Chapter 5

The Sunny Years

1955-1957

 

“We All Did Look and Sound Alike” 1955 -1957 Sam Phillips had entertained a steady stream of local black talent, most of whom had never seen the inside of a recording studio. In 1951 Phillips recorded local disk jockey and aspiring blues artist B.B. King and shortly thereafter recorded "Rocket 88" by Jackie Benston and Ike Turner often cited by music historians as the first Rock and Roll record. Then in the summer of 1953 a painfully shy young truck driver wandered in to record a couple of sentimental songs for his mother. He hung around over the next few months, and Phillips made a mental note of the young man with the strange name and even stranger appearance, Elvis Presley.

There was something in that voice, he thought. Phillips was solicitous of just such unpolished talent. Indeed, he had staked his tenuous fortune on the artistic enfranchisement of the poor and the racially marginalized, those who had never had the opportunity to record. Phillips mentioned Presley to a couple of session men and finally decided to call the kid in. After a lack-luster afternoon performing a repertoire of pop songs and ballads, Presley picked up his guitar and began to play around with a blues song, "That's Alright Mama." This anonymous moment with the microphone turned off could so easily have signified nothing. "I was surprised Elvis even knew the song," Phillips later said. No matter. What he heard, and what he understood about what he heard, changed American musical history. For he saw that Presley infused the simple country blues with an emotion and legitimacy that defied classification...Warren Smith had already achieved the same sound with “Rock n’ Roll Ruby” and Sam was looking for a more cooperative clone. Now people always asked me “Did you know Elvis? My answer was “I never knew the Elvis you think he was, I knew and observed the real kid from Tupelo”.

The first day I saw Sam's "Big Talent" was January 8, 1955 when he came into Sun Records to celebrate the release of "Milk Cow Blues Boogie" with "You're a Heartbreaker" on the flip side. It was the guys 20th birthday and Sam and Marion had a big cake ready for Elvis. Scotty Moore, Bill Black, D.J. Fontana, Gene and Junior Smith were there as well as many people I didn't recognize. Well I must say that I was surprised that this was the guy who recorded "That's Alright Mama" and started the real awakening of Rock n' Roll causing me to come South. He stood about 5'11" with Dishwater Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes, serious Acne, a Chipped Front Tooth with the rest somewhat crooked. His Nose appeared to have been broken at one time and not properly repaired. He had a terrible stuttering problem. He talked real fast once he got going and it was hard to figure out what he was trying to say most of the time.

He wore a chartreuse sport coat over a pink shirt with a black western tie of sorts and dark blue pegged pants with white buck shoes. Later they gathered around to play his new releases live. He managed about three chords on the guitar as he played and sang. He also apparently couldn't afford deodorant. That was my assessment at the time. I was amazed, the circus wasn't in it, and I didn't blend in here anymore then at Juilliard. I was introduced to him but he put me off with a "Yea" and then turned to talk to Scotty about a fair salary for the upcoming Tour and the Louisiana Hayride, Clarksdale, Helena, Boonville, Sheffield, Leachville, Sikeston and a live performance at The Eagles Nest in Houston, Texas to be broadcast over KNUZ radio. Elvis shrugged his shoulders and told Scotty "You don't cause the screams and yells from the girls, do you?" "They pay to see me". Oops! Another fat head and I had seen the same behavior at Juilliard from the rich kids and they were usually the least talented. After Elvis came back from Leachville, Arkansas he was tired. These guys were doing a show in one town and driving all night across the Southern States doing everything from, County Fairs, to High School Proms to Grocery Store openings. A lot of small work for someone who had the big hit "That's Alright Mama"

 It turned out to be a local hit with 15,000 copies sold. Not a big deal in today's market. It also seemed that he was not getting the lion's share of the proceeds from all his hard work on tour. A guy named Bob Neal seemed to be making the big money off of Elvis's group "The Blue Moon Boys". Scotty Moore, Bill Black and D. J. Fontana were the backbone of the group since Elvis couldn't really play guitar except for playing Jimmy Reed's "You Got Me Running" over and over again with a simple riff turn around. Matter of fact he would confidently grab a guitar and play that one song all the time when girls were near. It seemed that was his repertoire. He did the same thing on his 68’ Comeback Show. The only thing he could play all the way through with minor mistakes in the rhythm. I thought it strange that Red West would take a new song they were working on and literally sing and physically perform it for Elvis as if he were Elvis, but coordinated. I found myself among some very good guitar players and one guy who was living the Rock Legend before he ever made it.

It was like watching some old World War II veterans retelling their exploits and puffing their chests out, except with these good old boys it was bragging about how good they were and all the chicks they balled and getting no work done. There wasn't much in the way of disciplined music practice. I just kept quiet about my abilities for fear of scaring them all into getting rid of me. After all, when everyone left I had full access to Sam's Acetate Studio lathe. If I put together a group and we recorded when the studio was closed and Sam was out of town, I could cut all the demos I wanted. We got an amazing sound from the two Ampex Taping machines wired together. The delay caused a "Slap Back" echo which was the secret behind all of Sam's recordings. All of my first recordings were pressed at Plastic Products on Chelsea Av. in Memphis.

Sam came in unexpectedly one night and I was playing and singing real hot. He looked at me and said "You’re  amazing, to bad you’re so young". "If you’re smart you won't let these local boys know you can do that". Enough said. A guy named Whitey Ford was always coming around the studio carrying a dog eared contract for Elvis's parents to sign because he wasn’t 21 yet. He would then wander off after Elvis ignored him. I later found out it was Tom Parker who kept sending him around. , The Colonel ("Colonel" Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker (June 26, 1909 - January 21, 1997) born Andreas Cornelis ("Dries") van Kuijk, was a Dutch-born entertainment impresario  known best as

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I was getting an idea that the foundation for this new musical birth called Rock n’ Roll was founded on Jack Daniels, country girls and bullshit artists. It wasn’t much different than the New York Grifters who taught me every scam in the book. None of these people ever learned the gentle art of "Setting Up the Mark" 101. So I set my goals for working and saving for Desirae and waiting for a chance to record a record. Hopefully, one that George Kline might play locally so I could get a foothold. I had to remember my limitations which were: I was just a tall, good looking and talented 15 year old in competition with some older, self taught, loudmouth Okies, or so it seemed. I had anger issues because I felt held back. The one person I thought had all the talent in the world, but no looks and less stage presence was a guy named Roy Orbison and his song co-writer Joe Melson. Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988). He was an American singer-songwriter and musician, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a Rockabilly / Country & Western Band “The Teen Kings” in high school until he and the “Teen Kings” were signed by Sun Records in Memphis. Orbison watched his classmate Pat Boone get signed for a record deal early on.

 His greatest success was with Monument Records in the early 1960s where 22 of his songs placed on the Top Forty, including "Only the Lonely", "Crying", "In Dreams", and "Oh, Pretty Woman". His career stagnated through the 1970s, but several covers of his songs and the use of one in a film by David Lynch revived his career in the 1980s.The stagnation with his career was the fact that he and his wife were riding motorcycles and she was hit and killed. Later his house burned down, killing his parents and his sons. A good reason to stagnate, if not just die for ten years. He joined the super group The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne and released an album in 1988. He died of a heart attack at the age of 52, at the zenith of his resurgence. Roy could play a guitar, had perfect pitch, a deadly (4 Octave) falsetto range and the most melodic sad songs I had ever heard in my life. No one else can sing them because there is no way to arrange them in a single key. If you lower the song to hit the high notes you sound like a frog at the lower end and if you sing in the lower range comfortably then you sound like someone is "Squeezing Your Nuts" at the high end. The only song I ever covered of his was "Blue Bayou" and that satisfied me and it didn't hurt my privates to do it.

