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"Xtreme"
Chapter five of a novel
by Claude Hall
Because she liked country music, Zeus McRae told her,
he was transferring her to the Nashville office.
Susan revolted. In Texas, women did not revolt. They
were usually mild and meek and depended on beauty for
any control they might exercise over the male species.
Unfortunately, she had not been one of those
statuesque Texas beauties. As she grew from child to
woman, she kept searching in the mirror, hoping to
find someone else. But it was always her, not some
cute little thing such as Linda Ronstadt or even a
get-by such as Helen Reddy. When she got to New York,
she knew she was, indeed, among those who have been
shortchanged in life and not even the fact that the
public relations people had turned Barbra Streisand
from an ugly duckling into a swan by hiring the best
beauticians in the world and merely insisting that
this was so gave Susan cause for hope. Cher was
another that public relations people had made
acceptable. She was astonished one day to hear Russ
Regan remark that he thought Cher was one of the most
beautiful women in the world. She wasn't. Susan,
however, couldn't worry about Cher...only about
herself. And she knew one thing for sure. While she
might not rank among the beauties of the world, Susan
certainly felt she was as smart as all of them put
together and so she kept her mouth shut and went her
own way. Her hope was that every woman, regardless,
enjoyed something unique about them that appealed to
at least one man. And one day that woman would meet
that particular man and he would be the treasure worth
the wait, the loneliness, the daydreams.
She had expected this new confrontation with Zeus.
She did know what it would be about. She merely
thought that he would call her into his office and
fire her. She would have protested that, too. She
had decided that she would go out in a blaze of glory,
if she had to go.
Instead of firing her, however, it appeared as if Zeus
merely wanted to get her out of the line of action.
She knew and he knew that if she went to Nashville,
she would eventually disappear.
"Yes, I do like country music," Susan replied, "but
I'm not transferring anywhere."
"What!"
Her answer flustered him. She had never challenged
him before. Not that she hadn't wanted to challenge
him many times. Some of his habitual "trademarks" had
begun to irritate her. He had the annoying habit of
calling a meeting and not showing up or showing up
only to run to the telephone. He answered every phone
call, just as if it was important. Of course, he
didn't receive that many; not as many as she did.
And sometimes the meeting was regarding a mistake in
the magazine. He wanted to know precisely who caused
the mistake. Didn't matter who caused the mistake, he
would demand that everyone show up at the meeting as
if everyone had made the mistake. She was more
inclined to worry about avoiding such mistakes in the
future. But Zeus would grind a mistake into the floor
and sometimes these meetings would last an hour and it
didn't matter that you had work piling up at your
desk.
Today, as usual, he quickly hid behind the mechanism
of packing his pipe from a hand-carved wooden canister
on his desk and lighting it and making sure that his
monstrosity was working. Smoke began to fill the
space around his head. He was quite pretentious about
the pipe. It rested, when it wasn't in his hand like
a riding crop, on a triangle-shaped tray that had a
special niche for the pipe and also held discarded
ashes.
Susan backed her chair away from the cloud of smoke.
Hadn't the man heard about lung cancer?
"I'm the editor and publisher of this publication,"
Zeus said, "and if I say you're going to Nashville,
that's where you're going."
She shook her head.
"I don't think so. We have a country music editor
there and he's pretty good."
"He needs an assistant."
"No, thanks," she said. "Not interested. I'm
certainly not going to be anyone's country music
assistant when I'm top dog now of radio."
"This move is an attempt to cross pollinate the
magazine so that everyone knows how to do each other's
job."
"Have you ever served as country music editor?"
"That's not the question here," he said in a stilted
tone of voice.
"You take the job first for a year or so and then I
might be willing to also go serve a year down there.
Just for the hell of it. But at the moment, I don't
want to go and I'm not going. Send someone else to
get cross pollinated."
His phone rang and he reached to answer it. One thing
about Zeus, he was big on phone.
Susan got up and headed for the door.
"We're not finished!" Zeus said loudly.
"I've got work to do," Susan said and kept on walking.
"Let me know when you're finished with the phone."
The phone rang again and Zeus couldn't resist its
attraction. She had counted on that.
