Tex Dean

Tex Dean, the Carefree Cowboy

A Rodeo Rider in Miami

Tex Dean was a rodeo performer and country music artist that roamed the United States extensively. He made appearances on many radio stations and for some time, was a featured performer on Miami radio. He even managed rock'n'roll singer Wally Deane for some time.

Tex Dean was born in either Bivins or Midland, Texas, depending on which source you believe, and left the parental farm at age 13 to join a wild west rodeo show. Eventually, he led his own traveling show but sold the venture and became a professional trick and rodeo rider. Besides all this wild west entertainment, Dean was also musically inclined and would play guitar or sing a song once in a while.

Escanaba Press August 9, 1948
(Escanaba, Michigan)

Dean closed down his rodeo show around 1947, gave up riding and and went into the music business. He started his own music traveling show and his own band, the Carefree Cowboys, which included also "Texas Cowgirl" Ginger Rody (stage name for Dean's wife Ruth), Cousin "Take-It-Away-Leon" (who might have been Leon McAuliffe), and others. Dean and the Carefree Cowboys appeared on many stations throughout the years. He made stops at WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, KRLK in Little Rock, Arkansas, and by 1953 at KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana. In between, he could be heard on WWPB in Miami as well as WKAT in Miami Beach. He was on the latter station as early as March 1948 and Dean would return to the Miami area frequently throughout the 1950s.

In 1953, Dean began recording for Lillian McMurry's Trumpet record label from Jackson, Mississippi. Dean and his band recorded a session at ACA Studio in Houston, Texas, on February 23, 1953, which produced four tracks. "Dreamy Georgiana Moon" b/w "Naponee" was his debut release on Trumpet #202 in August that year but seems to have gone nowhere sales-wise. The two remaining tracks, "Moonshine in the North Carolina Hills" and "S.P. Blues" were paired for Trumpet #203 but in the end remained unissued. The band on these cuts included Dean on vocals and guitar, his wife Ruth on guitar, Herb Remington on steel guitar, Tommy Curter on fiddle, and George Clark on bass.

Probably in early 1955, Dean and his wife Ruth became acquainted with a young singer from Washington, DC, named Wallace Van Riper "Wally" Deane (the similar surname was a coincide). They discovered him when he was playing the Shoremeade Hotel in Miami and took a liking at him. Wally Deane was an aspiring rock'n'roll singer, trying to break into the music business, and Dean began managing him, probably hoping to get a bit of the cake as well.

Billboard June 20, 1953

A few months afterwards, Dean contacted Lilian McMurry, who liked what she heard and saw Wally Deane as a potential answer to Elvis Presley. Sessions for both artists followed in spring of 1955 at McMurry's Diamond Studio in Jackson, Mississippi, and a second single appeared under Tex Dean's name for Trumpet's follow-up label Globe, "I'm Sleepy (Show Me the Way to Go Home No.2)" b/w "Jealous Teardrops" on Globe #235 (a third song, "I'm Glad for Your Sake", remained in the vaults). Wally Deane would play music sticks on this record as well. Other group members included Ruth Dean on vocals, Billy Dear on guitar, Red Thomas on fiddle, David Campbell on piano, Johnny Porter on bass, and Johnny Laughlin on drums. Wally Deane in turn cut "Wabash Cannonball" and "I'm Losing You", which remained unissued, but a second session produced a rock'n'roll release out on Globe under his own name, "Cool, Cool Daddy" b/w "It Ain't Fair, Baby" (the B side being a duet with Ginger Rody, #238).

Apparently, none of the discs sold especially well and their stint with Trumpet/Globe ended. Dean's association with Wally Deane broke up and Wally went on to record in Miami for the Arctic label in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as recording some unreleased demos. Tex Dean also made some more records with a vocalist named Buddy Main, recording at Harold Doane's ART studio but the songs "Is It Wrong?" and "It's Those Memories of You" disappeared in Doane's vaults.

Tex and his wife went to Virginia, where they continued to perform but dropped out of sight at some point. I found no info when or where Tex Dean passed away.

Discography

Trumpet 202: Tex Dean & the Carefree Cowboys - Dreamy Georgiana Moon / Naponee (1953)
Trumpet 203: Tex Dean & the Carefree Cowboys - Moonshine in the North Carolina Hills / S.P. Blues (unrel.)
Globe 235: Tex Dean & his Texans - I'm Sleepy (Show Me the Way to Go Home No.2) / Jealous Teardrops (1956)
ART No.#: Buddy Main with Tex Dean & his Band - Is It Wrong? / It's Those Memories of You (acetate, unrel.)