Jerry Lee Lewis was always stopping by with several girls on his arm. He played a mean piano, but was kind of stuck in a "Boogie" rut. Jerry Lee Lewis, in November 1956, came to audition for Sun Records. (Lewis was born to the poor family of Elmo and Mamie Lewis in Ferriday, Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, and began playing piano in his youth with his two cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart. His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Influenced by a piano-playing older cousin Carl McVoy (who later recorded with Bill Black 's Combo), the radio, and the sounds from the black juke joint across the tracks, Haney's Big House, Lewis developed his own style mixing rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, gospel, and Country Music, as well as ideas from established "country boogie" pianists like recording artists Moon Mullican and Merrill Moore. Soon he was playing professionally in Memphis. His World Wide big hits were “Whole Lotta Shaking Going On”, “Great Balls Of Fire and “Breathless”.) I once teased him about playing the "Devil’s Music."Are you still playing the devil's music?" Lewis replied Yes, I am. But you know it's strange, the same music that they kicked me out of religious school for is the same kind of music they play in their churches today. The difference is, I know I ‘m playing for the devil and they don't." He ended up as a well paid performer but only had a handful of hits. He was wild in nature and could become violent very easily. He loved to spread mustard inside your sun glasses if you laid them down near him during lunch, but became incensed if you played a practical joke on him. He took it as a demeaning act instead of something funny done for a good laugh. It could also be the result of the "Bennies" they all took habitually to stay awake when they drove all night and had to perform late shows with energy. I saw that with all of them including Elvis. Marijuana was like silverware at dinner time. They all smoked it and said it calmed them before they recorded. You can't imagine all the big hits that were recorded by "Stone Heads" long before the mid-sixties.

One day, out of nowhere, a guy pulls up out front of the studio in a turquoise 56 T-Bird Convertible with a whole entourage of people and cars including his girlfriend “Lucile”. He barrels through the door with a huge Pompadour Hairdo and some of the most well known sidemen ever to perform music. His flamboyant attitude was impossible to mistake. He was the guy I heard on radio doing jump blues as far back as 1951. He asked to see Sam, but Sam was downtown renewing his business license. Anyway, in the door comes his people with their instrument cases. "The Upsetters," which included saxophonists Grady Gaines, Wilbert 'Lee Diamond' Smith, and Clifford 'Gene' Burks, along with New Orleans drummer Charles 'Chuck' Connors, Olsie 'Baysee' Robinson on bass, and Chadrick 'Buster' Douglas on guitar. He had released records each year from 1951-54, but none were significant hits because he was black and his music was white. Pat Boone covered him. They set up and prepared to rehearse until Sam came back. I had heard the song years ago but with very sexual lyrics. I had played the song over and over for months while at Juilliard. I told him Sam wouldn’t record him on his label unless he changed a few things. He turned to me and said I‘m a movie star now, does Sam know that? I said you were great but the lyrics in "Tutti Frutti" can‘t be recorded, don’t shoot the messenger. He said a janitor shouldn’t stick his nose into the creative end of Sam’s business. I just went over to the closet and pulled out my Fender case, opened it and mounted up. I did a quick “Tune Check” and plugged into a hot amp. I cranked up the treble and the volume and stepped in front of the microphone. He looked at me and twisted his neck sideways saying “I’m not holding auditions ya know“. I smiled and said just listen to a few changes before you close your mind off. We changed "tutti-frutti, good booty" to "tutti frutti, aw rooty" which was black slang for “all right”. I thought I’d have some fun and combine the rhythm with individual note picking. I performed the song in a Rockabilly style and his guys jumped in with me. He gave me a sly look and signaled for me to turn it around so he could come in from the top on the vocals and piano.

What a fabulous moment that was for me. We were doing one song after another and pretty soon the street started getting crowded with people looking through the windows. Sam came in and was pleased to see Richard Penniman (Little Richard). ( Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932) known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and recording artist, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. "He was "the architect of Rock and Roll," and history would seem to bear that out. More than any other performer - save, perhaps the errant credit given to Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll." He was the “King of Rock n’ Roll” and the only King of this music.

Anyway they couldn’t reach an agreement on price and the lyrics were still a problem since Richard was very stubborn and had an ego as big as his talent. I heard he finally recorded it at Cosimo Matassa's J & M Recording Studio in New Orleans using less offensive lyrics. He had a straight run of about 14 No. 1 hits after that song broke. In my mind, then and now, he was the father of Rock n’ Roll and every beat and every rhythm you hear today can be found in his music of 58 years ago. Sam had no problem keeping me out of the recording room during anyone's sessions because of the smoke. The sessions always looked like the airport scene in "Casablanca" with heavy white fog lingering.

 I remember one afternoon when Marion was out to lunch and Johnny Cash, (Johnny Cash was born J. R. Cash in Kingsland, Arkansas, and raised in Dyess, Arkansas). Cash was given the name "J.R." because his parents could not agree on a name, only on initials. When he enlisted in the United States Air Force, the military would not accept initials as his name, so he adopted John R. Cash as his legal name. In 1955, when signing with Sun Records, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name. Cash was one of seven children: Jack, Joanne, Louise, Reba, Roy, and Tommy. His younger brother, Tommy Cash, also became a successful country artist. In 1954, Cash moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him that gospel was unmarketable. It was once rumored that Phillips told Cash to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell," though Cash refuted that Phillips made any such comment in a 2002 interview. Cash eventually won over the producer with new songs delivered in his early frenetic style. His first recordings at Sun, "Hey Porter" and "Cry Cry Cry", were released in 1955 and met with reasonable success on the country hit parade. Cash's next record, "Folsom Prison Blues", made the country Top 5, and "I Walk the Line" became No. 1 on the country charts and entered the pop charts Top 20. Following "I Walk the Line" was "Home of the Blues", recorded in July 1957.

Carl Perkins, ( Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998) was an American rockabilly musician who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee beginning during 1954. His best known song is "Blue Suede Shoes". Carl Perkin’s songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkin’s sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed. Perkin’s songs were recorded by artists (and friends) as influential as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Johnny Cash, which further cemented his place in the history of popular music. Luther Perkins, (Luther Monroe Perkins (January 8, 1928 – August 5, 1968) was an American country music guitarist renowned for his work as a member of the Tennessee Three with Johnny Cash and their "boom-chicka" rhythmic style.

Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis were smoking for about an hour while exchanging musical ideas. The front door opened and into the reception area came the old straight laced beat cop. I was cleaning the storefront windows. He asked if Sam was around and I told him I'd check. When I told the guys he was here they went into panic mode running wildly around the room waving magazines trying to thin the smoke clouds, while Elvis ran out the back door saying his Mama would whoop the shit out of him if he got pinched. They were like keystone cops knocking each other down and then tripping over each other trying to get out the back door. They jammed up in the doorway as the cop came in the music room. I wish I had a picture of their faces when they turned around and saw the cop standing there with the evidence all around. Then the old guy sneezed and pulled a hanky out of his back pocket and blew his nose. A nose I had always thought was red from hitting the bars all day on patrol. It turned out, in this case, that he had a bad cold and when he saw Sam wasn't there he turned around to walk out exclaiming "Smoking will kill you boys". I said "Your right Officer it's a terrible habit, have a good day"

When it came to girls hanging around the studio there was no question that Elvis’s friends would spread the word that Elvis would be in town, at Sun, and they would come running down. Many of them he apparently knew for a long time, like Caroline Ballard who was a minister's daughter. She would come to see him from East Tupelo once in a while. He used to introduce her as his first girlfriend “ever“. Then there was Eloise Bedford and Betty Mc Mann, very sweet and down to earth. Elvis wouldn’t stutter around them and he would drop his half Marlon Brando half James Dean swagger and speech mannerisms when he interacted with them. He seemed normal. There was also some very sexy off and on again local girls like Dotty Harmony, Barbara Hearn, Dixie Locke and most of all the girl who he wanted to marry early on, Anita Wood. She was a Disc Jockey at WHHM Radio. She was gorgeous, but I never understood why he referred to her as "Little Beadie" but then everyone referred to him as "Jimmy Sideburns ". He obviously felt at ease with them and trusted them. In time I would have the same effect on him, almost like I was his little brother. He apparently lost a brother at birth and ended up a lone child. When he was naturally relaxed he was very charming and witty. Although he would have lasted about a New York minute in Hell's Kitchen and met the Morgue Man very quickly. He just wasn’t tough enough to survive and he didn’t. I once showed him my stiletto (switchblade knife) and gave him an example of how you used it in a knife fight. Sometime later I saw him use my moves in "King Creole". He had a problem understanding how to keep time when strumming a guitar and one day I put down my broom and said try it this way. I was amazed when he said he didn't realize you could strum both up and down in the same measure. He would only change direction after each measure.

