Tex Dixon / Mason Dixon / Walter Dixon

Mason Dixon - Queen Of My Heartaches (Reed RR 1064), 1961

Hello Memphis, Goodbye Birmingham!

The Life and Times of Walter "Tex" "Mason" Dixon

Walter Dee Dickey recorded and performed under different names during his decades-long career in country music: Tex Dixon, Mason Dixon, and Walter Dixon, all of them seemingly chosen for different music styles. An Alabama native, Dixon also had connections to both Memphis and Nashville and would record for labels in both cities.

Born Walter Dee (or D.) Dickey in 1925 to Charlie A. and Clara J. Dickey. The family lived in Bessemer, Jefferson County, a suburb of Birmingham. Raised with two brothers and two sisters, he served his country during World War II. By 1950, he had married his lifelong wife Dorothy, with whom he had two daughters.

By then, he had taken up performing country music and had chosen upon the name "Tex Dixon" for performing purposes. In 1950, he started a fifteen minute program on Saturdays that aired over WVOK out of Birmingham. This show later changed to a morning broadcast. Around the same time, he was also a cast member of the station's big Saturday night stage show, the Dixie Jamboree. Dixon was in good companion there with country artists like Jimmy Work, Shorty Sullivan, and Joe Rumore being on WVOK as well.

Dixon started his career as a recording artist in 1951 and cut his first single for Manley Pearson's local Bama record label from Birmingham. "Honky Tonk Swing" b/w "I'm Sorry for You" appeared around June that year and was credited to "Walter (Tex) Dixson and his Radio Ramblers". The disc was the last on the Bama label, which closed afterwards, and left Dixon unsuccessful. 

It seems that Dixon's broadcasts on WVOK ended in 1953. He then founded a band called the "Range Riders" and began working with Jim Atkins around February 1954. Atkins, a musician, DJ, promoter and brother of Chet Atkins, hosted the "Uncle Jim Show" on WBRC and Dixon became a part of it. A good talker and promoter, Atkins began managing Dixon and booked him for many personal appearances in the region. Around the same time, Dixon also performed on WILD's Alabama Jamboree at the Bessemer City Auditorium. Dixon and Atkins started writing songs together and sold some of them to Fairway Music in Hollywood, California, including "The Grass Looks Greener" and "Take Down That New Sign".

Birmingham Post May 4, 1950
A country show at Bessemer City Auditorium featuring Tex Dixon

It was also Atkins who was responsible for Dixon's next record. They had written and recorded "This Doggone Fiddle" and "Two Ton Mama". The former was a recitation by Atkins while the latter was sung by Dixon. Both songs appeared on Alfa 101/2, Atkins' own label but the disc did not enjoy much success. Dixon would work with Atkins on and off during the next years but also trod his own path.

In May 1956, Dixon's next record appeared in the custom series of Starday Records. This disc coupled "Your Lovin' Lies" and "I'm Just Feelin' Sorry for Myself". Again, both songs were credited to the songwriting team of Dixon and Atkins. It should be noted that the same year, Meteor Records of Memphis released a record by "Mason Dixon", which was country fiddler Merle "Red" Taylor in disguise, however. Dixon would not use the "Mason Dixon" name until the 1960s.

Dixon took a break from recording but likely continued to perform around Birmingham. He returned to the studio in 1958 and made his first trip to Memphis, linking up with record label owner Marshall Ellis. Is is possible that Jim Atkins was responsible for Dixon's Memphis connection as Atkins had brought Alabama singer Hoyt Johnson to Memphis based Marshall Ellis and his Erwin record label a year earlier. The first result from this association was "Goodbye She's Gone" (written by Mary Biggs, Hargus Robbins, and Bobby Johnson) and "Slowly Dying" (written by Al Horn), released on Erwin #211. The disc was certainly connected with producer and label executive Murray Nash from Nashville, as the song material came from his stable of songwriters and was published through his publishing arm. It is especially "Goodbye She's Gone" that is very enjoyable. By then, Dixon had linked up with Memphis country music stalwart Eddie Bond, who had recently founded his Stomper Time record label. "I Had to Let You Go" b/w "Mind Full of Memories" appeared around that time on the label (# 1158) and were two Dixon originals. It is possible that Dixon was introduced to Bond by Marshall Ellis, who was a friend of Bond's. 

While all these early recordings of Dixon were stone-hard country music, he turned to popular rock'n'roll in 1960. By then, rock'n'roll music had been on the charts for more than five years but it was not until then that he decided to put his own rock'n'roll style onto vinyl. For this purpose, he had made contacts with Homer Milan, who owned the Reed label in Birmingham. Reed #1045 featured the rocker "I Want My Baby Back" (a Dixon-Atkins collaboration) and the up-tempo pop-oriented "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place", released in the spring of 1960. It was the first record that featured his new pseudonym "Mason Dixon", a reference to the Mason Dixon Line that sets apart the old American South from the North.

Three more singles on Reed followed, sadly none of them were in the same rock'n'roll vein as his first one on the label. His other material for the label pointed more towards country music, with "Big Blue Water" (#1060, 1961) and "Queen of My Heartaches" (#1064, 1961) being the best of them. The flip side of the latter featured one of Dixon's best-known songs, "Hello Memphis", which was composed by Virgil Jones, however. The song made a perfect reference to his own way of turning to Memphis labels every now and then and leaving Birmingham - which he would do for his next record.

When his association with Reed ended, the year 1962 had come and brought new opportunities for Dixon. First, there was Marshall Ellis and his Erwin and Zone labels. Dixon released a new version of "Hello Memphis" backed by a cover of Eddie Noack's "She Can't Stand the Light of Day" on Zone (#520) from around March 1962. Another one came on Erwin #750 and featured the Leon Bowman composition "Funny How Love Can Be" plus the Jimmy Wakely cover "One Has My Name". Local Birmingham songwriter and manager Leon Bowman had also recorded rock'n'roll for Reed in 1958, for which he is best remembered nowadays. Dixon would have a few more records produced by Ellis but first, went back to Birmingham for a new step in his career. As neither country nor rock'n'roll had brought along a real hit, Dixon turned to gospel and changed names once more - this time to the more serious sounding "Walter Dixon".

The same year, preacher and country-turned-gospel singer Walter Bailes (of the Bailes Brothers fame) had come to Birmingham and he had brought his Loyal record label with him. Dixon would record a total of five records for the label during the 1960s. He made some fine gospel performances for Loyal, sometimes supported by the Dotson Brothers. One of his highlights on Loyal includes a rendition of "Where the Soul Never Dies".

