Dale Wasson

Dale Wasson (center) with Johnny Horton (left) and Johnny Cash (right), late 1950s
Courtesy of Dale Wasson, Jr.

The Big Long Tall Drink of Water from Miami

The Story of Dale Wasson

In the mid 1950s, radio station WMIE was one of the driving forces for country music in Miami, Florida. Influential Miami country music personalities like Uncle Harve Spivey, Happy Harold Thaxton, and Cracker Jim Brooker were mainstays on the station. Another DJ on WMIE was Dale Wasson, musician, songwriter, and record shop owner in his own right.

Maurice Dale Wasson was born on November 21, 1931, in Peoria, Illinois, to Samuel Dale and Macie Evelyn Wasson. He had a younger brother, Floyd Duane, but his parents eventually divorced. His mother married again and gave birth to Wasson's half-sister Patricia. Wasson's family moved to Miami, where he grew up.

In the early 1950s, Wasson joined the US Marines and was sent overseas to fight in the Korean War. One of his comrades was a young man from Arkansas, Gerald D. Tomlinson. Like Wasson, he liked music and played guitar. He was soon nicknamed "Tommy" by Wasson and his comrades and became Johnny Horton's guitarist after his discharge. Tomlinson and Wasson remained good friends throughout the years.

After earning two Purple Hearts, Wasson was honorably discharged in 1953 and returned to Miami. Upon his return, he started his own record shop on the corner of NW 7th Avenue and 130th Street. At the same time, he became an announcer as well as a country DJ on WMIE and would host a show out of his record shop. He was also active as a musician and joined Happy Harold Thaxton's band, the Dixie Millers. This outfit performed regularly at different venues in the area. Like Wasson, Thaxton was a DJ at WMIE and also had an evening TV show in the 1950s that often featured Wasson. Thaxton would introduce him as "The Big Long Tall Drink of Water".

While working as a DJ with WMIE, Wasson got to know a lot of the big stars that stopped in Miami to promote their records or while being on tour. Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton paid a visit more than once. Wasson also became acquainted with such legends as Jimmy Dean and Grady Martin. In fact, he jammed with Martin while the latter was on tour with the Cash and Horton units. "After the show my mom, dad, a young Jimmy Dean, and band members were all up in Horton's hotel room. Playing music after the shows with each other was something they always looked forward to. One of them mentioned that Grady Martin was staying upstairs. Everyone at the time wanted to play music with Grady, who was starting to become famous as a musician" recalls Wasson's son Dale jr. Apparently, the jam session developed into an hours-long issue. "Mom was eight months pregnant with my brother and was very tired, so she told my dad to go on with them and fell asleep alone in Horton's room until they came back hours later."

Wasson was also active as an emcee at drive-in movie theaters. Back then, bands would perform before and after the actual movie. Sometimes, there were extra added attractions as well. These shows were hosted by Wasson. One time, South Florida resident Grandma Ella Carver, "The World's Oldest Flame Diver", appeared on such an event. While Wasson was said to have been an accomplished songwriter, no recordings by him are known to exist.

By the early 1960s, WMIE had been sold and changed programming, aimed at the Latin-American audiences that were coming into Miami from Cuba by then. Wasson sold his record shop around the same time and decided it was time to quit the music business. He moved his family to North Carolina, where he served the city of Asheville as a police officer. He eventually returned to Florida, living in Winter Park, where he continued to work in law enforcement.

Dale Wasson passed away on April 2, 2009, at the age of 77 years. He is buried at All Faiths Memorial Park in Casselberry, Florida.

See also
• Remembering Happy Harold - A Miami Country Music Pioneer

Sources
• Find a Grave entry
• I would like to thank Dale Wasson's wife Elizabeth and his son Dale jr. for contributing so much information and photo material about Dale Wasson.

KTHS & KAAY - Hot Springs and Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 1950s. The KTHS building on the far right

Kome to Hot Springs / The Mighty KAAY

The Split History of KTHS / KAAY in Hot Springs and Little Rock

One of the most powerful radio stations in Arkansas was KAAY. The story of this station began in 1924, when the station signed on the air as KTHS ("Kome to Hot Springs") in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In the early 1930s, the it became a 10,000 watt station, sending its signal clear to the state capital Little Rock as well. KTHS was the founding station of the "Lum & Abner" show, which started in 1932.

KTHS was a NBC Blue network affiliate and continued to be part of the network even after 1945, when it was renamed ABC. The station was operated by the local Chamber of Commerce until 1942, when it was sold to Radio Broadcast, Inc. from Shreveport, Louisiana, making it a sister station to KWKH. Shortly after it changed owners, KTHS became a 50,000 watt station and was moved to Little Rock in 1943, though it stuck with its call letters.

The station featured a lot of country music programming, featuring such artists as Leo Castleberry, Tommy Trent, the Shelby Cooper and the Dixie Mountaineers, the Haley Family, Jack Hunt, or the Melody Boys. In the 1930s, the station had its Country Store stage show and in the early 1950s, the station carried KWKH's Louisiana Hayride.

Cast of the KTHS Country Store, presumably the station's 1930s live stage country show.
If anyone has more information on this program, feel free to leave a comment!

The station introduced KTHV as its televison station in 1955 but in 1962, both stations were sold to different new owners. Call letters of KTHS were changed to KAAY and was turned into a top 40 station, abandoning the country music and its local programming. After 11 pm, the station featured programs that played progressive pop and rock music, making it an underground favorite among young listeners. It was especially "Beaker Street" hosted by Clyde Clifford that became extremely popular not only in Arkansas but in different states of the Mid-West, Mississippi Valley, and as far as Cuba. Other DJs at that time included Rock Robbins, Charlie "King" Scarbrough, A.J. "Doc Holiday" Lindsey, and others.

The station was sold once more in 1975 to Multimedia Radio and in the 1980s, changed to religious programming, which it continues to this day. Citadel Broadcasting announced the purchase of the station in 1997 with the official purchase taking place in November 1998. Citadel became Cumulus Media in 2011.

See also

• Tommy Trent - Little Rock's Forgotten Star

Sources

• Thomas Harold Riggs Find a Grave entry (Rock Robbins)

• Doc Holiday obituary

• KAAY 1090 blog and The Mighty KAAY blog

• Wikipedia entry

WOWO Hoosier Hop

1946 souvenir album/song folio cover from the Hoosier Hop

WOWO's Famous Hoosier Hop

Indiana's Most Popular Barn Dance Show

Country music was a popular music style in the state of Indiana, which was boosted by the fact that the state was widely populated by people coming from the South. As radio grew, barn dance live shows popped up all over Indiana, which housed quite a few of those. Among the most popular shows was WOWO's Hoosier Hop from Fort Wayne.

The roots of the Hoosier Hop show date back to 1932. That year, WOWO introduced a show of that name to its listeners and it proved to be popular enough to be carried through the CBS network for several months. It is not clear whether this show was a studio production or a live venue broadcast. However, the show soon came to an end - initially.