She kept on going and in a few minutes was out of the
building and in her car. After all, it was lunch
hour. She had a right to eat, didn't she? It
occurred to her that if he wanted to fire her or even
send her to Nashville, he was going to have to catch
her first!
The phone in her car rang just as she turned onto
Sunset Boulevard heading west. When she paused for
the traffic light on the corner of Doheny, she
answered it and heard Bill Ferguson's voice.
"You really upset my mother," he said.
"Hey, she sorta upset me, too," Susan said.
"You want to have lunch and talk about it?"
"Not me. I'm heading for the beach up above Malibu."
"Ah hah! I thought you had to work at lunch today?"
"I forgot about that, but to hell with it," she said.
"My, my. You really are upset. I apologize for my
mother."
"I'm no longer upset about your mother," Susan said.
"I'm upset with the world."
"Then we'd damned well better talk about it," he said.
"No. I really had forgotten about my lunch. The last
thing I need is food. But I'd better go do the lunch
tango."
"Dinner?"
"No."
"Well, if you change your mind, call me?"
"How can I call you? Your mother won't tell me where
your phone number."
"What a great mother," he said. "Protects me all to
heck. Even when it comes to women. You're going to
love her."
"No, I won't."
"Guarantee it," he said, "and here's my private line
which can be used for dinner absolutely any day of the
week as well as various and other sundry occasions."
He rattled off a number.
"That's a very strange number," she said.
"Don't be absurd. You can't criticize a number for
being strange. Long, perhaps, but never a phone
number because they aren't all that long unless you're
dialing somewhere else in the world. Complex,
perhaps, but I doubt that, too. It's just a number."
"Go phone somebody," she said and hung up.
Reluctantly, she turned at the corner and drove down
to Wilshire Boulevard and scrounged along until she
found the Palms. The Palms was restaurant of the week
in the music industry just now and after she parked
and went inside, she recognized at least half of the
people. Even Nails was there in a booth with a tall,
very suave, ponytailed guy. Don Whittemore waved at
her from a rear booth as soon as she came in the door.
"She's not going to be here," he said in an apologetic
tone.
"That doesn't necessarily make me mad," Susan told
him. "You could have canceled the lunch, though."
"Not a chance. Are you aware of what it takes to get
a reservation in this place for lunch?"
"And what a meal costs."
"Hey. Expense account."
"Hey. Salad," she told the waiter.
There was a time in radio when the promotion executive
such as Don Whittemore was a finger-snapping
loudmouth. Perhaps a few may still exist
somewhere--and the good lord knows that some of them
were slightly less than human, but she made it a point
never to associate with the likes of Joe Isgro and
Bruce Bird. The feds were after Isgro real strong.
He'd been indicted for activities relating to payola
and some of the record labels had decided to do away
with his services--independent record promotion--and
he had sued. The subsequent dust that he had raised
would take years to settle.
Fred di Sippo in the east was once rumored to be in
trouble, but evidently wiggled out of it. One guy who
operated a tipsheet had payola down to a artform. He
advertised records in his offset legal-sized weekly
tipsheet and then billed the record companies for the
advertising. He claimed to be billing one major
record company for anywhere from $10,000 to $60,000 a
week. To one person that Susan knew, he bragged of
owning more than two million dollars in oil
stocks...achieved from his business. She'd actually
met this particular tipsheet operator once on a bus
coming from the airport into Manhattan. He'd told her
that if she were smart, she could make a lot of money
out of her position as radio-TV editor of Songdust
News. She'd never figured out what he meant or how he
meant, but, of course, she wasn't interested in that
kind of a career.
The word tipsheet, as far as she knew, had been coined
by Ted Randal, a radio program director who operated
one in Los Angeles. But she had never heard about Ted
being involved in anything illegal.
However, over the past few years the typical promotion
executive had matured into a very strong professional.
Some were formerly in radio, others came up through
the record business ranks with the strong desire to be
excellent in their craft--people such as Jan Basham at
A&M Records, Chuck Thagard at Columbia Records, John
Fisher at Atlantic Records, George Furness and Juggy
Gales, also of Atlantic Records; Ray Anderson, Tony
Richland. Tony Richland came out of a different
perspective of the music industry--that of music
publishing. He had once been what they called a New
York "song plugger" in the old days when sheet music
was the rampage, long before records became a viable
entity in the entertainment world. Everybody loved
Tony Richland.