In 1964, he recorded for Starday's Nashville imprint as Walter "Tex" Dixon and laid down a good one with "Ballad of John Rollin". He continued to release records through the 1960s and 1970s and Dixon turned his attention to Nashville labels during the 1970s. He recorded such Alabama labels as Crown Ltd. as well as Three Star and for Nashville based companies like Brite Star and Macho. Probably his most successful from this era - or altogether - was "Radar Blues" on Brite Star in 1973, which made #33 on the Record World charts according to a Birmingham News article. It was received well in different markets - except for Birmingham.

It seems that at some point in the late 1970s, after years and years of recording, Dixon gave up. In his later life, he lived in Vance, Alabama, a few miles southwest of the Birmingham area. Since 1978, some of his songs had been re-released by European and Canadian country and rockabilly collector labels like Redita and White Label, helping to make his name popular among younger music fans. However, this happened likely without the knowledge of Dixon. Walter "Tex" "Mason" Dixon passed away on February 11, 1986, at the age of 60 years. He is buried at Highland Memorial Gardens in Bessemer.  

See also

• Jim Atkins on Coral

• Leon Bowman on Reed

Sources

• Find a Grave entry

• 45cat entry

• 45cat/78rpm entry 

• Rockin' Country Style entry

• Gospel Jubilee entry

• Discogs

• Official census records access through ancestry.com

Jim Stanton and Rich-R-Tone Records

Jim Stanton and Rich-R-Tone Music

The Forgotten Pioneer of Bluegrass Music

Bluegrass music evolved in the late 1930s in the Appalachians as an answer to the progressive new country music sounds of western swing and honky tonk music. This era produced the styles we generally consider as country music today. In contrast to these styles, bluegrass music sounded rather old-fashioned and therefore, was highly embraced by rural people from such Appalachian states as Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Carolinas. A mixture of the old-time mountain folk music from the south, blues, and even some jazz, bluegrass music was more innovative as people back then thought and soon, spread across the country.

The father of bluegrass was, of course, Bill Monroe from Kentucky, who became a driving force in the development of the style. His band, the Blue Grass Boys, gave the music its name, and their appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, one of the nation's best known country music radio programs, gave the style important exposure. However, Monroe was not the only artist that took part in this development.

One of the first, if not the first, independent record producer that recorded bluegrass music was Johnson City, Tennessee, music entrepreneur James Hobart "Jim" Stanton. Previously, bluegrass music had been recorded of course but only by major labels, which naturally were mainly interested in sales numbers and therefore only recorded artists that sold. Stanton, on the other hand, did not chose his artists under commercial aspects - at least not mainly - but recorded them on his Rich-R-Tone label because he liked the way they performed music. Thus, he preserved local artists' music and culture, giving us even today an idea what bluegrass music sounded like in places such as Piney Flats, Tennessee, or Grassy Creek, North Carolina, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

While Stanton kept on recording bluegrass and country music throughout the decades, he began working with black gospel groups in the 1960s and released numerous discs on his Champ record label. Indeed, he was not tied to one music style but recorded what he either considered appropriate or, the business man he was, if someone paid for it.

James Hobart Stanton was born in 1918 in Johnson City in Washington County, Tennessee, to Dana G. Stanton and his wife Ida Bell (née Yates). Both his father's and his mother's families were longtime residents of the coal mining region of Washington County, which biggest town is Johnson City.

Stanton was still a boy when the city became the place of an important event in country music history: in October 1928 and October 1929, Columbia Records set up a mobile recording studio and, headed by Columbia's Old Familiar Tunes department chief Frank Walker, conducted countless sessions of regional old-time folk and gospel musicians. Besides the Bristol sessions (during which RCA discovered Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family) and the Knoxville sessions, the Johnson City sessions are today regarded as one of the most important events in old-time music and early country music. If Stanton took actually notice of what was going on in downtown Johnson City at that time is not known. But it cemented the city's status as a regional music center.

By the mid 1930s, while still being a teenager, Stanton was working for a jukebox operator, traveling the Appalachians and selling discs for jukebox playing. His long and extensive journeys throughout the Appalachians probably gave him a better understanding of the music culture and its artists. Though, it still took him some years to recognize the potential and to finally set out on his own.

In 1937, his sister Myrtle passed away at the young age of just 20 years. However, around the same time, Stanton married Mary K. Flaherty, whose family was also from Johnson City. In 1939, he took over the company he was working for and spent the war years working his jukebox disc salesman job. He sold the business in 1942 and moved to Cincinnati, where he worked for Wurlitzer jukeboxes and became acquainted with Syd Nathan, who was about to start King Records. Stanton then went into partnership with Tommy Grinnell, forming a jukebox business with him in 1944 in Richmond, Virginia, but sold his share two years later. Inspired by Nathan and his independent record company, Stanton had decided to try his luck as an independent record producer by fall 1946. Previously, Stanton had watched the major labels turning out disc after disc and assumed that he could do it just as good.

He had moved back to Johnson City, where he opened a record store on West Main Street and a record label, Rich-R-Tone Records. The first artist Stanton recorded was a local country music singer, Buffalo Johnson, who was 20 years old at that time and just about to start his career. "I'll Always Find a Way", written by Johnson, and "Come Back Again", credited to Stanton as composer (though it's questionable if Stanton was the actual writer) were recorded around fall of 1946 at WOPI and released on December 20 by Stanton (Rich-R-Tone #401). At the beginning, Stanton had to sell the records out of the trunk of his car but soon found distributors that were willing to support his releases. He also placed ads on local radio to advertise new releases and to sell via mail-order.

Local radio was an important tool for Stanton. He did not only use it as a sales channel but also to find new, promising talent to record. During 1947, Stanton recorded and released several discs on local artists. One of the most influential steps in his career was the addition of Ralph and Carter Stanley to his Rich-R-Tone label. Billed as "Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys", the Carters and their band were already popular within a 100 miles radius around Norton, Virginia, and appeared on local WNVA there. It was their performance of "Little Glass of Wine" that won over Stanton, so he arranged a recording session for the Stanley Brothers in September 1947 at radio WOPI in nearby Bristol, Tennessee. Their debut was released later that year but it was their third disc, "The Little Glass of Wine" b/w "Little Maggie" (Rich-R-Tone #423) from March 1948 that became their first regional hit. Carl Sauceman, a young bluegrass musician who would also record for Rich-R-Tone eventually, worked part-time as a distributor for both Mercury and Stanton, hauling thousands of Stanley Brothers discs to record shops in the Appalachian regions of Tennessee, Kentucky, (West) Virginia, and the Carolinas.

Other notable bluegrass acts that eventually became famous were Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper, the Bailey Brothers, Curly King and his Tennessee Hilltoppers, among other more regional acts. He also set up the Folk Star label in the late 1940s. But Stanton was not tied to one musical style. He also recorded mainstream country music, proto-rockabilly country boogie, gospel, and even some rhythm & blues during those years. Among all those artists, Buffalo Johnson remained the most prolific one, recording in nearly every of the aforementioned style from the 1940s well into the 1970s on Rich-R-Tone.

Stanton moved his operations to Campbellsville, Kentucky, where he merged Rich-R-Tone with the equally influential Acme record label. Rich-R-Tone ceased operations in 1953 and Stanton moved to Nashville, Tennessee, which had developed into a center for country music business by then. He started Champ Records in 1965, which had offices in both Nashville and Johnson City, and produced all kinds of music on this label. Though, black gospel albums became the company's main product, releasing numerous LPs until the early 1980s. Stanton's work with black gospel groups is largely unknown today, although he produced a large quantity of records for these bands. He also reactivated Rich-R-Tone during the 1960s, releasing country music on it, and worked for United Music World of West Columbia, South Carolina, from 1974 until 1976. 

Jim Stanton passed away on July 15, 1989, in Nashville, Tennessee. He is buried at Monte Vista Memorial Park in Johnson City. Stanton's influence on American roots music is hard to ignore but until recent years, his legacy remained commonly unrecognized. In 2022, the state of Tennessee erected a historical marker on Johnson City's West Main Street to honor Stanton. Since then, the awareness of Stanton's efforts has increased. Bear Family Records released a 12-CD box set entitled "The Rich-R-Tone Folk Star Story" in September 2025, containing all surviving recordings from the period 1946 - 1954. Dr. Ted Olson from East Tennessee State University and Matteo Ringressi, Italian bluegrass musician, collector, and researcher, were instrumental in putting this box together.

Recommended reading

• The Rich-R-Tone Folk Star Story (Bear Family)

• Dialogue: Celebrating the Legacy of Rich-R-Tone Records (interview with Dr. Ted Olson)

• Rich-R-Tone Facebook Discography page

• The Rich-R-Tone Records Archival Project Youtube page

Sources

• Find a Grave entry

• Rich-R-Tine 45worlds/78rpm entry

• Discogs

• Ted Olson: "A pioneering 'bluegrass label': The achievement of James Hobart Stanton and Rich-R-Tone Records" (Appalachian Place)

• The Johnson City Sessions (Bear Family)

• Neil V. Rosenberg: "Bluegrass: A History" (University of Illinois Press), 2005, p. 81-83 

Houston Turner on Do-Ra-Me

Houston Turner - "Buenos Noches" (Do-Ra-Me 1437), 1963
One of the many talented musicians that orbited around the Dixieland Drifters band was Houston "Buck" Turner, who left his mark by singing on "Bongos and Uncle John", the Drifters' most popular tune. Turner also performed with Tani Allen's Tennessee Pals, leaving another mark in music history through composing "Tennessee Jive", which became later known by Bill Haley as "Real Rock Drive".

Singer and songwriter Houston Edgar "Buck" Turner, Jr., was born on April 16, 1922, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. During World War II, he served his country as an Air Force sergeant. Upon his return, Turner pursued a career in local music. 

By 1950, he had built up a reputation as a talented singer in the Chattanooga area and was approached by band leader Tani Allen that year to join his band. Steel guitarist Allen had founded his own country music outfit, "The Tennessee Pals," in Memphis shortly before. He contacted Bullet Records in Nashville, hoping to secure a record deal with the independent label. Bullet agreed to record the band on condition that Allen would exchange the vocalist. Allen, who also originally hailed from Chattanooga and remembered Turner as a vocalist, brought him into the band. 

Turner recorded a total of six singles with the band for Bullet from 1950 up to 1952, including their debut "Tennessee Jive," a Turner original. This song somehow came to the attention of Bill Haley, who reworked it under the title of "Real Rock Drive" in late 1952. This version saw release on Essex in early 1953 (Essex #310) without any songwriter credits. Interestingly, "Tennessee Jive" was also covered by Johnny Horton in 1953 on Mercury under its original title (Mercury #70010-X45).

Jim Bulleit, owner of Bullet, offered Turner to record solo for the label but Turner turned down the invitation. Tani Allen, however, encouraged Turner to continue his solo career. It is likely that Turner continued to perform around Chattanooga and by 1958, he teamed up with local singer and label owner Gene Woods, with whom he penned "How Big a Fool Can You Be" and performed with Woods' band, the Tune Twisters.

In 1960, he began working with the Dixieland Drifters, a group also from Chattanooga. They had recorded earlier for Sun, Murray Nash's B.B. Records and Dub, when Herbert "Happy" Schleif and Peanut Faircloth (also member of the Dixieland Drifters) released two singles of the band on their Hap record label. One was "You Won't Fall in Love" b/w "Will Angels Have Sweethearts" in 1960, the other "Bongos and Uncle John" b/w "How Big a Fool."

Members of the Dixieland Drifters, ca. July 1961 (left to right):
Howell Culpepper, poss. Charlie Evans, Houston Turner,
and Norman Blake

"Bongos and Uncle John" was published by Murray Nash's Ashna Music and recorded at his studio in Nashville. He re-released the song on his Do-Ra-Me label twice and it must have been a good seller for the band, since it was picked up by 20th Century Fox in the US and Sparton in Canada. Turner also recorded solo for Do-Ra-Me and for Big Country. He also did personal appearances with his own band, the Town and Country Boys, which also included Norman Blake. The Dixieland Drifters disbanded around 1963 and Turner died in 1999.

Today's selection "Buenos Noches" was written by a team of blind songwriters. The married couple Floyd and Mary Biggs and session pianist Hargus "Pig" Robbins also penned a couple of other songs for Murray Nash. Turner recorded it probably at Murray Nash's Sound of Nashville studio and released in July/August 1963. It also saw release in Canada on Sparton.

