Doc Williams and the Border Riders

Decades of Country Music
Doc Williams and the Border Riders

Doc Williams and the Border Riders, 1950s.
From left to right: Hiram Hayseed, Cy Williams, Marion Martin, Doc Williams
seated: Chickie Williams

Doc Williams is a familiar name with fans of traditional country music. Although Williams and his group, the Border Riders, never recorded for a major label or scored a series of hits, they were well-known throughout many parts of the United States and Canada thanks to their regular appearances on the WWVA Jamboree out of Wheeling, West Virginia. They stayed with the show for many decades, toured all over the south throughout their golden days and released numerous records on Williams' own record label, Wheeling Records.

Early Years
Doc Williams, the founder and leader of the Border Riders, was born Andrew John Smik, Jr., on June 26, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio. The child of Czech immigrants who came to the United States at the turn of the century, the family moved to Kittaning, Pennsylvania, located on the banks of the Allegheny River. Young Williams went to school in nearby Tarrtown. Music played an important role in his life right from the start. He learned to play cornet from his father and eventually taught himself to play guitar, harmonica, and accordion. At some point, Williams dropped out of school and worked as a coal miner for less then $1 a day.

The Border Riders Begin to Ride
In 1932, he returned to his birth town Cleveland and it was there that he really started his career in music. Already in Pennsylvania, he had performed at barn dances and also other venues in the Kattaning area with his brother Cy. In Cleveland, Williams joined Doc McCaulley's Kansas Clodhoppers and it was with this group that he became connected with the traditional old-time music of the West Virginia hills. Following his stint with the Clodhoppers, he soon branched out on his own and formed his first own group, the Allegheny Ramblers, which also included his brother Cy on fiddle and Curley Sims on mandolin, while Williams played guitar, harmonica, and sang. This was the foundation of what became the Border Riders; however, during the next years, the group underwent line-up and name changes as well. It was probably at that early stage that he adopted the stage name "Cowboy Doc".

Around 1935, the group moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they appeared on KQV and changed their name to the Cherokee Hillbillies. They also appeared on WHJB in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, during this time. However, the group changed names again when they met female singer Billie Walker and became her backing group, the Texas Longhorns. She left in 1937 for WWL in New Orleans and Williams and the band, now left on their own, decided to change names once more and became Doc Williams and the Border Riders.

An early incarnation of the Border Riders, late 1930s
From left to right: Curley Sims (mandolin), Big Slim (guitar), Cy Williams (fiddle),
poss. Sunflower (guitar), Doc Williams (guitar)

Riding to Wheeling
Williams and the group moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, which became his adopted hometown. Soon, the Border Riders began appearing at WWVA and in December 1937, had their first live appearance at WWVA's famous Wheeling Jamboree, a stage show that had been started by the radio station in 1933. Their performances on the station went well and by 1938, Doc Williams was already the most popular performer on the show. At the same time the Border Riders began appearing on WWVA, another vocalist by the name of Harry C. "Big Slim" McAuliffe joined the group. By then, the group consisted of Doc and Cy Williams, Cy's wife Mary (appearing as "Sunflower"), Curley Sims, and Hamilton "Rawhide" Fincher. A year later, Fincher had been replaced by comic Froggie Cortez.

Legend goes that the first fan letter Williams received was by his future wife Jesse Wanda Crupe, who hailed from Bethany, West Virginia. Addressed to "Buck Williams and the Border Riders", she requested the band to perform at a local barn dance (other source state she requested the band to perform at Reawood Dance Hall in Hickory, Pennsylvania). However, sources agree that when Williams first met his future wife, he called her "chickie" as he though she was a "cute chick". Love blossomed and the twosome married in 1939. Jesse Wanda Crupe became Jesse Wanda Smik and as she was beginning to appear with the Border Riders occasionally during this time (filling in for Sunflower), she became Chickie Williams. She would join her husband's act full-time in the 1940s.

The 1940s: Memphis, Return to Wheeling and World War II
In 1940, Williams moved his group to Memphis, Tennessee, where they appeared on WREC. While they made Memphis their home base, the Border Riders toured the Mid-South, playing in Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi. Though, their stint in Memphis did not last very long. Williams was asked by Harry Stone to join the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville but Williams declined as his wife Chickie was pregnant and they moved back to Wheeling.

The years 1940 to 1942 saw Williams working in Yorkville, Ohio, where he operated the local airport as it was difficult to earn a living as a musician due to rationing. Aeronautics would be his passion for many years - he even would held a private pilot's licence eventually. However, Williams returned to Wheeling full-time after he had to close down the airport (his business partner had left to serve the country). At that time, the band included - apart from Doc, Cy and Sunflower - Jesse Porter and Smokey Davis. For some time during World War II, Williams appeared at WFMD in Fredericksburg, Maryland, and served a short time in the US Navy near the end of the war.

After the war: Doc Williams, the Entrepreneur
In summer 1945, Williams was discharged from the Navy, returned to Wheeling and resumed his career in music. He re-organized the Border Riders, which included by then Williams and his brother Cy, his wife Chickie and comedian Hiram Hayseed. However, the group was not on WWVA at that time as Williams had decisions to make. Since his beginnings in the 1930s, the old-time music that Williams was used to play had vastly changed and since the later part of that decade, had developed into the early forms of what we call today "country music". Various styles such as bluegrass, honky tonk and western swing had evolved from the mixing of traditional, rural old-time with different other genres such as jazz, blues, and other popular music styles. In the summer of 1946, Billboard reported that Williams was seriously thinking about transforming the Border Riders into a western swing unit, a popular country music style at that time.

He founded a cottage industry, opened a country store in Wheeling (right across the street from the Capitol Music Hall, where the WWVA Jamboree was held), and had published his first guitar instruction book already in June 1943 ("The Simplified By Ear System of Guitar Chords by Doc Williams"), which he sold on air and eventually disposed more than 200,000 copies. He also operated a civilian flying school at Scott Airport on Martins Ferry, Ohio, just a little south of his previous occupation in Youngstown.

On November 18, 1946, the Border Riders returned to broadcasting on WWVA after an abscene of about two years. The line-up had been consistent since the re-organization after the war and obviously, Williams had decided against a style change.

Billboard November 9, 1946

In 1947, Williams added another business interest to his stack. He became involved with the country music park scene in 1947, which was very popular in the northeastern states. On May 11, Williams opened the first season of his country music amusement park "Musselman's Grove" in Claysburg, Pennsylvania.On the bill that day were fellow WWVA artists the Davis Twins, Jake Taylor and his Rail Splitters (a business partner of Williams'), and Al Rogers. Always in search for new ideas and possibilites, Williams set up his own tent show in partnership with Toby Stroud, another longtime WWVA artist. Both singers toured Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York State beginning in May 1948.

