Updates

• Added info on Jimmy Ford, thanks to Volker Houghton. • Extended and corrected the post on Happy Harold Thaxton (long overdue), thanks to everyone who sent in memories and information! • Added information to the Jim Murray post, provided by Mike Doyle, Dennis Rogers, and Marty Scarbrough. • Expanded the information on Charlie Dial found in the Little Shoe post.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Sonny Williams on CTJ, Part 2

Sonny Williams - Play Me a Country Song (Cotton Town Jubilee 116), 1964

Another interesting offering by Sonny Williams on the Cotton Town Jubilee label. Both "Too Much Competition" as well as its flip side "Play Me a Country Song" were written by songwriter Melvin Endsley, most famous for penning "Singing the Blues." 

Composer Melvin Endsley (1934-2004) hailed from Drasco, Arkansas, near Heber Springs. He suffered from polio as a child and was chained to a wheel chair all his life. While being at a Crippled Children's Hospital in Memphis, he learned to play guitar and after his return to Drasco, began performing on local radio. In 1954, he wrote "Singing the Blues" and held a first demo session in 1955 at the Hickory Studio, Nashville. Marty Robbins and Guy Mitchell had a big hit with "Singing the Blues" in 1956. In December of that year, he began recording for RCA-Victor, switched to MGM in 1959 and then to Hickory in 1960. He held one unissued session in 1960 for Eddie Bond's Stomper Time label and returned to Memphis for another session in 1965, this time for the Millionaire label (another Eddie Bond venture). From 1967 onwards, he recorded for his own Mel-Ark label. Listen to one of Endsley's RCA-Victor singles on Some Local Loser.

Read more:

No comments: