Dave Hillhouse & Ellis Mize - the Runabouts

The Runabouts, early 1960s. From left to right (prob.):
Stan Hopkins, Bobby Davis, Chuck Booker,
unknown sax player, Ellis Mize

The Runabouts

During the 1950s and 1960s, many groups performed and recorded in and around Memphis, Tennessee. One of those groups was the Runabouts, a name that was used several times by different combos across the early 1960s United States.

The Memphis based Runabouts were centered around David "Dave" Hillhouse and Ellis Mize, both vocalists and guitarists. Hillhouse was born in 1937 and probably hailed from Memphis. James Ellis Mize was probably born around 1936. By 1958, Mize was bassist with Eddie Bond's Stompers and took part in several recording sessions. The first of these took place in April 1958 at the Sun Studio, recording "This Old Heart of Mine" and "Show Me", which remained unreleased, however.

In 1960, Mize joined forces with Dave Hillhouse to form the Runabouts. They became acquainted with Buford Cody and Gene Williams, who started their Co & Wi record label around the same time. Pianist Jerry Lee "Smoochie" Smith, who had come from Jackson, Tennessee, with Kenny Parchman's band to Memphis in 1957, joined as well. With the addition of Stan Hopkins on bass and Chuck Booker on drums, the Runabouts were chosen to back up Bobby Davis on his Co & Wi single "Run Don't Walk" b/w "Standing at Her Door", released in 1961.

Also in 1961, the Runabouts held their solo session for Co & Wi. With the same line-up at Stan Kesler's Echo studio, they recorded "The Prom" and "When I Get the Blues" (Co & Wi #114, 1961). According to UK music enthusiast Dave Travis, who eventually bought the Co & Wi label, this single was the best seller for Buford Cody's labels. This probably caught the attention of the bigger Jubilee label, which released the group's "Train" b/w "Bring Back My Baby" in October 1961, being the first release in the label's new (and short-lived) country & western series. At the same time, the group was a featured act on Gene Williams' Cotton Town Jubilee in Memphis, which also aired over KWAM. Although Williams set up his record label of the same name in 1962 to record many of the show's performers, the Runabouts never had a release on it.

Billboard October 23, 1961, C&W review

The Jubilee disc became the Runabouts' last single. By 1964, Mize had returned to performing with the Stompers and recorded a few more sessions with them during this year as their lead guitarist. He remained associated with Bond, recording two duets with Kay Campbell in the early 1970s for Bond's Tab label. Around the same time, Mize was a country music DJ on KWAM FM (his colleagues included Bond and Chuck Comer). He was not only a good musician but also a bit of a songwriter, penning most of the Runabouts' material as well as songs for other artists (including "Hole In My Pocket" for Jim Morgan, another singer who was associated with Bond).

Dave Travis managed to track down both Hillhouse and Mize in the 1980s. Apparently, both still performed together. At a gig in Millington, a suburb of Memphis, in the winter of 1986, they performed a version of "The Prom" for Travis (much to the surprise of the rest of the audience, which was rather accustomed to country music). Sadly, Hillhouse lost his battle with cancer the following year. Ellis Mize continued to perform occasionally and, as far as I could find out, still resides in Millington.

Cees Klop's White Label Records released two different takes on "The Prom" and "When I Get the Blues" on his 1987 LP "Memphis, Rock and Roll Capital of the World, Vol. 4". The released versions had been already re-issued by Klop in 1973 on "Rare Rock-a-Billy". In 1988, the Sunjay label from Sweden released those versions as well on "Memphis Rockabilly, Vol. 2" plus the unreleased "Glad We Talked It Over".

Discography

Co & Wi C-112: Bobby Davis - Walk Don't Run / Bobby Davis and the (Runabouts) - Standing at Her Door (ca. 1961)
Co & Wi C-114: The Runabouts - The Prom / When I Get the Blues (1961)
Jubilee 9-1000: The Runabouts - Train / Bring My Baby Back (1961)

Sources

• 45cat entry

• Discogs

• Memphis Radio 1971

• Eddie Bond entry on Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies

• Rockin' Country Style entry

• David Hillhouse Find a Grave entry

• Official census records accessed through ancestry.com

• Dave Travis: Memphis Rockabillies, Hillbillies & Honky Tonkers, Vol. 4: The Memphis Records Story" (2004), Stomper Time Records

Leon Starr

Leon Starr - Back in the USA (Stomper Time unissued)
Memphis pianist Leon Starr recorded steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s, though he managed to leave behind no trace. My attempt to gain some more knowledge about his live through Findagrave.com and Ancestry.com was unsuccessful. However, it is Dave Travis who has some information for us in his booklet to his Stomper Time Records CD reissue.

Leon Starr

Leon Starr became a member of Eddie Bond's Stompers in 1958 or 1959. At the same time, Bond established his own Stomper Time record label (after his two-year term with Mercury and a short stint with Pappy Daily's D label). Starr was the pianist of the band but also a versatile singer. Bond gave him the chance to cut a few covers of rock'n'roll songs: "Back in the USA", "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", "My Baby Left Me", and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". No info concerning the recording date, location, and line-up has survived, although it seems probable that Starr is playing piano on those tracks with backing by the Stompers. Although fine recordings, Bond did not release them at the time.

Starr left the Stompers around 1962 or 1963 but remained associated with Bond. He held down a steady gig at Bond's Western Lounge in Memphis and recorded for his Millionaire label in 1966. By then, Starr played country music. He continued to release solo singles in the years to come for small Memphis labels: a country single for Style Wooten's Allandale Records (1968), a fuzz garage guitar gem with the Fire Birds on Clyde Leoppard's VU Records (1968), country duets on John Cook's Blake Records with a female performer named "Little Sis" (1974), and more country music on the Bachelor and III label.

There are also two tracks by Starr that found its way onto a 2015 Stomper Time CD, "Memphis Country Favorites and Rarities, Vol. 4". The tracks are "Last Date" (an instrumental probably featuring Starr's piano playing) and a cover of Faron Young's 1950s hit "Alone with You". However, I have no release and label information on these tracks. What happened to Starr afterwards is a mystery. If someone can point me towards more information, please feel free to contact me.

Discography

Millionaire MM-120
Leon Starr
Honey Child (B. Huskey; J. Surber) / Have I Wasted My Time (A. Kyle; R. Needham)
1966

Allandale 3684

Leon Starr

Just Like That (Joe B. Cartwright) / That Kind of Living (Joe B. Cartwright)

W4KM-0883 / W4KM-0884 (RCA)

1968

"Producers: Style Wooten & Sam Neil"

VU 45-101

Leon Starr and the Fire Birds / The Fire Birds

Little Live Wire (Arthur Kyle) / Endless Dream (A. Kyle; H. Hunton)
1968

Blake 2-276

Leon Starr & Little Sis / Little Sis

Common Law Wife (A. Chipman) / The Lord Knows You're Drinking (A. Chipman)
1974

Blake 2-276
Little Sis / Leon Starr
Red Rover (N. Cooper) / The Town of Love (D. Cooper, Jr.)
1974

Bachelor and III 1101

Leon Starr

My Name's Trouble (Don Miller) / I Can't See My Way (to Go On Living) (Don Miller)
"Produced by Nonconnah"

Recommended reading
• Some Local Loser

See also
• That Million Dollar Memphis Sound

Sources
• Discogs
• 45cat entry
• Dave Travis: "Memphis Rockabillies, Hillbillies & Honky Tonkers: The Stomper Time Records Story" (2001), liner notes, Stomper Time Records

Delmore Brothers in Memphis

Good Times in Memphis
The Delmore Brothers in Bluff City

The 1940s and early 1950s saw a lot of country music talent passing through the city of Memphis. Although it became well-known as the "home of the blues" and the "birthplace of rock'n'roll", country music had been always present in the city. Since the late 1920s, it had been a center for the major label's field recordings for blues, jazz, gospel, and old-time folk music as well. 

I have featured several Memphis country artists before, including Doc McQueen, Shelby Follin, Clyde Leoppard's Snearly Ranch Boys, Joe Manuel, among others, but the Delmore Brothers were probably the most popular and successful (commercial-wise) among those performers. Alton and Rabon Delmore were heard over Memphis radio on and off during the 1940s, spreading their blues and boogie-branded kind of country music across the Mid-South.

From the Hills of Alabama...
The Delmores hailed from northern Alabama, from Elkmont, to be precise, where Alton was born on December 25, 1906, and Rabon on December 3, 1916. The brothers grew up listening to folk and gospel music (her mother composed shaped-note gospel songs) and started singing as a duo at local fiddlers contests. The new medium of radio seemed to be perfect for their soft voices and their rising popularity led to a first record release on Columbia in 1931 ("Got the Kansas City Blues" b/w "Alabama Lullaby", #15724-D).

...to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville
This first record went nowhere, much due to the economic depression and the Columbia label's demise, but they landed a job on WSM's Grand Ole Opry in 1933. Although the Opry was just one of several barn dance shows back then, WSM's strong signal beamed their voices into the listeners' homes within a wide radius. They started recording for RCA Victor's Bluebird label the same year and stayed with the label into the early 1940s. Many of their sides were also released on the warehouse chain Montgomery Ward's in-house label, therefore enjoying even wider distribution, and some saw distribution in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and even India.

The Delmores had a bluesy style and concentrated on their own material instead of covers or standards. Their popularity grew and by 1936, the Delmore Brothers were the most popular Opry act. They began a shorter stint with Decca in 1940 which ended due to World War II. Following a disagreement with the management, they left the Opry and, like it was common for many country entertainers back then, roamed the country in search of radio station work. They came to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1943, where they began broadcasting on powerhouse WLW and signed with Syd Nathan's independent King record label - their first record was released in late 1944.

Memphis Down in Dixie
Rabon left the act for a short time, working a defense job, and Alton continued to perform solo on WLW. Near the end of World War II, the station refused to hire Rabon again (probably due to his alcohol abuse) and the brothers left Cincinnati. After a short stop in Indianapolis, they ended up in Memphis. There, they began appearing on WMC, one of the city's oldest radio stations that carried a lot of other country performers as well, including Slim Rhodes' Mountaineers and Gene Steele. 

The Delmores at WMC in Memphis

The Delmores' act at that time also included harmonica player Wayne Raney, who hailed from Wolf Bayou, Arkansas, and was living in Memphis by then. Raney had worked in Covington, Kentucky, south of Cincinnati across the Ohio River but somehow, the threesome had never met. In Memphis, Raney decided to approach them and went over to the Delmores' house in West Memphis. After a good jam on the front porch, he was in. As a trio, they also worked personal appearances around Memphis and across the Mississippi in West Memphis and surrounding Arkansas areas. Their blues drenched sound fitted perfectly to Memphis and was completed by Raney's harmonica. Sometimes, they were augmented by another harmonica wizard, Lonnie Glosson. The Delmores began experimenting with boogie elements, too, a trend in country music that just had started, and in May 1946, "Hillbilly Boogie" (King #527) was released. It was the beginning of a series of country boogie songs that foreshadowed the development of rockabilly. However by late 1946, the brothers left Memphis for the first time because they had "burned the area out" and started another trip of radio station hopping. 

By November 1947, they were back in Memphis at WMC but left again only to return for some time in 1948. In 1949, they were working in Fort Smith, Arkansas, when their "Blues Stay Away from Me" climbed the Billboard country & western charts and eventually hit the #1 spot. They were back in Memphis in the early 1950s, rubbing shoulders with another, younger brother act - Ira and Charlie Loudermilk, better known as the Louvin Brothers, who had come to Memphis as part of Eddie Hill's band in 1946 or 1947.

According to Charlie Louvin, as cited by Charles K. Wolfe in his book "In Close Harmony", the Delmores were performing on smaller stations in Blytheville, Arkansas (probably KLCN), and some in West Memphis, during this time (though they would live in Memphis). "Alton and Rabon had the identical, the same setup as Ira and I. One teetotaller and one who couldn't stay sober" Louvin recalled. One time the Louvins and the Delmores were playing a ballpark stage with Raney and Glosson: "At the time, Arkansas was dry, and Rabon, he absolutely had to have a drink, so Ira said he'd ride with him. They went all the way back to Memphis, ten or twelve miles, to get some booze. Even with Ira drinkin' a little bit, Rabon scared him to death coming back through West Memphis at a very high rate of speed."

Billboard June 1, 1946

Billboard November 22, 1947

Leaving Memphis
The Delmores left Memphis for good around 1951 and hopped from station to station, ending their career in Houston, Texas. There, Alton decided to go full-time into songwriting while Rabon had been unreliable either way due to his alcoholism. In addition, he was diagnosed with cancer and an operation in 1952 could not bring any improvement of his health. He passed away the same year a day after his 36th birthday on December 4.

Ira and Charlie Louvin were heavily inspired by the Delmores sound and they would even record a Delmore Brothers tribute album some years later. During their Memphis days, the Delmores also inspired other future stars. Elvis Presley was probably used to listen them and lots of other, future rockers and country singers would. Alton fell into oblivion after his brother's death and went out of the music business, bitter and disillusioned. He moved back to Alabama and gave it one last shot in 1959, recording his sole solo record, "Good Times in Memphis" b/w "Thunder Across the Border" for Ernie Tucker's Linco label across the border in Fayetteville, Tennessee. He passed away on June 8, 1964.

See also
• Good Times in Fayetteville - Ernest Tucker and the Preservation of Rock'n'Roll
• Wayne Raney - King of the Talking Harmonica

Sources
• Country Music Hall of Fame
• Hillbilly-Music.com entry
• Alton Delmore 45cat entry
• Jeffrey J. Lange: "Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly" (University of Georgia Press), 2004, page 236
• Charles K. Wolfe: "In Close Harmony - The Story of the Louvin Brothers" (University Press of Mississippi), 1996, p. 100-102
• Charles K. Wolfe: "Classic Country - Legends of Country Music" (Routledge), 2001, p. 115
• Alton Delmore: Truth Is Stranger Than Publicity" (Country Music Foundation Press), 1977

Bud Standridge on SOH (Select-O-Hits)

Bud Standridge and the Mesilla Valley Boys - What Have You Got (SOH 016), 1972

Here we have another enjoyable Memphis country record from the 1970s. It's Bud Standridge and his Mesilla Valley Boys with "What Have You Go" backed by "Morning" on SOH 016 from 1972. I looked it up, the Mesilla Valley is located in South New Mexico and West Texas along the Rio Grande from Radium Springs, New Mexico, to El Paso, Texas.

The singer's full name was probably Lloyd Victor Standridge, judging from the composer credits, and I found several Lloyd Standridges living in Arkansas but only one Lloyd Victor Standridge from Del Rio, Texas, which is more than 400 miles away from El Paso, though. He was born in Del Rio on July 25, 1935, and died there on December 26, 1992, at the age of 57. He was buried in San Miguel, Doña Ana County, New Mexico, which is indeed located in Mesilla Valley so I guess, we have the right Lloyd Victor Standridge here.

"Organ Mountains resemble a giant organ extending into the sky. These are the stately guardians
of the Mesilla Valley, through which runs the Rio Grande River" (from the back of this post card)

I don't have an answer to the question how he got to Memphis but obviously he did. Standridge had two records out on SOH, a shortcut for Select-O-Hits, which was a record store and retail shop operated by Tom Phillips, Sam Phillips' brother, on Chelsea Avenue. The company had several record labels throughout the years, including SOH, which was active from 1970 to 1974. Select-O-Hits is still in existence, though rather in the distribution field.

Back to Standridge. He returned to the Mesilla Valley region, where he and his band continued to perform. They had another release on the Goldust label, which was based in Mesilla Park, New Mexico.

Discography

SOH 014: Webb of Love / It's a Lie (ca. 1972)

SOH 016: What Have You Got / Morning (1972)
Goldust 45-5045: Party Lights / The Hands You're Holding Now

Sources

• Find a Grave entry
• Family Search entry
• Discogs
• 45cat entry for Select-O-Hits

Peak Records

The King Clothiers' Short Venture Into Music Production
Lansky Brothers' Peak Records

Among the many smaller labels in Memphis' music history, the Peak record label stands out due to its unusual ownership. Guy and Bernard Lansky, simply known as the Lansky Brothers, owned a clothing shop on Beale Street, known as "Lansky Bros. Men's Shop", which gained international fame as Elvis Presley's clothier. One of the lesser known aspects is that the brothers also went into the recording business in 1958, building a small recording studio in the back of their shop and founding the Peak label.

What became the Lansky Bros. shop started in 1946 on 126 Beale Street as Lansky Bros. Army Surplus store, selling leftover Army supplies from World War II, which had come to an end a year earlier. The Lanskys were Memphis born and Guy Lansky served his country during World War II, running an Army surplus store in Italy.

By the early 1950s, Army supply was harder to come by but, on the other hand, there was a growing market for young men's clothes, especially for the jazz and rhythm and blues scene. The brothers jumped at the chance and remodeled their store, developing it into a full-fledged clothes shop for men. The store soon gained popularity, especially among the many young, hip musicians like B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Lee Riley, Little Willie John, Little Richard, Pat Boone, and of course Elvis Presley.

In 1958, Presley had developed from being a southern "western bop" singer to a national cultural phenomenon and rock'n'roll was the thing. Every record label tried to find their own Elvis, no matter if it was a small independent company or a major record label. The Lanskys thought that, too, and - probably from the money they earned with the store - they invested in a small recording studio behind their warehouse which they named "American Recording".

Apparently, the venture was established by ten different business men from Memphis, many of them being silent partners, though. According to Billboard, iron manufacturer Abe Sauer was chairman of the board and Bernie Freiden probably took over the function of musical director. Curtis Foster also served as an executive for the label. Another of those ten businessmen was Howard R. Chambers, who did a lot of songwriting for the label. The Lanskys' exact occupation with the label remains foggy, unfortunately.

Billboard August 10, 1958: "Peak Records Sells Artist By the Piece"
Article on Peak's business strategy

In contrast to other labels, the Peak venture was set up a little bit different by the board. According to a Billboard article from August 10, 1959, the Peak label put half of the financial means behind the artists' first release, seeking for investors to put on the other half to finance the issue. This principle should continue until after the fourth release of an artists, when profits should be paid to the investors (if the discs were successful). This strategy was not fruitful likely, as no artist on Peak had more than two releases. The article mentions further that Peak had already ten discs released that way but the truth was that nothing was released at that time and that its first issue was still months away - it was, likely, not even planned. This, however, would change within three months.

The label's first recording artist was 17-years old rock'n'roller named Eddie Cash, who was a regular visitor to the brothers' store. Cash was managed by Bill Harris, who had previously worked with Harold Jenkins (alias Conway Twitty). Cash later told John Burton: "Howard Chambers was in Lansky's talking to Bill Harris, bass player and manager of Harold Jenkins. They mentioned Eddie Cash, Guy Lansky jumped in, saying: 'Is that the kid who won the contest at Treadwell High School? He buys his clothes in here. We want him to be out first release! So Chambers got in touch with Eddie and within a couple of weeks the record was written, recorded and issued."

The record that was mentioned was "Doing All Right", written by Howard Chambers, and "Land of Promises", written by Cash and his guitarist Gerald Hunsucker. Both recordings saw release in November 1958 on Peak #1001. Cash promoted the disc heavily and it reached high chart positions in several local charts, including in Memphis. It was local DJ George Klein's "Pick of the Week" the same month it was released. However, the Lansky's were inexperienced in the record business and had no proper distribution. When record stores from the east coast started demanding copies, they could not match the demand and the record died before it could develop into a national hit.

Another early production of American Recording was Dale Vaughn's "How Can You Be Mean to Me" b/w "High Steppin'" from 1958, though released not on Peak but probably recorded at the Lanskys' studio. It saw release on the Von label (unrelated to the Booneville, Mississippi, label of the same name). In 1959, American Recording launched a second, short-lived label entitled Al-Be Records, which released one disc each by Jay Rainwater and Charlie Fury and the Rebel Rockets.

Peak signed the Morgan Twins, a rock'n'roll duo from Little Rock, Arkansas, in May 1959 and released their "Sittin' at the Drive-In" around June the same year before they released another Eddie Cash single, "Come on Home" b/w "Day After Day" (Peak #1010, 1959), which went nowhere, unfortunately. Cash then left Peak, disappointed by the lack of promotion and distribution, and recorded at Fernwood (released on the Dot subsidiary Todd) as well as for Roulette.

There were a few more releases in 1960 by an artist named Paul Little and by Memphis famous wrestler Sputnik Monroe, who had a large following in the city's black community and was a customer at the Lanskys' store, but that pretty much was it. Sputnik Monroe was in good company, as several Memphis wrestlers cut a record, hoping to push their careers. The same applied to Monroe. Asked by his wife who would ever buy his record (as Monroe was so untalented he "couldn't carry a tune in a bucket" as cited in Aaron D. Horton's book "Identity in Professional Wrestling"), he replied "nobody" but he hoped to further his wrestling career with it. Soon after, he left Memphis.

There could have been a few more releases judging from the label's catalog number systems but no more have turned up so far. The Peak story ended already in 1960, only two years after it had begun.

The Lanskys Bros. shop remained a household institution in Memphis and it still is up to this day, although the original building is not used by the company any longer. The shop, now located in the Peabody Hotel building, is run by second and third generation family members and has experienced a boom recently due to the popularity of the movie "Elvis". Guy Lansky died in 2005, his brother Bernard Lansky followed in 2012.

Discography

Peak Records
1001: Eddie Cash and the Cashiers - Doing All Right / Land of Promises (Nov. 1959)
1002-1007: ?
1008: Morgan Twins - Sittin' in the Drive-In / Don't You Think It's Nice (June 1959)
1009:
1010: Eddie Cash and the Cashiers - Day After Day / Come On Home (1959)
155: Sputnik Monroe - Sputnik Hires a Band / Man That's the South
188: Paul Little - Turn Around Baby / I Want to Walk with You (Jan. 1960)

Al-Be Records
148: Jay Rainwater - Without You / The Girl I Left Behind
167: Charlie Fury and the Rebel Rockets - Reptile / Sump'n Else (March 1959)

Sources
• Rockin' Country Style entry
• 45cat entry for Peak and Al-Be
• Wikipedia entry
• John Beifuss: "From Elvis to Oscar - The Story of Lansky Brothers and its place in Memphis history" (The Commercial Appeal)
• Eddie Cash biography on BlackCat Rockabilly (Wayback Machine)
• Peak Records of Memphis
• various Billboard news items
• Robert Gordon: "It Came from Memphis" (Atria Books), 2001, pages 33-37
• Allison Graham, Sharon Monteith: "The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol. 18" (University of North Carolina Press), 2011, page 314
• Aaron D. Horton: "Identity in Professional Wrestling" (McFarland Inc. Publishers), 2018, pages 223-224

Charlie Rich on Phillips Int.

Charlie Rich - Everything I Do Is Wrong (Phillips Int. 3552), 1960
Charlie Rich ranks among the most famous and influential musicians that ever came out of Arkansas. Rich, unlike many of his contemporaries at Sun, had a jazz background, then switched to rock'n'roll and finally found his home in country music. Though, he was adept at many styles and could switch easily from one to another.

Charles Allan Rich was born in 1932 in Colt, East Arkansas, near Forrest City and not too far away from Memphis, too. His parents, who were very religious people, influenced him through the gospel music they played and sang. Blues came to Rich through a black sharecropper named C.J. Allen, who taught him blues piano, and he found further joy in playing jazz, performing saxophone in the high school band.

A young Charlie Rich, ca. 1950s

He formed the Velvetones while doing service in Enid, Oklahoma, but he and his wife returned to the West Memphis area and became farmers in 1955. He kept on performing locally around Memphis, playing jazz and R&B covers as well as writing his own material. He auditioned at Sun Records but was rejected for being "too jazzy" but became a studio musician for the label in 1958. His piano playing can be heard on numerous recordings, including those by Johnny Cash, Bill Justis, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, and others.

He began recording in his own right for the Sun subsidiary label Phillips International in 1958 but his first two releases failed to chart. It was his third single that became a hit record, one of the last that came out of the Sun/Phillips house actually. The top side was "Lonely Weekends", a rock'n'roll song written by Rich. It reached #22 on Billboard's Hot 100. The flip side, "Everything I Do Is Wrong", an equally good rock'n'roll piece from his pen, is rather forgotten today. Both songs were recorded on October 14, 1959, at Sun' studio on Union Avenue, featuring Rich on vocals and piano, Roland Janes on guitar, Billy Lee Riley on bass, Martin Willis on saxophone, and Jimmy Van Eaton on drums. They were released on Phillips Int. #3552 in January 1960.

Rich kept on recording for Phillips Int. and Sun both as a studio musician and name artist but further success eluded him. He switched to the RCA-Victor owned Groove label, where he scored some small hits and moved once again, this time to the RCA parent label. He also recorded for Smash and Hi during the 1960s but it was not until he signed with Epic that his most successful era began. He scored several #1 country hits during the 1970s, including "Behind Closed Doors", and many of his hits also crossed over to the pop charts.

Charlie Rich, 1970s

His successful days were over by the 1980s and Rich's heavy drinking caused trouble since the 1970s. He semi-retired, playing only occasionally. He died in 1995.

Sources
• Wikipedia entry
• Find a Grave entry
• 45cat entry
• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry

Jim Owens on Shock

Jim Owens - Two Shadows (Shock 1005), ca. 1972

Here were have a well-produced, early 1970s country performance from Memphis. Owens was already on the Memphis scene by the early 1960s. He had recorded "Davey Jones Locker" for Marshall Ellis' local Erwin record label, though I couldn't determine exact release information. This song later found its way on a 1986 Ace LP "Memphis Honky Tonk Hillbilly". Around the time Owens recorded for Erwin, he was also part of Gene Williams' Cotton Town Jubilee stage show that originated from Memphis in the early 1960s and also aired over KWAM. Unfortunately, I was not able to come up with more information about Owens.

Shock Records was owned by Jerry Lee "Smoochie" Smith, who came from Jackson, Tennessee, to Memphis in the mid 1950s as part of Kenny Parchman's band. He soon found work as a pianist with different bands, venues, and recording studios. He also recorded as a solo artist during the 1960s and 1970s without much success. He set up the Shock label in the early 1970s and apart from his own releases, recorded a few local Memphis artists, including Jim Owens.

See also
• Jerry Smith on Shock

Sources
• Discogs

Joe Manuel

Joe Manuel

Not to be confused with the more famous cajun musician of the same name, Joe Manuel was a popular country music entertainer of the 1940s and 1950s in Memphis. He played an important role in giving young Memphis musicians a stage to present their talents - his Saturday Night Jamboree hosted a number of later rockabilly artists and in addition, his radio show was popular all over the mid-south in the 1950s.

Born Joseph Manuel to Thomas and Arrie Manuel on March 26, 1912, he was from Northwest Alabama like fellow Memphis country entertainer Gene Steele. Joe's father was born in Texas but lived in Alabama when he married Arrie Wilburn in 1913. When Arrie died in 1938, Thomas married Willie B. Waldrep. The Manuel family hailed from the small community of Town Creek, Alabama, but relocated to the Arkansas delta region when Joe was a small boy. They lived the hard life of sharecroppers and Manuel and his brothers were raised on farms in the Mississippi River regions. As a teenager, he left Arkansas and joined a carnival, where he met comedian Dave Perkins. Perkins took the youngster under his wing and mentored him how to entertain people.

Manuel then took up the guitar and singing, becoming an entertainer in his own right. By the early 1930s, he was back in Arkansas and began appearing on local radio stations. He had made the move to the region's metropolis, Memphis, by 1933 and began performing on WNBR, which eventually became WMPS after it was acquired by the Memphis Press-Scimitar. The station was an affiliate of the Blue Network (which evolved into ABC) and for a while in the 1930s, Manuel's radio shows were beamed over the network into several states.

By 1940, Manuel had married Elizabeth A. Van Hooser, with whom he had a daughter, Dotty. Manuel was married several times, a fact that he also incorporated into his songs (like "Alimony Blues"). In 1942, he was married to Margaret Mary "Elsie" Keywood, which gave birth to another daughter Sylvia.

Following World War II, Manuel worked a radio station in Dallas, Texas, for a short time but despite the good offer from the station, he returned to Memphis due to family responsibilities (which also included his son Larry by then). Upon his return to the city, he hooked up with WHBQ, which transferred his show to an early morning slot. As Manuel's show matched perfectly with many farmers' breakfast time in the surrounding Memphis areas, it became a huge success among the rural audiences. As WHBQ was a 5,000 watts station, Manuel was heard as far away as Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, and Kentucky.

In 1948, television reached Memphis but Manuel did not transfer to the new medium. His popularity ceased and his radio show came to an end in 1950. He stayed out of radio business for about two years but returned to the airwaves in 1952, then appearing on KWEM in West Memphis, where he started a daily broadcast. By then, an idea had grown on Manuel. He noticed the many young, talented singers in the city and wanted to create a possibility for them to present themselves. He introduced a live stage show patterned after the Grand Ole Opry, which he called the Saturday Night Jamboree. The show started in 1953 and took place at the Goodwyn Institute in Memphis. It quickly drew crowds and became successful enough that KWEM began airing the shows live. Apart from his own band (which also included his son Larry on accordion), acts like Johnny Cash, Eddie Bond, Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, Harmonica Frank Floyd, Marcus Van Story and band, Charlie Feathers, and others who became known as rockabilly legends appeared on Manuel's stage.

Despite his popularity, Manuel made only few recordings and none of them were released in a commercial way. Probably in 1954, he and his band laid down a couple of recordings at Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service. Some of them were jingles for bread companies and found release on 78rpm discs released by the Action Advertising Agency credited to "Dreamy Joe". Those included "Hardin's Bread Boogie" and "Holsum Boogie" and as the titles reveal, they were hot country boogie numbers. His "Holsum Boogie" became so popular with listeners in South Illinois that Manuel and his band were once invited by the Holsum Bread Company to perform in front of a 11,000 audience in Anna, Illinois.