WOWO revived the Hoosier Hop in 1943, when they started the program anew on July 17 with a cast of about 15 folk and country music singers and musicians. At that early stage of the show's run, it was live broadcast from the studio. Again, the show became a favorite among the listeners and the cast grew to 30 performers. At that point, it moved from the WOWO studio to the Shrine Auditorium in Fort Wayne, which had a capacity of 4,000 seats. The first show at the new venue was staged on October 8 that year. The show was supervised by Harry K. Smythe of WOWO and his wife Eleanor.

The Shrine Temple (also known as Shrine Theatre or Shrine Auditorium) in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Beginning in 1944, the Hoosier Hop was carried nationally through the Blue network. Summer seasons brought the show to places outside of Fort Wayne, including Smythe's newly opened Buck Lake Ranch in Angola, Indiana, with a capacity of 5,000 seats. The Hoosier Hop was on the air throughout the 1940s and by 1946, was part of the ABC network programming, which lasted until around 1948 (formerly Blue network). It remained popular throughout the decade and attracted a lot of different performers, both locally and nationally known.

Happy Herb Hayworth was the announcer of the show. Cast members included the Blackhawk Valley Boys, the Hoosier Cornhuskers, Billy Starr (alias Bill Stallard), Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers, Judy & Jen, Dean Maxedon, Penny West, Kenny Roberts, and many others. By 1944, a group entitled the "Down Homers" had come to the Hoosier Hop. The group's bassist and yodeler was Kenny Roberts, who temporarily left in late 1944 for the US Navy. He was replaced by Bill Haley, who was still at an early stage of his career (though some sources claim Haley did not join the group until a year later). Haley remained with the Down Homers and the Hoosier Hop for about two years. In early 1946, several Hoosier Hop cast members made recordings for the Detroit based Vogue label, including Nancy Lee and the Oregon Rangers, Judy & Jen, and the Down Homers (probably without Haley). These recordings were released throughout 1946 and 1947 on Vogue Picture Discs.

The Hoosier Hop cast around 1946 as pictured in one of the show's souvenir albums

I found mentions of the Hoosier Hop as late as July 1947 but public mentions in Billboard end by that time. By then, some of the mainstay performers like Kenny Roberts and Fred Oliver had left WOWO and the cast. If anyone has additional information on the show or its ending, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email through the formula at the top right of this site.

Sources

• World Radio History: Hoosier Hop Souvenir Albums [1] and [2] 

• Vogue Records 45worlds/78rpm entry

• Otto Fuchs: "Bill Haley" (Wagner Verlag GmbH), 2011, page 62

• Bart Plantenga: "Yodel-AY-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World" (Routledge), 2004, page 198

James Fred Williams

James Fred Williams

The Spiritual Ambassador of Southwest Arkansas

James Fred Williams is an Arkansas based gospel singer and minister that has been around on the music scene for more than six decades. He has recorded at least four different discs, including a gospel EP for United Southern Artists in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1963, and two more platters for Curtis Kirk on his Tyler, Texas, based Custom label, in the 1970s. Recently, my southwest Arkansas correspondent Mark Keith interviewed Williams via telephone so European roots music fans now can learn of this artist.

James Fred Williams was born in 1940 in Magnolia, Arkansas. He remembers that radio played a major role in shaping his music taste. He would place his ear near the radio to listen closely to gospel music. It was of course gospel music and nothing else but gospel that became Williams' sole influence. Naturally, his first public appearance was in a little country Baptist church south of Magnolia and later on, he would sing in a choir as well.

Williams could be also heard on local radio throughout the years, including on KMSL (which later evolved into KZHE), where he had a Sunday evening show. Mark Keith worked at that station, too, and recalls: "He'd come on playing "Standing by the Bedside of a Neighbor" and when the instrumental break came on, he'd come in and talk over it and welcome people. He has a beautiful speaking voice and sounded so warm and friendly."

The Hope Star, January 19, 1963

Williams' first record came in 1963 for the Hot Springs based United Southern Artists label. He remembers that it was Carl Friend, the label's A&R manager, who organized the deal. Williams recorded four songs during a session in Hot Springs that were released on an EP record by the label. Two more records came into existence when Williams came in touch with Curtis Kirk, who had a studio and record label in Tyler, Texas. Four songs were recorded in Tyler and on that particular session, he was accompanied by the Ambassadors of Sweetwater, Louisiana. Kirk released them on his Custom label and Williams distributed those two releases to radio stations in Magnolia, Sweetwater, Shreveport, and Houston, among others.

A special record came along in 1979, when Williams cut his own "Stay with Me Jesus" backed by Brother Eli Taylor on organ. It was re-released the next year on the Love label. Original copies are nowadays quite worthy and sought after.

Williams still works as a minister in the Magnolia, Arkansas, area and does church programs. Mark Keith conducted an telephone interview with him in January 2025 which was the main source for this text.

Discography

United Southern GLP 101: James Fred Williams - Hold On to God's Unchanging Hand / Stay with Me Jesus / I Need the Lord / Every Child of God (1963)
Custom 185: James Fred Williams - If You've Got Jesus / I Feel the Spirit
Custom 191: James Fred Williams - He Will Take Care of His Own / Thank You Lord
No label No.#: Dea James Fred Williams - Stay with Me Jesus / God Is Taking Care (1979)
Love 3607: Dea. James Williams - Stay with Me Jesus / God Is Taking Care (1980) 

Sources

• 45cat
• Discogs [1] and [2]

• Thanks to Mark Keith for sharing his memories and providing information on James Fred Williams and interviewing him at my urging.

Jimmy Stayton on Chattahoochee

Jimmy Stayton - Your Heart Is My Prison (Chattahoochee CH 661), 1964
About 15 years ago, when I first heard Jimmy Stayton's "Hot Hot Mama", there was virtually no information available on him. This has changed in the last years as Steve Kelemen tracked Stayton down and interviewed him for the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2013. Since then, he has been recognized as Delaware's first rockabilly musician.

James H. Stayton was born August 4, 1939, in Milford, Delaware, near the US Atlantic coast. Milford was a small town with a population around 4,000 at that time and, as Stayton put in, "most of the music in those days was either country, swing, big band or maybe some jazz. I didn't think there was much of a choice." Country music became his first love and Hank Williams his first hero. He was presented with a guitar from his grandfather and Stayton practiced until his finger bled.

In the summer of 1954, Elvis Presley started the rockabilly craze from his Memphis base and it set out all across the southern states. In Delaware, this new brand of music was still unheard, however. In late 1954, Stayton visited his sister in Virginia, where rockabilly was already starting to get popular among young music fans. On a ferry trip there, Stayton heard Presley's version "Blue Moon of Kentucky" in a jukebox and was instantly converted to rockabilly. "I went into a record shop in Norfolk , Virginia, and asked if they had 'Blue Moon of Kentucky'. The owner said that they didn't have it so I told him 'to get on it' because Elvis was going be the biggest thing ever! After that they started to carry his Sun singles," Stayton told Steve Kelemen.

