Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, and the Cotton ClubListener: Johnny Hughes
Category: General
Date: 28 Jan 2009
Time: 13:05:17 -0700
Remote Name: 70.255.94.251
CommentsBuddy Holly's voice has been heard on radio stations all
around the world. The very first radio station he ever sang on was KFYO in
Lubbock. You may post this history on your web site, if you please.
Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, and the Cotton Club
by Johnny Hughes
January 2009
Elvis Presley was leaning a against his pink, 1954 Cadillac in front of
Lubbock's historic Cotton Club. The small crowd were mesmerized by his great
looks, cockiness, and charisma. He put on quite a show, doing nearly all the
talking. Elvis bragged about his sexual conquests, using language you didn't
hear around women. He said he'd been a truck driver six months earlier. Now he
could have a new woman in each town. He told a story about being caught having
sex in his back seat. An angry husband grabbed his wife by the ankles and pulled
her out from under Elvis. I doubted that.
Earlier, at the Fair Park Coliseum, Elvis had signed girl's breasts, arms,
foreheads, bras, and panties. No one had ever seen anything like it. We had met
Elvis' first manager, Bob Neal, bass player, Bill Black, and guitarist Scotty
Moore. They wanted us to bring some beer out to the Cotton Club. So we did. My
meeting with Bob Neal in 1955 was to have great meaning in my future. I was 15.
The old scandal rag, Confidential, had a story about Elvis at the Cotton Club
and the Fair Park Coliseum. It had a picture of the Cotton Club and told of
Elvis' unique approach to autographing female body parts. It said he had taken
two girls to Mackenzie Park for a tryst in his Cadillac.
Elvis did several shows in Lubbock during his first year on the road, in
1955. When he first came here, he made $75. His appearance in 1956 paid $4000.
When he arrived in Lubbock, Bob Neal was his manager. By the end of the year,
Colonel Tom Parker had taken over. Elvis played the Fair Park Coliseum for its
opening on Jan. 6th, with a package show. When he played the Fair Park again,
Feb. 13th, it was memorable. Colonel Tom Parker and Bob Neal were there. Buddy
Holly and Bob Montgomery were on the bill. Waylon Jennings was there. Elvis was
19. Buddy was 18.
Elvis' early shows in Lubbock were: Jan 6th 1955, Fair Park Coliseum.
Feb 13th. Fair Park, Cotton Club April 29 Cotton Club June 3: Johnson Connelly
Pontiac, Fair Park October 11: Fair Park October 15: Cotton Club, April 10,
1956: Fair Park. Elvis probably played the Cotton Club on all of his Lubbock
dates.
Buddy Holly was the boffo popular teenager of all time around Lubbock. The town
loved him! He had his own radio show on Pappy Dave Stone's KDAV, first with Jack
Neal, later with Bob Montgomery in his early teens. KDAV was the first
all-country station in America. Buddy fronted Bill Haley, Marty Robbins, and
groups that traveled through. Stone was an early mentor. Buddy first met Waylon
Jennings at KDAV. Disk jockeys there included Waylon, Roger Miller, Bill Mack,
later America's most famous country DJ, and country comedian Don Bowman. Bowman
and Miller became the best known writers of funny country songs.
All these singer-songwriters recorded there, did live remotes with jingles, and
wrote songs. Elvis went to KDAV to sing live and record the Clover's "Fool, Fool
Fool" and Big Joe Turner's "Shake Rattle and Roll" on acetates. This radio
station in now KRFE, 580 a.m., located at 66th and MLK, owned by Wade Wilkes.
They welcome visitors. It has to be the only place that Elvis, Buddy, Waylon,
and Bill Mack all recorded. Johnny Cash sang live there. Waylon and Buddy became
great friends through radio. Ben Hall, another KDAV disc jockey and songwriter,
filmed in color at the Fair Park Coliseum. This video shows Johnny Cash, Carl
Perkins, Elvis, Buddy and his friends.