Advertisement sign for Holsum Bread

It was especially lead guitarist Lee Adkins' playing that foreshadowed the rockabilly sounds, which would evolve about two years later in Memphis. There was a third boogie number called "Daisy Bread Boogie" as well as "Alimony Blues", a song written by Manuel already in the early 1940s with its lyrics bearing a lot of self-reference. It featured yodeling in the style of Jimmie Rodgers by Manuel and enjoyed great popularity among his radio and live audiences. Those two recordings were apparently not released at the time. Apart from Manuel on vocals and rhythm guitar and Adkins on electric lead guitar, the line-up also included Danny Chambers on bass.

The Saturday Night Jamboree ended in 1954 as the Goodwyn Institute's auditorium was closed down for remodeling and a year later, Manuel was sidelined by Sun Records' young rockabilly artists. He continued to broadcast on and off for KWEM but did not make recordings anymore. His son Larry recorded for Eddie Bond's Stomper Time label in 1959.

Joe Manuel died on July 16, 1959, at the age of 47 years from melanoma cancer. He is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Memphis. His daughter Sharon was born shortly after his passing.

Discography

Label No.#	Artist Credit	A / B side	Date
Action Prod. 101	Dreamy Joe	Holsum Boogie / You’ve Done Me Wrong
Action Prod. 101/2	Dreamy Joe	You’ve Done Me Wrong / Hardin’s Bread Boogie

See also
• Gene Steele - The Singing Salesman of Memphis

Recommended reading
• Hillbilly-Music.com
(note: this side is mixing up "Cajun" Joe Manuel and Memphis' Joe Manuel)
• Larry Manuel collection at Wilson Special Collections Libraries
• Photo of Joe and Larry Manuel with Marcus Van Story (Memphis Public Libraries)

Sources
• Biography on "Remembering the Shoals"
• Ancestors page
• Find a Grave entry
• 45worlds.com/78rpm entry
• Colin Escott, Martin Hawkins, Hank Davis: "The Sun Country Boy" (Bear Family Records), liner notes, 2013

Gene Steele

Gene Steele - the Singing Salesman of Memphis

Gene Steele was a longtime performer in Memphis. He was already there in the late 1930s, when nobody even dreamt of something like rock'n'roll, and Steele was still there when Sun Records was making noise in the whole country with this hybrid of country and rhythm & blues. During the years, Steele was heard on radio by dozens of later Memphis rock'n'roll performers - both black and white and had an impact on several performers' careers.

Steele was born on October 22, 1908, in the small town of Kennedy, Northwest Alabama, near the Mississippi border. By the late 1930s, Steele had made his way to the mid-west's regional metropolis Memphis and began appearing on local radio around 1939. He became a mainstay on WMC, which hosted several country performers throughout the years such as the Delmore Brothers and Slim Rhodes' Mountaineers.

In July 1939, Steele recorded his first session for the Vocalion label at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis. On four of the recorded numbers, he was backed by the Swift Jewel Cowboys, a Memphis jazz and western swing group which had recorded at the same location the previous days. The cuts included the bluesy "Freight Train Blues" with some Jimmie Rodgers inspired yodeling by Steele. Steele also recorded "Rio Grande Moon" and "Just a Little of the Blues" with a smaller combo that included possibly Gene Bagett.

In the early 1940s, Steele's band had become known as the "Sunny Southerners", playing on WMC and six nights a week at venues in Memphis and surrounding areas like Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. For a short time in the spring of 1942, this band included Kelland Clark and Boudleaux Bryant, who later became famous as a songwriter with his wife Felice. However, Clark and Bryant did not stay very long with Steele, as they left in April that year for Detroit.

Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, Steele remained a fixture on Memphis radio and became known as the "Singing Salesman" on his morning show. Sometimes, he was also billed "King of the Hillbillies". Quite a few now legendary Memphis artists referenced to his broadcasts, like future R&B and Soul singer Bobby "Blue" Bland. Charles Farley cites Bland in his book "Soul of the Man": "I've always been concerned singing. First spirituals and then white country blues - you know, what they call hillbilly. There used to be a morning radio show here in Memphis, Gene Steele, the Singing Salesman, and when I listened to him sing 'Take That Night Train to Memphis', I got interested in hillbilly music and in coming to Memphis."

The Courier News (Blytheville, Arkansas)
August 4, 1949

Steele also became friends with Marshall Grant, who had come to Memphis in 1947, worked as a mechanic at the same company as guitarist Luther Perkins. Both joined with Johnny Cash in the early 1950s and Steele happened to work as a salesman at the same company as Grant and Perkins. Steele, who was a veteran performer by then, advised Grant how to tune an upright bass when he switched from guitar to bass. Grant remembered: "And so I bought it [the bass] and took it home. Put it in my car and took it back to the shop, went back to work, had to work it on my car and lay it on top of the seat, as a lot of bass people did. But anyhow, I called John, and I said 'Luther's got this guitar, and I got a bass, and I don't know how in the hell you tune this thing.' So there was a person that worked at Auto Sales there, his name was Gene Steele, and he was a salesman there, and he had a little band. So I went to Gene the next day and said 'Gene, how in hell do you tune a bass?' He said 'I don't know but we're doin' a little gig tonight, and I'll ask the bass player.' He came back the next morning with a picture drawn in his hand [showing] G, D, A and E, just like the top four strings on a guitar. So I called John, and Luther was working on the other side of the shop, and I said 'Look here Luther, this is how you tune this little sucker'. And I said 'Let's get together tonight, tune it and make some music.'"

Paul Burlison, who became lead guitarist with the Johnny Burnette Rock'n'Roll Trio, remembered "they [the radio station] had a place there for people to sit and watch while it was broadcast live" as written in Tav Falco's book "Ghosts Behind the Sun". Burlison also recalled watching acts like Al Burns, Bobby Knight, and Gene Steele. By 1954, Steele had done more than 3,300 programs with the same sponsor and his early morning show had become an institution. 

I could not find any traces of Steele's activities past 1954. He was possibly sidelined by the emerging trend of rock'n'roll and changes in the radio business. Gene Steele died in 1984.

