other expenses. "We wanted to do what we could to help," he said. Rockin' Luke LeWolfe Stroud, a Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano player/vocalist, closed the benefit show with "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin'." He was backed by Jeannie (drummer/vocalist Jean Hendrix) & the Guys (bass player Doug Greeno and lead guitarist Marcus Graddy) and Arkansas state legislator J.R. Rogers. (It was Rogers who introduced and pushed through legislation that designated the highway outside Rock'n'Roll 67 Highway.) Meanwhile, fan and performer Teddy "Thunderbird" Hill of Sweden said being at Newport meant "the world." "This day history is made," he said while mingling outside among the crowd. "Most of these people have been my heroes for 50 years or more." As a fan of Riley's and other early rock'n'rollers since before high school, Johnny Sandberg, who arranged the Newport/Memphis trip for himself and others from Sweden, agreed. "I know all these guys from collecting records," Sandberg said. What's hard is choosing a favorite. "I couldn't make a list," he said, adding that he enjoys "all the guys from Sun Records." "I love the music. This music." From halfway across the world or 900 miles from Wisconsin, for Barr, there was no other place to be on a Sunday afternoon than in Newport, Ark. "Music is worth traveling for," she said, smiling.
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| Sonny Burgess and Dr Cecilia Netolicky Uploaded 17 September 2009
Interview with Sonny Burgess Dr Cecilia Netolicky 16 September 2009 In the early days of Rock'n'roll did anyone use the term "Rockabilly" for the style of music you play? I first heard the term "Rockabilly" long after we started. It was 15 or 20 years later. In the early days we called ourselves "Rock'n'Roll".
Who were the artists you felt most honoured to play with? The Original Pacers were always a fantastic group. They're one of best show bands I've ever seen in my life. Also the Sun Rhythm Section. And, Travis Wammack is one of the finest guitar players around.
[1] Sonny's favourite performers: Big Joe Turner, "the premier blues 'shouter of the post war era' " (http://oldies.about.com/od/rbandblues/p/bigjoeturner.htm), "Shake, Rattle and Roll" 1954, "Flip, Flop and Fly" 1955, "Corina Corina" 1956 and Jimmy Reeves "I Love You Because" (a duet with Ginny Wright) and "Welcome to my World". [2] Sonny remembers Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino both played at the Silver Moon in the early '50s | |||||||||||||
| Record Deal Snuck Up On Teddy Riedel, Others - Part I Copyrighted material posted with permission of writer Mark Randall & the Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard By Mark Randall Special to the Guard (Please note: the article has been slightly re-formatted to fit our website's limit on space. All content is however is as in the original article) February 3, 2010 Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series about Vaden Records performing artists in the 1950s and '60s. Mark Randall is a journalist who is seeking his master's degree in history at Arkansas State University.TRUMANN, ARKANSAS - Teddy Riedel had no idea he would end up making a rockabilly record in 1959. Riedel, a boogie woogie piano player from Quitman, Arkansas, had been asked to show up at the studio at KLCN in Blytheville by Arlen Vaden to play backup for a couple of local bands Vaden wanted to record for his Trumann-based record label. To Riedel it was more like a "get-together." "Vaden back then was just like Sun," Riedel said. "They didn't have sessions. They had get-togethers. We're going to get together at the studio Sunday night. Come on up." That "get-together" turned in to an all-night recording session and produced some of the biggest hits for Vaden Records. Arlen Vaden was already a well-known radio disc jockey and gospel singer whose program could be heard on radio sets all across the country. He and his wife Jackie had made a few gospel records on their Vaden Records label and were looking to cash in on the growing popularity of a new kind of musical sound, later called "rockabilly," which was then sweeping the nation. Vaden arranged to rent KLCN in February 1959 and invited a number of local bands to the studio to cut some records for the label. "Arlen was a promoter," said Sonny Burgess, a Newport native who with his band the Pacers recorded some early rock'n'roll hits on the famous Sun Records in Memphis in the 1950s. "He'd work the clubs. I had seen him a lot at the clubs. That's where he found Bobby Brown and the Curios." Jackson County with its many roadside honky-tonks and clubs and lively nightlife was a popular destination for performers looking to make a name for themselves and land a recording deal. The clubs also paid better than most and attracted some of the most famous musicians from Memphis and eastern Arkansas. Up and coming acts such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and many others all made appearances at the clubs. "He'd (Vaden) talk you in to coming in to record," Burgess said. "But every one of those bands wanted to make a record. You'd get all the bands you wanted." Brown's "Down at Big Mary's House" was the first rock'n'roll record to appear