Marlon Grisham on Cover

Marlon Grisham - Man with No Heart (Cover 45-711)
Better known as a rockabilly singer, Marlon Grisham also recorded a couple of country songs during his career in the 1950s and 1960s. One of those pieces, the beautiful "Man with No Heart," is featured today.

Grisham was a local Memphis/East Arkansas singer. He probably first recorded for B.B. Cunningham's Cover record label in Memphis, releasing "Ain't That a Dilly" b/w "Sugarfoot" (Cover 5982, 1959), for which he is best known today. He followed up with another single on Cover ("Teenage Love" / "Now It's Your Time," Cover 4621, 1962). Probably between those two singles or even before his first, it is reported that Grisham also recorded a couple of tapes for Sun Records, including "Between Here and There" and "What a Beat."

Marlon Grisham

I'm not quite sure where today's featured disc by Grisham fits in, but I would date it around Late 1960s or early 1970s. "Man with No Heart" is a highly commercial tune with lots of pop influences, written by Jody Chastain (1933-1999). Chastain played with Eddie Bond early on and wrote "Boppin' Bonnie" for him, before performing with Fuller Todd and then Charlie Feathers from 1955 to 1960. Both Chastain and Todd composed songs recorded by Grisham, including "Ain't That a Dilly" (written by Chastain), "Sugarfoot" (co-written by Chastain and Todd), and "Teenage Love" (co-written by Grisham and Todd). The flipside of "Man with No Heart" was "Square Watermelon Seed," penned by W. A. Harris, who also wrote Grisham's "Jungle Love."

In 1964, one single by Grisham appeared on the Fernwood label. The aforementioned "Why Did She Go" b/w "Jungle Love" were released in 1965 on the Memphis based Clearpool label. Around the same time, Grisham was with Gene Williams' Country Junction Show ensemble on KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and in addition, appeared on a various artists LP on Williams' Cotton Town Jubilee label. Three years later, Grisham recorded one record for John Cook's Blake label.

Discography

Cover 5982

Marlon Grisham

Ain't That a Dilly (Joe D. Chastain) / Sugarfoot (Joe D. Chastain; Fuller Todd)

863 / 864

1959

Billboard pop review on September 7, 1959

Cover 4621

Marlon Grisham

Now It's Your Time (Marlon Grisham) / Teenage Love (Marlon Grisham; Fuller Todd)

C-4621-1 / C-4621-2

1962

Billboard pop review on August 25, 1962

Fernwood 140

Marlon Grisham Combo
You Are My Sunshine (Davis & C. Mitchell) / Pins and Needles in My Heart (Floyd Jenkins)
F-256 / F-257
1964

Clearpool 101

Marlon Grisham

Why Did She Go (Marlon Grisham; Fuller; Brewer) / Jungle Love (Bill Harris)

101 A / 101 B

1965

Blake 2-222
Marlon Grisham
Queen of the City (M. Grisham) / You're the Rose for Me (M. Grisham)
2-222-A / 2-222-B
1968

Cover 45-711

Marlon Grisham

Man with No Heart (Joe D. Chastain) / Square Watermelon Seed (W. A. Harris)

1001 A / 1001 B

See also:
•  Fuller Todd on King
• Bill Harris
• Marlon Grisham on Blake
• Blake Records story
• Clearpool Records
• Cotton Town Jubilee label story

Sleepy LaBeef on Columbia

Sleepy LaBeef - Sure Beats the Heck Outta Settlin' Down (Columbia 4-44068), 1967
By 1964, Sleppy LaBeef had been in the music business for about ten years, recording numerous singles and playing shows all over Texas. But at that time, he had not recorded for a major label yet. Today's selection is one of LaBeef's Columbia singles recorded in the period 1965-1967.

1964 was a turning point in LaBeef's career. One day that year while being at the Wayside Inn (probably playing a show), he received a phone call from Don Law, Columbia executive. He signed LaBeef to a recording contract with the major label Columbia Records because Law probably thought, he had talent and the potential being a star. LaBeef moved to Nashville in 1965 and recorded his first session for Columbia on March 5, 1965. From that session, only "Completely Destroyed" was originally released, almost two years of its recording with the Mack Vickery/Merle Kilgore composition "Go Ahead on Baby."

The sound of LaBeef had changed from stonehard rock'n'roll to a more polished, urban country sound. Most of his repertoire at Columbia were country songs, with a couple of old rhythm and blues as well as some pop numbers thrown in. Organ, harmonica, and dobro were added to the usual line-up of guitar, bass, piano, and drums. LaBeef was now working with experienced Nashville session men, including Ray Edenton, Pig Robbins, Floyd Cramer, Charlie McCoy, Buddy Harmann, and others. 