 Only Roy and Scotty were great guitar players and could play professionally. After that exchange he said I was apparently a smart "Kid" and referred to me as such whenever he mentioned me to anyone. Johnny Cash started doing it too. So whenever anyone wanted a coffee and donut run they'd yell out “What's the Kid doing right now” and off I would be sent. Johnny was having a problem with Luther's electric guitar. He couldn’t hold down all the strings with a bar chord mid neck. He asked me to take it to a guitar shop and have it fixed. He gave me five bucks to pay for the work. I waited until he left and then I removed the strings and carefully cleaned and lightly shaved the frets with a fine file I had in my guitar kit. I replaced his strings with a new set of # 9s, lowered and angled the bridge low "E" to high "E" and tuned it at the first fret and harmonically at the twelfth fret. I finished by polishing the whole guitar. When he came back the next day and played the guitar he was ecstatic with it and started bringing other guitars in for me to take to the fictitious guitar shop. Soon many local pickers were dropping off their guitars to be worked on by my phantom repair shop. My overhead was $.49 per set of strings plus my labor. I made $4.51 profit per guitar and found a new source of revenue.

I eventually went to see Alex at Troy's Guitar Shop and offered to bring my customers there to do my work. Many guitars needed special work and I didn't have the tools to fix them. He agreed and I gave him 25% of my profit and worked twelve hours a day Saturday and Sunday on my customer's guitars and the walk in customers. I built up a great reputation in the Memphis Picker's Circle and eventually I pulled down good money by also giving guitar lessons in the evenings at the shop. I was now making $450.00 a month cash, plus Sam’s pay, no taxes. I went to Lansky's where Elvis bought his clothes and purchased a complete outfit in black leather, replete with pointed toe boots and a pair of Black Aviator Style Sun Glasses. Roy Orbison liked my look but more for concealment purposes. The concept of Nate Jaeger and The Rock n’ Roll Express was born that day. Now to find some cool band members who wanted to do music other then "Calling In The Cows" Bluegrass or "Drank Myself Drunk Cause I Lost My girl" Country songs. It felt like it was time after six months here in Hick Town. Sam heard about my guitar work and by now he had heard me play a lot around the studio. He asked me if there was any genre or style I couldn't play and of course the answer was no. When a band was absent a player or somebody just didn't show I would review the lead sheets or the piano guy would play the song for me and I would improvise the rest. Sam would still get the session and I would get paid extra. I, of course, was working up to him recording me with an original Rock n' Roll song.

Sam approached me one afternoon in the first part of June 1955 and asked if I wanted to move up in the company to the position of Tour Manager. It would consist of setting up all equipment, maintaining the instruments, doing the sound check, fueling and maintaining the cars, checking into the Motels and moving baggage etc. In other words “Head Gopher”. I would be his eyes and ears on the tour. Most important I was to report immediately any contact by "The Colonel " with Elvis and report what Johnny was doing with the booze and pills. I told him I had a good business going with the guitar shop, but that I needed his job for room and board. He said he was hiring a black man to do my studio job so that job would be over anyway. I asked him if he could keep me at $450.00 a month and provide me housing when I returned from the Tour? If so I would do it. He said it would be a lot harder work then I imagined and that it was $850.00 a month during the Tour and $450.00 when I returned. I could then start as a session man. I had to pay for my own room and meals out of my salary. I could also continue the guitar repair work when I returned. Then he said the big word. "If all goes well, when your back we'll look at a couple of songs Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup was writing for Elvis. “Elvis feels he's done enough of the high energy stuff“ and isn‘t interested.

Of course the song that started Rock and Roll was his creation and no one ever paid him a dime. I have to introduce him to you as an example of greatness. Born in Forest, Mississippi and living and working throughout the South and Midwest as a migrant worker for a time, he and his family came to Mississippi in 1926. He sang gospel, then began his career as a blues singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi. He visited Chicago as a member of the Harmonizing Four in 1939 and stayed there to work as a solo musician, but barely made a living as a street singer. Record producer Lester Melrose found him while he was living in a packing crate, introduced him to Tampa Red and signed him to a recording contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label. He toured throughout the country, specifically black establishments in the South, with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James (around 1948). He also recorded under the names Elmer James and Percy Lee Crudup. He was popular in the South with records such as "Mean Old Frisco Blues", "Who's Been Foolin' You" and the now legendary "That's All Right Mama".

Later, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, while he lived in relative poverty as a field laborer, he occasionally sang and supplied moonshine to a number of drinking establishments, including one called the Dew Drop Inn. This was his occupation prior to his death from complications of heart disease and diabetes. On a 1970 trip to the UK he recorded Roebuck Man with local musicians. His last professional engagements were with Bonnie Raitt. It would have been an honor to record one of his songs and the possibility made me accept Sam's proposition.

 I was really jazzed about the possibilities of having a hit record of my own and bringing Desirae to Memphis. So I started getting everything ready for the "Tour", and I use the term lightly, since it would probably be like the prior tours I heard about from others. A little music, lots of booze, broads and pills while driving all night from town to town to make the dates. We packed up the cars and piled in on June 14, 1955 and headed for Tupelo, Mississippi. It was a huge crowd of screaming and shrieking females chanting Elvis, Elvis, Elvis. I started to think that maybe I had underestimated this fellow named Elvis. Our next stop was Gobler, Missouri and Elvis's parents wanted to meet us there but " The Colonel " nixed it and I think that was a good idea. After the shows it was a steady stream of women in and out of Elvis's motel room all night long not to mention the other guys. I asked Red West if the guys were being careful and he said "Only Wussys wear crash helmets for nuts driving hot rods". That would come back to haunt Elvis with Lucy DeBarbin, Barbara Jean Lewis, Patricia Ann Parker, Terri Taylor and Barbara Young to name a few that I learned of through the grape vine. Bob Neal and " The Colonel " met us at the Big D Jamboree show at the KRLD Radio Station and I reported everything immediately to Sam. Country singers Martha Carson, Anita Carter and June Carter were also there. Elvis dated Anita for a while until she caught him with two girls at her sister's house "Jay Bird Naked" in June's bed.

They had broken in to eat and sleep. We performed at the Sportatorium in Dallas and then on to Magnolia Gardens in Houston where the boys got into a fight at the motel over another tenant's wife. We then hit Beaumont, Texas then on to Vernon, Texas, Lawton, Oklahoma, Altus and Biloxi, Mississippi. It was in Biloxi that I met Marty Robbins, a real guitar player who could read and write music. We played all day together when he wasn't backing Elvis. We started singing together and he told me if I ever needed a performance partner when I came of age he'd be more then glad to add me to his show. We played the NCO Club at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi and the Radio Ranch Club in Mobile, Alabama. Next Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the Hayride Show. We drove back and did a radio show on Keys Radio in Corpus Cristi, Texas and The City Recreational Building in Stepenville, Texas. It was on to Odessa, Texas, The Field Artillery Armory, Tampa, Florida, Orlando, Florida, Jacksonville, the Gater Bowl, Daytona and on to Sheffield, Alabama and finally ending up in Tupelo. We finished at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis. By now I had learned to drive and was able to get a driver’s license back in Memphis. I needed to buy my own car, and then maybe I could drive up to New York and bring Desirae back with me. You could marry at 16 in Memphis. Again I use the term "Tour" lightly. I'm referring to the truck stop appearances being made for $400.00 to $600.00 a show. Bob Neal and “The Colonel " took most of the money as Talent Managers. Sam was paying me and that came from traveling record sale profits of Elvis, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis to name a few.

When I talk about record sale profits I am referring to local popularity in the South where the live shows were performed. Radio Stations would, for a little brown envelope with cash, do Sam a favor and promote his artists. An example would be the sale of a new record of about 20,000 units from Memphis to Houston in a thirty day period. They were dropped off at radio stations and record shops all along the route with a return, stamped envelope for payment. That was also part of my job since I seemed to do real good with math as I had for my "Capo" in New York. The pressed records were now small 45 rpm discs that didn't break when you dropped them so the boys and shops couldn't keep a little extra cash by claiming breakage. Cost per disc was about $0.16 X 20,000 or $3200.00 and $.49 a disc retail would be $9800.00 gross. A profit of $6,600.00 gross less Record Shop revenue of $.20 a record. This left the recording company with $2200.00 or so. Warren Smith who was the original designated "ELVIS" persona for Sam sold 65,000 records in a very short time before I arrived with "Rock n' Roll Ruby". That's a big pay day and a real incentive to have the most successful small recording studio in the country handle you. Being right in the center of the musical storm was a real chance for stardom as we can see with Elvis. He would have burned out and gone back to driving an Electrical Truck had it not been for Tom Parker aka “The Colonel “purchasing his contract from Sam for an unsuspecting RCA.