In 1955, Stayton met guitarist Morton Marker at a talent contest in Dover, Delaware. Marker and his sister were contestants there, too, and apart from that, Walker backed up Stayton on the show. Both had the same taste in music and decided to start as a band with Stayton on vocals and rhythm guitar, Marker on lead guitar and with the addition of drummer Honey Voshell, the group was complete, taking the name "Rocka-Bye Band" (suggested by their manager Reece Harrington). They had no bass player but sometimes used guest musicians on their shows.

Jimmy Stayton and the Rocka-Bye Band, 1956 (from left to right):
Morton Marker (lead guitar), Jimmy Stayton (vocals/rhythm guitar), Honey Voshell (drums)

They started playing shows in places all over Delaware and soon became popular with their brand of music. Rockabilly was still unheard till then and Stayton and his band were probably the first musicians to perform this music style publicly in Delaware. One of the first venues they played was the Milford Canteen, where they used to play in front of a packed house. From there, they went on to perform shows in Frederica, Smyrna, Camden, and Dover. They also started playing shows in other east coast states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia.

In late 1955 or early 1956, Stayton became acquainted with Sam Short, who ran a grocery store in Harrington, Delaware. Out of this store, he also operated the Blue Hen label that had released mostly country music since 1954. Rockabilly became the hottest thing in the country and Short decided to give it a try and recorded Stayton's band. A session was set up at WBOC-TV in Salisbury, Maryland, which produced "Hot Hot Mama" paired with a country flip side, "Why Do You Treat Me This Way". Released in the spring of 1956 on Blue Hen #220, the record was credited to "Jimmy Stayton with Morton & Honey" rather than the "Rocka-Bye Band" but it proved to be a good seller in their three state radius. Moreover, it was the first rockabilly record ever released in the state of Delaware - a pioneering disc in that area.

The success led to another recording session a few months later. On this occasion, Stayton had organized a recording studio in Baltimore, Maryland, and this session produced "You're Gonna Treat Me Right" and "Midnight Blues". By then, the group included Patsy Saunders on drums as Voshell had left following the release of "Hot Hot Mama", and the group became the "Country Cats". However, Saunders was not present at the second session and the line-up instead included a bassist. Stories differ how they picked them up - Morton Marker recalled they met him while playing the Sunset Park in Westgrove, Pennsylvania, and used him on several shows, while Stayton later remembered him as a studio musician.

However, both songs were prime examples of rockabilly with its sparse line-up and appeared in late 1956 in Blue Hen #224. Though they continued to perform successfully until 1958, no more recordings were made. That year, Stayton joined the US Army and was sent overseas to Germany. It meant the end of the Country Cats. Stayton got to know his future wife in Germany and upon his return, moved to California, where he attended college.

Music was still on his mind. While in California, he signed a recording contract with 20th Century Fox (Stayton later claimed that Robert Mitchum had a hand in it) and his debut on the label, "More Than You'll Ever Know" b/w "Losers Can't Win", was released in 1962. It was the first nationally distributed record for Staytion as Blue Hen had no proper distribution network (records were sold from the counter of Short's grocery store for example). However, the record did not reach the charts and shortly afterwards, Stayton returned to Delaware.

He was soon back at recording, again with Sam Short, and recorded for Short's and "Bailin' Wire" Bob Strack's Del-Ray label, which Stayton later co-owned, too. The A side was "The Hep Old Frog", a novelty comedy number that he had written back in California for a Hollywood-produced Hanna Barbera TV cartoon that never came into existence. It was paired with a Don Gibson-styled, very commercial country number, "The Only One (for Me)", on Del-Ray #212 in 1963. Another single followed on Del-Ray under the pseudonym of "Leappo the Frog" with more frog-themed novelty content.

Probably his last record came in 1964 for Ruth Conte's Chattahoochee label from Los Angeles. "Politickin's Here" was a humorous comment on politics and election campaigns, while "Your Heart Is My Prison" is another enjoyable country performance. My copy of the record has "Area Test Record" on its label written, whatever that means.

Stayton told Kelemen that he had enough of music at one point in his life and became a salesman at WKEN in Dover, an occupation he held for 15 years. He also was a DJ on that station for some time. Eventually, he formed a new band, the Country Sounds and returned to performing. He also wrote a new song, "The Ballad of Herman Brown" for Republican Herman Brown's 1968 election campaign.

In the 1990s, European rockabilly CD compilation started featuring Stayton's songs "Hot Hot Mama" and "You're Gonna Treat Me This Way". They had been forgotten for years and so had been Stayton. Collectors and researchers failed to track him down until 2013, when Steve Kelemen succeeded and conducted an interview with both Stayton and Morton Walker for the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In the wake of his rediscovery, Knock Out Records released a CD of Stayton's recordings that also includes a lot of originally unissued material. Since then, Stayton and his band have been acknowledged several times as Delaware's first rock'n'roll recording artists.

Stayton nowadays resides in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, while Morton Marker lives in Glendora, California. Honey Voshell remained active as a musician in Delaware and opened a music shop in Felton, "The Drum Pad".

Discography

Blue Hen 220: Jimmy Stayton with Morton & Honey - Hot Hot Mama / Why Do You Treat Me This Way (1956)
Blue Hen 224: Jimmy Stayton and the Country Cats - You're Gonna Treat Me Right / Midnight Blues (1956)
20th Fox 310: James H. Stayton - More Than You'll Ever Know / Losers Can't Win (1962)
Del-Ray 212: Jimmy Stayton - The Hep Old Frog / The Only One (for Me) (1963)
Del-Ray 213: Leappo (The Frog) - Christmas in Frogville / Look Before You Leap (1963)
Chattahoochee 45-6x: Politickin's Here (Nobody Needs Automation) / Your Heart Is My Prison (1964)

Recommended reading

• Dead Wax: Christmas in Frogville

• Bear Family Records (Knock Out CD)

Sources

• Blue Hen Records (Greater Harrington Historical Society)

• Rockabilly Hall of Fame interviews (Wayback Machine)

• Jimmy Stayton on the Delaware Rock and Roll Society website

• Rockin' Country Style entry

• 45cat entry

Radio WMIE of Miami, Florida

WMIE (Miami, Florida)

Florida's Favorite for Sports (...and Country & Western)

WMIE radio went on air in 1948 in Miami. One of the station's earliest on-air personalities was Barry Gray, who came from New York City to Miami that year and became known as the inventor of talk radio. He broadcast three different shows from Miami night clubs. Other DJs and announcers included Art Green and James Olmes. It was in late 1953 when the station added a television outlet to its roster. It was managed by Kurt A. Meer at that time and WMIE-TV was granted a licence in November or December that year but the station broadcast only for a few months. In late 1954, the TV station was purchased by George B. Storer and re-emerged as WGBS-TV in early 1955. 