Sources

• Hillbilly-Music.com entry

• 45cat entry and 45worlds/78rpm entry

• Wally Deane website

• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry

SPA Records

Look at Central Avenue in Hot Springs, Arkansas, ca. 1962

Greetings from Hot Springs National Park

The Story of John Roddie's SPA Records

SPA Records was based in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was connected (or probably owned) by John Roddie, an entrepreneur and song publisher originally from Mississippi but who had lived in Hot Springs for years by the advent of the 1960s. He owned a publishing firm that was variously called  "Roddie-Miller Music Pub. Company" or "Roddie Music Pub. Company". SPA was likely his first label, which was established in late 1960 with the debut release by local Hot Springs country singer Leo Castleberry, who dabbled in rock'n'roll with "Teenage Blues" b/w "Come Back to Me" (SPA #100-10).

Between 1960 and at least 1964, the label released several discs of various musical genres. There was more rockabilly (Lafay Hawkins), country music (Eddie Bond), instrumental rock'n'roll (Johnny Hughey, who was probably steel guitarist John Hughey), and pop music (Adrain Loraine, among others). Opal Winstead and H. Lindemanis were two of the regular songwriters for the label, as their songs were recorded by a string of SPA recording artists. Noteworthy, many of Roddie's composers were women: Winstead, Dahwiss Meiszinger, Frances Adickes, and his wife Bonnie Roddie.

There was also a subsidiary label called Caesar, which was used only infrequently, however. Only two releases are known to exist on the Caesar imprint (one dated as late as 1970).

The last known release on SPA is from 1964. John Roddie had founded a second label, United Southern Artists, in 1961, which had a greater output but focused on country and rock'n'roll music. This label came to an end in 1964, too. John Roddie died in 1980.

Discography

SPA
100-10: Leo Castleberry - Teenage Blues / Come Back to Me (1960)
25-1001: Eddie Bond - Only One More Minute / I Walk Alone (1960)
25-1002: 
25-1003:
25-1004: Johnny Hughey - The Crawl / Last Date (1961)
25-1005:
25-1006: Ersel Standridge - Khruschev's Call to Satan / Story of My Life (1962)
25-1007:
25-1008: Sammy Marshall - Kiss Me Good-Bye Tomorrow / John Greer - (Oh, Ho, Ho) Heartaches (1963)
25-1009:
25-1010:
25-1011:
25-1012: "Wishy" Washburn and his Carolina Cool Cats - Cool Cat from Carolina / Simple Simon / Little Laurie Little - Come Get Me Johnny / Beverly Bronte' - Golden Hour of Love (1963)
25-1013:
25-1014: Eddie Bond and Dahwiss and her Dixie Drifters - Buffalo Trace / Nobody's Darling (1963)
25-1015: "Wishy" Washborn - Perfect Fool / Beverly Bronte' - Love Is Such a Little Word / Mama Lady - Dear Lord and Santa Claus / Biddle (Bo) Beep (1963)
25-1016: Adrain Loraine - The Serviceman's Dream / Cottage in the Lane / Lafay Hawkins - I Never Had a Girl / Adrain Loraine - I Want a Trailer (1964)
25-1017:
25-1018:

Caesar
25-101: Lafay Hawkins - Let's Be Happy Tonight / Just for Tonight (1961)
25-1025: Don Ange and the Melody Men - My Pet Gorilla / "Wishy" Washman and Orchestra - Miami Blues (1970)

See also

• The United Southern Artists label

Sources

• 45cat entries for SPA Records and Caesar Records

• Rockin' Country Style

Cracker Jim Brooker

Cracker Jim Brooker - A Miami County Music Veteran

"Cracker Jim" Brooker was one of the most influential DJs in Miami country music. But his efforts were not limited only to South Florida, he was also one of the founders of the Country Music Association (CMA), one of the driving forces of country music business and industry to this day. Brooker was a stalwart in Miami from the  1940s until the 1960s, promoting country music in the area like no one else probably did. He brought many Grand Ole Opry acts to Miami, including Hank Snow, Webb Pierce, and Johnny Cash. He was also an avid salesman, selling goods of every kind on his radio shows.

Information on Brooker is scarce though he played an influential role in the history of country music. I reconstructed his full name James Earl Brooker from official census records that can be accessed at ancestry.com. Though, I cannot really determine which of the many men named James E. Brooker he is. Born probably around 1911 in Georgia, Brooker was living in Daytona Beach, Florida, with his wife Mabel by 1935 and worked as a salesman. 

Brooker came to Miami in 1943 but World War II interrupted his life. However, he had started his career as a disc jockey on WBAY by 1947. By December 1950, he had switched to WMIE, Miami's primary country music outlet at that time. He not only had his own DJ show, which broadcast live from a booth at Shell's City, but also put on live stage shows with local talent and even bigger shows featuring top Nashville stars at the Dade County and Dinner Key Auditoriums. He also dabbled in TV, hosting on Saturday afternoons "Cactus Jim's Talent Ranch" on WTVJ (which, at one time, featured a young Kent Westberry) and the Big Orange Jubilee for some time. Although Brooker had found his profession in the radio and TV business that did not mean he gave up being a salesman. He continued to sell all kinds of goods via his radio shows.