on Vaden Records. LINING UP THE BANDS Chuck Comer met Arlen Vaden at the B&I Club (now called the King of Clubs) in Swifton, in Jackson County. Comer was a popular disc jockey at KNBY in Newport and also had a band that played shows on the local club circuit. "He and Bobby Brown came in one night," Comer said. "Bobby had already made a record for him. I had a radio program and could draw a pretty good crowd because everybody knew who we were. "He liked my show and a song of mine called 'Little More Lovin'.' He said, 'Well, let's go record that.'" Comer recorded the song, backed with "Shall We Dance To This Last Waltz Together," that night in Blytheville. Comer wrote both songs. Joyce Green was only 19 when she cut "Black Cadillac" for Vaden. Green grew up in a musical family and sang at churches, picnics and gatherings with her brothers. When she heard Elvis on the radio for the first time, she knew then that she wanted to be a rock'n'roll star. "I saw Elvis twice - once at the armory at Newport on my 16th birthday and at Augusta in the high school near Searcy," Green said. "I had been singing for awhile but when I heard him I loved how he changed everything up. It was a different kind of music. I said 'I can do that.'" Green made her debut on the radio in Searcy with Jimmy Douglas, a local musician who played in area nightclubs and juke joints. Douglas wanted her to tour with him but her parents said no. They finally relented on the condition that her older brother Glenn be allowed to go along. In 1958, Green was hired to play at the Oasis Club in Bald Knob (White County, Arkansas) for $10 a night. "I played clubs all the way from Searcy to Swifton to Trumann - just about everywhere," Green said. "There were bands everywhere. At the time I was the only female who did rock'n'roll." Green used to sneak across the street during breaks at the Cotton Club in Trumann to hear Bobby Brown and the Curios who were playing at the C&R Club. "And when he took a break he would come over and listen to us," Green said. "It was just really neat. We were all around the same age. We just had a ball. It was fun." Her boyfriend at the time knew Vaden and arranged a meeting at the Cotton Club where Bobby Brown was playing. "The man I was dating at the time lived in Jonesboro," Green said. "He knew about Arlen making records and he told me about it. He talked to Arlen and got it set up and we went to the radio station in Blytheville." Green and her sister sat down with a guitar the night before she was due at the studio and wrote "Black Cadillac." Her brother Philip wrote the song "Tomorrow" that would become the B side of her record. Larry Donn Gillihan, who still performs under the name Larry Donn, was just beginning to make a name for himself on the local club circuit. Like most teenagers who grew up in rural Northeast Arkansas, Donn worked in the cotton fields alongside his parents. "We had to pick cotton back then to make a living," Donn said. "My mother and dad would go out and pick and I'd go out and pick with them. But I would much rather entertain. I learned songs off the radio. Mostly it was country radio. Back then everything was country, just about - Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell."
His first rock hero was Billy Lee Riley. Riley, from Pocahontas, was in the house band for Sun Records and had hit records on that label with "Red Hot," "Flying Saucers Rock'n'Roll" and "Pearly Lee." Donn, who was hoping to one day make it as a recording star, got to meet Riley and his band the Little Green Men at the Craighead County Fair in 1957. When he asked what he needed to do to break in to the music business, he got an unusual piece of advice from his hero. "I was in a talent show at the fair," Donn said. "After the talent contest he did a show and I went on upstage when they finished. I knew who he was because rock'n'roll was 'it' back then. I went up and said, 'I was in the talent contest tonight. I didn't win anything but I want to get a band together. Can you tell me how to get a band together?' "He said - almost word for word - 'The best advice I can give you is if you're not already in the music business to stay out of it,' and some stuff about how it's really tough and it's a hard way to go and all that." Donn later found work playing club dates throughout northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri. He joined Bobby Brown's band in 1958 as bass player but had to stay behind when the band was booked on a tour in Canada because all of the musicians had to be over 21 and he was only 17. Donn kept playing though and almost had a record on Sun. He and his band were invited by Riley to come to Sun for a recording session. They recorded "That's What I call a Ball" but couldn't find another song for the flip side of the record. Riley told them to go home and write another song and come back when they were ready so they could finish the record. Unfortunately, his shot at early fame on the label that was considered to be the gold standard by every wannabe rocker back then just wasn't to be. "The band broke up the next week and we never went back," Donn said. "If we had gone back and finished, we would have had a song on Sun Records. Everybody wanted to be on Sun Records back in the '50s."