WMIE became part of Sun Coast Broadcasting in 1951, which in turn was headed by former Georgia Governor E.D. Rivers, Sr., who owned the station for more than a decade. It was the city's premier country & western station during the late 1940s and 1950s, although other station were airing country music programs as well. On air personalities in the C&W field included Cracker Jim Brooker, probably the station's most popular and longest running C&W DJ, Happy Harold Thaxton, Dale Wasson, and Buddy Starcher, among others. In the 1950s, WMIE produced and broadcast several big country programs in the Miami area. From 1956 until 1957, the station had its Gold Coast Jamboree live stage show.

1950s WMIE match box cover

Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and Fidel Castro's rise to power, many Cubans sought refuge in Miami, which led to the development of a big Cuban/Latin American community in the Miami-Dade metropolitan area. Radio was affected by this development, too, and stations began including Spanish-language programming. By 1960, WMIE had introduced two daily programs aimed at a Cuban audience, including Martha Flores' half-hour talk show. Flores had immigrated from Cuba the previous year and was not only the first Cuban to host a radio show in Miami but also the first female host on WMIE. The station was mentioned in several secret governmental reports, which evaluated the possibility of broadcasting propaganda programs to Cuba in order to harm the Castro regime.

WMIE began a full time Latin-aimed programming around 1964. Mainstays like Happy Harold and Cracker Jim switched to other stations in the area and in 1968, WMIE evolved into WQBA, which features a Latin talk/sports programming nowadays. The call letters WMIE went to a Christian talk/music station in Cocoa, Florida, which began broadcasting in 1984.

If someone has memories or information on WMIE, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me via email trough the formula at top right.

See also

• Remembering Happy Harold - A Miami Country Music Pioneer

• Cracker Jim Brooker - A Miami Country Music Veteran

• Dale Wasson

• Gold Coast Jamboree

Recommended reading

• Photo of WMIE personality Art Green

• Cracker Jim C&W WMIE Charts of April 11, 1953

• Miami area TV and Radio Memories (incl. WMIE)

Sources

• James Olmes Rogers obituary

• Barry Gray at the Radio Hall of Fame

• History of UHF Television

• WQBA Wikipedia entry

• Miami Herald: Martha Flores obituary

• Historical Documents - office of the historian ("Briefing-papers used to brief President-elect Kennedy")

• United States Information Agency papers (Radio Propaganda Plan)

Doug & the Inn-Truders

The instrumental number "What's Up" by Doug and the Inn-Truders had grabbed my attention some 15 years ago and still does. I enjoy the song now as much as I did back then - but who were Doug and the Inn-Truders? A renewed search yielded some more information, which I tried to compress into this post.

The Inn-Truders were a Wichita, Kansas, based rock'n'roll band. We find mention of the band as early as July 1964, so the Inn-Truders were probably founded in the first half of that year. At least some of the band members were still high-school pupils. Although the exact line-up is unclear, it seems that early members were leader Douglas "Doug" Terbush on guitar, Art Martinez on guitar and Gregg Dunn on drums. 

Doug and the Inn-Truders, 1964

Already by July 1964, the band had entered STA Recording studio in Wichita to lay down two tracks: the aforementioned instrumental "What's Up" and the vocal number "Starring My Broken Heart". Both songs were released on the local Aircap label (#BM-101). At that time, their sound was guitar-based but they soon began including horns. At some point in 1964, sax player Rick Meyer joined the group and over the years, further sax and trumpet players were added to the line-up, including Roger Walls on trumpet.

The Inn-Truders became a popular band locally and played venues for years around Wichita. Rick Meyer remembers playing at the Joyland, the Seneca Lounge, and the Cotillion. They were also part of numerous "Battle of the Bands" contests that were popular back then. Neal McGaugh, a band member of another local group called the Outcasts, remembers the Wichita band scene:

"When the battles moved to the Cotillion, that's when all the big rivalry started--'65, '66.  We always ended up battling big horn bands, The Red Dogs, Doug and the Inn-Truders.  We didn't get too far against them.  We didn't have the kind of music that the judges liked."

The Inn-Truders were active at least until 1967. Their "What's Up" was featured on the 1983 White Label LP "Minnesota Rock-a-Billy-Rock, Volume 3" (although they were not from Minnesota). As of 2015, Art Martinez was still active as a musician. Doug Terbush resides in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, nowadays.

Sources

• 45cat

• Discogs

• Wichita Rock Music History Project (Facebook Page)

• Pat O'Connor: Moody's Skidrow Beanery (Rowfant Press), 1999

Catahoula Country Music Show

Don Wiley and the Catahoula Playboys, 1960s
from left to right: Ruble Tendle Wright (piano), Gene King (guitar), poss. Ruthine Wiley,
J.C. Henderson (guitar), Don Wiley (guitar), Mr. Kiper (first name unknown, guitar),
Bobby Dan Massey (drums), Junior Trisler (bass), and Bill Landrum (steel guitar)

The Catahoula Country Music Show was a local country music stage and TV show, centered around local musician Don Wiley and his band. By the beginning of the 1960s, the golden age of American radio and the big radio barn dance shows was over. Casts of thirty or more acts were too expensive. However, on local basis, such shows were still in demand on a smaller scale. The Catahoula Country Music Show from Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, is such an example.

The Olla Tullos Signal, September 9, 1966

The house band of the show were the Catahoula Playboys, led by vocalist and guitarist Donald R. "Don" Wiley, Sr. He was born on December 26, 1931, to Don Sr. and Myrtle Wiley in Catahoula Parish and married Ruthine Leola Book in 1951. She later appeared on her husband's shows as well. Wiley worked for the Lakeside Ford car dealership in Jonesville, Catahoula Parish, and also had a mobile home dealership in Ferriday. By 1962, he had also organized a band known as the "Catahoula Playboys" that played local dates and toured the Central Louisiana areas.

The Catahoula News,
September 12, 1963

The Catahoula Country Music Show developed out of a July 1962 charity event for infant Gary Wright, who was in need of a heart operation. Soon the funds were raised, which saved Gary's life, and the popularity of the show prompted Wiley and his band to organize it as a regular feature, beginning in September that year. The Catahoula Country Music Show was born. It was first held at the Fort Theater (sometimes also spelled Ford or Fout) in Harrisonburg, the parish seat. Eventually, the old theater building was demolished and the show moved to the former Keith Department Store on Front Street in nearby Jonesville. The building was later promoted as the "Catahoula Country Music Show Auditorium".

The show soon began to attract not only large crowds but also attention outside of Catahoula Parish. By September 1963, the show was carried by KVNV, a station from Ferriday. By February 1966, it was also featured on KALB-TV from Alexandria. The band also had a Sunday morning show on that station and KNOE from Monroe also televised the show at some point. Apart from the Playboys and other local talent like Tommie French, Rip Cannaday, Ray Prince, the Covington Trio, Penny Sue Franklin, Happy Fats, or Alex Broussard, the show regularly featured national stars like Freddie Fender, Jim & Jessie, Carl Story, Bill Monroe, and many others.