See also

• Save the Memory of  Floyd and Mary Biggs

• Country Boogie from Memphis: Tani Allen and his Tennessee Pals

Sources

• Find a Grave Entry

• 45cat entry

• BMI repertoire search 

• David Carroll: Hello, Chattanooga! Famous People Who Have Visited the Tennessee Valley (Fresh Ink Group), 2021

Buck Turner and the Buckaroos

Rural Entertainment from Memphis

Buck Turner and the Buckaroos

Buck Turner (center) and the Buckaroos with Sam Phillips in Phillips'
Memphis Recording Service studio, prob. 1950 (image from unknown source)

Buck Turner and his band, the Buckaroos, were one of Memphis' most popular country music bands in the 1940s and early 1950s. They were mainstays on local radio and Turner was even involved in bringing Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service up and running, therefore paving the way for the musical revolution that would come (at least to some small degree).

Actually, there were at least three different artists using the name "Buck Turner". Before we proceed, it makes sense to tell apart the different Buck Turners. There was a blues singer named Babe Kyro Lemon Turner, who most frequently performed as "Black Ace" but also used "Buck Turner" and various other names for performing and recording purposes. The other one was more similar in musical style but considerably younger. Houston "Buck" Turner was from Chattanooga and was active as a songwriter and singer, working steadily during the 1950s and 1960s with Gene Woods, the Dixieland Drifters, and Murray Nash. To add to the confusion, he was also working with another Memphis based act, Tani Allen and the Tennessee Pals.

Considering the group's popularity in Memphis and surrounding areas, it is surprising that researchers and journalists have mostly omitted Buck Turner and the Buckaroos from history books and articles. It is also astonishing that this group, and this fact may have caused their absence from the books, made no commercial recordings.

The leader and namesake of the band, Bodo Otto "Buck" Turner was born in 1909 in rural Greene County, Southeast Mississippi, near the Alabama state border. The area was sparsely populated (only about 6,000 habitants in 1910) and its economy based on hog and cattle breeding. It seems that Buck Turner had German ancestors but his father's family, originally coming from South Carolina, lived in Mississippi since the early 19th century. Parts of his mother's family came from Alabama. Turner's parents married in 1896 in Greene County and had a total of nine children, Buck Turner being the youngest. In 1910, a year after his birth, his mother died from blood poisoning. His father passed away in 1924 when Buck Turner was circa 15 years old.

By the early 1930s, Turner seems to have married and moved northwest to Covington County, Mississippi, as we found a grave at Mount Olive City Cemetery of an infant: Bodo Otto Turner, Jr., who was born on May 4, 1934, and died on June 1, 1934, at the age of 28 days. We have no proof that this child was Buck Turner's son but it is quite probable. After the early loss of his parents, this would have been the third tragic incident in his life.

Billboard September 5, 1942

Newspaper advertisements from a local Jackson, Tennessee, paper indicate that Turner began performing music around 1933. By the late 1930s (probably even earlier), Turner had left Mississippi in favor of the booming city of Memphis, just across the Mississippi-Tennessee state border. By this point, he had assembled a group of musicians, which became known as the "Buckaroos". Soon, Turner and his band were performing in Memphis as well as Southwest Tennessee and North Mississippi. They would play school houses, beer joints, and other venues across these areas. The Buckaroos soon became regulars on local Memphis station WREC with their early morning show and developed into mainstays over the years. By 1944, their show could be also heard on WHBQ, sponsored by Black & White Stores.

Line-ups of the band cannot be determined from the few sources but particular names are known, though. Blind pianist Paul Whiteside was a long-time member of the group, at least performing with the band during the 1940s and early 1950s. Memphis steel guitarist Hugh Jeffreys was also a member in the early 1950s (he had performed previously with Paul Howard's Arkansas Cotton Pickers). Other names included fiddler, guitarist and singer Homer Clyde Grice and multi-instrumentalist Grover Clater O'Brien, both from Mississippi. Harry Bolick and Tony Russell cite O'Brien in their book "Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi" regarding Buck Turner: "After he [O'Brien] finished his schooling and before he joined the Army in 1945, Grover played with several country bands including an often low-paying one with Buck Turner: 'One boy that used to play with us was Buck Turner, and we were starvation box-beaters...' Still 'He said he made way more money playing music than working on the farm or in the sawmill.'"

Billboard July 25, 1942

A testimony to the Buckaroos' popularity was given by professor Al Price, who grew up in Mississippi during the 1940s and mentioned the band in his autobiography. "[...] The favorite musical group in our area was the Buck Turner Band from Memphis. Fans such as my mother and father made them popular and rich. Their radio program could be heard all over North Mississippi. They booked shows throughout the mid-South. I remember one special show they did at the Legion Lake, which was located about halfway between Coffeeville and Oakland, on Highway 330. [...]" Although Turner and the Buckaroos likely did not get rich from their fans, their enduring popularity in the rural areas of North Mississippi and Southwest Tennessee likely gave them a welcomed income. Price continues: "[...] One night the Buck Turner Band performed for the dance. I was not allowed to go inside, but I could see what was going on from the door. After about an hour, and after several men had gotten fairly drunk, a fight broke out on the dance floor. I was horrified, but my mother made sure that I was out of the way and prevented my dad from going inside. The band tried to get outside by a back door to avoid getting involved. They had a blind guy playing for them, and I could see them trying to direct him out of the door. Some of the spectators were helping them escape the scene." In the end, a man was stabbed during the fight. This incident also shows that Turner and the band had to deal with the rough habits that were common back then at dances, beer joints, and many other venues throughout the South. The "blind guy" that Price is mentioning was pianist Paul Whiteside.

Billboard 1944 Music Year Book

But Turner and the Buckaroos were more than a popular regional country band. In fact, through their radio shows and countless personal appearances in the area, they had an influence on many young men that later became part of Memphis' thriving music scene and the development of rock'n'roll. Kern Kennedy, pianist with Sonny Burgess' Pacers, cited the band as one of his influences. "We listened to KNBY Newport and WREC Memphis. A group from Memphis I enjoyed was Buck Turner and the Buckaroos. They had a blind piano player named Paul Whiteside that really inspired me."