Elvis was the last in a long line of men Sam tried to mold into the "Elvis" image created long before Elvis came along. My count was about eleven. Those who could sing and play guitar but were homely. Those that were handsome but didn't sing well or play well and those like Warren Smith who could do both and were good looking. Warren Smith was the one everyone up North at RCA was interested in around late 1955. For the young people here in 2010 it should be stated that in 1955 there were few personally owned cameras, no video cameras, no computers, no email to send photos, no wide spread Television transmission and no cell phones. You could be a huge star in a geographical location and people wouldn't know what you really looked like unless they saw you in person or in a bad black and white photo in the local paper. Most papers wouldn't even acknowledge a sinful "Rock n' Roll" antisocial and lose their local advertising revenue. Your record radio play sold you and no one could see you on a radio. That's how Elvis got to RCA and why Sam sold him for $35,000 to RCA through “The Colonel “sight unseen. Elvis's "That's Alright Mama", his appearance and his singing and playing skills would never be good enough to draw RCA's direct attention then or now and both of them were right there in Memphis. In the beginning Elvis looked odd, performed oddly and wasn't all that talented, maybe that's why you never hear about his guitar skills or vocal teachers or any reference to his training with the exception of that old and tired story about his mother seeing a $12.00 guitar in a Pawn Shop Window, buying it, and launching his career.

That's really nonsense, believe me, a $12.00 guitar is good for one thing only, a fly swatter. You couldn't keep it in tune between strums and it would be a source of so much frustration that you would quit playing in ten minutes. There goes the Rock n’ Roll career and fast. The major part of my success came from the finest teachers, guitars, violins, and pianos Juilliard had to offer and I spent 8-16 hours a day utilizing that opportunity. Music and the sound I heard on that little radio tied to the window frame in New York was going to be my ticket to having the girl of my dreams and all the beautiful things I was going to buy her. When I looked around me I realized that although Hell's Kitchen presented me with a life of imprisonment, Memphis, with its sense of freedom, still existed in a bubble of Country Twang Music and the new sound was as close as it could get to being aborted. I had to get a score on the board as soon as possible. Although I was young, there had appeared at the time magazines promoting teen heart throbs most of which were young actors and East Coast singers my age. So the age issue was fading except for the ability to perform in bars or a venue that served alcohol. The spots that we played on this last tour were either open air venues or high school auditoriums and the audiences were as young as me. Now was the time to approach Sam about moving up front and performing on his tours. The question would be how would the others feel about more competition and losing another share of the pie. I had to convince Sam and them that I could increase revenue for everyone.

Sam still hadn't found the person he was looking for as his "Total" package. Warren was perfect but he wouldn't take orders from Sam after his big hit and he wanted to go in reverse as far as song selection. Sam needed to promote what is termed today as Rockabilly or as we called it back then Rock n' Roll. The money was in satisfying the teenagers. The Search for "The Elvis" or Warren’s Replacement was Sam’s goal. Warren Smith (the original Elvis personality created by Sam Phillips) February 5, 1956. Phillips, who was hedging his bets over whether rock and roll would maintain its popularity, released that record with a country crooner, aptly named "I'd Rather Be Safe Than Sorry", on the flip side. By May 26, "Rock & Roll Ruby" had hit No. 1 on the local pop charts. Smith's first record for Sun went on to outsell the first Sun releases by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. Carl Mann was raised in rural Tennessee; his parents owned a lumber business. He sang in church and did country songs for local talent shows, playing guitar and piano. In 1955, he released his first single on Jaxon Records, "Gonna Rock and Roll Tonight" b/w "Rockin' Love." Several further singles on Jaxon followed, after which Carl Perkins' drummer, W.S. Holland, became Mann's manager, signing him to Sun Records. Sun owner Sam Phillips signed Mann to a three-year contract, and soon after Sun released Mann's rockabilly version of Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa." Mann and Conway Twitty both released single versions of the tune at the same time, and both charted; it was sixteen-year-old Mann's first hit. Johnny Burgess (born Albert Austin) on May 28, 1931, on a farm near Newport, Arkansas to Albert and Esta Burgess) is an American rockabilly guitarist and singer. In the early 1950s, Burgess played boogie woogie music in dance halls and bars around Newport. Burgess, Kern Kennedy, Johnny Ray Hubbard, and Gerald Jackson formed a boogie-woogie band they called the Rocky Road Ramblers. In 1954, following a stint in the US Army (1951–53), Burgess re-formed the band, calling them the Moonlighters after the Silver Moon Club in Newport, where they performed regularly. After advice from record producer Sam Phillips, the group expanded to form the Pacers. The band's first record was "We Wanna Boogie" in 1956 for Sun Records, in Memphis, about 80 miles southeast of his birthplace. The flip side was "Red Headed Woman." Both were written by Burgess. The songs have been described as "among the most raucous, energy-filled recordings released during the first flowering of rock and roll."

Sam recorded just about every black or white artist he could find. It was like he was on a mission to document all the original music ever played or sung in the south. He was always looking for a handsome white boy who played guitar and was uninhibited enough to withstand the cat calls he would receive if he sang and moved with the raucous black music (Race Music). The term itself, Rock n' Roll, was a black term used to describe the sex act between a man and a woman, pure and simple. Everyone knew it and that made the music described by that term a "filthy sound" produced by black artists only. Sam knew that white kids loved the back beat and it gave them music of their own and they didn't, for the most part, have the same ingrained racial attitude that their parents had learned from their parents. Sam had a vision and he auditioned a lot of local white boys and asked all the booking agents to send any talented prospects to see him with a promise of a free recording session. Most of the searching had been done by the time I got to Memphis and Sam was about to give up since he now had a pretty good stable of revenue producing acts. Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich and others. Elvis made Sam good money but you never knew how he would be received from one show to another.

 At many of the shows I watched, Elvis was received poorly after Roy Orbison or Jerry Lee Lewis played. I remember at one show after his first song the crowd just stood there staring at him until one teenage boy yelled out "What the Fuck was that". Elvis came to the edge of the stage in his purple coat, green shirt, yellow pants, white bucks and western tie and yelled out "I'm singing Rock n' Roll boy, have you heard of it?" and the guy yelled back "I heard you and it sounds like shit to me". Elvis took his guitar and strap off of his shoulders and beckoned to Scotty to take it from him. Johnny Cash ran up and started getting between Elvis and the kid as the other guys in the audience yelled things like "The Sissy’s going to fist city" and the girls started pulling back on their boyfriend’s arms. Johnny took Elvis off stage as the band started playing again and things got back to normal. That happened because, I believe, Elvis was insecure and couldn't turn it around by changing up his performance with, say, a great guitar solo or something extraordinary like a Roy Orbison vocal.

Anyway Sam had overhead and he needed an infusion of cash to help him produce and promote the proven talented people at the studio. He continued to see new talent and would send them out to view the successful entertainers. These were the ones that were close to what he was looking for, but most returned and simply imitated Warren or the others. Lots of guys came in with the "Tony Curtis" pompadour that originated from the movie "Seven Bridges to Cross" with George Nader, introducing Tony Curtis. It became the Rock n' Roll hairdo in1951 and absolutely every Rock n' Roll hopeful started off with the hair. Then the Short Jacket ( James Dean), then the White T-Shirt (Marlon Brando), then the Pegged pants (Jackie Wilson) and finishing with White Buck shoes (which came from Pat Boone in 1955) or Blue Suede shoes which came from Carl Perkins. Perkins was another great singer and picker from Sun Records who was there from the start. He was like Chuck Berry, just too old to be really cool. So just imagine sitting in the reception area of Sun Records day after day and having all these young guys showing up looking like clones with Southern drawls and guitars slung over their shoulders announcing " I think I'm the guy Sam's looking for".