Cracker Jim Brooker, ca. 1954

Contrary to many other Miami country DJs like Happy Harold, Uncle Harve, Uncle Martin Wales, Dale Wasson, or Buddy Starcher, Brooker was not a musician. Though, he was so popular in Dade County that Nashville and other parts of the country got notice of him. He was a featured act on the first Hank Williams memorial day held in Alabama in 1954. In addition, he attended Country Music DJ Conventions there as early as 1954 (they had not begun until 1952) and connected with the scene there, becoming acquainted with many of the influential people. Brooker was a member of the Country Music DJ Association and also its president at one time. The association held its annual meeting in the winter of 1957 in Miami at the Gay's Everglades Hotel but was slowly dying, however, and it was decided to form a new organization that was not only for DJs but for every aspect of the business. The Country Music Association came into existence in September 1958 and Brooker served on the first board of directors.

Though Brooker left the board eventually, he retained close connections to the CMA throughout the years. He continued to spin records on WMIE but added another show five days a week on WEDR in the summer of 1963. A year later, when WMIE was sold and changed programming, he switched to WIII and WQAM. He continued to promote country music concerts in the Miami-Dade area, including those by Johnny Cash, whom he knew since the 1950s and who came frequently to South Florida.

It was Brooker who connected Cash with Ervin T. Rouse, composer of "Orange Blossom Special". Cash would record it and made it a part of his routine live set. Cash remembered in an interview for "Life Magazine" in 1994: "I recorded 'Orange Blossom Special' in the mid '60s, and in those days everybody that recorded it claimed the 'arrangement' because no one knew who wrote it. But Mother Maybelle Carter was at the session, and I asked her, 'Do you know who really wrote 'Orange Blossom Special?' She said, 'Sure I do. Ervin Rouse and his brother Gordon.' And I said, 'Where are they?' She said, 'Last time I heard, they were in Florida.' It was the only clue I had. I called a disc jockey down there named Cracker Jim Brooker, and I asked Cracker Jim, 'Did you ever hear of Ervin Rouse?' And he said, 'Aw, I know Ervin. He lives with the Seminoles out in the swamp, and he makes swamp buggies for a living.' I said, 'You got any idea how I could talk to him?' And he said, 'Sure. I'll announce it on the air: 'Ervin, call me and I'll give you Johnny Cash's number.' It wasn't an hour till Ervin Rouse called me from some little settlement in the swamps. I said, 'Ervin, I happen to be coming to Miami on tour. Would you come to my show and do 'Orange Blossom Special' with me?' He and Gordon came in the clothes they worked in. I brought Ervin up to play the fiddle, and he absolutely killed them. At the end of the song, they were applauding and he literally got down on his knees. He was such a sweet, humble man. Gordon's still living. I still see him every time I'm down there."

"Another Cracker Jim Promotion" - Brooker promoted country music events
at the Dade County and Dinner Key Auditoriums with great success

By the mid 1960s, Brooker dropped out of the picture. If anyone has more information about Brooker or memories concerning his shows, please feel free to contact me.

Sources
• The Montgomery Advertiser (September 30, 1954)
• Country Music Association: CMA Honors Its 60th Anniversary (see also Randy Noles' book "Orange Blossom Boys")
• Entries by Don Boyd on PBase.com: [1], [2]
• Bluegrass Messengers: Orange Blossom Special - Version 2, Johnny Cash
• Ancentry.com
• Kent Westberry: "I've Got a Song to Write" (Dorrance Publishing Co), 2020, page 6

Truman Lankford on Stockyard

Truman Lankford - Every Road Leads to Texas (Stockyard SR 102), ca. 1982

Truman Lankford was a longtime performer, from the 1960s until the 1980s and probably has traveled many highways through Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, and Texas. He played every roadhouse and honky tonk among those roads but in the end, never found the recognition that this talented singer deserved.

Truman McCoy Lankford was born on November 15, 1929, in Gentry, located in the northwestern corner of Arkansas near the growing metropolis of Bentovnville/Rogers/Fayetteville. By 1948, Lankford had married Elsie Jean "Jeanne" Montgomery and the couple had at least one daughter. Lankford served in the US Army during the Korean War.

Lankford was probably active as a musician before the mid 1960s but he did not record until 1965, when he was already 36 years old. He came to the attention of Skipper Records, founded the same year by Si Siman (who also co-owned Earl Barton Music with Ralph Foster and John B. Mahaffey) in Springfield, Missouri. Produced by M.A. Box, Lankford recorded the snotty country rocker "Arkansas Man" plus "Here-Comes-Heaven-Again" and both found release on Skipper #828S-1241 in 1965.