Matty Singer certainly was one of the older gentry.
And Don Graham had been around a number of years.
She had great respect--even a fondness--for these and
others such as Vince Cosgrave at MCA Records, Steve
Popovich, Ernie Farrell, Chuck Meyer, John Rosica.
To some extent, record promotion bordered the public
relations field. And, like public relations, you had
the bad and the good. She had no respect for a public
relations person who asked you for publicity for their
client. A good record promotion person found a
reason, sans money or drugs, for a radio station to
play a record. A few weeks ago, a columnist named
Jack Anderson had featured an item about payola in the
radio industry. He'd come to Los Angeles. She'd sat
down with him to find out more details. Turned out
that some esoteric person who turned out bluegrass
records by nobody had complained. Anderson mentioned
the label. Perhaps a radio station might have played
one of those records for a million dollars, but she
doubted it. Most program directors in Top 40 radio
loved their work and some would have worked for almost
nothing just for the opportunity; they would not have
jeopardized their job for any amount of money. On the
other hand, there was a program director named
Blornstein who'd evidently traded record play for a
trip around the world. She knew about the situation
because the tickets had been mailed to the wrong
program director, Tom Shovan, by mistake and, of
course, he'd phoned Susan first thing.
Lunch ended much too soon. Susan didn't feel like
going back to the office and facing Zeus again today.
Her radio copy was all in and she'd left a makeshift
drawing of the makeup, the story placements.
Ordinarily, she would now be phoning people at the
record companies that were her "beat," the labels that
she contacted for music stories for the upfront of the
trade magazine. Instead, she drove over to La Cienega
and found the Mind's Eye and parked out front at a
meter.
No, Bill Ferguson wasn't there, Maud said as soon as
Susan opened the door.
"Honey, my son works for a living," said Maud.
"I wasn't hunting for your son," Susan said. "I was
hunting for Camus."
"Camus, I've got. On a back shelf," said Maud.
"I'm hunting for a copy of 'The Plague'," Susan said.
"Got that, too. But you can't buy it. I've only got
one copy and I want to read it again one of these days
soon myself. However, you can borrow it. Better yet,
read it here."
"More tea?"
"Definitely," said Maud. "I've got some crazy stuff I
bought on my last trip to France that will knock your
block off. It's called Arômes de Pomme Verte. Of all
things, a green apple tea that comes from Sri Lanka.
Fitting, I would think, for reading Camus."
They found the book near the copy of Hemingway's "The
Old Man and the Sea."
"Is that the Hemingway in question?"
"Yes," Susan said.
"Bet it still has your fingerprints on it," Maud said,
hands on hip. "He wasn't really fetching it for a
customer, you know."
"Maud, I'm not as naive as I look."
"Good," was all Maud said and turned away.
A few minutes later, as Susan was already three or
four pages deep into "The Plague," Maud brought her a
cup of tea.
"Why are you interested in my son?"
"I'm not interested in your son. I'm only interested
this afternoon in avoiding my office and reading some
Camus because it helps me to not think about my father
or my job. I don't want to necessarily hurt your
feelings, but maybe I'll be interested in your son
tomorrow. And, again, maybe not. He's not a very
fascinating person."
"You didn't really come here to talk about my son?"
"No, Maud. I really came here because of Camus. Now
and then a good shot of Camus sets the world back in
order for me. And my world is just a bit shaky at the
moment. I could go over to the pulbic library if I'm
bothering you."
"No," said Maud. "I enjoy company now and then. For
me, it's Henry Miller. Always has been."
"I like Camus and I like Erich Maria Remarque. I
think I've read 'The Black Obelisk' five or six times
and 'The Three Comrades' at least seven times."
"No one reads Remarque anymore."
"A pity," said Susan. "He's better than these people
turning out tripe today."
"You ever read Henry Miller?"
"All but his tropic books. That is, all of his books
I could get my hands on when I was in college. His
tropic books were against the law in those days."
"Well, if you ever want to read his tropic books,
they're right over that direction. They're not for
sale either."
"Funny store," Susan remarked.