A reunion concert by surviving Vaden artists will be from 7-10 p.m. Saturday Feb. 6, 2010, in the Trumann Recreation Complex at 16179 Pecan Grove Road in Trumann. Tickets are $5 and proceeds go to the Trumann Fine Arts Council. 1959 Vaden Recording Session In Blytheville, Arkansas, Produced Hits - Part II Copyrighted material posted with permission of writer Mark Randall and the Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard, By Mark Randall, Special to the Guard, February 4, 2010 TRUMANN, ARKANSAS - KLCN in Blytheville was an AM station whose signal could be heard from sun-up to sundown. Arlen Vaden rented the studio in February 1959 after it went off the air that day for a recording session for Trumann-based Vaden Records, which he founded and owned. "Arlen paid for the session," said Arlen's brother Aaron Vaden, who was there that night. "As soon as they signed off the air we'd get the mics set up and place them in different locations wherever they would be and set the instruments up and go from there." Bobby Brown was the first to record that night. "We did 'Please, Please Baby' but had nothing to go on the B side," Brown said. "We just made up a blues song right there in the studio and they called it 'Bobby's Blues.' That was my second release on the Vaden label." Brown was backed up by Teddy Riedel on piano, Larry Donn on bass and Johnny Walker, who was his drummer from St. Louis. "We were just winging it," Brown said. "Everybody just dived in playing. It worked out really well." Tommy Wagner was supposed to record that night too, but when he showed up with laryngitis, the studio time was given to Riedel. "He (Vaden) said 'Teddy, do you sing?' I said, 'A little bit. Not a whole lot.' I had songs with Wayne Raney years ago on XERF," Riedel said. "He said, 'Well, run through one.' I just had one chord on the piano that most gospel groups do and I started to sing this song 'Knocking on the Backside.' He turned on the machine and said, 'Do it again. I think we've got a record.' "That's how it all started. I had no intention of making a record." His name was spelled incorrectly - Redell - when the record came out and he's been stuck with it for the rest of his career. "Vaden didn't even ask me how to spell it," Riedel said. "He was spelling it the way it was pronounced." Joyce Green recorded "Black Cadillac" and Chuck Comer turned out his song "Little More Lovin'." Aaron Vaden can be heard in the background on "Little More Lovin'." "I wouldn't call it singing," Vaden said. "He'd say 'Just a Little More Lovin'' and we'd holler back 'Little more lovin.'" Donn recorded "That's What I Call a Ball" but needed a song for the B side. He ran through a couple songs that he had written but when nothing stood out, band member Benny Kuykendall sang a verse of an unfinished song he had written called "Honey Bun." "We played a verse and Vaden said, 'Yeah, that will do,'" Donn said. Kuykendall said it would take about 15 minutes to finish, so he and Donn headed into the music library and wrote the second verse. They came out about a minute later and went back into the studio and cut the song which would become Donn's best-known hit. With their freshly pressed records in hand, Vaden then booked the singers on the club circuit to promote the records. "He booked us some shows with Carl Perkins and just around the South," Donn said. The records also got air time by local deejays and played on jukeboxes throughout northeast Arkansas.
"Every town had a radio station back then," early rock'n'roller Sonny Burgess said. "You could go by and talk to the disc jockey and leave them a copy of your record and they would play it. If they liked it and people liked it, they would play it some more. So you built up an audience. That was good when you were traveling from place to place." Brown's band eventually split up and he later joined Burgess's band and spent the next six months traveling in Sonny's Mercury playing one-nighters all over the country with the Johnny Cash Show. After nine months working with Burgess, Brown met Conway Twitty and Newport, Arkansas, native Jack Nance. They had just come back from Canada and offered to book him on the circuit. When Burgess didn't want to go, Brown formed his own band and played shows with big names like Narvel Felts, Bo Diddley, Conway Twitty, Diana Ross, Chubby Checker and Larry Donn. Donn stayed on the club scene and toured with Brown for awhile in Canada. He never had another hit like "Honey Bun" but continued to record and played shows with Burgess, Riedel and Sun artist Billy Lee Riley. "Rockabilly had kind of faded out by the time 'Honey Bun' came along," Donn said. Joyce Green quit playing music in the 1970s. However, Green, Riedel, Donn, Comer and Sonny Burgess and the Pacers (pianist Kern Kennedy was a Vaden artist) will be among the performers from 7-10 p.m. Saturday Feb. 6, 2010, in the Trumann Recreation Complex for a show billed as "A Night of Old-Time Rock 'n' Roll: A Special 50th Year Reunion of Trumann's Very Own Vaden Records." Admission is $5 and benefits the Trumann Fine Arts Council. Comer toured for awhile with the others but as the bands broke up he left to concentrate on his radio career. He never set out to make records in the first place. "I only made that one record for Arlen," Comer said, although he did some recording for other labels and wrote a great many songs. "I really didn't fool with it. I had a day job back then. You had to have a day job, too. Music was just a diversion for me. It was just something to do." Comer said he has fond memories of Vaden, though, and still remembers a wild