He had another three releases on local labels during the mid to late 1960s, including "Freightliner Fever" b/w "Watch Me" on the Big Orange label (#651) in 1968, which eventually became his claim to fame.Written by Lankford and L. D. Allen, "Freightliner Fever" was covered in 1970 by Red Sovine for Starday. It entered Billboard's Hot Country Songs in July that year and peaked at #54. Thought not a major hit, it became a minor classic among trucker country artists and was further covered by artists like Dave Dudley and Boxcar Willie. It also meant some welcomed income from the royalties for Lankford.

Lankford moved into a mainstream trucker country style himself in the 1970s and was a cast member of the 70s edition of the Louisiana Hayride. He continued to release singles on small labels well into the 1980s and had one of his few album releases in the late 1970s or early 1980s, "True Man" on the Louisiana Hayride label. He also appeared in the independent movie "Cody" in 1977, which was filmed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Today's selection came from one of his early 1980s recordings that were released on the Stockyard label around 1982. The disc featured "Belly Up" and "Every Road Leads to Texas". While the A side was in a more 80s contemporary country style, "Every Road Leads to Texas" was a throwback to the old western swing days. Fiddle and steel guitar both take nice solos and Lankford supplies good, deep voiced vocals. Of course, it did not become a hit as country audiences had set their minds on other styles.

It seems this was Lankford's last release. He passed away November 17, 1987, at the age of 58 years. He is buried at Friendship Cemetery in Cale, Nevada County, Southwest Arkansas.

 Sources
• Find a Grave entry
• 45cat entry
• Discogs
• SecondHandSongs
• Internet Movie Database: Cody
• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry
• Garage Hangover: Skipper Records history
• Locals Only
• Red Sovine - Freight Liner Fever 45cat entry

Uncle Martin Wales

Uncle Martin Wales in the WBAY studio (Coral Gables, Florida),
ca. late 1940s or early 1950s

The First Hillbilly of Florida

The Story of "Uncle" Martin Wales

Uncle Martin Wales was one of the mainstays of Miami country music, possibly being the most enduring radio personality of the area.

Martin Smyth Wales was born on August 12, 1912, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Charles Elliot and Sarah B Wales. Wales' ancestors had been living in Minnesota since the mid 19th century. Music and performing was an early passion of young Martin Wales, as he entertained soldiers at a gathering at his family's house at the early age of six years.

By 1930, Wales had taken up singing and playing guitar professionally and set out on his own. He started his career in 1930 in Billings, Montana, where he "combined announcing with hillbilly singing" according to his obituary in the Palm Beach Post. He then spent some time in a Canadian logger camp and as a beachcomber on South Pacific islands.

In 1934, Wales spent his holidays in Miami, Florida, and liked it so much he stayed for the rest of his life. He married Vivian M. Stanton in 1938 and started appearing on Miami radio in the 1940s. In 1941, he was a performer on WKAT in Miami Beach. It was at that time that he invented the character of "Uncle Martin", singing old-time songs with a fake beard. He became station manager of WIOD but retained his show on WKAT (where he hosted the "Frosty Martin Show") and in 1947, introduced "Uncle Martin's Square Dance" on WBAY in Coral Gables. In 1951, he divorced from his first wife and married Betty M. Carson the same year.

He also made the transition to television in the early 1950s. In 1953, WITV was started in Fort Lauderdale with a country music show entitled "Sunset Ranch", hosted by Wales and Miss Molly Turner (who later became a popular newscaster in Miami). In contrast to many other early TV shows, it was not filmed in a studio but outdoor on what looked like a ranch (or, on rainy days, from a small cabin). The show featured a lot of local talent, including Eddie Thorpe, Happy Harold Thaxton, Buddy Starcher, and Elaine Rouse, among others.

By 1954, Wales had switched to radio WINZ. Like many of his fellow radio performers, Wales did not record much during his long career. One session by him is documented for King Records' DeLuxe subsidiary label, which had a Miami office headed by Henry Stone and therefore cut sessions on a couple of local performers. On January 1, 1954, Wales recorded two songs, "Sweeter Than the Flowers" and "If You Haven't Written Your Mother", which stayed unreleased, unfortunately.

Wales went out of the business in the 1960s or 1970s, after 30 years of Miami broadcasting. He passed away on March 28, 2003, in Hobe Sound, Florida, at the age of 90 years.