In the 1970s, Sun Records researchers found uncredited tapes in the studio's vaults, containing recordings of "Alimony Blues" and "Daisy Bread Boogie" cut around 1953/1954. In the first instance, these were wrongly attributed to Earl Peterson, who had recorded for Sun around the same time. Then, in the 1980s, Memphis bassist Bill Diehl assured these tapes had been recorded by Gene Steele and for many years, this was accepted as true although further investigations failed due to Steele's death. A couple of 1990s and early 2000s reissues credited those songs to Steele, too, but new researches some 30 years later by Martin Hawkins, Colin Escott and Hank Davis revealed that these songs were written and recorded by veteran Memphis country performer Joe Manuel and not by Steele. Manuel had been commissioned by an Ohio bakery to produce a jingle for their Daisy Bread brand.

The same likely applies to more tracks recorded at Sun and released on the Memphis based Action Productions label under the pseudonym "Dreamy Joe" (which was more likely Joe Manuel). The label was part of the Action Advertising Agency and the songs intended to be ads for the Holsum and Hardin bakeries. Only few copies were pressed and later wrongly credited to Steele. The recordings included more boogie-oriented numbers like "Holsum Boogie" and "Hardin's Bread Boogie". 

Discography

Label No.#	Artist Credit	A / B side	Date
Vocalion 05068	Gene Steele	Here’s Your Opportunity / Don’t Wait ‘Till We’re Old and Grey	09-1939
Conqueror 9336	Gene Steele	Here’s Your Opportunity / Don’t Wait ‘Till We’re Old and Grey	1939
Vocalion 05135	Gene Steele	Rio Grande Moon / Ride’em, Cowboy, Ride’em	1939
Conqueror 9337	Gene Steele	Rio Grande Moon / Ride’em, Cowboy, Ride’em	1939
Vocalion 05204	Gene Steele	Freight Train Blues / Just a Little of the Blues	11-1939
Okeh 05204	Gene Steele	Freight Train Blues / Just a Little of the Blues	1939

See also
• Swift Jewel Cowboys

Sources

• Hillbilly-Music.com entry

• 45worlds/78rpm entry

• Discogs

• Charles Farley: "Soul of the Man: Bobby 'Blue' Bland" (University Press of Mississippi), 2011, pages 47-48

• Bobbie Malone, Bill C. Malone: "Nashville's Songwriting Sweethearts: The Boudleaux and Felice Bryant Story" (University of Oklahoma Press), 2020

• Steve Turner: "The Man Called CASH: The Life, Love, and Faith of an American Legend" (W Publishing Group), 2004

• Michael Streissguth: "Johnny Cash - The Biography" (Da Capo Press), 2006

• Tav Falco: "Ghosts Behind the Sun - Splendor, Enigma & Death" (Elektron Ebooks), 2023

• "Broadcasting, Telecasting Volume 47" (1954)

• various Billboard News Items

• Colin Escott, Martin Hawkins, Hank Davis: "The Sun Country Boy" (Bear Family Records), liner notes, 2013

Swift Jewel Cowboys

The Swift Jewel Cobwoys at the Mid-South Fair in Memphis, 1938

Cowboy Swing in Memphis
The Story of the Swift Jewel Cowboys

Among Memphis' 1930s and 1940s country music acts, the Swift Jewel Cowboys were one of the few groups that made recordings. They were much heavier on jazz than Bob Wills or Milton Brown - with nods to Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway - but used the cowboy image quite heavier, too. They were on Memphis radio for much of the 1930s and inspired many future musicians through their broadcasts, including Sonny Burgess and Bill Justis.

The group was the brainchild of Frank B. Collins, manager of Jewel Oil & Shortening Company's refinery in Houston, Texas. Collins had searched for a possibility to promote the company's salad dressing and other products. To underline the down home image of his employer's products, he chose to set up a cowboy band to provide "old time entertainment with tunes and songs of yesterday". Though, it would become obvious soon that the Swift Jewel Cowboys were not an old-time string band but a hot western swing act.

The group came into existence in April 8, 1933, performing personal appearances around Houston. They mostly played at grocery stores and openings of supermarkets, while attendees served a Swift Jewel packet-top as a free ticket to their shows. Early members of the Swift Jewel Cowboys included singer and guitarist Elmer "Slim" Hall (the only known founding member), guitarist Texas Jim Lewis, who later founded his own group, the Lone Star Cowboys, and, hired by Lewis, steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe, who went on to write music history as part of Bob Wills' Texas Playboys.

More than a year after their founding, the group was transferred to Memphis, Tennessee, as in the fall of 1934, Frank Collins had been sent to the Memphis Swift Jewel office, too. In Memphis, the band began daily broadcasts on WMC, beginning on November 4, 1934. By March 1936, they had switched to WREC in Memphis and could be also heard on KRLA in Little Rock, Arkansas, and on WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee, broadening their popularity across the whole Mid-South. Their morning show even became part of of national syndicated CBS network for eight months in 1938.

One of the Swift Jewel Cowboys
on a rodeo

Their appearances had broadened, too, since their arrival in Memphis. To be a band member, it was not only demanded by manger Frank Collins to be a good musician, singer, and songwriter, but also to be able to ride. Naturally, they performed at many rodeos but also at fairs, vaudeville shows, school houses, hospitals and probably many more venues and occasions.

By then, the line-up of the Swift Jewel Cowboys had underwent some major changes. The band now included Slim Hall on vocals and guitar, David "Pee Wee" Wamble on bass (joining in late 1936 or early 1938), piano, and vocals (he could also play cornet and trumpet), Clifford "Kokomo" Crocker on vocals and accordion, Alfredo "Jose Cortes" Casares on fiddle (who hailed from Monterey, Mexico), Farris "Lefty" Ingram on fiddle and clarinet (from Hickman, Kentucky, joining in early 1936), as well as Calvin "Curly" Noland on bass and vocals. Teenage multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Riddle filled in when some of the members were on vacation and Jim Sanders, originally from Alabama, acted as a manager (besides Collins) and scripted their shows.