Well when Marion wasn't there guess who had to audition them before Sam would see them? Most had the look and it was perfect, but when they started to sing or play or both, you, after a while, would need a stiff drink. Even Elvis was basically better than the ones I saw and I had no intention of letting them through and getting my ass chewed and Sam could deliver a sound ass chewing. While doing my job I had to contend with "The Colonel” sniffing around to see if Sam had made any inroads into discovering the next Eddie Arnold, Hank Williams or Warren Smith. I kind of got the feeling something would be happening soon with “The Colonel” and Elvis. On August 15, 1955 Elvis signed a contract with "The Colonel" giving him the right to manage his career. Sam didn't care since he didn't see Elvis as the answer to his money woes unless he could get a few bucks from a sale of Elvis's popular recordings or some tour money from the Colonel. Bob Neal still had a piece of Elvis for one more year and got the lion‘s share. Elvis had little value. No one including disc jockey Bill Randle, who had replaced Alan Freed in Cleveland, would play Elvis's music North of the Mason Dixon Line.

In order to get any interest from the major labels you had to get play time, and plenty of it outside of the South. Northern disc jockeys required a much fatter brown envelope with cash to play unknowns in the record market up North. The only one to make it out of the box from the South was also managed by the Colonel. Tommy Sands, he was a Northerner and he looked like the rest of us and had a great voice. “The Colonel “got him a singing contract with RCA when he was fifteen years old. So it could be done." The Colonel " knew Elvis, above all else, wanted to be a Great and admired actor like Rudolph Valentino and Marlon Brando. So he promised him that he would make that dream come true if Elvis signed with him and cut Sam and Bob Neal out. Elvis was never very loyal as was demonstrated with his unfair conduct in paying Scotty, Bill and D.J. for their tremendous musical support they gave him. That included all the practice work they did outside the studio just to help Elvis pass his audition with Sam in the beginning. Elvis traveled north to demonstrate his talent to Cleveland's Bill Randle at the Circle Theater and Bill coined the term "The Hillbilly Cat" which infuriated Elvis. The truth was Bill hit it right on the head. I noticed that Elvis was starting to lose his stage fright and seemed to be calmer, more humorous and confident. He needed to learn how to take criticism and it was hard because his abilities were limited at that time and he was doing the best he could, and he knew it. What goes around comes around and “The Colonel " was just as back handed.” The Colonel “was asked to produce Elvis in New York for the lead role in Kraft Television Theater's production of a show called "Sing, Boy Sing" loosely based on Al Jolson's 1930's film. I remember “The Colonel “in the office one day discussing it with Sam using reverse psychology and trying to work out a cut of Sam's side of the deal. He told Sam that Elvis was too much of an "Okie” to play the role of a Jewish Boy successfully. Sam didn't take the bait and wouldn't release Elvis so Tommy got the role and “The Colonel " already owned him.” The Colonel “never told Elvis how he cut him out of his first "Movie Star Role" but instead sent Tommy Sands up North to take the part. Joe Allison wrote the show's composition called "Teenage Crush" and it went over big with the young audiences. It was released as a 45 rpm single by Capitol Records, it sold millions in days.

Shortly after, Elvis and "The Blue Moon Boys" tried out for Arthur Geoffrey's "Talent Scout" show just to show everybody he was better. The producers showed him the back door. Elvis came back to find his parents had been served an eviction notice and he just gave up. Nobody had sympathy for him. I felt sorry for him because I had always told him that you have to be good to people on your way up, because you never know who you'll need help from on the way down. He always laughed and said "I'm never gonna come down". Well “The Colonel” got an offer for the contract of the singer of the song “Rock n' Roll Ruby", sight unseen, simply by saying he was handsome and a talented performer. Decca Records offered $25,000.00 and RCA $45,000.00. “The Colonel " had two problems. Sam had no control over Warren Smith, who performed the song, which " The Colonel " didn't know and Sam still had a piece of Elvis and the right to everything he had recorded. Sadly Sam could have gotten more money for Elvis but he had reused the master tapes that contained many songs that were never recovered before he reused the tapes. That’s how much faith Sam had in Elvis’s future. Again Sam's credit had run out with the record pressing plant and he needed cash to pay for the records for the growing sales of his other artists. Finally “The Colonel " got his way and gave Sam $35,000 via RCA for Elvis's contract and all the existing Masters. He didn't tell Sam he kept the other $10,000 for himself which was a whopping 25% for nothing.

 It was rumored that Elvis got $5000.00. Elvis got nothing for the deal except a promise from “The Colonel " of a film career and the privilege of giving the RCA executives virtual heart attacks. I assume that Elvis walked through the doors in New York wearing his traditional wild rainbow colored clothing, greasy hair, acne, chipped tooth and crooked nose. I have to say that I wish I had been there that day to see the RCA people at that moment. RCA never did business with “The Colonel” on any other discovery of “The Colonel’s “again, but as it turned out it wasn't necessary. At last Elvis had unlimited resources to invent an image palatable to the more traditional American audience. Sam’s original idea would be born at RCA. Now if I played it right someone would have to replace him on the upcoming tours and I was going to beg Sam for a chance. I was soon to be 16 and was now six feet tall and had gained some flattering weight. After all I had been collecting Lansky performance costumes for two months. Sam came in that Saturday with a smile on his face and said he was on a roll. Everyone has been led to believe that Sam, later on in life, regretted that he sold Elvis. The truth was Sam didn't see any chance of Elvis taking music serious for its own sake. Instead Elvis would just continue to jump around pretending to play guitar and yelling off key to get the attention of young girls. Once he achieved that he was basically useless. Sam was going to let him go as soon as his songs stopped selling. No one seems to realize that Elvis did not write songs that had a distinctive and unique sound as did Roy Orbison or Jerry Lee Lewis. He sang remakes, covers, Old Country and Blue Grass songs. The sales would dissipate quickly soon after his appearances. It wouldn't be until twenty years later that we would all make a fortune doing covers.

So Sam never regretted his decision and he later made several million off the other performers. He actually was happy that he didn't have to break Elvis's mother's heart by releasing him. He didn’t know that the worry over Elvis's life style would drive her into the grave early anyway. I asked Sam if I could audition and he said yes. We made an appointment for Sunday. I got decked out in my leathers and the boys came in to set up. I had given them the arrangements earlier in the week. There were two guitarists plus me, and my 1952 Telecaster (Broadcaster) by Fender. There were drums and piano with a stand up base. Sam said he was short on tape but would record us and we would get a couple of takes of each song. Earlier that week two song writers, Lincoln Wayne "Chips" Moman and David S. Gillam had dropped off a couple of new songs for Elvis called "A Teenager's Romance" and "This Time". They said they were a little more middle of the road then Elvis’s Rockabilly work. They obviously didn't know Elvis was gone and history. Phil Medley dropped off “A Million To One” and another famous writer Hal David dropped off “My Heart Is An Open Book”. Everyone wanted a piece of the new teen music. The news hadn't hit the street yet and RCA wasn't saying a word, because they were just licking their wounds and fearing pink slips.

We had worked on the arrangements all week and rehearsed for hours. I was ready and knocked them both out in two takes. Sam said they were so good he was going mix and master them that afternoon. I didn't ask him if it was going to be alright with the writers, since they were expecting Elvis to record the songs and make them wealthy. I also didn't ask him if he was going to "Press them" either. I just listened to them, packed up my gear, thanked him and left. I did notice that he was playing them over and over looking for "Clunkers" and I knew there were none. I told the guys that if anything happened with our work, I would give them 50% of my royalties. It wasn't a matter of me being a bleeding heart nice guy; it was just good sense to keep the guys who helped create my sound around in case I needed to repeat the performance in front of a live audience if ever there was one. The first lesson I learned from “The Colonel ", Bob Neal and Sam was that the "Music Business" was just that, a business and all that counted was "Cash In Hand" period.

 I had no interest in groupies, chasing skirts, smoking dope or fast cars. Just the cash and the next pay day. I knew Sam was amazed with me and was thinking pay day too. We had a major meeting and Elvis’s boys decided that they would move North with Elvis and back him on his media events. That meant it would prevent them from backing up a new Tour after the first of the year of 1956. They didn’t know it but Elvis and “The Colonel “intended to pay them $200.00 per appearance with Elvis and that included the major television shows for two years. It was rumored that Elvis had a written agreement on a Taylor’s Restaurant napkin that called for "The Colonel” to get 51% of all profits before taxes and Elvis would get 49% of all profits after costs and taxes. If true, that was a slick deal for "The Colonel". Elvis never asked "The Colonel" how much money was made on appearances Elvis made from 1956 through 1958 when he went into the Army. Elvis needed "The Colonel" and never questioned him on anything, even when he made Elvis break up with Dixie Locke. I personally was glad to see all of them gone and it made room for others and their careers. To me it was phony. There is always Professional Jealousy and I was not above it then. Sam wanted to start up a new tour but he was four musicians short and no front man that could draw the crowds, especially the girls. I stepped up and volunteered saying that Elvis sang nothing but popular Country songs and it was just a matter of going out and doing the same show he did. Elvis will be tied up for a long time with RCA, getting plastic surgery and recording non country songs. Boy was I wrong. Now’s a chance for us to build a new following from the same people, especially the girls.