See also

• Remembering Happy Harold - A Miami Country Music Pioneer

Sources

• Find a Grave entry

• Donn R. Cole, Jr.: "Towers in the Sand: The History of Florida Broadcasting" (North Loop Books)

• Sales Management, Vol. 48 (Rutgers University), 1941

• "Hearings" (United States Congress), page 1145

• "Broadcasting, Telecasting", Broadcasting Publications (1947)

Buddy Starcher

The Wandering Boy from West Virginia
The Story of Buddy Starcher in Miami

Probably nobody embodied the rambling 1930s country radio singer better than Buddy Starcher. The West Virginia native appeared on dozens of different radio stations from the late 1920s up to the 1960s. In the early to mid 1950s, Starcher was living and working in Miami, where he appeared on different radio stations and was part of the city's music scene. While we'll look on his whole career, we'll also focus on his Miami years in this post.

Early Life
Born on March 16, 1906, near Ripley, Jackson County, West Virginia, Oby Edgar Starcher was widely known as "Buddy" from an early age. Reportedly, he did not even knew his real first name until he was a young man. His family were longtime residents of the area and one of his ancestors was the founding father of Ripley. He grew up in adjacent Nicholas County and soon learned to play banjo and guitar, accompanying his father Homer Francis Starcher, who was a fiddler, at local dances.

First Steps and Wandering Years

Smiley Sutter and Buddy Starcher,
late 1930s

Starcher enjoyed his first taste of music business when he won a talent contest in Baltimore, Maryland, and won a spot on the city's WFBR station. This marked the beginning of a long career as a radio entertainer and Starcher would criss-cross the country, hopping from one radio stations to another. Frequent stints included those at WCHS in Charleston, West Virginia, where he also appeared on the Old Farm Hour, WMMN in Fairmont, West Virginia, where he started the Sagebrush Roundup, and WSVA in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Until 1937, he appeared solo on radio and personal appearances but founded a band in 1937, the Mountaineers, to enhance the act. Lee Moore and Smiley Sutter were early members of this outfit.

World War II took many of the members overseas, which broke the band up, but Starcher stayed behind and continued his career. During this time, he moved west to KXEL in Waterloo, Iowa, and KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa. By 1944, he had returned to West Virginia and started recording transcriptions the following year. This enabled him to appear on multiple stations simultaneously, a practice he would continue well into the 1950s.

1948 advertisement for Gretsch guitars
featuring Buddy Starcher

In June 1946, he married band mate Mary Ann Estes. Around the the same time, he operated his own country music park, a venue format that was popular during these years in the northern and eastern states. His popularity had grown so much that a recording contract with Bill McCall's California based 4 Star Records was the result. During his time with 4 Star, he scored one hit with his own "I'll Still Write Your Name in the Sand", reaching #8 on Billboard's Best Selling Folk Records chart. He also went into partnership with songwriter Marion Goddard to found the Dixie and Autograph record labels, on which he recorded such artists as the Franklin Brothers, Big Slim the Lone Cowboy, Rusty Gabbard, and Bobby Cook. However, Starcher and Goddard failed to built up a distribution network and the labels folded eventually.

Starcher had enjoyed a drink from the time he had appeared on barn dances with his father but during the 1930s and 1940s, he became more and more dependent on alcohol. A radio pastor took care of him and finally, in 1948, he overcame his addiction and became a newborn Christ. Though, he continued his work in radio and music business but often enriched programs and appearances with religious material and topics. In 1949, he signed with Columbia and recorded mostly sacred material but despite his popularity on air, failed to achieve another hit record.

In Miami
While he was working in Philadelphia on two stations in late 1950, a year later he had relocated to Miami Beach, Florida, where he worked as program director of WMBM and also had his own DJ show there. Also on the station at that time was the comedy duo of Salt and Peanuts, whom Starcher knew for some 20 years by then since all three of them had worked at WCHS in the early 1930s.

Starcher's continuing religious inspiration found express in the fact that he was part of a committee that organized a special service held in January 1953 by Reverend Billy Graham at Miami's Orange Bowl, which drew about 25,000 people. Until the end of 1952, Starcher could be heard over WMBM but left as the new year began and started working with WMIE.

The station was a driving force in Miami's country music scene in the 1950s and Starcher was in good company there as luminaries such as Cracker Jim Brooker, Happy Harold Thaxton, and Uncle Harve Spivey were working the same station. Although he had left Miami by March 1954 to work at WESC in Greenville, South Carolina, where he also managed the station, Starcher obviously split his time between Miami and Greenville.

In July 1954, he held a session for the DeLuxe record label, a subsidiary company of King Records from Cincinnati, Ohio. The Miami office was headed by Henry Stone, who was an influential and well-connected music business man. Stone scouted several Miami singers for the label, including Starcher. Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies lists the session for July 19, 1954, at the WMBM studio, though it seems more probable to me that the session was done at WMIE. Four songs were recorded, "String of Broken Hearts", "We Won't Be Wed", "I Was Crying Then (But You're Crying Now)", and "Don't Call No More", of which the last two saw release on DeLuxe #2025 in September 1954. It remained Starcher's only disc for the label.