"My store," Maud said. "I'm a bit funny, too."
"It's okay. So's your son. But Camus is all I need
right now."
"The Plague" by Camus is not a long book, but, on the
other hand, it's not a book for fast reading either
even though she'd read it several times. Albert Camus
manages to say a lot of things in a short amount of
words, but you have to proceed along fairly slow to
get all of the meaning. A professor once told Susan
that the sickness was actually a description of the
Nazi occupation. Susan, however, had already decided
that the sickness represented the psychological fear
that permeates the human condition when it is attacked
by stress. Didn't matter what the stress was. In her
case, it was named Zeus. He wasn't a Nazi, but she
believed he was just as evil. After all, there were
different kinds of evil.
At 5:30 p.m., she went home. Maud tried to persuade
her to stay "just a while longer. Bill should be
dropping by at any moment."
"Maud, your son may be a nice guy. I don't know, but
I find a lot of things about him just as funny as the
things surrounding you. A bookstore where some of the
books are not for sale? Come now."
"He's Harvard," said Maud. "That probably explains
it. I wanted him to go to a good school like Amherst
or Brown, but he insisted on Harvard. He even had a
football scholarship offer from Stanford. But, no, it
had to be Harvard. I suppose that anyone who goes to
Harvard is a bit odd. And he has a master's degree,
too, in business administration."
"That probably explains it, all right," said Susan,
knowing full well that Maud was giving her a sales
pitch.
Just briefly, she caught the expression in Maud's eyes
that said in big loud letters that the woman was
worried about her son. If he'd gone to a school such
as the University of Oklahoma or Duke...hey, even
Stanford...he would have been dating half of the
female student body, be married by now, and she would
be a grandmother and babysitting a kid or two instead
of fooling around with this store where customers
seemed to be an anathema.
But there wasn't much that Susan could do about that;
she had her own problems.
Songdust News had been around countless years and,
yes, it had dealt with the payola problem before. In
the early days of the music business, information
about record sales came via telegrams. A guy named
Howard in the late 50s or early 60s was reporting some
of this information about the charts to at least one
record company. One of the executives at the record
company was, as you might imagine, pleased with this
information and actually thought that Howard had
something to do with the placement of the records on
the weekly chart. He did not, but Howard never
bothered to correct the errant thinking and was quite
grateful for the money that the record company
executive shelled out in a plain envelope every week.
When the magazine discovered what was going on, Howard
was fired. But a lot of public relations damage had
been done because you can't keep information like that
secret for long. And the trade magazine had fumbled
along, floundering from week to week, until she joined
it as radio-TV editor.
The car phone rang a couple of times as she drove
home, but she was crammed to the gills with the
philosophies of Albert Camus, the great French writer,
and had no time for chat-chat on the telephone.
When she arrived at her apartment, she filled the
bathtub with strawberry soap bubbles and took a long
hot bath. There was no music tonight. And no phone.
She'd disconnected it from the wall the instant she
unlocked the door.
And in the morning, she slept later than usual. And
dallied long over a cup of instant coffee. But it was
okay because she was mapping strategy. By the time
she arrived at the office of Songdust News, she knew
exactly what she was going to do. The best defense is
a strong offense and if you have no offense at hand,
the best thing you can do is create a lot of dust.
(continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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April 5, 2004
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
I used to be passionate about all kinds of
music. As
I've grown older, the parameters of my tastes have
narrowed, but I still love old country music, old
blues, old Mex-Tex and Mexican stuff...lord, but Cuco
Sanchez was fantastic! And the great of rock'n'roll.
I listen back and I think: Patsy Cline, they really
didn't know how great you were. Same with George
Morgan. Same with Ernest Tubb. And how many remember
Paul Butterfield today? Or John Mayall? And then I
run across some guys who're just as crazy as I am
about some of the older country artists and songs.
About radio. We lived in a great time with great
music and great radio. My life was more vicarious
than yours in all probability, but I was there for the
best of times. Turns out that Johnny Horton's life
(see last week's Commentary) probably deserved a
movie. There was a half-good film that never received
much recognition, but it was about real country music.