trip he took with Vaden to Shreveport to see the Louisiana Hayride. The Louisiana Hayride was a radio show with a format similar to the Grand Ole Opry and drew many of the biggest names in music. "I liked Arlen," Comer said. "We ran all over the country together. That was one of the wildest weekends I ever spent. We didn't sleep for about three days. I was so sleepy I almost fell out of the balcony. I was that tired. "He had a brand new car. It was the first one I ever drove with power steering and he let me drive it most of the way down there. It took me a little while to get used to that power steering. I was all over the road with it." Of the group, Riedel was the only one who recorded more records for Vaden. His second release, "Corinna Corinna" and "Gold Dust," was recorded in Cincinnati and released in 1960. He followed that up with "I want to Hold You" and "Pipeliner." But it was his next record, "Judy," that earned him his most fame. Elvis Presley recorded "Judy" the following year and it spent several weeks on Billboard's Hot 100. Riedel almost missed out on the royalties, though. He found out that Vaden had owed a Jonesboro attorney money and had signed over the rights to "Judy." "When I got out of the Army they said 'Well, he owns it,'" Riedel said. "I said, 'How can he own it?' He said, 'Well, you don't have a copyright on it.' I said, 'What makes you think I don't have a copyright?' He said, 'Well, you can't write a song, put it in an envelope and mail it back to yourself with a postmark. That won't hold up in court.' "I said, 'Well, that's not what I've done.' He said, 'What do you have?' I said, 'I've got a federal copyright from Washington, D.C. and the Library of Congress for 'Judy.' So RCA called me after Elvis had recorded it and told me they had made a serious mistake. They should have checked it out. They wanted to give me $5,000 to hush my mouth, but I wouldn't. I got it all back." Promises of money and greater things to come by Vaden, however, never materialized and like the others all said, Riedel contends he never saw a nickel from any of his Vaden recordings. Riedel returned to Arkansas in 1962 and began touring under his real name. He made a few more records with Burgess and the Pacers on Razorback Records, but gave up playing the clubs in 1963 and learned piano tuning. He continued to write songs under an exclusive contract for "The Southern Gentleman," Sonny James. Riedel returned to the music scene in the 1970s performing mostly at clubs around Searcy. In 1979, he was approached by a record producer in the Netherlands and released the first compilation of his Vaden recordings. He toured Europe for the first time in 1988 playing show dates in the Netherlands and Sweden and again in 1991 and 1997 where he added shows in Germany. His last European tour included an appearance at the famous Hemsby Music Festival in England in 2002. The last Vaden Record was Bill Duniven's "One Has My Name" in 1961. Arlen Vaden later opened a video store in Trumann called Jan's Video. He died in 2003.
Rockabilly Revival: Center Of Rock 'n' Roll Universe - Part III Copyrighted material posted with permission of writer Mark Randall and the Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard TRUMANN, ARKANSAS - Few of the thousands of rockabilly songs recorded in the '50s ever made the charts. Musical tastes changed in the early 1960s and rockabilly as a music style all but died out as it became more and more indistinguishable from rock'n'roll. "Rockabilly was a phase like anything else," said disc jockey and musician Chuck Comer of Batesville. "It didn't last very long." Even Elvis Presley eventually gave way to the British Invasion and the Beatles. "It changed from Elvis to the Beatles," musician Larry Donn of Bono, Arkansas, said. "We would do all the Beatles songs we knew in a row. And everybody loved them. They would literally jump up and scream every time we did a Beatles song." The "Fab Four," as it turns out, were heavily influenced by rockabilly. Before 1965 the group recorded a number of rockabilly songs made famous by Elvis ("That's Alright Mama"), Buddy Holly ("Peggy Sue") and Carl Perkins ("Matchbox" and "Honey Don't"). They even hung out with Perkins while he lived in London. Vaden Records of Trumann would be largely forgotten until the 1970s when rockabilly was suddenly rediscovered in Europe. The revival started in England. Craig Morrison in his book "Go Cat, Go! Rockabilly and It's Makers" wrote that records brought back by collectors from the U.S.A. started showing up in stores and became a hot item for Europeans who had a romanticized vision of the 1950s era in America. Demand for the 45s led to the reissuing of thousands of 1950s rockabilly songs by companies in England, France, Holland and Germany. Songs that had been mostly forgotten in the U.S. suddenly made the musical charts overseas - and are still selling in compilation CDs today. Curiosity about the lives of early rockabilly performers increased after the death of Elvis in 1977. All of a sudden, Donn and other noted rockabilly performers started getting fan mail from overseas. Donn had recorded "Honey Bun" and "That's What I Call a Ball" for Vaden Records almost two decades earlier. "A magazine writer in France wrote to me for a story," Donn said. "I wrote to him and asked him what was going on? He said, '"Honey Bun" is well known over here.' I said, 'Wow! I didn't know that.' So I started checking and wrote to two agents. The first one said 'I never heard of you.' The second one said, 'Oh, yeah. I know who you are. I've got your record. I'd be glad to book you.' And