Wheeling Records
On May 7, 1949, Billboard announced that Williams and the Border Riders had cut their first recordings for a new company, Wheeling Records. The Wheeling label was the brainchild of Williams and a reference to their adopted hometown. The first recorded songs were "Beyond the Sunset - You Should Go on First" and "Bright Red Horizon". The first, an aggregation of a poem and an old hymn,which became a hit for the group, was the creation of Chickie Williams. Their daughter Barbara later retold the story of the song in an 1970s issue of JEMF Quaterly: "Early in their marriage, she [Chickie Williams] read the poem, "Should You Go First and I Remain" in a book of poems, and thought that it expressed her feelings toward Doc very well. To surprise him, she had the Newcomer Twins, Maxine and Eileen (then members of WWVA's Jamboree), help her make a home recording — she recited the poem while they sang background. Doc thought the recording was a great idea, and encouraged her to continue working on it. She eventually decided to recite the reading to the accompaniment of the hymn, "Beyond the Sunset," which Doc's secretary, Jean Miller, had once showed her in a hymnbook. The song and reading was performed over WWVA, and got a tremendous response from listeners, upon which Doc decided to record Chickie."

Williams bought the rights to the poem from its author, Rosey Rosewell, and organized a recording session in Cleveland, Ohio, as Wheeling had no proper facilities to record. As for the recording date, late April or early May 1949 seems to be a good guess. Williams released the finished recording, backed by his own song "Bright Red Horizon" on Wheeling #1001. Great response from radio stations followed and Williams tried to lease the recordings to a major label. However, none of them were interested as they considered a hymn not commercial enough. Soon, they proved to be wrong as "Beyond the Sunset - You Should Go on First" became a #3 Billboard country hit. It was covered by such artists as Hank Williams (as Luke the Drifter), Elton Britt, Rosalie Allen, Buddy Starcher, Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, and others. The original version of Chickie Williams was also released on the Canadian Pioneer label.

Suprisingly, despite the enormous success of "Beyond the Sunset", neither Chickie nor Doc recorded for a major label in the following years. Therefore, the unit released its further recordings still under the Wheeling brand, which eventually resulted in more than 30 different releases on the label. In Canada, Williams' records were released by Quality Records. The bulk of the releases on Wheeling were by Williams and the Border Riders, consisting of traditional material like "Red Wing", "My Old Brown Coat and Me" (one of Williams' favorites), or own compositions in old-fashioned style like "I'm Watching the Train Passing By", which became the opening track for their shows. The song had been written by Chickie Williams while they were touring Newfoundland in 1952 and they recorded it in December the same year.

Billboard May 18, 1968

The Later Years
The 1950 season was the last one for Williams to operate his Musselman Grove park. He then concentrated on touring with his band. Since the 1940s, Williams and the band had toured the Canadian areas also and became as popular there as in the United States. The band continued to work throughout the next decades, touring, recording, and appearing at the WWVA Jamboree. He began recording albums in favor of single records beginning in the 1960s and released several LPs since then.

While the sound of the Border Riders had not changed much until the early 1950s, it began to change then. Electric guitars and drums were added at some point and by the 1970s, the band was performing with electric bass, steel guitar, electric guitar and drums, amending their sound. However, they changed the sound carefully, retaining their old-time image. In the 1970s, the conservative Doc Williams often stated in public that he was against "suggestive" lyrics in country music and demanded singers should be moral role models.

In the later part of their careers, Doc and Chickie Williams were often part of homecoming shows and special editions of the WWVA Jamboree (then called "Jamboree USA"). Their daughter Barbara took over care of the business issues at a later point and even wrote a book about them. In 2009, they were inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame and Doc Williams was named "West Virginia's Official Country Music Ambassador of Goodwill". Both Doc and Chickie Williams received many more honors throughout their later years, too many to mention.

Chickie Williams died November 2007 at age 88. Doc Williams followed her on January 31, 2011, at the age of 96 years.

Doc Williams and the Border Riders TV Show with Doc and Chickie Williams and including Ramblin' Roy Scott on electric guitar and Big Bill Barton on bass. This recorded TV show aired on WNPB, Morgantown, West Virginia, in the 1980s.

See also

• Doc & Cy Williams on Wheeling

Recommended reading
• Continental, Ohio, posters
• Second Hand Songs

Sources
• Hillbilly-Music.com entry
• West Virginia Music Hall of Fame
• Ohio County Library
• John Raby: "W.Va. Country Music Singer Doc Williams Dies" (Seattle Times), 2011
• 45cat and 45worlds 78rpm entries (beware of incorrect release dates)
• Barbara Kempf: "Meet Doc Williams: Country Music Star, Country Music Legend" (JEMF Quaterly #33, Part 1), 1974

Bobbie Jean on Sun

Bobbie Jean / Ernie Barton Orchestra - Cheaters Never Win (Sun 342), 1960

Here we have an oddball recording. It was neither an odd sounding record nor was the material. It was, however, odd in terms of sound for Sun Records. Although the recordings released on Sun by the time Bobbie Jean saw her star shine on the label were dominated by teen pop and dripping choruses, her record was still a notch or two above them all, as far as it went for soapy sounds.

Bobbie Jean was actually Bobbie Jean Gladden, who married Sun Records artist Ernie Barton in the  1950s. She hailed from Little Rock, Arkansas, where she was born on November 12, 1927, to James Robert and Kathryn Gladden. Her father was a Circuit Court Clerk in Missouri and Arkansas at some point, and the profession as a legal practitioner had some tradition in the Gladden family, as Bobbie Jean later worked in the same field. At least since 1951, she worked as a lawyer in Little Rock and was first married to Harry Jackson Farrabee (marrying in 1949) but divorced from him eventually.

She probably became acquainted with Ernie Barton in the second half of the 1950s, as Barton arrived in Memphis probably in 1956. He had heard Elvis Presley and was convinced Memphis was the place to be. Blessed with some musical talent, Barton began to work with Sun Records in early 1957, initially as an recording artist but later on also as a songwriter, engineer and producer. When staff members Jack Clement and Bill Justis had left by 1959, Barton convinced Sam Phillips to let him work as a producer and manager of the studio.