I can't remember the title of the movie at the
moment, but Clint Eastwood made a film about a country
singer trying to get to Nashville...bumping into Bob
Wills at some radio station, drinking, women, TB.
Another of the little classics was "Tender Meries"
with Robert Duvall. Lord, but I still love Bob Wills
and Johnnie Lee Wills. I still sing, a capella, on
occasion "I Was Just Walking Out the Door" that
Johnnie Lee Wills used to play live on a Thursday
night over KVOO, Tulsa. Ah, memories!
James Rose,
rosekkkj@earthlink.net: "Nice to see
you're still writin' Radio! Loved VOX JOX! You
mentioned my name a few times in the 60s and 70s in
VOX JOX, which always made a broadening of the chest!
Radio is like NO OTHER! Will love it 'til the day I
die! You have had a vast experience of rubbing noses
with the greatest people in Radio! Have you ever run
across anyone with as many as 39 RADIO STATIONS under their
belt? Those included some simulcasting and
jointly owned Texas Radio Stations, but, in all, 39
TEXAS RADIO STATION CALL LETTERS aired my voice! WHEW!
It seems that nearly every Radio Station that I went
to, since 1964, changed either FORMAT, OWNERSHIP,
MANAGEMENT, and/or PROGRAM DIRECTORS! I would pick what was
considered the most stable of the breed;
after my arrival, there would be drastic changes! It
might be a day, month or year! Was there for the KXOL
and KILT FORMAT CHANGES to Country! TWO PROGRAM DIRECTORS and
TWO GMs at KXOL! THREE PROGRAM DIRECTORS at KFJZ! Endured
KULF's THREE AM DRIVE TEAM SHOWS in
a little over a year's time, TWO PD's and THREE
GENERAL MANAGERS! Came to KPCN for the later
OWNERSHIP CHANGE! On-air just one overnight show at
KVET, due to an AUTO ACCIDENT driving back to San
Antonio! OH YEAH! Did move around a bit for a little
more DINERO! What is so difficult to imagine is WFAA
570 and KLIF 1190 switching call letters! I was a DJ
on WFAA 570 and WFAA 820 during the historic frequencysharing
episode! AND News on KLIF 1190! That's what makes it so hard to
grasp KLIF 570! WFAA 820 was 50,000 WATTS of CLEAR CHANNEL
POWER! Not to be confused with the Radio company! While on
WFAA 820, on the 8p-midnight shift, received phone calls and
mail from many states, including Alaska and an island in the
Caribbean! Once, in 1968, WFAA programming came up with a
contest to award a set of encyclopedias to the person who could
come list the most song titles containing ROSE or ROSES! This
was supposed to make sure listeners did not confuse my last
name, ROSE!
Mail arrived addressed to Jim RHODES, ROADS, RODES,
RHOADES, etc. This taught me early on, that no matter
how wonderful we DJ's think we are, hardly any
listener pays 100% attention to what we say! Kind of
humbling! I have a million stories to tell about the
39 Radio Stations and hundreds of DJ's that I worked
with that would fill a book! Claude, you are well
versed in the publishing arena! What would I need to
do to find a publisher and what else do I need to do?
It's so nice to read your writin' again! Onward and
upward!"
Jim, writing a book is the toughest part. You just
start and if you write an hour or two a day you'll be
surprised how quickly you have a book. A manuscript
somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 words. But it's
damned difficult to find a publisher. Don Imus, WFAN,
New York City, and Joey Reynolds, WOR, New York City,
got contracts (and God bless them) because they could
literally sell their own books over the air. They
had/have tremendous exposure potential. As for
someone like Claude Hall? Not so much. Heck, Don
Imus even sent one of my novels to his agent for me
and they turned it down. Don writes well. As well as
me? Nope. But publishers are funny and, obviously,
would rather print a book by a guy who wrote fiction
for the New York Times than someone like me.
I have a friend who does his own thing via
xlibris.com. Cost for getting a book printed is
relatively reasonable if you have the spare cash
upfront (checkout their website). But this friend of
mine does books that are literally collector's items,
i.e., paintings by Wally Woods or himself. Sells the
books for $100-$250 up via eBay. And, frankly, those
particular books are probably worth every cent he
charges. Bill Pearson,
witzend13@hotmail.com, is a
rare and wonderful artistic genius.