he did. He booked me three shows in England. I did the three shows and he booked me for 14 more." Donn and former Sun artist Sonny Burgess of Newport were surprised by the revival. Ironically, neither of them consider themselves rockabilly. They call it rock'n'roll. "'Honey Bun' has been called rockabilly, and it isn't even remotely rockabilly," Donn said. "It's about as perfect an example of rock 'n' roll as any record I've ever heard. I'm like Billy Lee (Riley) and Jerry Lee (Lewis). It's not rockabilly. It's rock'n'roll. I recognize there is a kind of music that can be called rockabilly as it has no other name. But 'Honey Bun' ain't it." Donn said rockabilly was a derogatory name given to early rock'n'roll singers from the South by northern disc jockeys. "Rockabilly was originally a putdown of the Sun artists," Donn said. "Rock'n'roll was getting a big name and the northern people in business wanted to keep the name for the tie-wearing, finger-snapping artists like Bobby Darin, Paul Anka and the like so they started calling our rock'n'roll rockabilly so it wouldn't be confused with their kind of rock'n'roll. "A lot of the stuff these guys did I don't even consider rock'n'roll. They were still into the big band/jazz mentality and all they were doing is trying to keep the market for the big bands while Elvis, Carl and Jerry Lee were selling all the records. They couldn't stand it that these hoodlums and hillbilly hicks from the South were taking all their record sales." Burgess said while he considers what he did to be rock'n'roll, he doesn't care what they label it. "We thought we were rock'n'rollers," Burgess said. "But who cares what they call it." European audiences still have a nearly cult-like passion for rockabilly. "They still think it's the '50s over there," Comer said. "I've gotten mail from over there that said, 'Boy, I bet you still rock'n'roll don't you?' Heck, I can barely make it out to my car any more. I'm 75 years old now. "They put 'Little More Lovin' all over the world on CD. I'm better known in some of those countries than I am here. All of us are." Donn still gets lots of e-mail and letters every day from overseas, and offers to tour. Fans from all over the world have stopped by his house in Bono.
Today, several rockabilly festivals take place each year in Europe and the United States. And over in Europe, Arlen Vaden and Vaden Records rank right up there with Sam Phillips and Sun Records. "There are several Vaden records that I think are better than anything Sun did," Donn said. "Vaden was onto something with his label and the talent," added Bobby Crafford, drummer for Burgess and the Pacers and who played on a record for Vaden. "But the money was short and he could only promote in the Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee area." A HISTORY WORTH PRESERVING Communities along Highway 67 where the musical genre developed are hoping the area's unique musical heritage will help spur tourism. A few months ago, the Arkansas Legislature designated part of the roadway as Rock'n'Roll Highway 67. Burgess said it's a history worth preserving. "I'd like to see museums pop up and some things happen - maybe have a show once in a while," Burgess said. "It (rockabilly) was different and people still like it." Brown said he thinks tourists - especially Europeans who already make the trip to Memphis - would visit Northeast Arkansas to see these musical sites. "I think it's a wonderful idea," Brown said. "Just by going to England I could see how the people over there react. They are more excited than we are here. And they would come over here. If you had something like that - Wow! You would be right on the list of places they would like to see." Bob Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, said while Memphis gets most of the credit for rock'n'roll, the music really came of its own in the clubs along that highway in Arkansas. "It's kind of like Beale Street in the middle of the sticks," Thompson said. "You have this stretch of road and it isn't Hollywood Boulevard. It isn't Broadway. It isn't Beale Street. We all know those places where a concentration of culture boiled over. What is so interesting about this is here you have all of that. "You had this strip of exciting musical clubs and all of these musical developments happening on this strip. It was a fertile middle of nowhere. If I were the state arts council, I'd be drawing up a plan." Thompson said Vaden Records and rockabilly in general is highly underappreciated. Brown agrees. "For what we did, I think we did an excellent job," Brown said. "We're proud of what we did and the songs that got released. If it hadn't of been for him (Vaden), who knows? Some of us would probably never have had a recording." "Arlen cut some good records," added Comer. "He really did." Donn said Northeast Arkansas in the 1950s was the center of the rock'n'roll universe. "It started with what we did and spread to the rest of the world," Donn said. He would like to see the history preserved before all of the original musicians die off because once they are gone, all that will be left is the music. "We're like a club," Donn said. "But it's a club nobody can join. Once we're dead, that's it. There is no more club. All you will have is the records to listen to." | |||||||||||||