The Catahoula Playboys included Don Wiley on vocals and guitar, Gene King on electric guitar, J.C. "Catfish" Henderson on guitar, Bill Landrum on steel guitar, Ruble Tendle Wright on piano, Junior Trisler on upright bass, and Bobby Dan Massey on drums. Of course, the line-up varied over the years and some members came and others left. In their first years of existence, the Playboys played a mixture of country music, pop, cajun, bluegrass, and a bit of rock'n'roll. However, they developed more and more into a bluegrass band throughout the years, eventually featuring Frank Thompson on fiddle and an unknown banjo player. 

In 1966, the band made one 45rpm record for the local Catahoula label, which was followed by an album entitled "Voices of Catahoula" around 1968. They also made another LP around the same time on the Zundak label, "Catahoula Country Time". Several of the show's regulars made records as well. The Catahoula Country Music Show lasted well-into the 1970s, at least until 1973. Ruble Wright and Bill Landrum eventually had their own show in Colfax, the Louisiana Jamboree, which was much in the same style as Don Wiley's show. J.C. Henderson died in 1995, while Wiley passed away on February 9, 2000. Ruble Wright died in 2010 and Billy Landrum in 2015.

We close this post now with the words that Wiley used to sign off his shows: "May you take a likin' to the lord... and he take a likin' to you. Bye cycle!"

Discography

45rpm
Catahoula 1001: The Bottle Let Me Down / Jambalaya (1966)

Albums
Catahoula No. ?: Voices of Catahoula (ca. 1968)
Zundak No.?: Catahoula Country Time (ca. 1968)

Sources

• Discogs

• Southern Music Research Center: Material on Rip Cannaday

• Don Wiley obituary

• Musician Tommie French coming to CCF Coffee Hour

• Ruble Wright obituary

• 1970s Hippiebillie Country Albums

• Thanks to Marshal Martin, who brought the show to my attention and provided a lot of information and photo material!

Carolina Cotton & Bob Wills on MGM

Carolina Cotton with Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - Three Miles South of Cash in Arkansas (MGM 11288), 1952

A versatile entertainer, Carolina Cotton was active in various fields of the business, being an actor, a singer and musician, a rodeo rider, and much more. She was raised in Northeast Arkansas and one of her most famous songs, though she never reached the charts, was "3 Miles South of Cash in Arkansas", covered her upbringing in this area. She was known to have various nicknames, including the "Yodeling Blonde Bombshell".

She was born Helen Hagstrom on October 20, 1925, in Cash, Arkansas, to Fred and Helen Hagstrom, who had a farm outside of Cash, raising cotton and peanuts. Cash was a small village with less than 200 habitants, located just west of Jonesboro. It was a hard life and the Great Depression made it even harder, therefore father Fred moved his family to San Francisco, California, in 1937.

Hagstrom began her career by appearing in traveling stage shows, including the O'Neille Sisters Kiddie Revue. She regularly watched shows by Dude Martin and his Roundup Gang on KYA. Martin, a local Bay Area country music performer, asked her to join his group, after the band's yodeler left and Hagstrom came in as a replacement - although she had never yodeled before. It was at that time that Hagstrom was named Carolina by Martin. The yodeling became one of her signatures.

Her next career step came when she met songwriter Johnny Marvin while picking up costumes in Hollywood. Marvin soon after offered a role in the film "Sing, Neighbor, Sing" with Roy Acuff, which Hagstrom accepted. She made the move to Hollywood in 1944 and began a career as an actor, appearing in various B western movies along such stars as Ken Curtis, Eddy Arnold, and Gene Autry throughout the 1940s and early 1950s.

1944 Billboard ad for Spade Cooley,
incl. Carolina Cotton

Musically, she placed herself in the western swing genre rather than in  western and cowboy music like fellow actors such as Autry (though both styles are very contiguous). She joined Spade Cooley's western swing orchestra in 1944 as a vocalist and a year later, married orchestra member Deuce Spriggins. They left Cooley and formed their own group, performing at the Western Palisades Saloon, making appearances in four movies and even recording for Mercury. Though, after only three months, it came apparent that the marriage won't last and they divorced in 1946.

Carolina Cotton in the studio, likely 1940s

By then, Hagstrom had received her full stage name "Carolina Cotton", either due to Cooley or west coast DJ Cottonseed Clark. She signed with King Records in 1946, having two singles released, including her self-written "3 Miles South of Cash in Arkansas". She then recorded for Crystal and Mastertone and finally, beginning in 1950, for MGM.

Through the second part of the 1940s, she regularly performed with such acts as Hank Penny in 1946 (whose band backed her up for King), and with Bob Wills' Texas Playboys in 1947. She also guested on various radio and television shows, including the Hoffman Hayride, KMPC Country Carnival Barn Dance, KLAC-TV's Ranch Time and KTLA-TV's Sunset Ranch, among others. She also hosted her own DJ show on KGER in Los Angeles.

During her two-years stint with MGM, she recorded two sessions, one in Nashville and one in Hollywood. It was on her second session on September 17, 1951, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood that she was backed up by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, recording five songs, including a remake of "Three Miles South of Cash (in Arkansas)". It saw release on MGM #11288 around July 1952 with "I'm All Alone" on the flip side but did not reach the charts. It was her second to last MGM disc, followed by "Boo Hoo Blues" b/w "Yodel, Yodel, Yodel" (#11329) a few months later. Though she had a rather sporadically recording career in commercial terms, Hagstrom left behind a wealth of recordings, consisting also of radio and TV transcriptions as well as movie soundtracks.

August 2, 1952, Billboard folk review

She made her last movie appearances in 1952 in "Blue Canadian Rockies" and "Apache Country" with Gene Autry. During the first half of the 1950s, Hagstrom did various USO tours, entertaining troops in Europe, Korea, and other countries. She was also part of various AFRS radio transcriptions for overseas troop entertainment, including her own show "Carolina Cotton Calls". While being on her last USO in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1956, she visited children hospitals and decided to work for the future of the disabled and poor, if she would ever get out of show business.

By the mid 1950s, western swing and B western movies had gotten out of fashion and Hagstrom ceased her appearances. She married musician Bill Ates in 1956, with whom she had two children but they had divorced by the early 1960s. Although she would appear at rodeos, parades, western film festivals, and other special events throughout the years, she went into education, earning a masters degree, and worked as a teacher for the next decades. She moved to Bakersfield in the 1970s.

In 1994, Hagstrom was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer and retired in March 1997 from her work as a teacher, spending her last months in hospital. Helen Hagstrom alias Carolina Cotton passed away on June 10, 1997, at the age of 71 years.

Her daughter Sharon keeps her legacy alive, running a website and Facebook fan page in memory of her mother. German Cattle Records released two albums with Hagstrom's recordings, 1993's "I Love to Yodel" and 2003's "Yodel, Yodel, Yodel". In the 2000s, Kit Fox Records released three volumes of her recordings entitled "Yodeling Blonde Bombshell", also including many of her non-commercial transcriptions and radio recordings.