"Sure Beats the Heck Outta Settlin' Down" was a song composed by W. Wyrick. LaBeef cut it on December 15, 1966, at Columbia Recording Studio in Nashville. He was backed by Grady Martin (guitar), Fred Carter (guitar), James Wilkerson (guitar), Pete Drake (steel guitar), Joseph Zinkan (bass), William Pursell (piano), and Buddy Harmann (drums). It was released with "Schneider" being the top side on April 3, 1967, but didn't reach the charts. It was not until his sixth and last single, "Every Day," which peaked at #73 on Billboard's C&W charts.

Columbia, though, wasn't satisfied with the results and didn't renew LaBeef's contract. This was not too tragic for him, since Shelby Singleton had faith in his talent and signed him to his Plantation label in 1969, where he would go on to reach the charts again with "Black Land Farmer" and then switching to the reactivated Sun Records.

Slim Dortch on Lightning Ball

Slim Dortch - Pappy (Lightning Ball LB-45-8501), 1993

Slim Dortch fascinated me right from the moment I heard "Big Boy Rock" for the first time. After long and intensive research, I was able to put up an article about him, which was published last year in American Music Magazine. Unfortunately, this disc is not included because I just discovered it. I bought it from a seller out of Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

The songs on this 45rpm record are pure country music. Both "Pappy" and "Walking Through the Sand in Texas" were also included on Dortch's 1993 LP "Below the Dixie Line." All the tracks were recorded at Kennett Sound Studio in Kennett, Missouri, in 1993. As noted on the label, James Prince is playing lead as well as steel guitar with Dortch on vocals and rhythm guitar, Lee Barnes on bass, and Jeff Bost on drums. 

Another Lightning Ball single featured "Easy Street" b/w "Jim, the Truck Driving Man." Those titles were not included on the album. The Lightning Ball label was used prior to these 1990s releases in the 1960s by Dortch for two 45rpm discs. Thus, I assume this was his own label.

For further reading on Dortch, see American Music Magazine #133 (September 2013).

Rusty York R.I.P.

Legendary rockabilly and bluegrass musician Rusty York died January 26, 2014. York was famous for his song "Sugaree" and recorded a lot of singles for such labels as King, Starday, and others. He also played for Jimmie Skinner and owned his own Jewel recording studio in label in Mt. Healthy for decades.

Chuck Miller on Mercury

Chuck Miller - Boogie Blues (Mercury 70767X45), 1956
Chuck Miller, a today mostly forgotten pop singer and pianist of the 1940s and 1950s, recorded this piece of big band style rock'n'roll in 1955 for the Mercury label. He had two chart entries during the mid 1950s but "Boogie Blues" unfortunately was not one of them. This is his best rock'n'roll outing by far with a driving beat, a furious beginning and a solid performance by Miller.

Charles Nelson Miller was born on August 30, 1924, in rural Wellington, Kansas. By the 1940s, Miller was playing piano and singing in the clubs of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Through his friend, saxophonist Big Dave Cavanaugh, he got to know Robert Douglass and formed the "Chuck Miller Trio" with him in the late 1940s. Cavanaugh became an A&R manager for Capitol Records in the early 1950s and secured his friend Miller a recording contract with the label in 1953. Back then, Miller's music was in the vein of pop stars like Dean Martin or Bing Crosby. Miller recorded a couple of songs for Capitol from 1953 up to 1954 with Cavanaugh's orchestra. With the recording of "Idaho Red" (originally cut by country singer Wade Ray), Miller's style became more dynamic and rock'n'roll oriented.

Though Miller's singles for Capitol sold well, none of them entered the charts, though. Therefore, he moved to Mercury Records in 1955, where he had his first (and only) big hit "The House of Blue Lights." It reached #9 on Billboard's Hot 100 and was originally a Freddy Slack hit in the 1940s. Mercury pitched Bobby Lord's rocker "Hawk-Eye" to Miller, which became his next single, followed by "Boogie Blues." The latter was a Gene Krupa original on Columbia from 1945 with Anita O'Day on vocals. Miller turned it into a hot rock'n'roll performance when recording it on November 13, 1955, at the Mercury Sound Studios in New York City. Backed by the haunting "Lookout Mountain" (waxed at the same session), the disc was released on January 1, 1956, but did not saw any chart action. An alternate version of "Boogie Blues" from an August 1955 session at the Universal Studios in Chicago, is still burried in the Mercury vaults and waits for its release to the public.