The key thing, James, is to write the history. There
are a scattered few who're trying to rewrite it.
Unless you tell how it really was, these scattered few
may prevail.
Ken Reeth, kreeth@onebox.com,
writes regarding my
recent article on Johnny Horton: "Hey Claude...you
neglected to mention that Johnny Horton also recorded
one of the best, 'sit at the end of the bar and cry'
drinking songs...'All for the Love of a Girl'. Many a
Honky Tonk tear was shed over that one."
Ed Miller,
esmiller@swbell.net: "Enjoyed your essay on
honky tonk music. But I must admit, it left me quite
puzzled. Yeah, you got the earlier history of honky
tonk just about right, but you didn't mention any of
the more famous practitioners of the art in the past
several decades: Ray Price, Johnny Bush, Darrell
McCall. Then I read your notes to the essay and
noticed that you were writing about things you were
aware of in New York, and I was thinking about things
here in Texas that you may not even have known about.
Here in Texas, good ol' hard country 4/4 shuffle
fiddle-and-steel two-steppin' honky tonk music is
still being played and danced to most every night.
And Price, Bush, and McCall are still the main men,
with new-comers like Justin Trevino and Jake Hooker
coming on strong behind them. I suppose that the fact
of the matter is that we just live in two different
worlds."
Probably two different times, Ed. Thanks for bringing
me up to date. May run another article soon that I
wrote back in the 80s. It'll more than likely stunt
your growth real bad.
James Rose again: "Your mention of Al Dexter brings to
mind ANOTHER in the millions of RADIO stories in my
mind! While being a Noon-3p DJ at Dallas' KPCN in
1967, I played a cut from a Glen Campbell album called
'Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry'! I LOVED that
song! It was written by Al Dexter, who lived near
Denton at the time! I said, 'Here's Glen Campbell
with the LATE Al Dexter song 'Too Late to Worry, Too
Blue to cry'! The next day, when I arrived for my
show, AL DEXTER was waiting for me! Al said 'I'm
still alive'! It was the most embarassing thing I
could have done, and simply blotted out any memory of
what my comment was! WOW!"
I once had a letter from Al Dexter, James. Treasured
it! Most embarrassing moment concerning radio for me
was one night Larry Scott,
blossom@airmail.net, a
great, great country jock, asked me to sit in with him
on his KLAC, Los Angeles show. I was allowed to
stretch the usual programming...brought my own records
up. Mentioned something to the effect that "Tomorrow
Never Comes" was the English version of "A Solo Mio,"
which, of course, is Americanized via "There's No
Tomorrow." I just wasn't thinking very well at the
time. Larry quickly corrected it mistake for his
listeners. I'm still embarrassed when I think about
it to this day. Because I was sort of putting myself
out as an expert when in all probability Larry knew a
hell of a lot more than me. Bothers the hell out of
me, that goof of mine! Another time, I sat it on KLAC
with Corky Mayberry and, once again, played a record
from an album that I liked very much called "Up
Against the Wall, Redneck." Corky almost got fired
for that. Memos galore flew back and forth, all of
them dodging the real culprit...me! What's ironic is
that a few years later I heard that song on KLAC as an
oldie. But I'm the one who played it first on KLAC
and, in fact, the first person to play it in Los
Angeles. Also ironic is that Corky did get fired from
the station later, but it had to do with arranging to
meet some woman listener. I think Corky was on his
fourth wife at the time. Another irony is that Corky
probably went back to Oklahoma and, somewhile later,
so did I to take a PR job and study for a master's
degree. Don't know what happened to Corky. A really
nice guy. Women woes, of course, to the contrary. If
anyone reads this and has a minute, please email Larry
Scott, address above, and tell him that Claude
apologizes regarding "Tomorrow Never Comes." That'll
fake him out real good!
Dan Cutrer,
dancutrer@yahoo.com: "Ed Miller in Austin
has been copying me with your emails. Ed and I are
Radio Trash who were country when it wasn't cool. I'm
with you on Johnny Horton. If you've not read Tillman
Franks' book, I was there when it happened, it's
jammed full of photos, facts, appears to be literal
transcripts of Tillman talking.
www.tillmanfranks.com.
