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Where, when and how did it all start for you?
Well, I was born in 1937 in Meadow, which is a small farming community about thirty miles south-west of Lubbock, Texas. I guess it had a population of about four hundred people then. My dad was a cotton farmer and I went to school in Meadow. I took up guitar when I was about seven I guess. My aunt actually had a guitar - she came from a real musical family - as a matter of fact her brothers were the Mayfield Brothers, and they played bluegrass, while one of them, my uncle, Ed Mayfield had played guitar with Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys. He was a tremendous influence on me, and it was his sister (married to my Dad's brother). who taught me how to play "Little Brown Jug" and all that. Actually, I was so small when I started that I could only play on the top four strings. Anyway, soon after, my Dad bought a couple of cheap guitars for my older brother and sister, but they let them lay out in the rain, and so I learned on those!
How soon after you entered High School in 1950 did you start playing in public?
Well my two older brothers were playing regularly. Of course, we didn't have any formal music training in school - but all three of us played locally, mainly bluegrass music. Actually, when I was about twelve, we even had our own radio show up in Lubbock on Dave Stone's Jamboree. We played at every opportunity - I guess there wasn't all that much else to do out in Meadow, so I got pretty sharp on guitar. Then when I was a freshman in High School, I won a talent contest in Brownfield, which boosted my confidence quite a lot. Funny thing is - I was their very first winner, and they are still holding that contest! Later on, I won the Texas FFA Talent Contest, but from the time I won the Lions Club talent contest in Brownfield, I had been seriously considering a career in music - and of course, that mean becoming a big country music star!
When did you meet Buddy Holly?
I met Buddy Holly and Bob Montgomery and Jerry Allison when I was about fifteen. Buddy and Bob played guitar of course, and Jerry played drums - he was even then a great drummer, and we all started playing together soon after. That was prior of course to rock and roll, so we all played mainly country music.
When you left school in 1955, what were your plans?
Well, I was still playing with Buddy and J.I., but I had a couple of jobs on the side, including working at a music store in Lubbock, selling guitars and giving guitar lessons, and one of the guys working with me was Sammy Hodge, who was a steel guitarist who had played with Slim Whitman.
Anyway, one day, Sammy introduced me to Slim Whitman, who was looking for a guitar player for a tour, so I went on the road with him.
Were you writing songs at this time?
Yeah, but I wasn't real serious about it. A lot of the early songs I wrote were done out on the farm, driving the tractor. When you're doing that, you get plenty of time to think long deep thoughts and so I used to make up these songs while I was working. Nothing much came of those early efforts - I was really more interested in playing and singing other peoples' music, and mainly country music at that. Remember, in those days, very few big country stars wrote their own songs, and after all, I was working on becoming a big country star!
So how did you get introduced to rock and roll?
Well I was playing with Buddy and Jerry (or J.I. as we called him), when Elvis Presley came into Lubbock and we all just fell in love with Elvis, especially Buddy - he was really just blown away, and we switched right over and started playing his music. Our bass player at the time, Don Guess, could play that Bill Black style real well and I was a big Chet Atkins fan, so I had his style down pretty well, and as you know, Scotty Moore's style was a little like Chet's so I adapted very easily to Scotty's style. So we just turned into Elvis clones overnight, and we started drawing huge crowds, not just in Lubbock, but also in Amarillo, Dallas, and over in New Mexico. So when Buddy got that deal to record some sides for Decca, I decided to try my hand at writing a rock and roll song, and that song was "Rock Around With Ollie Vee". Actually, Ollie Vee was a real person, she was a black lady that lived out on my Dad's farm - she was married to Willie Robinson who was a farm hand that helped out my Dad - and I used her name for the song.
That song was recorded on the second Nashville session that Buddy did, but the track was not released as a single, although many feel it was the best song recorded in Nashville. Why not?
Well, Decca first released "Blue Days Black Nights" as a single, I think Ben Hall had written that one, and when that didn't do too well, I think they just shelved the rest of the stuff. Of course, the song has been recorded by Shakin' Stevens I think, and the Stray Cats, and of course, years later by the Crickets, and although it has never been a real big hit, it has been a real good money-earner for me.
When the Decca deal fell through, what did you do next next?
Well Buddy had great faith in the future, but I honestly felt we weren't really going anywhere, and so when I got an offer to move up to Nashville and join the band of the Phillip Morris Roadshow which took stars like Carl Smith, Red Sovine and Goldie Hill on tour, I took it.
Around that time, you wrote a song which got into the Top 10 on the country charts - "Someday" by Webb Pierce. Was that your first chart record?
Yes - that was released by Webb Pierce in March 1957, but I hadn't written it for him, or indeed for anybody else - I had actually written it for myself, and I'll tell you how I came to write it. You see, I was really very naive in those days - I really was. Hank Snow was due to do a concert in Lubbock, and Dave Stone who used to book these shows, would use local talent to fill in.
You got on the show?