The Rock 'N' Roll Highway Revisited - Copyrighted material posted with permission of Chicago's The Beachwood Reporter (original publication 15 March 2009) By Don Jacobson If U.S. Highway 61, which runs from the Canadian border in northern Minnesota to New Orleans, is "the Blues Highway", then U.S. Highway 67 - which in its heyday ran from Iowa to Mexico - is the "Rock 'n' Roll Highway". In rock 'n' roll terms, the crucial stretch of Highway 67 was the part in northeastern Arkansas that ran through such burgs as Batesville, Newport, Swifton, Trumann and Walnut Ridge. Not too far from Memphis, where the rockabilly explosion was centered from 1955 to 1959 or so, Highway 67 boasted a swath of funky roadhouses and disreputable dives that appealed to the earliest crop of rockers, who piled into their Chevies and worked their way up and down this strip, leaving booze-fueled, pill-popping, duck-assed mayhem in their wakes. The reason I'm bringing all this up is that the Arkansas Legislature is on the verge of designating the stretch of the road through Jackson, Lawrence and Randolph counties as "Rock 'n' Roll Highway 67," which, Rep. J.P. Richards of Walnut Ridge hopes, will spur tourism. Its history is indeed rich and its legend got a big boost from Joaquin "Hip Hop" Phoenix's turn as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, in the scenes where he and fellow Sun Records rockabilly killers, like the 1950s icons they were, were all piled into a car, speeding along in the country darkness at night, dreaming big dreams of where their powerful music will take them. They were probably hoping it was out of Jackson County, Arkansas. Despite the burnishings of the movie, I doubt the actual reality of northeast Arkansas was all that glamorous. From what I've been able to piece together from my mad Internet searching skillz, northeastern Arkansas actually sucked pretty bad back then (it may still, for all I know). There was a lot of cotton to be picked under a hella hot sun, and if you were poor (and most people were), black or white, you spent most of your days working in the fields. At night you were listening to barn dance shows like the Grand Ol' Opry or the Louisiana Hayride on your crappy tube radio. On Saturday nights, if you were white, you might find yourself at a someplace like the Silver Moon Club in Newport or the B&I Club in Swifton. As described by the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture Project, "Some (of these) establishments were small, rough country venues where farmers in bib overalls arrived on tractors, seeking evenings of excessive drinking, fighting, and flirtation. Some clubs, such as Beverly Gardens in Little Rock, could accommodate 200 to 300 people. The largest club in Arkansas at this time was the Silver Moon in Newport, which could seat more than 800 people." Weekend after weekend, folks there could watch the influential figures in early rock 'n' roll history roll through town, people like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty, Levon Helm, Narvel Felts, Sleepy LaBeef, Sonny Burgess, Billy Lee Riley, and Ronnie Hawkins. They all got their starts playing live gigs in dives along Highway 67, singing their sexed-up, crazy-fast, three-chord odes to cars, parties and fast living to a downtrodden bunch of Arkansas farmers and bored kids desperately seeking some release from a poverty-stricken reality. This is what rock 'n' roll originally meant and was what gave it its credibility. And as such, a "Rock 'n' Roll Highway" deserves to be recognized. But, assuming the Arkansas Tourism Board grabs this idea and runs with it, what will pilgrims actually see when they get down to Jackson County and the surrounding environs? The best answer comes from the website of Scotty Moore, Elvis' guitarist for 14 years, where photographer and guitar enthusiast James V. Roy chronicled his own visits in 2007 to the scenes of Elvis' early tour stops, including those in northeast Arkansas. The answer is: not much is left of these places. Unless you count bits of terrazzo left baking under the Mid-South sun to be transcendent experience. For instance, in Newport, the Silver Moon, which was the home to many performances by Elvis and the rockabilly greats, has been reduced to a few square feet of bathroom tile floor on top of a concrete foundation. It sits next to a Quonset-hut-looking building that is the current Silver Moon (halfway down the page). I mean, this is akin to archeology. In better shape is Bob King's B&I Club in Swifton. At least that's still an actual building. It's actually still open and called Bob King's King of Clubs, divided, Roy says, into two sectors: a bar and a "private dance club" open to members only. The owner of the illustrious club died last year at age 83. "He was one of the best club owners I ever knew," said Sonny Burgess. Other clubs on the "Rock 'n' Roll Highway" included the Cotton Club in Trumann, Ark., where Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison put on legendary shows, as well as Mike's 67 Club and Porky's Roof Top Club in Newport. Good luck finding what's left of these places, Arkansas travelers. The one thing that a "Rock 'N' Roll Highway" makes you realize once again, however, is where this musical phenomenon came from, and why white America will probably never again come up with anything as authentic. Where it came from was poverty - the grinding hopelessness that was the norm in the rural South of that era is what caused it, and the emergence of media technology is what turned it into a force. Note that the suffering came first, then the technology, which is the opposite of how it works today. Maybe if the next Great Depression turns us all into shoeless cotton pickers again, and social taboos are separating us from another race (Muslims this time?) whose attitude we can cherry-pick, we'll be able to come up with another phenomenon like Arkansas rock 'n' roll.