Besides from a musical point of view, Buck Turner assured his little mention in history books by putting up some money for Sam Phillips' newly opened Memphis Recording Service, the tiny recording studio that would evolve into Sun Records. Phillips had opened the studio on January 2, 1950, on 706 Union Avenue but at first, found little to none musical acts to record but rather earned some money by recording private acetates, funerals or school events. Turner and Phillips knew each other from WREC, for which Sam Phillips worked, too, at that time. Turner and the band recorded their show on WREC for the Arkansas Rural Electrification Program to send out to different radio stations in Arkansas and Phillips transcribed those recordings. In Martin Hawkins' book "Good Rockin' Tonight", Sam Phillips is cited: "The very first job I had after opening my recording studio was in January 1950. I recorded transcriptions for radio with a country singer, Buck Turner. This was for the Arkansas Rural Electrification Corporation. We made fifteen-minute programs that I transcribed onto big ol' sixteen-inch discs. They were distributed to about eighteen or twenty stations." Turner was so pleased with the sound of their shows' recordings that he offered Phillips to invest some money in the venture. In the end, he put in approximately $ 2.000 to buy some hardly needed equipment.

In addition to the radio shows, Phillips had plans to record Turner and the Buckaroos as commercial artists, although this was not a goal straight from his heart but an intermission until Phillips found something that really caught his ear. He also recorded Slim Rhodes' band, another Memphis mainstay on the country music scene, and both were "good solid local combos [but] I never did see anything particular about either Buck or Slim's band that stood out, as far as style," Phillips is cited by Peter Guralnick in his book "Sam Phillips - The Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll". By summer 1950, Sam Phillips' own "The Phillips" record label (in partnership with DJ Dewey Phillips) had come into existence and the first release was out by local blues man Joe Hill Louis. Phillips also announced that he would record more acts on his new label, including "Your Red Wagon" by Turner and Buckaroos, who "had a knocked-out version of the tune [that] we feel certain...will sell." Due to different reasons, the label crashed and its life ended even before it really began. None of the tapes survived, if they ever existed. Plans on recording Turner and the band were laid to rest finally. By September 1952, Phillips had paid off Turner completely, which ended their relationship both artistically and mercantile. Turner's wife was not happy with her husband's venture either, so it was likely a welcomed way of exit.

As the band's association with Sam Phillips came to an end by 1952, it seems they never had the chance of recording commercially again. However, they remained a popular act in those years and seemed to feature a couple of artists that later became well-known to rockabilly fans - another proof for their historical significance. Both Hayden Thompson and Johnny "Ace" Cannon performed with the band at least occasionally. It seems the Buckaroos were a rock'n'roll tinsmith similar to Clyde Leoppard's Snearly Ranch Boys - though on smaller scales. In fact, both Thompson and Cannon performed with the Snearly Ranch Boys, too.

The Buckaroos remained active throughout the 1950s, playing such events as the annual Farmers Day celebrations in Arkansas. Their radio show likely came to an end in the late 1950s when live music on air was replaced by DJs. There is no exact break-up date documented for the Buckaroos but late 1950s or early 1960s seems to be a good bet.

Billboard April 16, 1966

Buck Turner switched from live music to working as a DJ on WREC and Billboard named him in its April 16, 1966, issue one of Memphis' top disc jockeys in the pop LP sector. A year before, he was part of a six song EP released by Eddie Bond's Millionaire label (Millionaire #MC-109/10) that featured popular Memphis DJs of the time, including Bond, Chuck Comer, and Turner, who is featured with "What Will I Do". This seems to be Turner's only commercial recording.

In 1966, Buck Turner passed away at age of approximately 56 years. He is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis. His death remained largely unnoticed just like his efforts in Memphis music, which paved the way for rock'n'roll music.

Sources
• Goodwin Family History Website
• Find a Grave entry
• 45cat entry for Millionaire EP
• Steel Guitar Forum
• Al Price: "Gravel and Dirt - A White Boyhood in the Segregated South" (Xlibris US), 2020
• Peter Guralnick: "Sam Phillips - the Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll" (Little, Brown), 2015, pages 74, 88, 97
• Martin Hawkins/Colin Escott: "Good Rockin' Tonight - Sun Records and the Birth of Rock'n'Roll" (St. Martin's Press), 1991, pages 111-112
• Harry Bolick/Tony Russell: "Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi" (University Press of Mississippi), 2021, pages 192, 486
• Marvin Schwartz: "We Wanna Boogie - The Rockabilly Roots of Sonny Burgess and the Pacers" (Butler Center for Arkansas Studies), 2014, page 158

Gene Woods' Friddell Records

Gospel, Country and Rock'n'Roll from the Wild River
The Story of Gene Woods' Friddell Records

View on Ocoee Street in Cleveland, Tennessee, ca. 1960s

We continue our little journey through the backwoods lands of rural Tennessee and stop by in Cleveland, Tennessee. Cleveland is located in the southeast of Tennessee near Chattanooga, not far away from the Tennessee-Georgia state border. The city has a population of around 47.000 today but was much smaller some 60 years earlier, when Cleveland gave home to only 16.000 habitants in 1960.

Cleveland was once home to a small record label, Friddell Records, which was operated by local singer, songwriter and entrepreneur Eugene “Gene” Woods. Born in 1930, Woods took up at the guitar at some point and likely started out as a local performer. He could be heard over Cleveland’s own WBCA radio and already at age 28, in 1958, he tried out as a businessperson and founded Gene Woods Enterprises. Part of this company became his record label Friddell Records.

The honor of the first release on Friddell went to David Beatty, who was a Lee College student at that time. Beatty hailed from Ferriday, Louisiana, and comes from the family that presented many talented musicians to the world: Mickey Gilley, Jimmy Swaggart, Carl McVoy, and, last but not least, Jerry Lee Lewis. According to Beatty’s own recollection, he, Lewis, Gilley and Swaggart were playing in a loose teenager band, performing religious material at church events and political rallies. Accordingly, they had their first and only “secular” performance in 1949 at a talent contest of the Ferriday High School, bringing the audience to ecstatic reactions with their rendition of the Sticks McGhee R&B hit “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-o-Dee”. In Jerry Lee Lewis’ memory, he performed this song with a country & western band at a car dealership in 1949. May it as it be, Beatty left Ferriday in 1955 to join the ministry and moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, where he enrolled at Lee College.

The first release on Friddell comprised “It’s Different Now” and “I Praised the Lord” by Beatty on Friddell #100. A follow up was released that same year on Friddell #104 with “There’ll Be a Crown for Me” (partially written by Gene Woods) and “Welcome Home” (a Beatty original). While at Lee College, Beatty recorded another disc, “I Just Got Off the Devil’s Train” b/w “It’s Alright” (Noel #100), which may or may not have been associated with Woods.