We can hit all the same spots along the Southern Belt from Nashville to Texas. Sam wasn’t sure, so he went home to think about it. He asked me to take four new Sun records over to George Klein. I had to make this happen so I printed my two songs off on a reel to reel tape and took them over to George Kline along with Sam’s records. I told him my tape recording was Sam’s new front man. George took the bait and promised to play them when he could fit them into the show’s format. I told him Sam was out of town so he wouldn’t be able to report back on the listener response but that I would be at the studio and he could call me. I took off and got myself set up to answer the phone during the evening show. Sam guarded his reputation and if the songs flopped and George chided him he would quickly figure out what I did. If they had a good response he would still kick my ass. Anyway I called Desirae and told her and she was angry with me for taking the risk. So we waited out the night, with me calling her intermittently to let her hear the audience calls in response to George’s show playing my songs. Well it was astounding, girls wanted to know if it was Elvis and when George said no, they demanded to know who it was and George really didn’t know. At about midnight the station was playing both songs in succession over and over again. Finally George couldn’t take the harassment and without me knowing, called Sam at home and put him on the air. Sam was very shrewd, remained calm and asked to hear them several times, great ploy, then he quietly stated that I was not Elvis but instead his new musical secret weapon for the 1956 Tour. He told the fans that the new artist would give a free concert at the Fairgrounds Saturday night and that the record would be on sale on site. Then he said he would certainly talk to the artist about it tonight.

Desirae and I both said ooh, ooh. I hung up and waited for Sam. He called and simply said to enjoy every breath I took tonight. I broke out my pint of Southern Comfort and waited for the morning. Surprisingly when he came in he wasn’t mad at all and got busy writing up an agreement between the two of us. He knew I was sixteen but said it would be a gentlemen’s agreement. I didn’t care because my shot had come just one year after I got here. I told him I had a band picked out and that they were as good as me. He said we would split 50/50 and he would pay the costs up front from his share. The record shops in town were already calling for product and the following day every radio station that had played Elvis, willingly, were now playing “A Teenagers Romance” and “This Time” nonstop. It appeared that we would start the tour with several hits to sell. Sam immediately handed me a stack of songs, some new and some old covers and I picked out Fats Dominoes “I Hear You Knocking” and one of mine “Boogie Girl”. The next day we recorded. I still ended up packing the cars and was still in charge of the instruments and all of the logistics. I was doing double duty. Lansky’s gave me a charge account and that made it possible for all of us to be decked out to the nines for the whole tour.

We rehearsed up until late Friday night. We had 500 45 rpm records to sell at the fairgrounds and we were scared to death that we would let Sam down, not that we wouldn’t perform well, only that we might not be accepted absent Elvis. We formed a circle and said a prayer, as country boys do, from time to time before you go on stage. Nonsense! Tommy the bassist looked out and said there were girls as far as you could see and that they were listening to us on George’s Radio Station. That was a nice touch that Sam arranged. The guys went out and got situated, tested their instruments and started right in with a high energy version of “That’s Alright Mama” and I came out in my Pompadour Hairdo, black leather jacket, black t-shirt, black leather pants, black Telecaster (Broadcaster) and of course my traditional black sunglasses. The girls roared in approval, in that we paid a tribute to Elvis. We followed up with another high energy song “Just Because”. I am so glad that Sam set up his new Wollensach miniature reel to reel tape recorder and ran the mini mike and cord up the microphone stand because I still have a fabulous copy of that show. Once we had them warmed up I let loose with “I Hear Ya Knocking” but not Fats Dominoes’ version. I had taken the song and straightened out the melody line and fired it off in a style that would someday be called Blues Rock. I used a real bluesy slide guitar sound and did a long solo. I made it a very angry song. I then went into “Boogie Girl”. When I finished the girls had stopped screaming and just stood there looking at me so I went right into the opening notes for “This Time”. When I finished and started “Teenager’s Romance” I had them eating out of my hand again.

 In a live performance things can go South quick. We had one hundred records left at the end of the show and the parents loved my ballads. I had redeemed myself. Sam told me I couldn’t sing those middle two songs again because they were too much like Chicago Urban Blues and people down here aren’t sophisticated enough to understand them. I agreed and stayed with the Rockabilly and Love ballads. Based on the popularity of Elvis with the Radio Stations in the South we had no problem getting air time before we arrived. Some even billed me as “Elvis’s Little Brother” which didn’t thrill me, but my 50% was up to $800.00 dollars now and we hadn’t yet begun. I started covering “Johnny B. Goode” which Chuck Berry was doing everywhere but he hadn’t recorded it yet. He had submitted it to Sam as a song writer. It was very popular and I turned it into a double solo guitar performance. I was able to record the next show with Sam’s recorder. Sam wanted to have the Radio Stations play our live performances on the air to get people interested in coming to see us for an exciting musical outing. Television Stations did not have portable cameras or use broadcasting capabilities for “Nobodies” in those days and the TV stations wouldn’t waste 16 mm film on unknowns. So audio was all you could get but it worked well. You just had to keep them screaming and you had to stay close to the microphone.

 I think Sam invented the Live Concert Broadcast first. Well every town down the line would call ahead to book us and we just traveled in a straight line to Texas. Every morning I would wake up and have no idea what town we were in that day. I stopped saying “Hello Such and Such Town” at the shows. Sam actually hired an eighteen year old kid with an old crop duster to fly our 45 records out to wherever we were performing and we would go to this farm or the other to meet him and pick them up. We started in Nashville and then ( not in order) New Orleans, Municipal Auditorium in Texarkana, Ark., The Sportatorium in Dallas, Tex., Bono, Ark., Siketon, Missouri, Clarksdale, Mississippi, City Auditorium in Norfolk, Virginia, Ashville, North Carolina, Wilson, North Carolina, Richman, Virginia, Kingsport, Tennessee, Wichita, Kansas, Conroe, Texas, Austin, Texas, Abilene, Midland, Amarillo and Odessa. We finished up at the Cotton Club in Lubbock, Texas where I met Buddy Holly and The Three Tunes and his friend Mac Davis. Now Mac Davis was fourteen and a junior at Lubbock High School and during vacation time had followed Buddy Holly around town helping to set up his local performances. He was always dragging around his Song Notebook and guitar. Elvis was performing there and in Houston for RCA and then would return to Memphis to record “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” for RCA. Elvis had a hotel room in the next complex. He had a pink and white Cadillac parked out front. One night we were all in Elvis’s Motel room singing and playing when Mac said he had some great songs for Elvis. Everybody laughed and said “How good can a fourteen year old write with no life experience? Anyway he played and sang his songs after which everybody, but me, said they were lame and not Rock n’ Roll or Country. Again, a lot of talent got overlooked and lost that night. Some of the songs Elvis turned down were "In the Ghetto”, "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me", "One Hell of a Woman", "Stop and Smell the Roses", "A Little Less Conversation", "Don't Cry Daddy", "I Believe In Music" , "It's Hard To Be Humble" ,"Let's Keep It That Way" , "Texas In My Rear View Mirror", ” Memories”, "Hooked on Music" and "I Never Made Love (Till I Made Love With You)". You get the picture!

There was a guy hanging around that was still upset that Elvis wouldn’t sign a contract with him and he pursued us for the three days we were there. Buddy Holly was essentially a Country singer and he had no idea of how to produce a Rock n’ Roll tune. While in Lubbock, Eddie Crandell also chased us around and I recommended that he sign Buddy. He did and I heard later that Buddy recorded some Rock n’ Roll, but it was so disastrous that Decca Records never released the recordings. We were still there when Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Floyd Cramer and Web Pierce came on the bill with us and it was an unbelievable show. I couldn’t record it because I was out of tape. Web told me my success would be short lived because RCA was about to release some new Elvis work and “I think he’ll put us all out of business” I called Elvis (48-4921) at his rented house on Getwell Street in Memphis and his mother answered and confirmed that some big things were in the works including a spot on the Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan Shows and that Elvis was given a new Johnny Ray song to sing. Johnny had rejected it. I didn’t know what that meant yet but it was unsettling.