By that time, Bobbie Jean had stepped into his life and she was a talented singer, too. Barton brought her over to Sun and recorded her in 1960. The song material consisted of an answer song to Jack Scott's big hit "Burning Bridges" entitled "You Burned the Bridges" plus a song written by Brad Suggs entitled "Cheaters Never Win", which Suggs had intended originally for Nat King Cole, according to his own accounts. You can clearly hear the pop approach on both songs but the string section is way overproduced and kills the record effectively. Apart from the strings, the recording featured a line-up of Sun session musicians, including composer Brad Suggs on guitar.

The coupling appeared on July 7, 1960, (Sun #342) but failed to sell (sharing the fate with Bobbie Jean's husband's records). It was not something that people would expect from Sun Records and upon release, it is reported that even some faithful Sun distributors were doubtful. Bobbie Jean recorded additional material at Sun, both demos and masters, but Sam Phillips refused to release anything more. Ernie Barton also recorded enough material worth an album and indeed, Bobbie Jean Barton requested that Phillips would release an LP of her husband's material, sending him legal threats, which he ignored and never followed her requests.

On August 13, 1960, Barton appeared at the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, singing three songs: the then current Hank Locklin hit "Please Help Me I'm Falling", her own release "You Burned the Bridges" and the old favorite "Jealous Heart". On the show, she was accompanied by a local Hayride band, the Sons of Dixie. Barton must have been an odd sighting on the Hayride stage, as she was as much country as Dean Martin, and this seems to have remained her only promotion activity for the disc.

Ernie Barton left Sun in 1961 and recorded two more 45s, before moving to Midland, Texas. He died in 2002. In July 1960, there were approaches to disbar Bobbie Jean Barton, preventing her from practicing as a lawyer, which at some point actually proofed successful. However, she won her licence back in 1964. What happened to her afterwards is yet a question to answer. She passed away June 14, 1978, at the age of 50 years. She is buried at Roselawn Memorial Park in Little Rock.

See also
• Ernie Barton on Phillips Int.

Sources
• Session details on 706unionavenue
• Ernie Barton on Bear Family
• Ernie Barton biography
• Rock'n'Roll Schallplatten Forum (German)
• Entry at Find a Grave
• Paper from Arkansas Tech University Library (1964)
• Colin Escott, Martin Hawkins: "The Louisiana Hayride" (CD Box Set), liner notes, Bear Family Records

Buddy & Jack Keele on Eugenia

Buddy Keele and Ozark Melody Boys - Time After Time (Eugenia #1002), 1964

I have featured the flip side of this record a few months ago and thought I'd share this side, too, as I was able to dig out some information on the artists.

Apparently, Jack Keele and the Ozark Melody Boys hailed from Missouri. Carvin Campbell "Jack" Keele was born on August 25, 1918, in Illinois. However, his father, Arthur Lucien Keele was born in Missouri and by the time Jack Keele was two years old, the family had moved back to that region. It seems that Keele spent most of his life in Missouri and by the mid 1950s had assembled a country band named "Ozark Melody Boys".

The Current Local, Van Buren, Missouri, April 28, 1955

In the mid 1960s, they got the chance to record for Style Wooten in Memphis and cut "Memories of You" / "Time After Time" for Wooten's Eugenia label (#1002). The vocalist on this record was Buddy Keele, one of Jack Keele's children. Buddy and Jack remained active in the music scene and in 1975, Buddy Keele cut another single record for the NSD (Nashville) affiliated Carvin record label, likely owned by Jack Keele. The single featured "Walking Into Your Life" b/w "Tell Me a Lie" (Carvin #101).

Buddy Keele had a career as a musician on his own in St. Louis, Missouri, playing a club six nights a week for 15 consecutive years with his own band, known as the "Buddy Keele Band" or "Buddy Keele and the Swingers". He and his wife bought their own club eventually, where Buddy Keele continued to perform. He semi retired from music in 2003, moving back to Van Buren but kept karaoke as a hobby. He fully retired from music in 2023 at the age of 80 and currently resides in Indiana following his wife's death.

His father Jack Keele died on March 21, 1983, and is buried in Poplar Bluff, Southeast Missouri. I only found access to these information as Jack Keele's grandson posted a short comment under my first post on his father's group and revealed his identity. Another insight into their careers was given by Laura Keele, Buddy's daughter.

See also
• Buddy Keele on Eugenia

Sources
• Find a Grave
• Buddy Keele on Discogs
• MyHeritage

Sylvia Mobley on Santo

Sylvia Mobley - If I Had You Again (Santo #502), 1962 

Sylvia Mobley has been present on the Memphis, Arkansas, and Nashville country music scenes steadily during the 1960s and 1970s, though she never found the acclaim she deserved. She worked with some of the most infamous figures of these scenes, though never achieving much commercial success. Some of her early recordings are now favorites in rock'n'roll record collectors circles and original copies can fetch up some money.

Born Sylvia Mae Robinson on April 28, 1941, in Marshall, Searcy County, Arkansas, she was one of four children of Charles Herman and Lois Marie Robinson. At the time of her birth, her mother was only sixteen years old. Supposedly in the late 1950s, she married Billy Sigman, with whom she had a son, Carson Vail. Her marriage with Billy Sigman obviously did not last long, as she had remarried by the early 1960s. Her new husband was Justin Lee "Bud" Mobley, who stayed with her the rest of her life.

In the late 1950s or early 1960s, Mobley once was managed by DJ, singer, and band leader Jimmy Haggett, who enjoyed some popularity in Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas. Haggett had ties to Memphis as he had recorded for Sun and Meteor during the 1950s and it is possible that he connected Mobley with the Memphis music scene. To start her career as a recording artist, Mobley made the trip to Memphis across the Mississippi  River and got the chance to record for one of the smaller labels in the city, Wayne McGinnis' Santo Records. McGinnis had been an artist in his own right, cutting a superb rockabilly disc in 1956 for Meteor, and had created his own Santo label shortly before Mobley arrived on the scene.

In March 1962, her first single appeared with a romping country rocker entitled "All My Myself", backed by "If I Had You Again" on Santo #502. Judging from the publishing and songwriting credits on the record, her debut for Santo was recorded at Slim Wallace's Fernwood studio and leased to Santo afterwards. Signs of success are not reported for this record but soon, Mobley made herself a name in the local country music scene. Her searing vocals seemed to be perfect for country music.