By late 1954, Starcher was general manager of WLBS in Birmingham, Alabama, but was heard over different stations at that time, also including WMIE. Being the wandering boy he ever was, he had left Miami for good by May 1956 and became station manager at KCUL, Fort Worth, Texas, where he directed the station's new Cowtown Hoedown live stage show, working with such acts as Jackie Lee Cochran, the Callahan Brothers, Charlie Adams, and Frankie Miller. He would not return to Southern Florida again - at least not for radio work.

The Starday and Boone Years
In 1959, Starcher began recording for Starday Records, which had become a home for many older, traditional country musicians like him. The following year, he returned to West Virginia and started his own morning TV show on WCHS-TV in Charleston. This show lasted until 1966 and held Starcher's popularity in West Virginia and in some parts of Ohio high.

In 1961, Starcher had founded another record label, B.E.S. Records, which released a string of singles until 1965. One of those was Starcher's own "History Repeats Itself" b/w "Sniper's Hill" (B.E.S. #45-91) in 1965. The disc was successful enough that it was picked up by the bigger Boone label and it was  "History Repeats Itself," a spoken word number recounting the parallels between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, which finally reached #2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs and #39 on Billboard's Hot 100. The accompanying album of the same name peaked at #37. It was Starcher's second and last big hit.

Starcher's newly found fame led to a few releases on Decca but none could repeat the success. His cover of Johnny Sea's "Day of Decision" went to #131 in June 1966. He eventually ceased recording and went into retirement in 1976 and moved to Craigsville, Nicholas County, West Virginia. Though, he remained active and partly worked as a car salesman and performed occasional reunions of old live stage show casts, like the Old Farm Hour and Sagebrush Roundup reunions.

At age 92, Starched moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia, to be in the range of medical facilities and passed away on November 2, 2001. He was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2015.

Sources
• Buddy Starcher entries at 45cat and 45worls/78rpm
• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entries
• Hillbilly-Music.com entry
• West Virginia Music Hall of Fame
• Hul Herald obtiuary
• Ivan M. Tribe: "Live Country Music on TV!"

Vern Pullens

Who was Vern Pullens?
The Story of the Pearl River Country Rocker

For decades, a sketchy biography of Vern Pullens has been floating around - but do we really know his story? I guess not. His claim to fame was the rockabilly double sider "Bop Crazy Baby" b/w "It's My Life" that he recorded for the Spade label, which began his decades spanning recording career. Pullens was a country singer first and rock'n'roll only second, though he occasionally recorded rockabilly throughout the years.

Right from the start, there is some sketchiness. Adam Komorowski sums it up in his biographical sketch on Pulles for the "Classic Rockabilly" CD box: "No exact date of birth is recorded for Vern Pullens but it is likely that it was in the late '20s. Also in doubt is his place of birth, variously cited as Bogalusa, Louisiana, and Picayne, Mississippi, but it is probable that it was Picayne." The place Komorowski mentions as "Picayne" is actually Picayune, which is less than half an hour away from Bogalusa. My intense research regarding this issue hailed no evidence to proof either assumption. I found a man named Monroe Paul Pullen, who turned out not to be Vern Pullens, however. It was my fellow researcher Volker Houghton who got me on the right track. He pointed me towards the grave of I.V. Pullens, which turned out to be the man I was looking for.

It is clear that Pullens hailed from the rural region known as the Pearl River Valley, Mississippi, which is also the border region to Louisiana. He was born there on March 9, 1931. His parents, Thomas Floyd Pullens, Sr., and Sarah Jane (Henley) Pullens were children of this rural and isolated region as well. Pullens came from a large family with at least ten siblings. By 1940, when he attended the local elementary school, the family was living in rural Pearl River County. Pullens' father earned a living as a farm hand but was also known to have been a reverend and therefore, the family was likely opposed to sacred music. Growing up in a rural area, Pullens was also likely influenced by the country sounds of the day.

It is possible that Pullens served his country during the late 1940s or early 1950s but no documents that would indicate a military service could be traced down so far. By the mid 1950s, Pullens was working as a bricklayer and a performer with a local country outfit on weekends. In 1956, label owner Bennie Hess was traveling the eastern Louisiana/southwestern Mississippi regions in search of local talent to record on his new label, Spade Records. Hess, a Texas born singer, producer and promoter (mostly a self-promoter, though), had started his musical career in the late 1920s and started recording in the 1940s. Following his contract with Mercury Records (which had ended abruptly as Mercury had found out Hess bootlegged his recordings for the company on his own small label), Hess started a string of labels to produce his own records. He went into partnership with Doyle Jones to form Spade Records in the latter part of 1956 and embraced the new rockabilly sounds on the label.