The second release was recorded by a rock’n’roll combo named the Orbits. For Friddel, they cut “Hyena” and “My Rosa-Lee”, which became Friddel #102. During the 1950s, there were several bands that used the name “Orbits” and it is said that the Orbits that recorded for Friddel also recorded a slew of unissued tapes for the Missouri based Jan record label. These were compiled on the 1991 White Label LP “Missouri Rockers, Volume 2”. However, I could not find any hint to underline this statement.

Billboard February 15, 1960

Next up was Gene Woods in his own right, recording two originals “I’m Having a Hard Time to Forget” and “Tho I’ll Pretend”, accompanied by a band called the Tune Twisters and released in late 1958. Two more records by other artists followed before Wood would release another of his own recordings. By 1958, Woods had become acquainted with Chattanooga based singer-songwriter Houston “Buck” Turner, who was also a member of the Tune Twisters. Turner and Woods had written a song, “How Big a Fool Can You Be”, which was recorded by Woods and the band along with “Why Should I” for release on Friddell #108 in October 1959. The record became a good regional seller. Houston Turner would later be part of a regional bluegrass band, the Dixieland Drifters, and used this band to demo his songs as well as recording professionally with them. Their recordings included a version of “How Big a Fool”.

Probably the last two releases of Friddell were issued in 1961 by Woods. Possibly through the connection of David Beatty, Woods released two discs by Beatty’s cousin Jimmy Swaggart, who had become a newborn Christian by then, too. Swaggart recorded four songs for Friddell, including Beatty’s composition “It’s Different Now”.

Billboard August 1, 1960
(note that Billboard reports Woods is recording for Dub
although it was actually Hap)

Already in September 1960, Woods had a release on Happy Herbert Schleif’s Hap record label, “The Ballad of Wild River,” a song written by local DJ Marshall Pack to go hand in hand with the filming of the movie “Wild River”. The film starred Montgomery Clift and was mainly shot in Cleveland. The release on the Chattanooga based Hap label again bears possibly the involvement of Houston Turner, whose band, the Dixieland Drifters, also recorded for the same imprint. The record soon became a good seller and eventually entered Billboard's "Hot C&W Sides" charts on October 10, 1960, on #25. By November 7, the song had risen to the #7 spot. For both Woods and the small Hap label, it was an immense success.

However, "The Ballad of Wild River" remained Woods' only chart entry. He continued to perform regionally and spent most of the 1960s recording for Chart Records out of Nashville. He also had releases on Choice and Mallard. In the 1970s, he could be also seen on local television.

Gene Woods died in 1996 and is buried at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Cleveland. His wife Imogene followed in 2015.

Friddell Records Discography
See also 45cat for an (incomplete) discography of Friddell Records and a likely complete discography of Gene Woods. Also visit Small Independent Rockin' 45rpm Labels.

100: David Beatty and the Harmonettes - It's Different Now / I Praise the Lord (1958)
101: Voice of Salvation Quartet - Since I Believed / Give Me Time (1958)
102: The Orbits - Hyena / My Rosa-Lee (1958)
103: Gene Woods and the Tune Twisters - I'm Having a Hard Time to Forget / Tho I'll Pretend (1958)
104: David Beatty and the Continental Quartet -There's Be a Crown for Me / Welcome Home (1958)
105:
106: The Crowe Brothers - Jane / I Need You Baby (1959)
107:
108: Gene Woods and the Tune Twisters - Why Should I / How Big a Fool Can You Be (1959)
200: Jimmy Swaggart and the Harmonettes - At the End of the Trail / I'll Never Be Lonely Again (1961)
201: Jimmy Swaggart and the Harmonettes - It's Different Now / Jimmy Swaggart - Meeting in the Air (1961)

Sources
• David Beatty biography
• Gene Woods entry on Find a Grave
• Friddell Records entry on Rockin' Country Style
• Friddell Records entry on Gloryland Jubilee
• Dead Wax post on Gene Woods and Friddell

Hap Records

The Story of Hap Records

Happy Herbert and the Mountain City Recording Studio

The city of Chattanooga, located in Southeast Tennessee on the banks of the Tennessee river, has been home to radio stations and local country musicians from the 1930s up to the 1950s. Radio stations like WDOD, WDEF, and WAPO featured country music acts - WGAC even hosted the "Tennessee Hayloft Jamboree" in the mid-1950s. By 1960, there had been some small record labels but none of them were professional companies. Herbert Schleif's Hap record label was likewise semi-professional but its recorded output was - compared to other labels - immense.

The Dome Building in Chattanooga

"Happy" Herbert Schleif, a clothing store owner and part-time country music promoter in Chattanooga, established the "Mountain Recording Studio" in early 1960. He was living outside of Chattanooga in a house near Daisy, Tennessee (renamed Soddy Daisy in 1969). His studio was located on the corner of East 8th Street and Georgia Avenue in Suit 3 of the Dome Building, which was built in 1892 for the Chattanooga Times and it seems that it later housed also offices by other businesses. Billboard reported on April 25, 1960, that Schleif had just "launched the Mountain City Recording Studio there in partnership with Carl Allen." Who Carl Allen was remains unknown at this point. Schleif was friends with local musicians Peanut Faircloth and Norman Blake, who performed in a bluegrass band called "The Dixieland Drifters" since the mid-1950s. The Dixieland Drifters would become Schleif's first act to record.

At the same time Schleif started his studio, he also set up his own in-house label Dub Records and his own publishing firm Mountain City Publishing Company. The Dixieland Drifters, then consisting of Howell Culpepper, Charlie Evans, Norman Blake, and Peanuts Faircloth, had recorded previously an unissued session for Sun Records in Memphis and several discs for Murray Nash's BB label in Nashville. The group was approached by Schleif and recorded "I Can't Do Without You" and "Cheating Love" at his studio. Both recordings made up the initial release on the Dub label (Dub #1001) in June 1960. It is interesting to note that Schleif did press the record on both 45 and 78 rpm format. At that time, most companies stopped pressing the ancient 78 format and concentrated on 45 and 33 rpm records. Also, be aware that this is not the same Dub label owned by Foster Johnson in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The Dixieland Drifters, 1961: Howell Culpepper, unidentified,
Houston "Buck" Turner, Norman Blake

Dub seems to have been only a short-lived venture. No other singles appeared and by June, Schleif had already formed a new outfit he called Hap Records. Schleif was said to "[...] always [have] a delightful grin on his face," hence his nickname "Happy" and the label's name. Raif Faircloth, Peanut Feaircloth's son, however, remembered it was a acronym for Herbert and Peanut. According to him, Faircloth was involved in the Hap label and was a co-owner. He remembers regarding the Dixieland Drifters: "[...] My memories of the Dixieland Drifters were mainly going way out Lookout Mountain, past Plum Nelly to the Blake home place when they'd rehearse. It was dad, Hal, Charlie and Norman at that time."