Sylvia Mobley and the Cotton Town Jubilee band live on stage, ca. mid 1960s
From left to right: poss. Bill Medlock, Jake Tullock, Mobley, Ken Burge, Johnny Duncan

By 1964, she had been discovered by Gene Williams, a local DJ, record label owner, and stage show host. He put Mobley on his Country Junction TV show that was broadcast from Jonesboro, Arkansas, and also gave her the chance to lay down some more recordings. Williams' right hand, Style Wooten, who later went on to become the "king of custom recording" in Memphis, produced another fine country rocker with her, "Every Time I See You", and the country weeper "Tell Me Clouds". Also involved in this production were DJ and singer Chuck Comer plus an unknown, Bozy Moore. The results were released on Wooten's Big Style label and distributed by Williams' Cotton Town Jubilee enterprise.

More or less simultaneously, Williams released "Are You Sorry b/w "Worried Over You" on his own Cotton Town Jubilee label (#113) in 1964 and followed up with a re-release of "Every Time I See You", backed with "I'm Not Alone Anymore" (Cotton Town Jubilee #115) in early spring of 1965. That same year, Williams paired Mobley with Memphis music stalwart Eddie Bond, who released a single on her on his Millionaire label, "Hearts Have a Language" b/w "In and Out of Love" (Millionaire #660S-0885). During this time, Mobley recorded songs from the pen of more or less familiar names. "Worried Over You" was written by Marlon Grisham (known in rockabilly circles for "Ain't That a Dilly" on Cover), "I'm Not Alone Anymore" by Chuck Comer, and "In and Out of Love" by Melvin Endsley, who also wrote the big hit "Singing the Blues" and was affiliated with Gene Williams at that time.

None of her singles so far had stimulated any success, which was probably due to the fact that promotion and distribution of the discs were limited on all labels. Around the mid 1960s, Mobley was still performing on the Country Junction TV show and recorded two more records for the Lake City, Arkansas, based Jeopardy label, which comprised songs penned by Leland Davis, an Arkansas based musician, and Glenn Honeycutt, a 1950s Sun Records artist.

By the late 1960s, she had made the move to Nashville, probably in order to give her career a boost in the capitol of country music. In 1969, she recorded a single for the once glorious Starday label, which had passed its heyday at that time already. In 1974, two more singles followed for the Villa label. In the mid 1970s, Mobley teamed up with famous guitarist turned producer Scotty Moore, lead guitarist for Elvis Presley and producer in his own right, and recorded a whole album for the Belle Meade label, "My Needs are You", which resulted also in a few more singles.

By 1976, after recording unsuccessfully for 14 years, it became clear that Mobley's chance of becoming a star had passed. However, she remained her ties with the entertainment industry, in a different sense though, and drove whirlwind bus tours across Nashville. She had one last album out on the Rays Gold label in 1984, entitled "Songs for Ma Ma".

In 2009, her husband died at the age of 76 years. Mobley, who had remained in the Nashville area, spent her last years at Elmcroft Assisted Living Facility and passed away July 10, 2017, at the age of 76 years in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

See also

• Sylvia Mobley discography

Sources

• Find a Grave entry

• The Tennessean obituary 

• 45cat entry

• Rockin' Country Style entry

Wayne McGinnis on Meteor

Wayne McGinnis - Rock, Roll and Rhythm (Meteor 5035), 1956

Probably one of the most underrated personalities in the Memphis music scene, Wayne McGinnis was both an artist and a business man, recording some of the finest Meteor rockabilly sides as well as leading various labels throughout the 1960s. Another fascinating fact is that he later owned Elvis Presley's first guitar.

Robert Wayne McGinnis was born on January 6, 1932, in Mississippi County, in the Northeast of Arkansas just across the Tennessee state border. Contrary to many other rockabilly singers of his era, McGinnis originated not from a poor sharecropper family but from a relatively wealthy background. His parents, Harry and Audrey Cleo McGinnis, also had six more children: Harold L., Dale, Harry Boyd, Margie, Dorothy, and Ramona June. During high school, McGinnis learned to fly a plane, inspired by a relative of his and it would become a passion he enjoyed all his life. Instead of driving a car, he would cover the distance of 40 miles between home and Arkansas State College with his own plane.

Young McGinnis moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1953 after graduating from high school. There, he began appearing with guitarist Billy Joe Miller and played a mixture between jazz and country music. Shortly afterwards, McGinnis joined Slim Wallace's Dixie Ramblers, a country band that included at one time or another also Billy Lee Riley and Jack Clement. Wallace just had founded his own label Fernwood Records and built up a small studio in his garage. The label was named after its location, Fernwood Drive in Memphis. McGinnis recorded a couple of demo cuts for Wallace but more information on these early cuts escape me, unfortunately. Cees Klop issued two demo recordings of McGinnis' "Rock, Roll and Rhythm" and "Lonesome Rhythm Blues", both of which he would later record for Meteor Records. If these were the tapes made at Fernwood is unclear at this moment. Klop, who issued them on his "41 Years Collector Records" CD in 2008, gave no particular information other than "[...] these are much earlier 'rough' demos [...]. These primitively recorded demos give us a unique piece of recorded history that luckily is preserved for posterity."

At the same time, Elvis Presley went nationally and had left a massive impact on Memphis and its whole music scene. Everyone was speaking of a new sound soon to be called "rockabilly," a style that captured many young southeners' hearts. McGinnis was no exception, especially because he lived in Presley's neighborhood.

First, McGinnis tried his luck at Sam Phillips' famed Sun Records that also had Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and countless other rockers under contract. Since Phillips wasn't impressed enough with the results, McGinnis turned to Meteor Records, another independent label on Chelsea Avenue, and owner Lester Bihari gave him the chance to cut his first record. On April 12, 1956, he went into Meteor Studio to wax "Rock, Roll and Rhythm" and "Lonesome Rhythm Blues," which were released in the summer of 1956 on Meteor #5035. On this session, he was backed by Billy Joe Miller on lead guitar and Curley Wilson on bass with McGinnis on vocals and rhythm guitar.

Source: Volker Houghton

Bihari sent out some of his rockabilly artists, including McGinnis, on tour through West Tennessee, Northeast Arkansas, and Southeast Missouri, but McGinnis' disc never achieved much success. Although more records were granted in his contract with Meteor, McGinnis never got the chance to record a follow-up and in the end, it remained his sole release on vinyl.

In 1957, he went into partnership with Harold Curry, Herman Hall, and Dick McPhearson to develop his hobby into a business and founded his own crop dusting firm, "McGinnis Crop Dusting Service", in his home of Mississippi County, Arkansas. At that time, he was only 25 years old.