Miller continued to record uptempo songs like "Bright Red Convertible," "Cool It Baby!," "Baby Doll," "The Auctioneer" (his only other chart entry, #56 in December 1956), among others. None of his later singles became a hit and Mercury dropped Miller from its roster in 1958. By 1959, the Chuck Miller Trio disbanded and Miller moved to Anchorage, Alaska, in the 1960s, before settling down on the Hawaiian islands. There, he kept on performing for many years. Miller died on January 15, 2000.

Willie Gregg on Waterflow

  Willie Gregg and the Country Kings - If You Want to Be My Woman (Waterflow 702), ca. 1969
One must love this record - not only because of the great Merle Haggard cover version but also because of the nice label design. I bought this one from Mack Stevens, a record collector and rockabilly musician from Texas. There's nearly no info out there on Willie Gregg and the Country Kings except that this is some really great Country Bop. Gregg had another release on the Kay-Bar Dane label out of Orange, Texas, featuring the slow ballad "You Fool" in 1960, credited to "Willie Gregg and the Velvetones."

Producer of the disc Tee Bruce, whose real name was John Lloyd Broussard, played a major role in bringing Cajun music on the radio in Texas. He hosted several shows on local stations, including the "Cajun Jamboree" on KOGT in Orange, Texas, by 1965. He also had a record label called Cajun Jamboree and Waterflow Records was definitely also owned by him. Jamboree Enterprises, located on 3218 15th Street in Port Arthur, Texas, as stated on the label, was a Tee Bruce venture. Both the Jamboree Ent. as well as the Waterflow Publishing is also shown on Cajun Jamboree record labels. Bruce died March 18, 2010, at the age of 81.

The record was pressed by Houston Recorders from Houston, Texas, in 1969. The "LH" prefix in the matrix number tell us "mastered at Location Records, Los Angeles."

Information on Tee Bruce taken from John Broven: "South to Louisiana - The Music of the Cajun Bayous"

Arkansas Travelers

  Arkansas Travelers - Travelers Boogie (Benz 1207), 1961
This is a really nice rockabilly instrumental. And when I type r-o-c-k-a-b-i-l-l-y, I mean it. This is not the usual stuff credited with being a rockabilly instro. Just a slapp bass, a rhythm guitar, and an electric lead guitar - that's all.

I couldn't come up with anything on the Arkansas Travelers. According to Bob (from Dead Wax), Benz Records was operated by Mac Engle and Ben Baldwin, Jr., out of Champaign, Illinois. The label published its records through the Merrbach Record Service from Houston, Texas. I would have dated it around 1955-1958 but Bob tells us this disc is actually from late 1960 or early 1961. In addition, another visitor noted the disc was mastered by ACA (also from Houston) in January 1961. I especially like the fact that they printed the key on the label, so anybody could easily play along with his guitar to this tune. The A side of this record, by the way, is "Arkansas Mountain Rag," which features a fiddle and points more towards country music.

RCS doesn't list it and I never saw another copy, this is possibly the only copy known. Never turned up anywhere, quite mysterious.

Phil Everly RIP

Phil Everly, one half of the hit-making Everly Brothers, died January 3, 2014, at a hospital in Burbank, California, at the age of 74. He and his brother Don were signed to Cadence Records in the mid-1950s and are well-known for such hits as "Bird Dog," "Bye Bye Love," "Wake Up Little Susie," "All I Have to Do Is Dream" or "Cathy's Clown." They were influential for many artists to come and created an unique sound with their soft hamorny singing, influenced by the country and folk duos of their youth.

Read more here.

Nash's B.B. label

By Nash: The B.B. label

Coming up next in our string of Murray Nash related posts is a feature about B.B. Records, one of his many independent and short-lived ventures. B.B. was located in Nash's new home on 198 Kenner Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee. He had moved there after leaving his business partners Ray Scrivener and Charles Bingham, with whom he had operated Murray Nash Associates, Inc. After Nash's unsuccessful try to run Spangle Records' subsidiary Audio Music Company with Floyd Whited and Brien Fisher in February/March 1958, B.B. was probably his next undertaking in the music business.

The label started approximately in the summer of 1958 and the first known release was by the Dixieland Drifters (B.B. #45-222). There were possibly earlier discs issued but those have yet to be discovered. Publisher on all of the label's records was Ashna Music, Nash's own firm.