Discography

King 572: Carolina Cotton - Three Miles South of Cash (In Arkansas) / Singing on the Trail (1946)
Crystal 157: Carolina Cotton - You've Got Me Wrapped Around Your Finger / Chime Bells (1948)
King 816: Carolina Cotton - Mocking Bird Yodel / I Love to Yodel (1949)
Mastertone: Carolina Cotton - Put Your Shoes on Lucy / The Hoosegow Serenade (1949)
MGM 10692: Carolina Cotton - You're Getting a Good Girl / Betcha I Getcha (1950)
MGM 10798 Carolina Cotton - Boo Hoo Blues / Lovin' Duckin' Daddy (1950)
MGM 11130: Carolina Cotton with Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - 'Cause I'm in Love / You Always Keep Me in Hot Water (1951)
MGM 11288: Bob Wills & Carolina Cotton with the Texas Playboys - I'm All Alone / Three Miles South of Cash in Arkansas (1952)
MGM 11329: Carolina Cotton - Nola / Yodel, Yodel, Yodel (1952)

Sources

• Encyclopedia of Arkansas

• International Movie Database entry

• Official Fanpage

• 45worlds/78rpm entry

• Discogs

• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry

B.J. Johnson

B.J. the D.J.
The Story of B.J. Johnson

Many country music fans will recognize the hit song "B.J. the D.J.", made famous in 1963 by Stonewall Jackson. But few know that this songs was inspired by a real person, namely B.J. Johnson from Mississippi, a singer, DJ, and songwriter for more than twenty years.

Byron J. Johnson was born on September 3, 1928, to Bruner and Lula Magdelen Johnson in a community in Hancock County, Mississippi, known to locals as "the Kiln" (the n being silent). Named after the kiln ovens that could be found in that area during the early 19th century. From the 1860s up to the late 1920s, the Kiln was home to many timber mills, which brought the community a fast growing. But then, the Great Depression hit hard, affecting also the Johnson family. The timber industry was practically non-existent in the Kiln in the 1930s and it harmed the community so hard that at one point, the Kiln was a ghost town. Many of the residents moved to nearby cities like Picayune or, to earn a living, worked as moonshiners. If the Johnson family remained there or if they moved is not known but Johnson later made his home in Picayune for sure.

He was drafted during World War II and served his country in the US Army. By the mid 1950s, Johnson had discovered he could make a living with country music and could be heard on a local radio station. He met up with another local performer, Vern Pullens, whom Johnson connected with Houston, Texas, label owner Bennie Hess. While Pullens recorded solo for Hess' Spade label, Johnson got the chance to record two duets with Pullens as well, "What Am I to Do" and "Country Boys Dream", which were released by Hess on Spade #135 in May 1957.

Billboard January 4, 1960, C&W review

While these first two songs were penned by Pullens, it soon became obvious that Johnson was a talented songwriter, too. He connected with another Houston based producer, Pappy Daily, who had founded Starday Records in 1953 but by 1957, had left the operation and formed his own label, D Records. Johnson had a total of three released on D, the first one being "You Were Only Fooling" (written by Johnson) and "True Affection" (co-written by fellow ex-Spade artist Ray Doggett), released on D #1031. It was the latter that secured Johnson a place in rockabilly fans' hearts, although it was upbeat country music at best.

Two more singles followed on D, "Our Love Is Not Worth Living For" b/w "It's Wrong for Me to Love You" (#1058, both co-written with Vern Pullens) in the spring of 1959 and a reissue of their Spade single. The following year, Johnson began his long-lasting association with Hack Kennedy's Big Howdy record label from Bogalusa, Louisiana - located half an hour from his home base of Picayune. Throughout the years, Johnson recorded three discs for the label but also worked with Kennedy as a record producer and songwriter. 

Besides his career as a recording artist, producer, and songwriter, Johnson continued to work as a DJ and a live performer. He could be heard regularly on Bogalusa's Pearl River Valley Jamboree during the 1950s and appeared at the 1966 Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Day in Lucedale, Mississippi. He had such a busy schedule during these years that Nashville songwriter Hugh X. Lewis, a friend of Johnson's, wrote the song "B.J. the D.J." inspired by Johnson's life (although, in contrast to the song's tragic ending, Johnson was not killed in a car accident). Though, the words of the song aptly described Johnson's hectic and dangerous lifestyle, rushing from job to job without sleep. Recorded by Stonewall Jackson in 1963 for Columbia and took it to #1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.

One could assume this brought Johnson into the spotlight as well but this was not the case. He sometimes went by the name of B.J. the D.J. Johnson and started to record his singles in Nashville but they were still released on local Mississippi and Louisiana labels. He cut a slew of discs during the 1960s and 1970s for such labels as Big Howdy (1960/1967/1969), Carma (1961-1965), Nugget (1963-1964), JB (ca. 1965), Circle G (ca. 1967), River City (1972), Myrna (1973), Mississippi Sound (1976), and Lynn. His 1964 Nugget single "Let the Party Be Over" was one of his more successful releases. It was listed by Billboard in its October 31, 1964, issue as a chart potential/"bubbling under" contender.

Billboard April 14, 1973

Johnson's activities apparently ceased in the late 1970s. B.J. Johnson passed away on December 15, 1997, at the age of 69 years in Picayune. He is buried at West Union Memorial Cemetery in Carriere, Mississippi.

See also
• The Pearl River Valley Jamboree
• Who is Vern Pullens?
• Penny Records
• The Spade Records Story

Sources
• Find a Grave entry
• 45cat entry
• Discogs
• B.J. the D.J. song history (Wikipedia)

Happy Wilson

Happy Wilson and his Golden River Boys at WAPI
(Birmingham, Alabama), ca. mid 1950s
featuring Ted Crabtree on steel guitar, "Prof." Huel Murphy on piano,
Marion Worth on vocals, and Wilson on rhythm guitar

Happy Wilson

The Golden River Boy from Birmingham

In the 1940s and 1950s, Happy Wilson was a mainstay on Alabama's country music scene. Heard over radio and TV, on record, and through live performances, he gained popularity in the Heart of Dixie since the late 1930s. One of his band members, Sidney Louie "Hardrock" Gunter from Birmingham, Alabama, is better remembered today than Wilson as Gunter became a favorite among rockabilly fans due to his 1950s country boogie and rockabilly recordings. Though, Wilson became widely known and connected in the Nashville scene of the 1950s and 1960s, working as a publisher and producer.

Eugene Burnett Wilson was born on June 29, 1919, in Haleyville, Winston County,  in the north of Alabama, to Acey Eugene and Ollie Wilson. Wilson had a younger brother, Asa Eugene (born in 1926), and an older brother James Huel, who died as an infant in 1917. Haleyville was a small but rising town in the 1920s and the life of the Wilson family was simple. By 1930, Wilson's parents had divorced and he was living with his mother alone.

Wilson was interested in music at an early age, especially in folk music, and was fascinated by the new possibilities that radio had to offer. He loved listening to old-time folk musicians on the radio. His father took him to a wandering music teacher that had settled in Haleyville for the summer and Wilson enjoyed some music lessons. He learned drums and guitar, eventually sticking with guitar and singing.