So back to work playing the shows and hitting the Radio Stations and Record Shops. Sam got us another 500 45 rpm’s just before we appeared at the Saddle Club in Bryan, Texas. It was there that I met Cy Cooper. He said he loved “Boogie Girl” and “I Hear Ya Knocking” and if I ever got “Unhappy” doing Rockabilly and came to Los Angeles, he was sure he could promote me and my style of music as well as place me in the studios as a studio guitarist. He thought that the “Rockabilly Sound” was about to get replaced with Rock n’ Roll, a “Northern White Teenager” genre. In his mind, nothing stayed static in the music business for long and Elvis had Rockabilly music all tied up with RCA. I kept his card. I had learned long ago to keep my eye on the ball. It was a good feeling to get back to Memphis and record some new music. Sam had found new talent and for a week or so I played backup for Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. Eddie Cochran had gone out on his own and Hank Cochran started a serious career in song writing. They had toured as the Cochran Brothers but were not related. Eddie was very talented but only stood about 5’7” with Blonde Hair and looked like a cross between Elvis and Alan Ladd. He wrote his own songs and the genre was strictly Rockabilly. The rest of his performances were old country and covers of recent successful songs on the top 100 list. He had a great sense of physical rhythm and a splendid personality for an eighteen year old. He was the absolute professional when it came to preparation for recording. He had a very natural sex appeal without pretense.

Gene Vincent on the other hand had a beautiful recording voice but no stage presence and he was always scared to death to perform publicly. He had a lead/rhythm guitarist and a base player who where the epitome of professionalism on stage. His big hits were “Summertime Blues”, “Sitting In The Balcony” and “Twenty Flight Rock”. The lead/rhythm player was, in my opinion, the Jerry Lee Lewis of Guitar. He was a good old boy who would knock them dead with his lead work. Gene had a bad leg from a motorcycle accident he had on leave in Japan while serving in Korea. He was so nervous that he would constantly stare at the ceiling during live performances and spread his legs out to accommodate his hidden disability. Every once in a while I would see him wearing a steel leg brace. His biggest hit was “Be Bop A Lula”, a song he wrote on the train to the West Coast in 55’ for the Capitol Records Band Contest. His song “Woman Love” was on the flip side when we recorded it. That song got him tried “in absence” in West Virginia for obscenity because he slurred the words “Hugging and a loving“ to “Hucking and a lovin” Six months in jail and a $10,000 dollar fine. On tour, when he was asleep in the back seat I would yell” Wow! Look at that sign, “Welcome to West Virginia”. He would wake up screaming “Stop! Stop! Stop“! “Don’t cross the state line or I’ll go to jail“. When we traveled around California in 58’ to do The Town Hall Shows in Compton, I could still pull the same prank. Eddie Cochran and I were going to form a band after he came back from England on a tour with Gene. I turned down an offer to go along as a rhythm/lead guitarist in 1960 because of my marginal success at the time and I was attempting to get a big hit. On the way to Heathrow Airport their cab went off the road, flipped over, and Eddie was thrown from the cab and was killed instantly. Gene was injured and returned home. He told me that he had urged the driver to speed up so they wouldn’t miss their plane at Heathrow Airport. I could have been in that cab. He spent the rest of his life on pain pills and booze.

 In 1971 I was a Pall Bearer at Gene’s funeral. Anyway, we were all good friends. Gene was about five years older than me and Eddie about two years older. It was like having two big brothers watching out for you all the time. We were doing a somewhat more modern music which corresponded to Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” and Buddy Holly’s massive hit “That’ll Be the Day”. The Sound of “Rockabilly” was fading away. Sam asked me to do some country covers for the local country radio stations and I complied. Money was money and country was big so I did “What’s He Doing in My World” and “Make the World Go Away” along with “Am I Losing You” and “He’ll Have To Go”. Surprisingly they started getting good play and sales started to branch out across the Bible Belt. We decided to put out an album with the lead song being “Teenager’s Romance”. I had purchased a 1947 Indian (side shift) motorcycle to get around so we took a picture of me on the bike for the album jacket and inserted an old picture of Desirae and I kissing in the upper right hand corner. The album started selling in large numbers and I was getting more attention with the album then I had gotten doing singles. I was also getting offers to do studio work for other country artists. My personal wealth had grown to about $15,000 so it was approaching the time to go and get Desirae. It was now late January 1956 and rumors were flying around town that RCA was boasting in Billboard that Elvis’s records were selling at a rate of $75,000 a day with releases of singles at 50,000 unit’s a day and his first album at eight thousand a day. It looked like our last hope was fading away with his success. Up until this time we all were doing the same music and we all pretty much looked alike. Tall, dark and handsome with pompadour hairdos, a guitar and brooding eyes. The only thing stopping Elvis was that most of America couldn’t see him yet and he was still building his career one live appearance at a time which might take too long and he could eventually fade out just like Rockabilly music. Did Mrs. Presley know what she was talking about and was the end for us as near as she indicated to me?

 I encouraged all the offers I would get to do studio playing and local shows. I would perform Blues, Country, Rockabilly, Rock n’ Roll and Pop music anywhere we could book ourselves as Nate Jaeger and The Rock n’ Roll Express, or Country Express or Blues Express or any kind of Express. Elvis made an appearance on Television called “Stage Show” and sang Shake, Rattle and Roll” as “Flip, Flop and Fly” which few people saw and those that did were shocked as this was not their kind of music. The host Milton Berle publicly complained about having to pay $1200.00 for the appearance. Did I still have chance? We released an album “First Kiss” and it skyrocketed in sales and I thought this was it. Then came the “Cover” boys and the big record companies. Well I got pretty wealthy just before they re-recorded the hits on the album and released their own singles. A very bloody business. When I heard that my hopes were dashed and I started looking for more middle of the road music to avoid the same mistake. Elvis was flown back from Houston abruptly by Steve Sholes to RCA’s Memphis recording studio to try to fix the mistake. The song Johnny Ray turned down “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” was put into full production and we were invited by Red West to come over to the studio and give Elvis moral support as the “Stage Show” fiasco had really knocked him down. They recorded it over and over and over all day and all night. Finally Elvis walked out and

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went back to his tour in Houston. Sholes was furious because in those days you were working with “Two Recording Tracks” One track was for all the music and musicians and one track was for the vocalist. The musicians would be mike’d up and their sounds separated by various volumes and placement in the baffled sound room. They would play over and over until a perfect rhythm track was achieved. Then the vocalist would sing and sing and sing until he gave a near perfect performance. The more perfect the performance the less Reverb and Sound Effects had to be used in the final product. You could always tell a good performance from a poor one (including me) by whether you can hear the singer clearly or just hear a mottled miss mash of sound. If you don’t understand the lyrics then the artist has missed the mark.

Steve Sholes refused to give up and he personally took all the recorded takes and used a razor blade to cut and tape together the good parts from all of the recordings. He added in reverb to cover the cuts and Elvis’s first “Middle of the Road” recording was in the can. Sholes had the song released prematurely and it went through the roof all over the country. The song had been written for Johnny Ray’s staccato singing style which was the result of Johnny being totally deaf from a young age. His style was that of a deaf person trying to pronounce distinctly via sound vibration in his jaw. Knowing he was deaf you could tell why he sang so differently but his style caught on. He was the bridge between Big Band and Rock n’ Roll”. Suddenly, the announcement came that the song was so big that Steve Allen bid to get Elvis on his Saturday night Variety Show. Steve Allen was the most watched television show in America with millions of middle class viewers. This song would be heard and Elvis would be seen by literally every record buying person in America. It would be the equivalent of a personal appearance at every venue in America at one time and in one place. The song would be a dramatic Love Song performed by a now handsome Elvis. RCA had capped his teeth, shaved his facial skin, grafted skin from his butt onto his acne scars, straightened his nose, degreased his hair and dressed him conservatively in Rock n’ Roll sports coats, pants and shoes. He was now very handsome. This might be devastating for the rest of us. If our looks, music and style were to be accepted by America in the persona of one performer, Elvis Presley, then the brass ring would be had and the merry go round would stop for everyone.