Pictured left is a June 23, 1958, Billboard mention of the Dixieland Drifters' new release on "Murray Nash's new B.B. label." One week later, on June 30, the magazine reviewed the disc.

The Dixieland Drifters were a bluegrass band from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and worked with Nash on and off well into the early 1960s. Members included Buck Turner, Norman Blake, Howell Culpepper, Peanuts Faircloth, and a lot of other local musicians who played mostly for a short time with the band. They had a total of three releases on B.B.

Nash only released a handful of singles on B.B., ca. from mid 1958 up to late 1959. By then, he had started a new label, Do-Ra-Me Records, which had a much more prolific output than its precursor.

For further reading, see also:

• By Nash: The MusiCenter label

• Joe Reavis' Recording Studio

• The Do-Ra-Me label

• The Hap label

Discography

B.B. 45-222

Dixieland Drifters

The Trot (Blake) / Walk Easy (Blake)

45-F786 / 45-F787

1958

Billboard C&W review on June 30, 1958

B.B. 45-223

Dixieland Drifters 

Don't You Be Still (Blake-Culpepper-Evans-Powell) / Church Steeples & White Flowers (Blake-Culpepper-Evans-Powell)

45-F 798 / 45-F 799

B.B. 45-224

Dixieland Drifters Quartet

Will You Meet Me () / Glory Glory (Blake-Culpepper-Evans-Powell)

? / F-802

B.B. 45-225

Johnny Varnell & Jim Pipkins

What Can I Do Without You () / Blue Tears in Your Eyes ()

B.B. 45-226

Ralph Pruett

Someone Like You (Biggs-Biggs-Robbins) / Louise (Pruett)

F-812 / F-813

Nash's MusiCenter

By Nash: The MusiCenter label

Murray Nash's activities as an independent record producer in the late 1950s and early 1960s have been the subject on this blog several times. Another label that was operated by Nash was the small MusiCenter Records, which had at least six releases. He started this outlet in 1965 and ran it also from his Recording of Nashville studio that also housed his other labels such as Do-Ra-Me, Topic, Round-Up, and Cee Cee.

Chuck Wiley and band

The debut release was by Chuck Wiley and featured "Come Back Baby" b/w "Little Star, Little Star."  Curtis Hobock, a rock'n'roll singer from Tennessee, also cut two discs for MusiCenter. He also had two releases on Cee Cee, one of Nash's other labels.

MusiCenter releases are easier to date because Nash used RCA's custom pressing service, thus a reliable indicator of the pressing year. Nash's account number at RCA was 692B, which also appeared on Country Music Nashville, another one of Nash's labels. MusiCenter lasted at least until 1966. Most of the known releases have Nash's "By-Nash of Nashville" listed as publisher. If anyone has more info on MusiCenter or can fill gaps in the discography, please feel free to contact me.

For further reading, see also:

• Joe Reavis' Recording Studio

• The Do-Ra-Me label

• The Hap label

Discography

MusiCenter 3101

Chuck Wiley

Come Back Baby (Charles Wiley) / Little Star, Little Star (Charles Wiley)

S4KM-8430 / S4KM-8431 (RCA)

1965

"Produced by: Murray Nash"

MusiCenter 3102

The Valiants
All Night Long () / I'm Getting Tired of You ()

MusiCenter 3103

Curtis Hobock and the Stardusters

Lonely Weekends (C. Rich) / I Found a Way (C. Hobock)

SK4M-3561 / SK4M-3562 (RCA)

1965

"Produced by: Murray Nash"

MusiCenter 3104

Kenny Norton
To Know You (Biggs-Biggs-Robbins) / Oonie, Oonie, Yah, Yah, Yah ()
SK4M-3563 / ? (RCA)
1965 

 

MusiCenter 3105

Curtis Hobock and the Stardusters

Definition of Love (Geneva Hobock) / One Heart'll Love You (Hobock-Jones-Howell-Bates-Luther)

T4KM-2327 / T4KM-2327 (RCA)

1966

Note: Geneva Hobock was Curtis Hobock's wife. The other composers listed on "One Heart'll Love You" were members of the Stardusters: Tommy Jones (ld gtr), Bobby Howell (dms), Howard Bates (bs), Richard Luther (pno).

MusiCenter 3106

Eugenia Oaks

There Stands the Glass (Russ Hull-M. J. Shurtz) / Country Hotel (Russ Hull)

TK4M-3219 / TK4M-3220 (RCA)

1966