Hap's first release was by female vocalist Gloria Ramsey, whose "Good Poppin' Daddy" b/w "My Love" (Hap 7998-5/7999-6) appeared approximately in May 1960. Probably recorded at Schleif's studio, its record number yet escaped the later chronologial numerical system of the label. The next three releases, to all accounts released during that same year, are still unknown to me. Hap #1003 was by country music singer Kirk Hansard, who recorded Peanut Faircloth's "Johnny Collins" and the Webb Pierce/Danny Dill song "Two Won't Care." Billboard reviewed the single on August 29, 1960, in the C&W field. Born in Flatrock, Alabama, Hansard had recorded earlier for Dot in 1956 and continued his work as a recording artist for Bethlehem (1962), Columbia (1963-1967), Chart (1968-1969), and Kapp (1970). While recording for Hap, he was based in Knoxville and worked the Mid-Day Merry Go-ROund show on WNOX as well as the WWVA Jamboree out of Wheeling, West Virginia.

Gene Woods, who appeared on WBCA in Cleveland, Tennessee, recorded for Schleif "Afraid" / "The Ballad of Wild River" (Hap #1004, 1960). For the label's next release, Schleif coupled "You Won't Fall in Love" / "Will Angels Have Sweethearts" (Hap #1005) by the Dixieland Drifters, who had recorded both titles likely in summer or early fall that year at Mountain City studio. The record appeared around October. "You Won't Fall in Love" was a song composed by Fletcher Bright and his wife Marshall, while the flip was a band's original. Bright performed with the band at that time occasionally. He recalled that "[...] it was an old 45 single. I think Norman Blake was on the dobro, Peanut Faircloth was singing. My late wife Marshall wrote the words, borrowing heavily from a Jimmy Van Heusen tune ('It Could Happen to You'), and I supplied the melody. I was playing with the Dixieland Drifters at the time."

At that time, singer and songwriter Houston "Buck" Turner had joined the group. Turner had performed and recorded with Tani Allen's band in the 1950s and also played the clubs in the region with his own band. He secured a songwriting contract with Murray Nash's Ashna Music Publishing in Nashville and used the Dixieland Drifters for his recordings. The first record with Turner's recognizable participation was "Bongos and Uncle John" / "How Big A Fool" (Hap #1009) in the spring of 1961. While "Bongos and Uncle John" was penned by Charlie Evans, Norman Blake, and Howell Culpepper, "How Big a Fool" was a Buck Turner/Gene Woods song. 

This particular record surrounds some inconsistencies. The song was re-released in June 1962 by Murray Nash on his Do-Ra-Me label (Do-Ra-Me 1412) under the name of "Uncle John's Bongos" with a different flip side, "Walk Easy." The latter song had been recorded and released by the Dixieland Drifters already in 1958 on Nash's B.B. label. Likely due to promising sales, the 20th Fox label picked it up and issued it again in late 1961. The fact that it was first released on Hap suggests that it was also cut at Schleif's Mountain City studio. Murray Nash, however, claimed that all of the Dixieland Drifters recordings he was connected with were done at his studio, Sound of Nashville. It adds to the confusion that a guy called Norm, nephew to a woman called Marylove Matthew, claimed his aunt was the owner of the studio and that he was present at the recording session in Nashville. His memory on this issue was probably a bit weak. But who was Marylove Matthew? And how was she involved in running the studio? Further research on her remains abortive.

Buck Turner and the Dixieland Drifters, however, stayed with Nash to produce their following records. Nash gave "Uncle John's Bongos" one last try in the spring of 1962, coupled with "The Best Dressed Beggar in Town." The Drifters broke up around 1963, while Turner kept on performing around Chattanooga. Schleif continued Hap well into the 1960s, recording and releasing at least some 70 records, mostly country and bluegrass. One of the Hap singles featured his wife Viola with "The Voice of the Americans." Both Herbert and Viola are now deceased but their descendants remember them still today with fondness. Buck Turner died in 1999, Peanut Faircloth in 2010.

"Happy" Herbert Schleif's recorded legacy still has to be unearthed and reissued in a proper way. Many of the recordings still have to be found, a detailed research has to be made. I promise I'll do my best to give Schleif the recognition he deserves.

Discography

7998-5/7999-6: Gloria Ramsey and Sound Dealers Orchestra - Good Poppin' Daddy / My Love (1960)  
1000:  
1001:  
1002:  
1003: Kirk Hanserd - Johnny Collins / Two Won't Care (1960)
1004: Gene Woods - Afraid / The Ballad of Wild River (1960)
1005: Dixieland Drifters - You Won't Fall in Love / Will Angels Have Sweethearts (1960)  
1006: Alan Marlo - Sleepy Time Girl / ? (1960)  
1007:
1008: James Padgett - Gonna Rock the Ocean Waves / ? (1960)  
1009: Dixieland Drifters - Bongos and Uncle John / How Big a Fool (1961)
1010: Wally Hester - Rock'n Roll Jump-Stick / ? (1961)
1011:  
1012:  
1013:  
1014:  
1015: Sand Mountain Playboys - Wild Bill / ? (1961)  
1016: Chuck Cain - Blue are the Tears I Cry / ? (1961)  
1017: Arlie & Charlie - Johnny Reb Get Your Gun / ? (1961)
1018: Earl Scott - Opal Lee / ?  
1019:
1020: Lonnie Smith - Jonah / ? (1962)
1021: Warrior River Boys - My Love Song for You / Five String Ramble  
1022:  
1023:  
1024: Yellow Jackets - There's No Telling / ? (1962)
1025: Jim Taylor and the Yellow Jackets - Zemo / ?  
1026-1059:  
1060: Viola Schleif & Cathy Chapman - The Voice of the Americans / ?

801: Arnold Sanford - I Know How Lonesome (Old Lonesome Can Be) / You Can Do Allright with Me (1968)
802:
803:
804:
805: Marvin Thomas and the Playwrights - Call of th Whippoorwill / (The Legend of) Johnny Collins (1969)
806:
807:
808:
809:
810: Ron Gordy & the Nashville Tennesseans - Boogie Woogie All Night Long / ?