Expensive, but worth every
penny. He throws out little things: '...I sent Johnny
to see the woman who made Jim Reeves' hairpieces'.
Johnny was constantly in debt, Tillman had to sell his
house once to keep Johnny from prison. Johnny played
the Skyline Club in Austin...he'd sworn no more club
dates...'cause he had a $1,200 hot check floating
around. My ex's mother was a nurse at the Cameron
Hospital when Johnny, Tillman and Tommy were brought
in...Johnny didn't look like Johnny 'cause he'd thrown
his hairpiece onto the dash after they left the Austin
club. She says she still doesn't know how anybody got
out of the car alive, it was completely destroyed.
It's not a honky tonk song, but for my two cents
'They'll Never Take Her Love From Me' is Horton's
greatest work. Miss Millie Kirkham, who has sung on
more hit records than anybody alive, does a
turnaround that is positively unearthy. It's from
Horton's one session with strings. I grew up in
Southeast Louisiana, we were outside the range of
KWKH, it's directional to the west and north, so I
never heard Horton on the Hayride. I was 13 when he
died, t almost killed me. I idolized the man from
the first song of his I heard. Even made a trip to
see his grave in Shreveport in '67. 'Here lies a
perfect man. My Husband'. Flat headstone, nothing
elaborate, cemetery wants 'em that way so they can
mow. I moderate a Yahoo classic country discussion
group that I've taken the liberty of posting your
exchange with Ed and your original article in. Billy
Grammer has been writing recollections exclusively for
us, I didn't know he played on many of the Moon
Mullican sessions for King. Our regulars include
Charlie Justice, he played fiddle on A-11, ran Jones'
band, they went with Tammy after George went nuts.
Hope you'll join us. We usually have 'samples' of
completely obscure music, right now we're featuring
Carl Belew. There are four separate file storage
groups, if you don't have Carl & Pearl's
'Honkytonkitis', it's in greatcountry#4, along with
everything from Jones singing the National Anthem to
Roger Miller and Jerry Chestnut demos. We did a Carl
& Pearl Festival a few weeks ago, also have a 'Sweet
Dreams' collection. By the way, I was the first to
ever beat KLIF in a Dallas Arbitron, fall of '73. I
anchored the 3-7 news at KRLD, 50kw, 1080, Dallas.
18.2 12+. Never see those numbers again on AM or FM.
Also knew Gordon McLendon. One of the most wonderful
stories: Ed Miller's mother was my neighbor, she was
there in the studio...was the time Gordon is
'recreating' a Thanksgiving Day NFL game...with Dizzy
Dean doing color. They're both seriously drunk, not
helped by the minor fact that Dizzy knows nothing
about football. 'He's at the 30, the 40, the 50, the
60...' 'No, Diz, they only go up to 50'. 'He's
running backwards, the 60, the 50, the 40....' Best
wishes from Dallas!"
A followup from Ed Miller,
esmiller@swbell.net: "You
are absolutely correct in your response to me that any
honky tonk reference to Ray Price would have to be
based on the nature of his act back in the those days
when he was still the Chief of the Cherokee Cowboys,
not in his later days with a tuxedo, a toupee, and an
orchestra. Johnny Bush, Darrell McCall, and Ray
Price are three of a class that I would call the
Texas Tenors. Bush played drums in the Cherokee
Cowboy band back in the 60s at about the same time
that Willie Nelson was playing bass. He's been
recording and releasing honky tonk music ever since.
These days, Bush remains the torch-bearer for honky
tonk music as we know it around Austin here in South
Texas, which is to say mostly 4/4 shuffles with fiddle
and steel (what Nashville used to call 'the Ray Price
sound'). If you have any interest in that old honky
tonk sound, or enjoy the old Price and McCall, please
check Johnny Bush out. Thanks so much for the
response to me, and for loving our good ol' fashioned
honky tonk music (from one native Texan to another)."
Tom Quigley,
tomquigley2@yahoo.com: "I do remember
Tom Horne, and that he was quite a good writer. Tell
him I wish him all the best if you are in touch. I'd
still be out there trying myself if circumstances were
different, and you never know, may still get back out
there. Don't know if I had mentioned it to you
previously, but I've adapted the life story of a
holocaust survivor living here in Rochester to a stage
play, which is scheduled to be produced here sometime
in late June (co-adapted, actually, working in
cooperation with the woman about whose story it is).