Though, music was still on his mind and McGinnis got involved with promotion work in the late 1950s. In 1961, he founded his own Santo label that enjoyed moderate success and a year later, added the Sanwayne label to his business operations. McGinnis also ran his own recording studio for some time in Memphis. The Santo label had a minor chart hit in the spring of 1962 with Ace Cannon's "Sugar Blues" b/w "38 Special" (Santo #503), which peaked at #92 on Billboard's Hot 100. Apart from that, McGinnis released discs by such infamous Memphis figures as Harold Dorman, Thomas Wayne, Anita Wood, Sylvia Mobley, Bobby Lee Trammell, among others. 

In 1968, when Slim Wallace finally gave up his interest in Fernwood Records altogether, McGinnis jumped at the chance and bought the remaining master tapes that had been left over. A good deal of Fernwood's tapes and equipment had been destroyed by a flood prior to McGinnis' purchase. McGinnis operated the Santo label until the early 1970s, before closing down its activities and in turn eventually selling the label to British music enthusiast Dave Travis. 

Although living in Memphis during the 1950s, he later relocated to Mississippi County and spent his last years in Jonesboro. McGinnis had married his wife Ramona in 1954 and had three children with her.

Wayne McGinnis died August 19, 2013, in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Sources:

• Entry at Find a Grave
• 45cat entries for Santo Records and Sanwayne Records
• Cees Klop: "41 Years Collector Records (40 Was Not Enough)" (liner notes), Collector Records (2008)
• Adam Komorowski: "Classic Rockabilly" (liner notes), Collector Records (2006)

J. Allen Gann on Philwood

J. Allen Gann - I Want You (Philwood P-238), 1973/74

I bought this disc several years ago and always intended to post it here but never really followed through with it. Until now, when I found time to sit down and do a little research on J. Allen Gann and his career in music. What I found is not the ultimate biography of Gann but at least I found some hints and snippets that I can puzzle together for this post.

Who was J. Allen Gann? I cannot answer this question satisfactorily. There was a J. Allen Gann (born August 26, 1930 - deceased December 9, 1994), who is buried at Holly Springs Cemetery in Harrisburg, Arkansas, which could be the person we are looking for. However, I haven't found a final proof for this theory.

For his career in country music, Gann was obviously drawn to the city of Memphis. The first known release by Gann appeared in the late 1960s on one of Style Wooten's custom labels, Hazel Records (although listing the Memphis suburb Southaven, Mississippi, as location). It comprised "Walking Tall in Heaven" and "A Whole Lot of Whys" on Hazel #1226. Gann stayed in Memphis and followed up with a single on Tom Phillips' Philwood label. Tom Phillips, one of Sam Phillips' brothers, also operated the Select-O-Hits record store on Chelsea Avenue in Memphis. Philwood released numerous discs by such Memphis acts as Charlie Feathers or the Bogard Brothers. Gann recorded two up-tempo country numbers, "I Want You" and "Takin' a Lot" (Philwood #238), which saw release in either late 1973 or early 1974.

Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1973

At one point, Gann made the move to Nashville, where he cut at least one more record ("Road to Nashville" b/w "Talk to Me Mama", World Productions #501). BMI has listed 18 songs by Gann (also as "Junior Allen Gann"), some of them were co-written with female songwriters (one being Shirley A. Gann, either a sister, daughter or his wife).

There is a video on YouTube that has some conversion of Gann family members but my attempt to contact them has failed so far. If anyone out there has more information on J. Allen Gann, feel free to pass it along.

Sources
- 45cat entry
- BMI search
- Find a Grave entry

Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals

Country Boogie from Memphis
Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals

Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals was another Memphis based country music act that enjoyed popularity from the very late 1940s until the mid 1950s, before rock'n'roll came along and took country music's young listeners. Although not nearly as durable or famous as Buck Turner's Buckaroos or the Snearly Ranch Boys, Allen and his group played the area for a couple of years and had some influence on early rock'n'roll with recording their original "Tennessee Jive", which was picked up by Bill Haley and turned into Haley's "Real Rock Drive".

Birth of the Jive
Not much is known about the band leader, who actually performed as Tiny Allen in Memphis. Allen founded the Tennessee Pals when the decade of the 1940s faded with Allen being the steel guitarist of the band, other members remain into obscurity to this day. Pretty soon after the band came into existence, Allen contacted Jim Bulleit of Bullet Records in Nashville (there were no record labels in Memphis at that time). He received a positive answer concerning the sound of his band but their vocalist was dismissed by the label. Allen, who originally hailed from Chattanooga, Tennessee, called an old friend of his, Houston E. "Buck" Turner (no connection to Memphis' own Buck Turner), who was a talented singer. Turner came over to Memphis and joined the band as a singer.

It is likely that Allen and the Tennessee Pals recorded their sessions in Memphis, though an assured recording place cannot be given. Adam Komorowski mentions in his liner notes to the box set "From Boppin' Hillbilly to Red Hot Rockabilly" (Proper Records) the Peabody Hotel in Memphis as the most probable place, though Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service was in business by January 1950.

When Jive developed into Real Rock Drive
However, the first disc appeared around April 1950 with two of the band's original compositions, "Tennessee Jive" written by Buck Turner and "Rockin' Chair Boogie" written by Ed Crowe (either a member of the group or one of Turner's writing partners) on Bullet #702. The release was credited to "Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals" instead of Tiny Allen, caused by a communication mistake between label and pressing plant due to the label executives' southern drawl. However, the name stuck and henceworth, the band was called "Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals".

Billboard May 6, 1950, Country & Western review

Billboard September 30, 1950, Country & Western review

The disc must have sold decently, as two cover versions turned up, although they appeared years after the original version. Bill Haley, Pennsylvania based and once western swing singer and yodeling cowboy at the same time, heard "Tennessee Jive" and reworked it with his band as "Real Rock Drive". Haley had found a new sound on Dave Miller's Holiday and Essex labels with R&B fueled, supercharged western swing, and the first exponent of this new music that developed into rock'n'roll was Haley's cover version of "Rocket 88" from 1951. In that same style, he recorded "Real Rock Drive" in late 1952 in Chester, Pennsylvania (or New York City according to other sources). Miller released his version in November 1952 on Essex #310 and wisely, they put no composer credits on the label as the song was lyrically and melody-wise identical to its original version. However, when the Haley single hit the market, Bullet instantly recognized it was actually a song from their own catalog (published by their Volunteer firm) and sued Essex (despite Buck Turner's advice to wait and see if Haley's version show signs of success). Essex removed "Real Rock Drive" from the market and instead released "Crazy Man, Crazy".