Pullens and Hess possibly came in touch through B.J. Johnson, a Picayune based singer, songwriter, and DJ. Hess was impressed enough with Pullens to arrange a recording session for him in September that year at radio KTRH in Houston. Pullens traveled the approximately 200 miles from Pearl River Valley to Houston to cut not only what was his first session but also Spade's debut release. He was backed by local session men, of which only bassist Lou Fresley's name has survived. Four tracks were recorded that day: "Bop Crazy Baby", "It's My Life", "Would You Be Happy", and a raved up rockabilly version of the old standard "Mama Don't Allow No Boppin'". The first two were chosen by Hess for single release on Spade #1927 around October. It was pressed on both 45rpm and 78rpm formats.

Hess released another single on Pullens, though they headed into another direction and tried out with a traditional country style that Pullens was used to. Spade #1930 featured Pullens' "Would You Be Happy", a rockaballad from the previous session with echo, slap bass, and spicy lead guitar, and a stone-hard country weeper "It Took One Moment". Released in late 1956 or early 1957, it shared the fate of its precursor and went nowhere. A third and last single was released on Spade around May 1957, featuring two country duets with B.J. Johnson, "What Am I to Do" and "Country Boys Dream" (#1935). It also showed that Pullens was a bit of a songwriter, too, as both songs were his originals. BMI lists a total of 38 compositions by him.

Billboard January 5, 1957

Apart from the rural stamp these recordings had, the biggest problem was the missing distribution network of Spade. Hess' only distributor was Pappy Daily of Starday, who nevertheless used his connections to rather promote his own biggest star at the time, George Jones. Speaking of Pappy Daily, he re-released "What Am I to Do" and "Country Boys Dream" on his own D record label (#1107 in the fall of 1959). This deal probably came into existence through B.J. Johnson again, who recorded for D during 1958-1959 as Byron Johnson.

However, the single failed to stimulate any greater success and it remained their only effort for the label. Pullens kept on performing in the Mississippi-Louisiana border region and in 1957, became a cast member of a local Saturday night live stage show, the Pearl River Valley Jamboree, which aired over WHXY from Bogalusa. He was lead guitarist for the show's house band and remained with the cast until 1959.

Pullens then began working with Hack Kennedy, who had founded Big Howdy Records in Bogalusa two years earlier. Two country singles appeared in the second half of 1960, including an answer song to Hank Locklin's big 1958 hit "Send Me the Pillow (That You Dream On)", written by Pullens "I Sent You the Pillow (That I Dreamed On)". Answer songs were popular in those days and at the same time, the Browns turned their version of the original into a moderate hit, so Hack Kennedy possibly took the chance to cash in on the success.

Though, a hit was not in sight for Pullens and he spent some time in Nashville, Tennessee, possibly hoping to get a better deal while being at the center of country music. He recorded a single for the independent Voice of Country label in 1968, "How Long Now" / "Just at Sundown" (Voice of Country #117) but was back at Big Howdy the next year, recording and working with both Hack Kennedy and B.J. Johnson again.

By the early 1970s, Bennie Hess had moved his operations to Nashville, too, and rockabilly music was gaining popularity among young British music lovers. This did not remained unnoticed by Hess and he reactivated his Spade label. Hess' first move was to lease "Mama Don't Allow No Boppin'", "Would You Be Happy", and "Bop Crazy Baby" to the British Injun label for release in 1972. In 1975, Pullens cut a new session for Hess that included the songs "Long Gone", "Rock On Mabel" and the first version of "You Don't Mean to Make Me Cry", all of which were issued by Spade in the UK.

Rockabilly remained popular and in the summer of 1979, Bill Kilgore approached  Pullens to make more recordings. Kilgore had a small record label in Deer Park, Texas, Rock-It Records, which specialized in rockabilly music and he arranged a session for Pullens at the birthplace of rock'n'roll, in Memphis, Tennessee. The session took place at American Sound Studio, engineered by Stan Kesler, and featured a line-up of legendary Memphis rockabilly musicians: Al Hopson on lead guitar, Jerry Lee "Smoochie" Smith on piano, Marcus Van Story on bass, and Jimmy Van Eaton on drums. It was a split-session with Memphis music stalwart Eddie Bond, who recorded a slew of tracks with the same band. From Pullens' songs, a new version of "You Don't Mean to Make Me Cry" and "Jitterbuggin' Baby" were released on single (Rock-It #105). These and more tracks from the session were released in Europe through Rockhouse Records in the mid 1980s.

In the early 1970s, Pullens had returned to rural Mississippi and settled in Carriere, a small town outside of Picayune. There, he set up his own record label Sun Down Records, on which he released country music by local artists throughout the 1970s and also had two releases under his own name on the label. Though he had returned to Mississippi, he retained his connections to Nashville and produced most of the Sun Down releases there. The label's most successful release became Roger Rainy's "Breaker, Breaker" from 1975, which became a Top 20 country hit.