Wade's dad, Big Ed Wilkes, owner of KDAV, managed country comedian, Jerry Clower,
on MCA Records. He sent Joe Ely's demo tape to MCA. Bob Livingston also sent one
of the tapes I gave him to MCA. This led to a contract. Pappy Dave Stone, the
first owner of KDAV, helped Buddy get his record contract with Decca/MCA.
Another disc jockey at KDAV was Arlie Duff. He wrote the country classic, "Y'all
Come." It has been recorded by nineteen well-known artists, including Bing
Crosby. When Waylon Jennings and Don Bowman were hired by the Corbin brothers,
Slim, Sky, and Larry, of KLLL, Buddy started to hang around there. They all did
jingles, sang live, wrote songs, and recorded. Niki Sullivan, one of the
original Crickets, was also a singing DJ at KLLL. Sky Corbin has an excellent
book about this radio era and the intense competition between KLLL and KDAV. All
the DJs had mottos. Sky Corbin's was "lover, fighter, wild horse rider, and a
purty fair windmill man."
Don Bowman's motto was "come a foggin' cowboy." He'd make fun of the sponsors
and get fired. We played poker together. He'd take breaks in the poker game to
sing funny songs. I played poker with Buddy Holly before and after he got
famous. He was incredibly polite and never had the big head. The nation only
knew Buddy Holly for less than two years. He was the most famous guy around
Lubbock from the age of fourteen.
Niki Sullivan, an original Cricket, and I had a singing duo as children. We
cut little acetates in 1948. We also appeared several times on Bob Nash's kid
talent show on KFYO. This was at the Tech Theatre. Buddy Holly and Charlene
Hancock, Tommy's wife, also appeared on this show. Larry Holley, Buddy's
brother, financed his early career, buying him a guitar and whatever else he
needed. Buddy recorded twenty acetates at KDAV from 1953 until 1957. He also did
a lot of recording at KLLL. Larry Holley said Niki was the most talented Cricket
except Buddy. All of Buddy's band mates and all of Joe Ely's band mates were
musicians as children.
Buddy and Elvis met at the Cotton Club. Buddy taught Elvis the lyrics to the
Drifter's "Money Honey". After that, Buddy met Elvis on each of his Lubbock
visits. I think Elvis went to the Cotton Club on every Lubbock appearance. When
Elvis played a show at the Johnson Connelly Pontiac showroom, Mac Davis was
there. I was too.
The last time Elvis played the Fair Park Coliseum on April 10,1956, he was as
famous as it gets. Buddy Holly, Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, and Don Guess were
a front act. They did two shows and played for over 10,000 people. Those
wonderful I.G. Holmes photos, taken at several locations, usually show Buddy and
his pals with Elvis. Lubbock had a population of 80,000 at the time. Elvis was
still signing everything put in front of him. Not many people could have signing
women as a hobby.
.
Many of the acetates recorded at KLLL and KDAV by Buddy and others were later
released, many as bootlegs. When Buddy Holly recorded four songs at KDAV, the
demo got him his first record contract. It wasn't just Lubbock radio that so
supportive of Buddy Holly. The City of Lubbock hired him to play at teenage
dances. He appeared at Lubbock High School assemblies and many other places in
town.
Everyone in Lubbock cheered Buddy Holly on with his career. The newspaper
reports were always positive. At one teenage gig, maybe at the Glassarama, there
was only a small crowd. Some of us were doing the "dirty bop." The Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal had photos the next day showing people with their eyes covered
with a black strip. Sonny Curtis mentions that in his song, "The Real Buddy
Holly Story." When Buddy Holly and the Crickets were on the Ed Sullivan show,
the newspaper featured that. The whole town watched.
Buddy was fighting with his manager Norman Petty over money before he died. They
were totally estranged. Larry Holley told me that Norman said to Buddy, "I'll
see you dead before you get a penny." A few weeks later, Buddy was dead. When
Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, it was headline news in the Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal. Over 1000 people attended the funeral on February 7, 1959.