In the mid 1930s, at the age of 15, Wilson started appearing on local radio. He began working with several bands on different radio stations like it was common for country musicians of the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared with the Happy Valley Gang over WBRC (Birmingham, Alabama), with Tex Dunn's Virginia Hillbillies over WBRC and WAPI (both Birmingham), with the Bar-X Cowhands on WSGN, with Red & Raymond and the Boys from Old Kentuck over WSB (Atlanta, Georgia), and finally with his own band, the Golden River Boys, on WALA (Mobile, Alabama). One of the earliest members of the Golden River Boys was Birmingham native Hardrock Gunter, a guitarist and singer who went on to have a solo career in the 1950s.

By the early 1940s, Wilson and his mother were living in Birmingham, Alabama. Shortly before World War II broke out, Wilson was part of a two-weeks tour with Roy "Tucson" Corrigan and the Three Musquiteers. With the advent of the war, Wilson was drafted into the US Army. During his four-year serve, he often entertained fellow soldiers and was part of shows. Though, he also took part in battles and became highly decorated with the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantry's Badge, Good Conduct Ribbon, and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. He reached the rank of a Staff Sergeant.

Following his discharge, Wilson took up music again and reformed the Golden River Boys in 1946. Throughout the second half of the 1940s and the early 1950s, Wilson became a mainstay in Alabama's country music scene, appearing on his long-time radio station WAPI as well as on its sister station WAFM and even had a popular TV show on WAFM-TV. That show started in 1950 and was the first country music television show in Alabama.

In 1947, Wilson got the chance to record his music for the first time. He and the Golden River Boys recorded four songs in Birmingham late that year, which were released on the small, local Vulcan label. Through 1948, his popularity continued to grow and in early 1949, the major Decca label invited him for a recording session to Nashville on February 7 at the Castle Studio. Four more tracks were cut that day, which saw release in February and July 1949. The line-up of the Golden River Boys included at that time Ted Crabtree on steel guitar, Billy Tucker on fiddle, Sammy Pruitt on guitar, Jim O'Day on bass, and Wilson on guitar and vocals.

Billboard August 20, 1949

Around the same time, Wilson was making a name for himself as a songwriter, too - at least a bit. Little Jimmy Dickens' recorded "A-Sleepin' at the Foot of the Bed", which Wilson co-wrote with Luther Patrick and was based on his childhood experiences. The song peaked at #6 on Billboard C&W charts. In 1953, Webb Pierce recorded Wilson's "I Haven't Got the Heart" and eventually, Hank Thompson cut his "Mark of a Heel" in 1971.

Sales if Wilson's discs must have been not too promising as there was no second session for Decca but on September 19, 1950, Wilson was back in the same studio - this time for MGM. "Haunted House Boogie" and "Mister Big" were the only results that day and both were released on MGM #K10877 in January 1951. Unfortunately, this remained his only effort for the label, although Jack Rivers covered "Haunted House Boogie" for the same label.

Since August 1950, Wilson had an additional TV show for WAFM-TV with his old buddy Hardrock Gunter entitled "The Happiness Boys". Gunter had been a member of Wilson's band since its reformation in 1946 but also worked solo on and off. Gunter had already rejoined the Golden River Boys earlier in 1950 and had signed a recording contract with Manny Pearson's local Bama label in Birmingham. On his first session, he was backed by the Golden River Boys, who were hiding under the name of "The Pebbles" on that occasion. One of the songs recorded was "Birmingham Bounce" (rel. April 1950, Bama #104), which was a good seller for Gunter and prompted Decca to let Red Foley cut a cover version, which became a #1 country hit.

Billboard January 27, 1951, MGM ad for Wilson's
latest release "Haunted House Boogie"

Wilson and his first wife Odean were living in Birmingham with Wilson's mother in 1950 but divorced in January 1951. Following his divorce, Wilson toured with western actor Lash LaRue and played minor roles in his films for a short time around 1951. At that time, he made his home in Marietta, Georgia. Two years later, in May 1953, Wilson married Mary Ann Ward, who was 11 years younger than him and an amateur singer on WAPI and WAPI-TV.

By the mid 1950s, Wilson's wife was performing with him and the Golden River Boys as "Marion Worth". They could be heard over WABT in Birmingham but still performed on WAPI as well. In 1955, Wilson celebrated his 20th anniversary with WAPI and therefore, organized a two-hour long radio broadcast it the Agricultural Building at the Alabama State Fairgrounds that was attended by 3,000 people.

Around the same time, Wilson and his wife had connected with Slim Lay, a Huntsville, Alabama, DJ. They appeared with Lay's show and Wilson took a job as a DJ with Huntsville station WBHP. In 1956, Wilson, Lay, and fellow DJ Dewey Webb went into partnership to set up Dash Records. The debut release comprised Slim Lay's "Asiatic Flu" and "Trouble Along the Cable" (on which Lay was joined by Wilson) on Dash #100. More releases were planned but the the trio had to close down the label after legal action from another Dash record company from California.

In 1959, Wilson's wife released her first record. It comprised "Are You Willing, Willie" and "This Heart of Mine" (the latter written by Wilson) and was issued by Cherokee Records of Huntsville. This label seems to have been associated with Wilson as well, as all of the songs released were published through his Golden River Publishing company.

The top side of Worth's single "Are You Willing, Willie" reached #12 on Billboard's C&W charts and was the first of several moderate hits that Worth enjoyed. The disc was also taken over by the Guyden label, which released a follow-up, "That's My Kind of Love", wich went even higher and peaked at #5 in 1960. Wilson and Worth moved to Nashville to work on Worth's career. Wilson and Lay secured her a record contract with Columbia Records, where she enjoyed several more hits in the next few years. She also joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1963.

In the meantime, Wilson had built up a career in the music business as well. While he had been a popular performer in Alabama, he concentrated on music publishing, producing, and other issues of the business in Nashville. Although he worked with Central Songs since 1961, he also worked part-time as a DJ on WENO in Madison, Tennessee, as early as 1963. He left Central Songs and became director at Tree Enterprises in 1968. For some time, he even headed Capitol Records' country music department.

Wilson retired from the music business in February 1973 after 38 years of devoting his life to music. However, his retirement did not last long as he returned to working in October that same year, forming Broadland Music, Inc. with Canadian artist Gary Buck.

Happy Wilson died way too early on August 24, 1977, in Nashville through an automobile accident. He was 58 years old. He is buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham. In 1981, Wilson was inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame.