This line-up recorded a three-day session in July 1939 at Memphis' Gayoso Hotel for Vocalion Records. One some of the recordings, they were joined by Jimmy Riddle on harmonica. Of course there were songs like "Raggin' the Rails" and "My Untrue Cowgirl" that tried to erase the illusion of a cowboy band but the musicians' repertoire consisted rather of jazzy tunes and standards like "Memphis Blues", "Kansas City Blues" or "Fan It". Their recordings were released on Vocalion (and one disc on OKeh) during 1939 and 1940, the first being "Willie the Weeper" b/w "Memphis Oomph! (Is It True)" on Vocalion #05052 in August 1939. Some of their recordings were later reissued in the late 1940s by Columbia Records, who was the parent company of Vocalion and OKeh.

By 1942, times had changed. World War II had brought restrictions to the USA that made it hard for the band to maintain their busy touring schedule. In addition, some of the members were drafted and the band decided to disband in the summer of 1942, playing a farewell concert on the 4th of July at Memphis' Fairgrounds. Most of the members remained in the music business, many of them on a local or regional level, however.

An old can of Swift's Jewel

Sources
• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry
• 45worlds/78rpm entry
• Flickr.com
• Joe Bone: "Pee Wee Wamble - Last of the Swift Jewel Cowboys" (obituary)
• Bob Pinson: "Encyclopedia of Country Music" (Oxford University Press), 1998, page 520
• Tony Russell: "Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost" (Oxford University Press), 2010
• Tony Russell: "Chuck Wagon Swing" (liner notes), String Records LP
• Richard Carlin: "Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary" (Routledge), 2003, page 232

The Lonesome Rhodes on RCA-Victor

The Lonesome Rhodes (Sandy and Donna) - "Nothin' But Heartaches Here" (RCA-Victor 47-9134), 1967

The Lonesome Rhodes were Sandra (nicknamed Sandy) and Donna Christine Rhodes, daughters of Perry Hilburn "Dusty" Rhodes and "Dot" Rhodes, who, along with Dusty's brothers Ethmer Cletus "Slim" Rhodes and Gilbert R. "Speck" Rhodes, were members of Slim Rhodes' Mountaineers, longtime Memphis country music performers and once Sun recording artists.

Of course born into a musical family, both Sandra and Donna were blessed with the same talent and naturally got their early music education from their family. A career in music was predicted and in 1964, they released their debut "How Much Can a Lonely Heart Stand" b/w "Why, Why, Why" on the local Memphis based Penthouse label (#5001) in 1964 as "The Rhodes Sisters". This record came to the attention of the bigger independent Dot label and the sisters re-recorded it for release on Dot in May that year. A single on the Dial label followed in 1965. At that time, their sound was a mixture of country and pop music.

Sandra and Donna came to the attention of country music singer Skeeter Davis, who had recorded their "How Much Can a Lonely Heart Stand" for RCA-Victor in 1963, scoring a minor hit withh it (#17 C&W, #47 Hot 100). She supported the sisters and signed them to her Crestwood publishing firm and by the mid 1960s, Sandra and Donna were recording and performing as "The Lonesome Rhodes". Their style was far from the sounds of the Rhodes family band but like their father and uncles had experimented with the new rock'n'roll sounds of the 1950s, Sandra and Donna were mixing country, soul, pop, and rock into their own brand of music.

They held their first session for RCA-Victor in August 1966 at RCA's studio in Nashville, Tennessee, produced by either Felton Jarvis or Chet Atkins. Although the exact line-up is unknown, it is probable they were accompanied by some of Nashville's A-Team musicians. From this very first session hails today's selection, the driving "Nothin' But Heartaches Here", a great slice of music with a style not clearly assigned to one genre. It's a little bit of country, a little bit of pop, and a little bit of rock. Paired with "The Least You Could Have Done", it saw release as the Lonesome Rhodes' second single on RCA-Victor #47-9134 in March 1967.

Probably too indefinable for the record company to promote on the one hand and for the public on the other, the single didn't reach the charts. All of their other RCA releases, five in total, shared the same fate and the Rhodes recorded their last session for the label in July 1967 with their final RCA disc appearing a year later in September 1968 ("The Lights of Dallas" b/w "I'm Missing You", #47-9629). A self-titled album of their recordings was released by RCA the same year.

Already in May 1967, Sandra had a solo release out on the Senat label, for which she worked with Wes Farrell. She was married to Memphis songwriter-producer-musician Charles Romain "Charlie" Chalmers and along with sister Donna they formed a trio that produced soul music under different names into the 1980s. They first recorded for Diamond and Hi as "The Joint Venture" in 1969 and 1972 respectively, then as "Rhodes, Chalmers and Rhodes" (later shortened to RCR) for Warner Brothers in 1975 and finally for the Florida based Radio label in 1980.

Besides that, both Sandra and Donna released solo discs during those years. Sandra recorded one single and one album for Fantasy in 1972, which was also released in the Netherlands the following year. Donna had a single on Epic out in 1968 as well as a solo album released on the same label in 1971, then recorded for Hi in 1973, Charlsand in 1974, for Unidisc in 1982 (which saw also release in Canada and the Netherlands on Ramshorn), and for Mahogany.

Chalmers also produced two releases on Sandra and Donna's mother Dot Rhodes for Epic in the early 1970s. RCR was also busy in the 1970s recording with many of Memphis' southern soul stars such as Aretha Franklin, Al Green, OV Wright, Willie Mitchell, and others, therefore playing an important part in the development of soul. 

Sandra Rhodes and Charlie Chalmers eventually divorced but kept on working together closely. They recorded with British soul singer Reuben James in 1994 and also backed Al Green on his 2005 album "I Can't Stop", produced by Willie Mitchell. Around that time, Sandra was residing in Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, playing guitar at local country shows, joined occasionally by her sister Donna.

Sources

• Several entries on 45cat: The Rhodes Sisters/The Lonesome Rhodes, Sandra Rhodes, Donna Rhodes, Dot Rhodes, Rhodes, Chalmers and Rhodes

• Donna Rhodes on Discogs

• Rhodes, Chalmer and Rhodes on Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Heaven

• Dusty Rhodes Find a Grave entry