The head of the performing arts school that I'm
associated with also owns a local modeling and casting
agency, and is working with a producer on a project to
be filmed locally, and the producer of that film has
expressed an interest in developing the play for a
feature -- so we'll see. Other stuff: I've accumulated
quite a guitar collection in the five years since I've
been back here (own nine now, including models that
George Harrison and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds used
and gave a measure of notoriety to). Not good enough
of a player yet to perfom publicly, but I'm getting
there. And my younger brother has formed his own band
that plays Irish and Celtic music and they have been
playing quite a bit around western New York in the
last month. Still cold and chilly here--typical April
in Rochester. Wish I was out west."
James Rose,
rosekkkj@earthlink.net: "Just read your
'Gone...' piece. So true! When you're behind the mic,
everybody's your friend. When you're NOT...nobody's
your friend. A fellow Houston DJ used to tell me 'How
soon they forget'. HOW TRUE! Most folks think all
DJs do is just sit behind a microphone, announce a
song, which all of a sudden appears from out of
nowhere and answer telephones. That's neat! Once, at
KULF, back in 1979, we had a big fancy shebang, KULF
PARTY NIGHT! An open day for clients, agencies and
people related, for a huge feast and celebration at
KULF's Penthouse Suite! KULF was actually in the
PENTHOUSE SUITE! Absolutely the finest, most
well-planned Radio Control Room anyone could ever
imagine! Everything was where it should be!
Everything you needed was at your fingertips! We had
gorgeous views from three huge windows out over
Houston's downtown from high atop 2100 Travis! At
that particular time at KULF, one of the many
airshifts I had was 7p-midnight. All the KULF DJs
were decked out in TUXES. DJS IN TUXES? After
stuffing all the goodies, some of the hundreds of
guests migrated into the control room. I would inform
them to please be quiet when the mic was opened. They
marveled at how busy a DJ is. Pretty soon, the
control room became full of beholders, growing to
absolutely the most fun I ever had on the air. Please
be quiet when the mic is on was no more! It became
'Come on in. Make all the noise you want'. We all
participated in what became our 'show!' Between tunes,
I would tell them what to say, in unison, when called
upon. We would practice. I t sounded great! We had a
ball! Wish every time on the air, would be like that.
So much excitement and merriment. Everybody
participated and really enjoyed themselves! Come
midnight, the crowd dwindled to a trickle. It was so
enjoyable, I wanted to stay on the air for as long as
anyone was there. Please don't leave! Things like
that just make Radio the most enjoyable feat
imaginable. Few become graced to experience such a
truly wonderful happening! Truly undescribable! Makes
me so thankful for having been blessed with so many
unbelievable years in the most exciting and rewarding
career...RADIO!"
I told Dan Cutrer,
dancutrer@yahoo.com, that I was
forwarding his note and that of Ed Miller to Bill
Ward, an old buddy, and received this response: "Bill
Wardlow. Pass along that Tony Lawrence from
KRLD/Texas State Network and I were telling Bill
stories at lunch a few weeks ago. I anchored at KRLD
while in law school, I later lawyered for Metromedia,
worked with Ashcraft. Tony had us rolling with the
story of the guy at KRLD, Dallas, that nobody much
liked. They told him, 'Tomorrow is Hawaiian Day, be
sure and wear shorts and a wild shirt'. John Kluge is
coming to town. Everybody else is in their best suit
and tie, around the corner comes this guy. Legend has
it John told Bill to "...find out who that idiot is
and fire him'. Bill's good folks. I'd love to have
both of you on the Yahoo group...we've got a couple
other Recovering Broadcasters. 'With constant prayer
and one day at a time, we can overcome our need to
broadcast'. Might mention to Bill that Blaine Leist,
who produced those epic KRLD commercials with Rex
Allen, is now at Fossil Watches. A local bank brought
Orson Wells into do their radio spots, Rex's work cut
at the station beat 'em in the local ad awards. Best
wishes from Dallas!"
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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