Tennessee Hayloft Jamboree

Chattanooga Daily Times
September 19, 1953

The Tennessee Hayloft Jamboree, a live stage show from Chattanooga, Tennessee, still misses a well-grounded documentation. Although the show does not share the historial importance with such formats as the Grand Ole Opry or the Louisiana Hayride, it is nevertheless an interesting part of local Tennessee music culture and worth a detailed story as well.

According to Billboard and other newspaper ads, the show began its run on July 25, 1953, at the Chattanooga Memorial Auditorium. The show lasted three hours; one our was broadcast through a network of six different stations from Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Another one-hour portion was carried by WGAC in Chattanooga.

Chattanooga Memorial Auditorium
1940s or 1950s postcard

Headliners of the show were local acts, although an advertisement for the debut show promised "big names in the entertainment world" and "over 100 stars with 25 acts". Among those "stars" were Bob Sanders and the Tennessee Valley Play Boys, the Hixson Playboys, the Little Haskett Brothers, and the Signal Mountain Gang. Though, the show's cast was made up of 42 different local singers and bands. Les Morrison, from WDXB in Chattanooga, was "heading the details," according to Billboard (whatever that means).

The Jamboree cast also set out to play personal dates in the region in addition to its regular Saturday night shows. In October 1953, the show moved to a new location, the Hayloft Playhouse, on 9th and Pine Streets in Chattanooga. Two months earlier, Les Morrison, P.H. Parker, and W.P. Grueter had formed the Tennessee Hayloft Jamboree corporation to "promote radio, television, and stage shows, buy and sell radio and television time and act as booking and promotion agent". This company was headquartered in the Dome Building in downtown Chattanooga. 

The show aired at least until 1954, judging from a 1954 article in Cowboy Songs No. 32 by Bobby Gregory. If anyone has more information or memories he would like to share, please leave a comment below or feel free to send me an email (adress can be seen on my profile page).

Sources

• Hillbilly-Music.com entry

• Various Chattanooga Daily Items newspaper items

• Billboard July 1953

Nash's B.B. label

By Nash: The B.B. label

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

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

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

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

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

For further reading, see also:

• By Nash: The MusiCenter label

• Joe Reavis' Recording Studio

• The Do-Ra-Me label

• The Hap label

Discography

B.B. 45-222

Dixieland Drifters

The Trot (Blake) / Walk Easy (Blake)

45-F786 / 45-F787

1958

Billboard C&W review on June 30, 1958

B.B. 45-223

Dixieland Drifters 

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

45-F 798 / 45-F 799

B.B. 45-224

Dixieland Drifters Quartet

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

? / F-802

B.B. 45-225

Johnny Varnell & Jim Pipkins

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

B.B. 45-226

Ralph Pruett

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

F-812 / F-813

Hap Records

Hap was a label based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. To be honest, I have not much information on the company except that it was owned by Herbert "Happy" Schleif, who was said to "[...] always had a delightful grin on his face," thus the label's name. It was a subsidiary of Schleif's Mountain City recording studio, located in "Suite 3, Dome Building" in Chattanooga. The Dome was built in 1892 for the Chattanooga Times and it seems that it later housed also offices by other businesses.

Billboard mentions Hap Records in December 1960 as being a "record manufacturer". In addition to running a studio and the label, Schleif also oparated his Mountain City Publishing Company. The first singles appear to have been released in the spring of 1960 and there were at least 60 discs with Hap 1018 showing the location as Daisy, Tennessee (if the numerical system has no gaps or skips). Most of them were by local artists such as the Dixieland Drifters, a group that included at one time or another Howell Culpepper, Norman Blake, Peanuts Faircloth, Buck Turner among others. Blake was good friends with Schleif, so possibly through this connection, the band had the chance to record for Hap. Their first release on the label was Hap #1005 "You Won't Fall in Love" b/w "Will Angels in Sweethearts." The first song was written by Fletcher Bright, who recalls:

"I don't recall anything about the label. It was an old 45 single. I think Norman Blake was on the dobro, Peanut Faircloth was singing. My late wife Marshall wrote the words, borrowing heavily from a Jimmy Van Heusen tune (It Could Happen to You), and I supplied the melody. I was playing with the Dixie Land Drifters at the time (Norman, Cecil Powell, and Howell Culpepper)."

It is not known where these song were laid down on tape, possibly at the Mountain City studio. However, for their next release, the Dixieland Drifters visited Murray Nash's Recording of Nashville studio in Nashville, Tennessee, where they recorded "Bongos and Uncle John" and "How Big a Fool," first released on Hap #1009 in 1961. "Bongos and Uncle John" was re-released on 20th Century Fox as well as twice on Murray Nash's Do-Ra-Me label.

Billboard May 16, 1960

For further reading on the Dixieland Drifters, see American Music Magazine issue #130 (09/2012).

Discography

7998-5/7999-6: Gloria Ramsey and Sound Dealers Orchestra - Good Poppin' Daddy / My Love (1960)
1000:
1001:
1002:
1003: Kirk Hanserd - Johnny Collins / Two Won't Care (1960)
1004: Gene Woods - Afraid / The Ballad of Wild River (1960)
1005: Dixieland Drifters - You Won't Fall in Love / Will Angels Have Sweethearts (1960)
1006: Alan Marlo - Sleepy Time Girl / ? (1960)
1007:
1008: James Padgett - Gonna Rock the Ocean Waves / ? (1960)
1009: Dixieland Drifters - Bongos and Uncle John / How Big a Fool (1961)
1010:
1011:
1012:
1013:
1014:
1015: Sand Mountain Playboys - Wild Bill / ? (1961)
1016: Chuck Cain - Blue are the Tears I Cry / ? (1961)
1017: Arlie & Charlie - Johnny Reb Get Your Gun / ? (1961)
1018: Earl Scott - Opal Lee / ?
1019:
1020:
1021: Warrior River Boys - My Love Song for You / Five String Ramble
1022:
1023:
1024: Yellow Jackets - There's No Telling / ? (1962)
1025: Jim Taylor and the Yellow Jackets - Zemo / ?
1026-1059:
1060: Viola Schleif & Cathy Chapman - The Voice of the Americans / ?

The Dome Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, home of Hap Records.

Sources: RCS, Billboard
Special thanks to DrunkenHob, Bob, C. Brown, Lon Eldridge, Fletcher Bright