I opened for Hank Snow, and I was so dumb that when I got up on stage, I sang every one of Hank Snow's hits - thinking that this would really make an impression on Hank! Well it sure did - but for the wrong reasons! Anyway, Hank's road manager, Eddie Crandall was very nice about it, but he got me over to the side and said - "Look I know you do not realise what you've done but that was not a cool thing to do. If you want to make it on your own, you need your own songs. You've either got to write them, or find somebody around Lubbock to write songs for you". So I took that to heart and I must have spent months looking for people that wrote songs and I finally gave up and decided I'd just have to do it myself. So I sat down and wrote four songs, and one of those songs was "Someday". Anyway, I put them on a demo below in Nesman Studios in Wichita Falls - actually, the steel player on those demos was Weldon Myrick - and then I sent one demo to Autry Inman, and he started playing it around. I already had a deal with Cedarwood Music which had come through Wayne Walker whom I had met on an Elvis gig, so I sent him a demo as well. And I think I sent a demo to Eddie Crandall too. Of course, I wasn't really trying to sell the songs as songs -
I was looking for a recording deal for myself. Anyway, although I didn't know anything about it, it seems that three or four singers were fighting over this one song "Someday", and eventually Webb Pierce recorded it. It was a real fortunate break for me, although I have to tell you that Webb Pierce put down his own name on the song as well, so he ended up getting 50% of my royalties for recording it! I guess that was the way the business worked in those days, but it was a very early lesson for me!
That went US Country Top Ten. Did you make much out of it?
Not really - not enough to get by on, although I suppose if I had got the full royalties, it would have been. Of course, for me it was pretty nice, because I wasn't earning much anyway. Then, Norman Petty got me signed up with BMI, which may have been about the only good thing he ever did for me - but he did it, and I remember him for it. You know, up to then, I thought BMI was a club for songwriters (you can see how dumb I was back in those days), but one day I got a cheque in my mailbox for $250, and I said to myself - "What in the world is this?" Anyway, although I didn't earn a fortune from that song, I was able to pay off a few debts, and I even bought myself a car - an old beat-up used car admittedly, but still a car!
Now while that song was on the Nashville charts, and while Buddy and J.I. were planning their next move, you offed and went to Colorado Springs. Why?
$110 dollars a week I think! Buddy and J.I. were playing around Lubbock waiting for something to happen, when I got this call from a guy who had a club in Colorado Springs, and to tell you the truth, when I heard the money on offer, I jumped at it. This meant of course that I was off up in Colorado Springs while Buddy and J.I. were going up to Norman Petty's studio in Clovis and recording all their new stuff, and it was while I was away that Buddy and Jerry put out "That'll Be The Day" under the name of the Crickets, along with Joe B. Mauldin on bass and Niki Sullivan on guitar, and next thing was - it was Number 1 all over the place.
How did you feel about missing out on the Crickets?
Well, speaking candidly about it, I have to admit that I had mixed feelings. I remember I was in a radio station one day looking at a Billboard magazine, and there was this big picture of my old friends - and I felt real good for them because they were my friends - but to tell the truth, I did have a sort of let-down feeling too. You know what I mean - the train has left the station and I'm not on it sort of feeling!
Is that why you went to California?
Not really. Pappy Anderson, who had worked with Hank Williams, suggested I take some of my songs out to Mac Wiseman who was head of A&R at Dot Records in Los Angeles. My sister was living in Long Beach, so I had somewhere to stay, so I went. Actually, Mac Wiseman didn't really want to see me at all, but I went down on my knees and begged, telling them that I had driven 1500 miles to get there, and so eventually, they gave in and he listened to the songs. But after all the effort - he said no anyway, so I went back home to Lubbock for Christmas 1957. But when I got there, I learned that Niki Sullivan had decided to leave the Crickets, and next thing, Norman Petty was on the phone asking me to drive over to Clovis to talk about joining them.
So I drove straight to Clovis but when I got there, I just sat around waiting for hours before they finally showed. They were big stars by now of course - I remember Buddy had this pink Cadillac, while I had this beat-up 1951 Pontiac - and the Crickets went upstairs to have a meeting with Norman, while Niki and myself sat downstairs waiting. Eventually Norman came down and said that the Crickets had decided not to replace Niki after all. So I missed the train for the second time!
During 1958, while the Crickets and Buddy Holly scored hits like "Peggy Sue", "Rave On", "Oh Boy", "Think It Over" and "Maybe Baby", you were signing with Dot Records in New York. How did that happen?
Well Terry Noland, who was over in Clovis at the Petty studios, knew a lot of people in New York, people like Murray Deutch for example, and he sent some of my stuff up to them.
I think that in those days, they had this idea in New York that anything from West Texas was solid gold, so they brought me up to New York and I had my first real recording session. Of course, a lot of the charm of West Texas music was doing it yourself - but they put me with this New York studio orchestra, and the result was really bland. To be honest, when I listen to those sessions nowadays, which I rarely do, they're sort of painful! Anyway, a couple of singles came out, "Wrong Again" and "Pretty Girls", but nothing charted for me. I also recorded a single over in Clovis, "Red Headed Stranger", which came out on Coral, but that also failed to make it.
Continued
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