I like country and rock&roll. I think they both died decades ago though. One friend was part of the Texas sound long before Waylon and Willie. He opted to make a good life for his family, became a school teacher and principal. Was well liked. I visited him well after he retired and past students still came running up to tell him hello.
Another friend was a studio musician for the Louisiana Hayride back in the fifties and early sixties. I didn't know him then but he backed everybody one time or another, they often didn't travel with their bands. He backed pretty much all the legends of country. Said Jim Reeves was his favorite to back up, never did ask him why. He had a gang of hangers on, was once considered the head of organized crime in the area. Fenced evidence for the state police, still acted as middleman between police and criminals sometimes. Back to music, he still had a guitar and a godawful polyester leisure suit with huge musical notes all over it that looked familiar. Still wrote a few songs and made a trip to Nashville a few times a year. Tender Mercys with Robert Duvall had enough in common with his life to make me wonder. Another had one of the original TCOB rings from Elvis, got it first hand and it wasn't for sale. I wondered what it was worth even back in the eighties.
Still another guy in the group was an old roadie, babysat Hank Jr when Hank and Audrey were both on stage. Audrey wanted to perform but couldn't carry a tune in a bucket from what I heard. Hank Jr was big at the time when CJ said something about babysitting Hank Jr. I mentioned it to his son, CJ never had! When his son asked him about it CJ said, "Son, one dirty diaper is just like another."
I knew some local rock musicians including Les Wallace, who was a very good guitar player. His band was opening for Fleetwood Mac and classic movie style, their guitar player had something happen at the last minute and after Les led I believe Pot Liquor, he performed with Fleetwood Mac. He thought he would impress them so he went to the local music store and bought an electric guitar he paid over a thousand for, on credit. The guitar left town with Fleetwood Mac and they never gave it back. Les was pissed and never performed on stage again! Studio sessions from then on. Les was a true guitarzan and didn't understand why people would get upset when he woke up in the middle of the night with an idea and fired up the concert amps in a one or two bedroom apartment at two or three in the morning. He got kicked out of a lot of apartments!
Bill Ball was one of those guys that could play anything from guitar to bagpipes. His band opened for David Allen Coe, oncet! Bill was highly intelligent but his mind was out in left field that night. They decided to impress Coe and his band with their fan status and did a full set of Coe songs right before Coe came on. Coe and his band huddled up when he came on stage. "What are we gonna play?" "I don't know, those son of a bitches just played every song we know!"
With two older siblings still alive there was a piano and a handful of guitars and drums and such around the house when I was growing up. I was born tone deaf and had zero talent with any instrument and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket myself!
There were a half-dozen country stores in a small area belonging to people on my mom's side of the family and she had a department store in a prosperous farm town herself before marriage. All the country stores had one pool table and a juke box. I hit the ground listening to country and black music before and during mo-town. The jukeboxes were a nickel a play or six or seven songs for a quarter. The supplier came and reloaded the jukeboxes once every two weeks but the really hot records might be worn out in three or four days which didn't stop them being played constantly until they melted to the point they wouldn't play at all.
Hu