Discography

Vulcan 5000: Happy Wilson and his Golden River Boys - I Know My Buddy's Sleeping There / Fancy Rythm (1946)
Vulcan 5001: Happy Wilson and his Golden River Boys - This Heart of Mine / Joe Rumore with Happy Wilson and his Golden River Boys - I Butted In (1948)
Decca 46153: Happy Wilson and his Golden River Boys - Go Down to the Graveyard / Forty Miles at Sea (1949)
Decca 46171: Happy Wilson and his Golden River Boys - How Long / Comes a Time (1949)
MGM K10877: Happy Wilson - Haunted House Boogie / Mister Big (1951)
Dash 100: Slim Lay - Asiatic Flu / Slim Lay and Happy Wilson - Trouble Along the Cable (1956)

See also
• Alabama Hayloft Jamboree
• Cornhuskers Jamboree

Sources

• Find a Grave entry

• Free State of Winston (Winston County Online Database)

• Hillbilly-Music.com entry

• Entries for Happy Wilson on 45cat and 45worlds/78rpm

• Entry for Happy Wilson and Slim Lay on 45cat 

• SecondHandSongs

• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry

• "Broadcasting, Telecasting (Volume 48)", 1955, page 95

• various Billboard news items

B. Bumble & the Stingers on Rendezvous

B. Bumble & the Stingers - Apple Knocker (Rendezvous R-179), 1962
I recently acquired a couple of records by B. Bumble & the Stingers. I mainly bought them because of the band's catchy name. I wasn't familiar with neither their story nor their music and for years, I had assumed them to be some kind of a mid-west rock'n'roll band. Little did I know! I was surprised when I found out B. Bumble & the Stingers was the name of an ever-changing line-up of California studio musicians.

B. Bumble & the Stingers was the brainchild of black studio musicians Rene Hall, Earl Palmer, and Plas Johnson. All of them hailed from Louisiana but had relocated to California by then and were busy studio musicians of the early 1960s. Due to their hectic studio schedule, they weren't able to tour but nevertheless opted to release recordings to earn make some money along the way. Their first studio project was a rocked up version of the Glenn Miller classic "In the Mood", which was released as by the Ernie Fields Orchestra on Rendezvous Records in 1959, hitting the #4 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 and it also charted in the R&B field. 

Billboard May 1, 1961

Encouraged by this success, Rene hall came up with the idea of B. Bumble & the Stingers, recording a rock'n'roll version of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's classical piece "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" with probably Hall and Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Ernie Freeman on piano, Plas Johnson on saxophone, Red Callender on bass, and Earl Palmer on drums with Kim Fowley producing the session. The piece was based loosely on Jack Fina's arrangement "Bumble Boogie" from 1947 (which had become a #7 hit credited to Freddy Martin & Orch.). Released early in 1961 as "Bumble Boogie" with "School Day Blues" on the flip (Rendezvous #140), the song made the #21 spot on Billboard's Hot 100. The successful principle to rock up classical pieces was set.

As it became obvious, a touring band was needed to handle gigs and promotional appearances. As none of the studio musicians were available, a teenage band from Ada, Oklahoma was engaged to go on tour. This group comprised Fred Richards, Don Orr on drums and R.C. Gamble, who acted as B. "Billy" Bumble on piano. Later incarnations also included Terry Anderson and Jimmy King on guitars.

Their follow-ups to "Bumble Boogie", again recorded with the same group of session musicians, failed to repeat the success. "Boogie Woogie" b/w "Near You" (Rendezvous #151, June 1961), barely made it to the Hot 100, reaching #89 for just one week. Subsequent releases failed to chart altogether and Rendezvous Records started to lose interest in the project.

Producer Kim Fowley had worked out a rock'n'roll arrangement on Tchaikovsky's "March of the Wooden Soldiers" from the Nutcracker Suite, which he copyrighted. Due to Rendezvous' owner Rod Pierce's lack of interest, Fowley took the piece to H.B. Barnum, a pianist who recorded it with his band on Del Rio Records as "Nut Rocker", credited to "Jack B. Nimble and the Quicks". Rod Pierce got word of that release, thought the "original" B. Bumble & the Stingers could do better, and sensed a hit. The group was called back into the studio (with Ernie Freeman being unavailable due to a hangover and spontaneously replaced by Al Hazan).

Released with "Nautilus" on the flip side in early 1962 (Rendezvous #166), the song became a #23 hit for B. Bumble & the Stingers. It became even more popular in the UK, reaching the top of the charts there on the Stateside label. In the wake of this success, Del Rio re-released the original version through Dot as "The Original Nut Rocker". The touring version of the band flew over to the UK for a tour to promote "Nut Rocker" as well as one of its follow-ups, "Apple Knocker", which went nowhere, however.

Billboard July 14, 1962, spotlight review

Of course, the difference between the studio take and live performances were recognizable due to the different line-ups. The studio musicians were professionals, playing on hundreds of recordings a year, while the live members were not (though they probably weren't bad either). It was, in most cases, Rene Hall, who taught them the arrangements of the songs. Though, a difference was there. B. Bumble & the Stingers played the Cavern Club in Liverpool on October 19, 1962, during their UK tour. Spencer Leigh cited David Boyce, an eyewitness to the group's appearance there, in his book "The Cavern Club": "I remember standing in Frank Hessy's the night B. Bumble & the Stingers were on at the Cavern as they wanted to borrow a double-bass. They were travelling around on trains and they had no equipment with them. The drummer had a snare drum and the pianist played the Cavern piano." Leigh further cited Billy Hatton, another witness: "The most disappointing band I ever saw at the Cavern was B. Bumble & the Stingers, but it wasn't all their fault. They featured a piano on 'Nut Rocker'. There was an old upright piano against the wall at the Cavern and no one had tuned it. It wasn't even miked up. The sound wasn't right and you could tell that they weren't into it. I said to the guitarist: 'Do you want someone to stand by the piano with a microphone?' and he said 'No, he's got such a strong left hand, he'll be all right.' They didn't even have a bass player. [...]" 

Billboard May 22, 1961
This was a fake bio of the band, likely made up by Rendezvous Records for better promotion

A few more recordings were made and released on Rendezvous but none of them reached the charts. The band's last disc was released in November 1962, comprising "Baby Mash" b/w "Night Time Madness" (Rendezvous #192). R.C. Gamble, the "live" B. Bumble, to continued to tour under this name for some time and a few more records appeared, produced by Rod Pierce and Kim Fowley, on such labels as Dymo, Wax, and Triad. It is likely that these recordings were made by studio musicians, although the line-up might have differed from the original studio band. Gamble stopped touring as B. Bumble at some point and eventually worked with bands like Spiro and Cornbread in the eastern Oklahoma area.

"Nut Rocker" unexpectedly had a second career in 1972, when Stateside re-released it and the song went straight to the Top 20 again. UK Ace Records released a CD with the complete output plus unreleased recordings of the band in 1995, entitled "Nut Rockers, Bumble Boogie, Apple Knocker, and all the classics". Some of the original touring equipment, donated by Gamble's family, is now in the possession of the Fort Smith Museum of History in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Recommended reading:

• Ace Records' B. Bumble & the Stingers CD on Bear Family Records
• Facebook Fanpage

Sources

• Blackcat Rockabilly

• Nostalgia Central

• 45cat entry

• Spencer Leigh: The Cavern Club: "The Rise of the Beatles and Merseybeat" (McNidder and Grace), 2015