Overnight, instead of being individual rockers with our own large followings we would be considered “Clones”, “Look a Likes” and “Impersonators” of the one and only “King of Rock n’ Roll”. Virtual “Wantabes”. It wasn’t much consolation to know that people, in general, still couldn’t pronounce his name. I started recording anything, song wise, that “couldn’t run away from me” as did everyone else before the Tsunami hit the music business. We started another tour, same places, same towns, same radio stations and record shops. We hawked our 45 rpm’s at every whistle stop. We all felt like the future Indiana Jones running in front of a speeding boulder. My album started to get good play in the South and it was a nice feeling as you drove through towns and heard yourself on the radio being referred to as the “Coolest Hep Cat”, “The Swinging Dream Boy” etc., but what counted was the cash and nothing else. When I got back to Memphis, Sam was waiting for me in his office. He handed me a check because he said “It was way too much money to be carrying around in cash”. He told me there would be another check that size when he came back from Clarksdale “Talent Hunting” the following week. I asked him how I would cash it and he said I could go over to the bank and he would co-sign on a savings account for me. I was looking at a check for $12,500.00, more money than I ever expected and I knew it was accurate to the dime because Sam was dead honest in all of his dealings. He asked me what I was going to do with the money and I said I was buying a car today! Then I went to the bank, opened the account and took out $500.00 dollars. Down to the Stassen Rooms Apartment where I rented a furnished flat with a bathroom, tub, cook top oven, ice box and a view of the street on the third floor.

Off I went to the hardware store where I bought an electric floor heater. Next stop was the used car lot near the studio where I purchased a near new 1950 Chevrolet Bellaire two door hardtop and transported the floor heater back to the apartment. I was ready to go to New York and wisk Desirae away. In the meantime, Elvis had purchased a beautiful ranch style home outside Memphis for his parents on Audubon Way and after close of escrow asked if all the guys would help him move in on a Saturday. We all pitched in and Red brought a ton of beer and supplies for the barbecue in the back yard. Fans started to show up on the driveway and Elvis would periodically go out and sign autographs and hand out records. Red told us about all the medical work RCA had paid for on Elvis and we acknowledged that he looked great, dressed well and smelled fresh. When Elvis came out back to get his super deluxe cheeseburger, Red asked him if he had an urge to sit in a chair on his face rather than his butt and we all laughed at the reference to the skin grafts. Sonny West said that with the new “Capps” on his front teeth he could give Bugs Bunny a run for his money. Elvis laughed and said “Joke all you want, but I’ve got more money than God”. That was the real measurement that counted to me. He was almost there and ready to grab the brass ring.

 On July 1, 1956 Sam called the studio and said his car had broken down outside Clarksdale and he wanted me to pick him up. He said to bring a chain so we could pull his car back. When I got back to the studio there was a guy waiting there to see Sam and I recognized him as the standup bass player who we met with Mac Davis in Lubbock, Texas on the first tour. He was about nineteen years old and asked if Sam was in need of musicians. I wanted some company on my drive south, about an hour and a half, so I said if he came along he could ask Sam himself. We found Sam alongside the road about forty-five minutes into our trip South near a phone booth and towed him to a gas station where they fixed his ignition coil, and off he took. Sam liked the guy with me and hired him. It began to rain real heavy and so I started driving back real slow because the driver side window wiper broke and I couldn’t see very well. A few minutes into the trip we saw an old Train Car Dinner on the road so we decided to get something to eat. When we got inside we found that a cute waitress was standing on a stool trying to tune in the 12’’ black and White TV hanging down from the ceiling behind the counter. She was really upset and kept saying “Elbis Presty” was going to be on the Steve Allen Show tonight and I corrected her by saying several times “It’s Elvis Presley”. She kept mispronouncing his name and justified it “because the important thing” she said “was that he was the handsomest most wonderful singer in the world and I have all of his records“. She haphazardly took our order and just after the show started she laid our plates down and just stood dumb founded in front of the TV as Steve Allen announced Elvis Presley. He came out in a Tuxedo with his guitar, mascara and eye shadow darkened eyelids, perfect pompadour hairdo, standing up in all of his regalia posed to go into his new hit record “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” and “Hound Dog”. We asked the waitress for our plates of food and she turned around and said “Shush Up”.

So there I sat hungry and watching as my career ended. When Elvis finished I could hear the world proclaim him king. It was the greatest performance of the 20th Century and everyone who counted in the world, saw it and fell in love with him. I turned to my travel partner and said “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name” and he answered “Waylon, Waylon Jennings”. Then he said “Ya Know What”. I said “Yea”, and we both said in unison “It’s all over for us tonight”. We drove back to Memphis in dead silence. Waylon went on to be a local Disk Jockey in Arizona and then out of nowhere many years later a top Country singer. I met him again in Valencia, California when I worked on a movie for TV that he was appearing in around 1981. It was with Susan Blakley in “Oklahoma City Dolls“. He was married to Mirriam Eddy formerly the wife of my friend Duane Eddy, the guitarist. Duane and I met in New York as kids before he moved away in 1951. She had changed her name to Jessi Colter and had become a big Country Star herself. On the film set we talked about the Sun years. He confided that he was with Buddy Holly the night he died. I told him I had heard he gave his plane seat up to “The Big Bopper” because Richardson had indigestion and wanted to get to a doctor in the next town. Waylon said that it wasn’t his near brush with death that bothered him so much as it was his response to Buddy Holly after Buddy said “I hope the Tour Bus freezes up”. Waylon said jokingly “I hope your plane crashes” and of course it did killing everyone on board.

Shortly after Elvis’s big night it was difficult to stir up a large tour because everyone was waiting to see if Elvis was going to ride down from the North on a white stallion, with golden microphone in hand, and perform for his loving Southern fans. We were all somewhat jealous because we knew that our musical period in history would soon move into obscurity. RCA was pumping out Elvis records and “The Colonel " was marketing Elvis’s likeness and name on everything from Phonograph Players to Lunch Boxes to Ball Point Pens. Elvis started work on “Love Me Tender” and “The Colonel " made good on his word to make Elvis a movie Star. Everything was Elvis and stayed that way until he went into the army in 1958.

The music and the look changed which left very little live performance opportunities for us. Everyone struggled to make a living and by now many entertainers were heavy into Rock n’ Roll. The music was modernizing and more and more guys my age were jumping into the business from every corner of the country. The music was also causing a ground swell in England which in a short time would kick the other leg out from under all of us. The British were disciplined and their Rock n’ Roll groups were excellent, educated musicians. That would later come to haunt all of us trying to change gears and become studio musicians. As I look back now I don’t think it would have made a difference whether I was my age or five years older since the first guy to cross the finish line would get not just his share of the Rock n’ Roll pie, but the entire pie , all the plates and all the forks.

I called Desirae over and over again after she stopped writing me. Every day for a week in December 1956, I called, but her mother said she was either out or at school. Finally I said if she didn’t call me back I would come back up to New York. Her mother said the Juvenile Authorities stopped by once a week looking for me so that my coming home was a bad idea. Finally Desirae called me and told me that a boy from Juilliard, whom she had met when I took her to the school functions, was seeing her. He was rich and that it was a romantic situation. I asked her how long she had felt that way and she said since shortly after I had left New York. All I could think of was the excitement I thought we were enjoying together. I was working my way up for both of us and apparently she was just New Yorking me all along. However, that’s why I loved her so; she was smart, took no chances, bullshited everyone and played the percentages. She said he was at the door and wished me the best of luck in the future. I hung up and went back to my apartment pretty down hearted but not lonely. I came into the world alone so I was used to it and besides it was a case of out of sight out of mind. The next day I called Cy Cooper and asked what was happening on the West Coast. he said there were plenty of record companies ready to sign me based on my record sales and plenty of song writers pitching great new Rock n’ Roll songs, not Rockabilly, in Los Angeles. Chances for film work in Rock n’ Roll oriented movies and plenty of large local venues like Town Hall. The end of the month came and I told Sam I was heading to California, but I would fly back if he had anything substantial for me in the future. He gave me my Master Tapes; I canceled my apartment rental, packed my car, gassed up and headed for California on January 2, 1957, my seventeenth birthday. When I crossed the Tennessee State border I knew a period in my life had ended and going back to New York was out of the question. Sam said he would continue to sell my records and put the money in my bank account and he did. “First Kiss” and “Last Kiss” packed my Savings Account. What next?