Billboard January 24, 1953, Pop review

Johnny Horton's cover of "Tennessee Jive" must have been prompted by Haley's reworking, as Horton recorded the song shortly after the release of the Haley single, namely on January 26, 1953, at Jim Beck's studio in Dallas, Texas. Though, Horton gave credit to the song's original writers and the song was issued under its original title. Mercury, Horton's label at that time before he found success at Columbia, released "Tennessee Jive" in March 1953, coupled with "The Mansion You Stole", on Mercury #70100.

After the Jive
By the time Haley had reworked "Tennessee Jive" into "Real Rock Drive", Allen and the Tennessee Pals had already their last record released. A total of six discs had been released over an approximate stretch of two years from 1950 until late 1951. Musically, the band kept their uptempo country boogie, sometimes even pre-rockabilly, style on nearly all of their released sides. The band's music was part of a development that occurred across the whole land in country music, covering R&B hits, mixing boogie and rhythm & blues with country music - a sound later evolved into rockabilly and rock'n'roll. And Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals were located at what became the center of this movement: Memphis. However, they were a couple of years too early to really take part in this musical revolution and disbanded likely even before Memphis became the epicenter of popular music.

Billboard January 19, 1952, Country & Western review

Concerning the Tennessee Pals popularity, it is hard to tell how popular they really were. Bullet managed to constantly send promo discs to Billboard and the band's singles found entry into the magazine's review section. The two cover versions of "Tennessee Jive" also suggests that at least their debut release was a good seller. In addition, Michael Stewart Foley mentions in his book "Citizen Cash - The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash" that the Tennessee Pals' "Back in the Army Again" from 1951 was "in regular rotation on country station". Cash, who lived not in Memphis until 1954, must have heard this song elsewhere at the time of its release, as he had joined the US Air Force a year before.

A couple of their songs saw re-release on different compilation, including "Tennessee Jive", "Back in the Army Again" (Rockin' Hillbilly, Volume 1, Cactus Records), and "When Hillbilly Willie Met Kitty from the City" (From Boppin' Hillbilly to Red Hot Rockabilly, Proper Records). Thanks to the French Doghouse & Bone reissue label, the band's complete recordings were reissued on long-play vinyl in 2021.

About the band itself, not much is known. After their sixth and last single, released in late 1951 or early 1952, Bullet dropped Allen and his band from its roster. The label offered vocalist Buck Turner to continue recording solo for the label, which he declined. Though, Allen encouraged him to further a solo career in music, which he did and eventually sang and recorded with different bands, including the Dixieland Drifters and his own Town & Country Boys.

Eventually, Allen returned to Chattanooga, where he opened two music stores. There is a mention in the Catalog of Copyight Entries for unpublished music in 1956, documenting the copyright of a song entitled "Pauline, Pauline, Pauline", which Allen had co-written with Carole Smith.

Catalog of Copyright Entries 1956

Tani Allen is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Chattanooga. If you have more detailed information on Allen and his band, feel free to contact me.

Sources
• Tani Allen entry on 45worlds
• Bill Haley entry on 45worlds
• Johnny Horton entry on 45worlds
• BMI archive
• Michael Stewart Foley: "Citizen Cash - The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash" (Basic Books), 2021
• Bill Haley, Jr./Peter Benjaminson: "Crazy Man, Crazy - The Bill Haley Story" (Backbeat), 2019, p. 54
• Colin Escott: "Bill Rocks" (liner notes), 2006, Bear Family Records
• Adam Komorowski: "From Boppin' Hillbilly to Red Hot Rockabilly" (liner notes), 2005, Proper Records

Buck Turner and the Buckaroos

Rural Entertainment from Memphis

Buck Turner and the Buckaroos

Buck Turner (center) and the Buckaroos with Sam Phillips in Phillips'
Memphis Recording Service studio, prob. 1950 (image from unknown source)

Buck Turner and his band, the Buckaroos, were one of Memphis' most popular country music bands in the 1940s and early 1950s. They were mainstays on local radio and Turner was even involved in bringing Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service up and running, therefore paving the way for the musical revolution that would come (at least to some small degree).

Actually, there were at least three different artists using the name "Buck Turner". Before we proceed, it makes sense to tell apart the different Buck Turners. There was a blues singer named Babe Kyro Lemon Turner, who most frequently performed as "Black Ace" but also used "Buck Turner" and various other names for performing and recording purposes. The other one was more similar in musical style but considerably younger. Houston "Buck" Turner was from Chattanooga and was active as a songwriter and singer, working steadily during the 1950s and 1960s with Gene Woods, the Dixieland Drifters, and Murray Nash. To add to the confusion, he was also working with another Memphis based act, Tani Allen and the Tennessee Pals.

Considering the group's popularity in Memphis and surrounding areas, it is surprising that researchers and journalists have mostly omitted Buck Turner and the Buckaroos from history books and articles. It is also astonishing that this group, and this fact may have caused their absence from the books, made no commercial recordings.

The leader and namesake of the band, Bodo Otto "Buck" Turner was born in 1909 in rural Greene County, Southeast Mississippi, near the Alabama state border. The area was sparsely populated (only about 6,000 habitants in 1910) and its economy based on hog and cattle breeding. It seems that Buck Turner had German ancestors but his father's family, originally coming from South Carolina, lived in Mississippi since the early 19th century. Parts of his mother's family came from Alabama. Turner's parents married in 1896 in Greene County and had a total of nine children, Buck Turner being the youngest. In 1910, a year after his birth, his mother died from blood poisoning. His father passed away in 1924 when Buck Turner was circa 15 years old.

By the early 1930s, Turner seems to have married and moved northwest to Covington County, Mississippi, as we found a grave at Mount Olive City Cemetery of an infant: Bodo Otto Turner, Jr., who was born on May 4, 1934, and died on June 1, 1934, at the age of 28 days. We have no proof that this child was Buck Turner's son but it is quite probable. After the early loss of his parents, this would have been the third tragic incident in his life.

Billboard September 5, 1942

Newspaper advertisements from a local Jackson, Tennessee, paper indicate that Turner began performing music around 1933. By the late 1930s (probably even earlier), Turner had left Mississippi in favor of the booming city of Memphis, just across the Mississippi-Tennessee state border. By this point, he had assembled a group of musicians, which became known as the "Buckaroos". Soon, Turner and his band were performing in Memphis as well as Southwest Tennessee and North Mississippi. They would play school houses, beer joints, and other venues across these areas. The Buckaroos soon became regulars on local Memphis station WREC with their early morning show and developed into mainstays over the years. By 1944, their show could be also heard on WHBQ, sponsored by Black & White Stores.