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IT WAS NEVER MAKE BELIEVE - Part I Newport's Jack Nance: The Conway Years By Larry Stroud, Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard, March 31, 2010 edition, (posted with permission) (Reformatted to fit our limited space - no change in content) Editor's note: This is part one in a series on Jack Nance, a Newport, Arkansas, native. In addition to Conway Twitty, Nance worked with top entertainers including Dionne Warwick, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Monkees, the Moody Blues, the Fifth Dimension, the Rolling Stones, Three Dog Night, the Temptations, Herman's Hermits and others. The "others" included a group of youngsters called the Jackson Five as they rose to prominence. One of them, 12 at the time, went on to become the most famous of pop stars - King of Pop Michael Jackson. The name Jack Nance doesn't ring a bell with most folks the way some of Jackson County, Arkansas' more famous musicians do, and that's a shame, because Nance made as many contributions to the world of rock music as anyone who came out of the small town of Newport - and some of the others became famous worldwide, Newport Depot Days festival organizer Henry Boyce said. Nance, Boyce said, never got the recognition from the public that he deserves, although he did become well-known among music producers, promoters and other musicians. Boyce, the district prosecutor, has an extensive knowledge of Jackson County communities' influence on shaping the new kind of music in the early days of rock'n'roll and makes sure the annual Depot Days reflects that 1950s flavor. | |||||||||||||
Richard Jackson "Jack" Nance - Conway Twitty's drummer during Twitty's rock'n'roll years of 1957 to 1965 - died 10 years ago, on April 7, 2000. Four years earlier, Nance had started writing a book about his life with author James Schefter, and the quotes from Nance in this article, unless otherwise noted, are from that manuscript, which was never completed due to Shefter's death. The title of the book was to be "It Was Never Make Believe", a play on words of Nance's song, the classic "It's Only Make Believe", which he was writing while on a tour in Canada when Twitty dropped by and helped finish the lyrics. Nance wrote the music and they co-wrote the lyrics. "Harold Jenkins (later known as Conway Twitty) and the Rock House (Rockhousers). That was his group," Nance said. "Harold had a voice. When he was on, hairs prickled on the back of your neck. He could croon a slow song that would break your heart and he matched Roy (Orbison) on high notes that sounded like a silver spoon on crystal." "Of course, none of us knew much about silver spoons or crystal in those days. What we knew was Dr Pepper, Mason jars and music. What we learned later was that we were midwives at the birth of rock'n'roll." Nance went to Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway in 1953 to study music and engineering, then on to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. He was 18 when he left for college on a scholarship, and after four years he was back in Newport where the real music was. "Newport was 1,000 people, seven nightclubs and when I was growing up it only had two things going - music and booze," Nance said. 'We were the only wet county in any direction and the booze brought the music." It also had illegal backroom gambling "sort of tacitly allowed" by authorities, Boyce said he has been told. The gambling, which many of the musicians may not have known about, helped pay the big money the bands got for playing the honkytonks. "You (an entertainer) could get $500 a night at the Silver Moon in Newport, when they might get $50 or $100 in Memphis," Boyce said. | "It's Only Make Believe" written by Jack Nance & Conway Twitty - vocals Conway Twitty | ||||||||||||
When Nance blew back into Newport from college, he joined five others in a rock'n'roll band called the Pacers [See Sonny Burgess and Bobby Crafford articles for video clips of Sonny Burgess and The Legendary Pacers] , headed by Sonny Burgess, "playing any club in Arkansas, Mississippi or Tennessee that would let us in the back door," Nance said. The Pacers, with some of its original members, are still performing what is now called "rockabilly". Nance played drums and trumpet. Burgess says part of the Pacers' popularity was because of Nance. "Jack gave us a different sound," Burgess told Dr. Cecilia Netolicky last September in an interview posted on Perth Rocks, a Web site in Western Australia that features rockabilly music/musicians from around the world. Netolicky and her husband, Josef, operate the site. Netolicky asked Burgess why the Pacers "made it" when other groups of the era couldn't get their careers off the ground. "We were a little different. Everybody had a sax," Burgess said. "Jack Nance was a music major. He had a trumpet...We had a trumpet, not a sax. That gave us a different sound." Nance was assistant band director at Newport High School for one year after returning from college. At that time, the Silver Moon in Newport was the largest club in Arkansas. Elvis Presley's group consisted only of himself, Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black on double bass. Nance, at Elvis' invitation, sat in on drums whenever Elvis played area clubs such as Porky's Rooftop and the Silver Moon. (The original Silver Moon burned down about 1980 and the new Moon, on the recently renamed Rock'n'Roll Highway 67, is a family friendly center now where no booze is sold.) "Sam Phillips even gave us (the Pacers) a recording contract with Sun Records, but not much ever came of it," Nance said. "Still, I was a musician and with any luck, I was on my way. That was how I first performed with Elvis, sat in with Carl Perkins and Buddy Holly, played behind Roy Orbison and met Harold Jenkins. "The two met when Jenkins, who was performing often at Porky's Rooftop near KNBY radio station, visited the Silver Moon just down the street every chance he got, to watch the Pacers perform. "The problem with Harold was his choice of songs. He and the Rock House cut a single for Decca Records and it went nowhere. Right after that he called me and asked me to be his drummer, do some arranging, maybe write a little music. He also said he was changing his name. "That was nothing unusual, it happened all the time (with performers). 'So, Harry, what's your name gonna be,' I asked. 'Something good?' " 'It better be,' he laughed, 'cause it sure is different. You're now talking to Conway Twitty.'" The story of how Twitty selected his new name is legend - while looking at a map, he picked Conway from Conway. Arkansas, and Twitty from Twitty, Texas. At least, that's the most popular story. Twitty and his band were rock'n'roll artists then. As a songwriter Nance produced an extensive book of songs. "It's Only Make Believe" earned gold record sales in the United States four separate times, beginning with Twitty's version in 1958. Recordings of his songs hit the charts in Britain, across Europe, in Canada, Africa and Australia and were featured on movie soundtracks and television shows. Glen Campbell's version of "It's Only Make Believe" went to No. 1 on three different charts in 1970 and Ronnie McDowell's version later went to No. 6. After being diagnosed with cancer just months before his death, Nance created "The Jack Nance Songbook," which contains sheet music and lyrics of 27 songs he wrote or co-wrote that were recorded, along with introductory comments for each.
"A DJ in Columbus, Ohio, named Dr. Bop had flipped the record over and played 'It's Only Make Believe.' The people had liked it and bought it and it had become No. 1 in Columbus." The song was re-released, so new records had to be pressed and new ads published in trade magazines. The band went to Columbus to perform and do radio interviews to push the record. "The people treated us like stars," with thousands of fans flocking to the concerts and mobbing the group's car in the streets, Nance said. "That was something new and exciting and a feeling I'll never forget." The song slowly worked its way up the charts until on Nov. 24, 1958, "It's Only Make Believe" became the No. 1 record in the United States. It went on to become No. 1 in all of the free world countries. Nance's widow, Newport native Vicki Lowery Nance, and stepdaughter Melissa, both of Cabot, said recently that as impressive as Nance's achievements in the music world are, they pale in comparison to him as a person. "He never, ever had a bad thing to say about anybody," Mrs. Nance said. "He was so thoughtful. He always wanted to give people recognition (they deserved). Jack helped so many entertainers. "He was so humble. He was so intelligent. He never bragged on himself." Nance also has a son, Richard Nance, and daughter, Melanie Nance Anderson. His sister, Franchelle Nance Harrell, still lives in Newport.
Nance looked at the back of the cassette box, where 10 songs were listed. "You know what?" Nance mused. "I wrote eight of these songs and I played drums on all 10. Yeah, I want it." That same year, Nance sadly recalled Twitty and his bandmates from those years. "They're all dead now. There were four of us riding the charts to the top. Conway was the name and the voice. I was the drummer. (Newport native) Joe Lewis was on guitar. I was 13 and he (Lewis) was 12 when we first played together. He was good. ... Good enough to go for a long ride in the world of rock'n'roll. "Blackie Preston was on bass. ... He looked good onstage; he was a showman. They died too young. Blackie drowned in a boating accident. He was maybe 40. Joe died in a car crash at 42. Conway was 57 and had a lot of music left to sing when an aneurysm checked him out in 1993. A lot of others died, too. Elvis is gone. Roy Orbison is gone. You know about Buddy (Holly), the Bopper (J.P. Richardson, known as the Big Bopper), Ritchie Valens (who all died when their airplane crashed in an Iowa cornfield on Feb. 3, 1959) ... 'the night the music died.' "But the music didn't die. The rest of us kept it alive." Next: Making music happen | |||||||||||||
| Lyrics "I'll Try" by Conway Twitty & Jack Nance (C) 1959 Tree Publishing Well if your heartaches are many and your friends are few Sourced from http://www.lpdiscography.com/t/Twitty/twitty_nowandthen.htm
| Lyrics "It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty & Jack Nance (C) 1959 Tree Publishing People see us everywhere they all think you really care Sourced from http://www.lpdiscography.com/t/Twitty/twitty_nowandthen.htm |
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