On the performing side, Pullens continued to play locally in Mississippi but had given up recording after his 1979 Memphis session. He spent his last years in Mississippi and passed away on July 19, 2000, at the age of 69 years (although his death date is usually given as 2001). He is buried at Henleyfield Cemetery in Pearl River County. His 1950s and 1970s rockabilly recordings have been reissued over and over again since the 1970s but a quality re-release of his complete recordings is still missing. The Cramps, British psychobilly band, cited "Bop Crazy Baby" as one of their influences.

See also
• The Pearl River Valley Jamboree
• Spade Records story
• Penny Records

Recommended reading
• Bear Family Records

Sources
• Find a Grave entry
• Rockin' Country Style entry
• Various entries at 45cat and 45worlds: 45cat, 45worlds/CD albums, 45worlds/Vinyl albums
• Discogs
• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entries (Beware of some wrong and inconsistent information)
• Bennie Hess at the Texas State Historical Association
• Adam Komowski: "Classic Rockabilly" (liner notes), Proper Records (2006)
• Official census records accessed through Ancestry.com

Penny Records

Picayune, Mississippi, in the 1970s

Picayune, Mississippi - a 11.000 people city in Pearl River County, Mississippi, near the Mississippi/Louisiana state border. The city's legacy in music history is limited, very limited. But it has a few contributions to offer. Country comic and Picayune native Jerry Clower recorded his live LP "Live in Picayune" for MCA at a charity event of the city's Women's Club. Allegedly also a son of the city was rockabilly and country singer Vern Pullens - although others say he was born in nearby Bogalusa, Louisiana.

However, Picayune was once home to record labels and a recording studio. Yes, more than one label - including Penny Records. The name "Picayune" drives from the french word "picaillon", which itself rooted in "picaioun", which was the name of a coin from the Savoy region in Europe. So the label's name "Penny" is probably a reference to the city name's history.

The label started in the early 1970s from a house on Chateau Cove road in the northeast of the city near Highway 59. Possibly also operating from that address was Precision Recording Studio, were at least some of the label's recordings were cut. I can't tell you who the owner was but I sense a connection to Hack Kennedy's Big Howdy label, which had been originally located in the Bogalusa area but had moved to Picayune as well by the late 1960s. Some of the Penny releases bear the Big Howdy publishing stamp. Picayune country DJ B.J. Johnson also penned some of the songs released on the label and could have had a hand in it, too.

1406 Chateau Cove in Picayune, where Penny Records was located in the 1970s
Source: Google Street View

The label started around 1971 and was active at least until 1975 with thirteen known 45rpm releases. The Precision Recording Studio had its life of its own. While many of the Penny releases were recorded there, the studio served as an outlet for other local labels throughout the 1970s. The discs were mainly pressed by Atwell Record Pressing in Lafayette, Tennessee (including the Penny releases). B.J. Johnson, who appears as the songwriter on some Penny productions, also produced records at the Precision studio (e.g. Richard Banquer's LP "The Original Papa Joe's Presents Richard Banquer"), another hint to his involvement.

Discography

Label No.#	Artist Credit	A / B side	Date
103	Wayne Morse	Don’t Hide Your Heart / Pull Down the Blind’s Momma
104
105	Joe Brady	You’re the Reason I’m Leaving / You Were Only Fooling
106	Jerry Evans	Go on Home / Your Old Standby
107	Harvey Mansfield	Keep That Country Music Playing / You Destroyed My Life
108
109
110
111	Jerry Evans	Catch the Wind / I’m Walking the Dog	1972
112
113
114
115	E.J. Saucier	Mr. Warden / Little Girl	1972
126	Spectrum	Forever and Always / Made for Me	1973
126	Country Comfort feat. Bobby Boyles	Words / Got You On My Mind	1974
127	Johnnie Kirk	Wicked Women / Big Bad Stuff	1974
128	Gwen Bush	If You Got Leaving On Your Mind / I Don’t Want to Live (Without His Love)	1974
129
130	Billy Mulkey	Give Me Freedom / Let’s Fight	1975
131	Tommy Gray	Broken Heart Repairman / ?
177	Patty Mason and the Slade Gang	Constantly / Hickory Hollar’s Tramp
178	Cleat Wooley	That’s Why I’m Walking / You Can’t Stop the Rain from Falling	1971
201	Jerry Evans	Green, Green Grass of Home / Rhythm of the Rain	1975

See also
• Big Howdy Records
• Vern Pullens
• The Pearl River Valley Jamboree

Sources
• 45cat entry
• Discord entries for Penny Records and Precision Sound Studio
• Locals Only

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