Line-ups of the band cannot be determined from the few sources but particular names are known, though. Blind pianist Paul Whiteside was a long-time member of the group, at least performing with the band during the 1940s and early 1950s. Memphis steel guitarist Hugh Jeffreys was also a member in the early 1950s (he had performed previously with Paul Howard's Arkansas Cotton Pickers). Other names included fiddler, guitarist and singer Homer Clyde Grice and multi-instrumentalist Grover Clater O'Brien, both from Mississippi. Harry Bolick and Tony Russell cite O'Brien in their book "Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi" regarding Buck Turner: "After he [O'Brien] finished his schooling and before he joined the Army in 1945, Grover played with several country bands including an often low-paying one with Buck Turner: 'One boy that used to play with us was Buck Turner, and we were starvation box-beaters...' Still 'He said he made way more money playing music than working on the farm or in the sawmill.'"

Billboard July 25, 1942

A testimony to the Buckaroos' popularity was given by professor Al Price, who grew up in Mississippi during the 1940s and mentioned the band in his autobiography. "[...] The favorite musical group in our area was the Buck Turner Band from Memphis. Fans such as my mother and father made them popular and rich. Their radio program could be heard all over North Mississippi. They booked shows throughout the mid-South. I remember one special show they did at the Legion Lake, which was located about halfway between Coffeeville and Oakland, on Highway 330. [...]" Although Turner and the Buckaroos likely did not get rich from their fans, their enduring popularity in the rural areas of North Mississippi and Southwest Tennessee likely gave them a welcomed income. Price continues: "[...] One night the Buck Turner Band performed for the dance. I was not allowed to go inside, but I could see what was going on from the door. After about an hour, and after several men had gotten fairly drunk, a fight broke out on the dance floor. I was horrified, but my mother made sure that I was out of the way and prevented my dad from going inside. The band tried to get outside by a back door to avoid getting involved. They had a blind guy playing for them, and I could see them trying to direct him out of the door. Some of the spectators were helping them escape the scene." In the end, a man was stabbed during the fight. This incident also shows that Turner and the band had to deal with the rough habits that were common back then at dances, beer joints, and many other venues throughout the South. The "blind guy" that Price is mentioning was pianist Paul Whiteside.

Billboard 1944 Music Year Book

But Turner and the Buckaroos were more than a popular regional country band. In fact, through their radio shows and countless personal appearances in the area, they had an influence on many young men that later became part of Memphis' thriving music scene and the development of rock'n'roll. Kern Kennedy, pianist with Sonny Burgess' Pacers, cited the band as one of his influences. "We listened to KNBY Newport and WREC Memphis. A group from Memphis I enjoyed was Buck Turner and the Buckaroos. They had a blind piano player named Paul Whiteside that really inspired me."

Besides from a musical point of view, Buck Turner assured his little mention in history books by putting up some money for Sam Phillips' newly opened Memphis Recording Service, the tiny recording studio that would evolve into Sun Records. Phillips had opened the studio on January 2, 1950, on 706 Union Avenue but at first, found little to none musical acts to record but rather earned some money by recording private acetates, funerals or school events. Turner and Phillips knew each other from WREC, for which Sam Phillips worked, too, at that time. Turner and the band recorded their show on WREC for the Arkansas Rural Electrification Program to send out to different radio stations in Arkansas and Phillips transcribed those recordings. In Martin Hawkins' book "Good Rockin' Tonight", Sam Phillips is cited: "The very first job I had after opening my recording studio was in January 1950. I recorded transcriptions for radio with a country singer, Buck Turner. This was for the Arkansas Rural Electrification Corporation. We made fifteen-minute programs that I transcribed onto big ol' sixteen-inch discs. They were distributed to about eighteen or twenty stations." Turner was so pleased with the sound of their shows' recordings that he offered Phillips to invest some money in the venture. In the end, he put in approximately $ 2.000 to buy some hardly needed equipment.

In addition to the radio shows, Phillips had plans to record Turner and the Buckaroos as commercial artists, although this was not a goal straight from his heart but an intermission until Phillips found something that really caught his ear. He also recorded Slim Rhodes' band, another Memphis mainstay on the country music scene, and both were "good solid local combos [but] I never did see anything particular about either Buck or Slim's band that stood out, as far as style," Phillips is cited by Peter Guralnick in his book "Sam Phillips - The Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll". By summer 1950, Sam Phillips' own "The Phillips" record label (in partnership with DJ Dewey Phillips) had come into existence and the first release was out by local blues man Joe Hill Louis. Phillips also announced that he would record more acts on his new label, including "Your Red Wagon" by Turner and Buckaroos, who "had a knocked-out version of the tune [that] we feel certain...will sell." Due to different reasons, the label crashed and its life ended even before it really began. None of the tapes survived, if they ever existed. Plans on recording Turner and the band were laid to rest finally. By September 1952, Phillips had paid off Turner completely, which ended their relationship both artistically and mercantile. Turner's wife was not happy with her husband's venture either, so it was likely a welcomed way of exit.

As the band's association with Sam Phillips came to an end by 1952, it seems they never had the chance of recording commercially again. However, they remained a popular act in those years and seemed to feature a couple of artists that later became well-known to rockabilly fans - another proof for their historical significance. Both Hayden Thompson and Johnny "Ace" Cannon performed with the band at least occasionally. It seems the Buckaroos were a rock'n'roll tinsmith similar to Clyde Leoppard's Snearly Ranch Boys - though on smaller scales. In fact, both Thompson and Cannon performed with the Snearly Ranch Boys, too.

The Buckaroos remained active throughout the 1950s, playing such events as the annual Farmers Day celebrations in Arkansas. Their radio show likely came to an end in the late 1950s when live music on air was replaced by DJs. There is no exact break-up date documented for the Buckaroos but late 1950s or early 1960s seems to be a good bet.

Billboard April 16, 1966

Buck Turner switched from live music to working as a DJ on WREC and Billboard named him in its April 16, 1966, issue one of Memphis' top disc jockeys in the pop LP sector. A year before, he was part of a six song EP released by Eddie Bond's Millionaire label (Millionaire #MC-109/10) that featured popular Memphis DJs of the time, including Bond, Chuck Comer, and Turner, who is featured with "What Will I Do". This seems to be Turner's only commercial recording.

In 1966, Buck Turner passed away at age of approximately 56 years. He is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis. His death remained largely unnoticed just like his efforts in Memphis music, which paved the way for rock'n'roll music.

Sources
• Goodwin Family History Website
• Find a Grave entry
• 45cat entry for Millionaire EP
• Steel Guitar Forum
• Al Price: "Gravel and Dirt - A White Boyhood in the Segregated South" (Xlibris US), 2020
• Peter Guralnick: "Sam Phillips - the Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll" (Little, Brown), 2015, pages 74, 88, 97
• Martin Hawkins/Colin Escott: "Good Rockin' Tonight - Sun Records and the Birth of Rock'n'Roll" (St. Martin's Press), 1991, pages 111-112
• Harry Bolick/Tony Russell: "Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi" (University Press of Mississippi), 2021, pages 192, 486
• Marvin Schwartz: "We Wanna Boogie - The Rockabilly Roots of Sonny Burgess and the Pacers" (Butler Center for Arkansas Studies), 2014, page 158

Buddy Keele on Eugenia

Jack & Buddy Keele & Ozark Melody Boys - Memories of You (Eugenia 1002), 1964
This record comes from a batch of Style Wooten 45s that I bought recently from Bruce Watson, the man who opened his massive Designer Records collection for Big Legal Mess that in turn released an amazing 4CD reissue set of Memphis gospel recordings a couple of years back.

Finally, this gem and milestone of Style Wooten legacy is in my possession. This is not like Slim Dortch's "Big Boy Rock", the holy grail of Eugenia Records, but I won't lie when I tell you that Buddy Keele's Eugenia record was on my want list, too. The music is nothing special, though I like it very much. Both "Time After Time" and "Memories of You" are relaxed country music and the recordings have a rural charme, comparable to Buck Trail's "Young Sweethears". This is one of Style Wooten's earliest productions from 1964 and the music sounds quite out of date for mid 1960s Memphis but there were still artists that performed this kind of music and people who enjoyed listening to it.

I have compiled the info I found Jack & Buddy Keele in another post about them. Actually, "Mailing My Last Letter" from Slim Dortch's Eugenia record as well as his "A Long Time" and "Broad Tennessee" from Dortch's Lightning Ball single have that same rural sound and I wonder if the Ozark Melody Boys were backing him up on that number.

See also:
• The Ballad of Big Style Wooten
• Eugenia Records discography
• Buddy & Jack Keele on Eugenia

Shelby Follin and the Memphis Four

Shelby Follin and the Memphis Four

During my research on the Snearly Ranch Boys, I was newly intrigued by another country music band, Shelby Follin and the Memphis Four. A rather unknown act like Doc McQueen or Bob Williams' Mid-South Playboys, I was able to puzzle together and create a short biographical sketch on Follin. Additions or memories on this act are highly appreciated.

Shelby C. Follin was born on April 23, 1916, in Mississippi. Details on his life are scarce but what we know is that he served in the Marine Corps during World War II in South Pacific and after his discharge, became a Tennessee highway patrol officer. Eventually, he became a special officer at Memphis Municipal Airport (now Memphis International Airport).

Kansas City Times November 29, 1951

By the late 1940s, Follin had assembled a little country band that was called “Shelby Follin and the Memphis Four”. In later literature, which mentions Follin, it was often simply referred to as “The Shelby Follin Band”. The group played Ernst Tubb like honky-tonk music around Memphis and in January 1952, Follin and the band landed a spot on local radio station KWEM, hosting a 30-minute program each day (before Howlin’ Wolf’s slot).

Billboard May 24, 1952

Guitarist Paul Burlison was a member of the band from around 1950 until the band’s break-up around 1954. Pianist Smokey Joe Baugh joined the band in 1952, playing with them for about a year before switching to Clyde Leoppard’s Snearly Ranch Boys.

The band disbanded around 1954. They left behind no recordings, as they were out of business before the Memphis recording industry had developed – the only significant labels being Sun and Meteor but they were blues and rhythm & blues based prior to 1954, likely being reluctant to commercially record amateur country music. The only possibility of recorded documents of the Shelby Follin Memphis Four would be live on-air tapes of their regular KWEM broadcasts but there are no tapes known and, to be honest, it is doubtful there ever existed some.

Being only part-time musician, Follin retained his day job at the airport until his sudden death. On January 27, 1959, Follin and a friend were driving in their car from a hunting trip in Olive Branch, Mississippi, a little south of Memphis, when Follin missed a curve and the car hit a tree. Follin was instantly dead, his friend survived. Shelby Follin is buried at Oak Hill Church of Christ Cemetery near Corinth, Mississippi.

Sources
Various books, online entries and liner notes mention Shelby Follin but mostly only refer to him in association with Paul Burlison or Smokey Joe Baugh.

• Find a Grave entry
• Tales from the Woods
• Dorsey Burnette biography on Bear Family Records

Happy Birthday Luther Perkins!

 In Honor of Luther Perkins
(January 8, 1928 - August 5, 1968)

Today would have been Luther Perkins' 94th birthday. Perkins, who was a member of Johnny Cash's band, the Tennessee Two, right from the start in 1954 until his untimely death in 1968, was an integral part of the Cash sound and the success of Johnny Cash. Cash, Perkins, and Marshall Grant started playing gospel music in Memphis, Tennessee. Their musical skills were limited, yet they had a passion for the music. In addition to Perkins' rudimentary skills on the guitar, his instrument was a bit beaten-up. This led him to keep it simple and stick to picking the bass strings of the guitar and muted them with his right hand. The "boom-chicka-boom" sound was born. It was simple but effective.

On stage, Perkins was shy and seemed emotionless due to his fear to make a mistake. During the years, his skills on the guitar improved and he became much better than in 1955 (which can be spotted on recordings and live performances) but his fundamental sound remained the same.

I have chosen a couple of live peformances from the early years of Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two (or Three, with the subsequent addition of drummer W.S. Holland) that show not only Perkins' uncomparable style of "performing" but also the perfect imperfection of these young musicians that producer Sam Phillips always searched for.

So Doggone Lonesome - Grand Ole Opry (1955)
Introduced by Little Jimmy Dickens and Hank Snow. The gamblers in front of the band are Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys.


Folsom Prison Blues - Town Hall Party (1959)


Big River - Star Route (1961)
Introduced by Charlie Williams.


Bonanza - Grand Ole Opry (1962)
Introduced by T. Tommy Cutrer.


Ring of Fire - prob. Jimmy Dean Show (1964)
Introduced by Jimmy Dean.