Buddy was only twenty-two years old. His widow, Maria Elena Holly, was too upset
to attend. The pall bearers were all songwriters and musicians that had played
with Buddy: Niki Sullivan, Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Sonny Curtis, Bob
Montgomery, and Phil Everly. Elvis was in the Army. He had Colonel Tom send a
large wreath of yellow roses.
In 1976, I was managing the Joe Ely Band. They had recorded an as-yet
-to-be-released album for MCA Records. I was in Nashville to meet with the MCA
execs. They wanted Joe to get a booking contract and mentioned some unheard of
two-man shops. Bob Neal, Elvis' first manager, had great success in talent
managing and booking. He sold his agency to the William Morris Agency, the
biggest booking agency in the world, and stayed on as president of the Nashville
branch.
I called the William Morris Agency and explained to the secretary that I did
indeed know Bob Neal, as we had met at the Cotton Club in Lubbock, Texas when he
was Elvis' manager. He came right on the phone. I told him the Joe Ely Band
played mostly the Cotton Club. He said that after loading up to leave there one
night, a cowboy called Elvis over to his car and knocked him down. Elvis was in
a rage. He made them drive all over Lubbock checking every open place, as they
looked for the guy. Bob Neal invited me to come right over.
Bob Neal played that, now classic, demo tape from Caldwell Studios and offered a
booking contract. We agreed on a big music city strategy: Los Angeles, New York,
Nashville, London, and Austin. Bob drove me back to MCA and they could not
believe our good fortune. The man had been instrumental in the careers of Elvis,
Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Johnny Rodriguez, and many others. The
William Morris Agency sent the Joe Ely Band coast to coast and to Europe, first
to front Merle Haggard, then on a second trip to front the Clash. The original
Joe Ely Band were Lloyd Maines, steel guitar, Jesse Taylor, electric guitar,
Steve Keeton, drums, and Gregg Wright, bass. Ponty Bone, on accordion, joined a
little later. The band did the shows and the recording. The recorded tunes were
originals from Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
However, some of the William Morris bookings led to zig zag travel over long
distances to so-called listening clubs. When I complained to Bob Neal, he'd
recall the 300 dates Elvis played back in 1955. Four guys in Elvis' pink
Cadillac. When Buddy made some money, he bought a pink Cadillac. Joe Ely bought
a pristine, 1957 pink Cadillac that was much nicer than either of their pink
Cadillacs.
When I'd hear from Bob Neal, it was very good news, especially the fantastic,
uniformly-rave, album and performance reviews from newspapers and magazines
everywhere. Time Magazine devoted a full page to Joe Ely. The earliest big rock
critic to praise Joe Ely was Joe Nick Patoski, author of the definitive and
critically-acclaimed Willie Nelson: An Epic Life. After one year, MCA was in
turmoil. Big stars were leaving or filing lawsuits. We were told they might not
re-new the option to make a second record. MCA regularly fired everyone we
liked. Bob Neal thought the band should go to Los Angeles for a one-nighter.
He booked the Joe Ely Band into the best known club on the West Coast, the
Palomino, owned by his dear pal, Tommy Thomas. We alerted other record
companies. They drove back and forth to L.A. in a Dodge Van to play only one
night. Robert Hilburn, the top rock critic for the Los Angeles Times, came with
his date, Linda Ronstadt.
The Joe Ely Band loved to play music. They started on time, took short breaks,
and played until someone made them stop. Robert Hilburn wrote that Ely could be,
"the most important male singer to emerge in country music since the mid-60s
crop of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson." The long review with
pictures took up the whole fine arts section of the biggest newspaper in the
country. Hilburn praised each of the band individually. He was blown away when
they just kept playing when the lights came on at closing time. After that,
several major record companies were interested.
The last time I saw Bob Neal was at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco on February
22, 1979. Little Pete, a black drarf who was always around Stubb's Bar-B-Q, was
traveling with the band. To open the show, Little Pete came out and announced,
"Lubbock, Texas produces the Joe Ely Band!" Then he jumped off the elevated
stage and Bo Billingsley, the giant roady, caught him. Bob Neal, the old showman
that had seen it all, just loved that.
This article originally appears on www.virtualubbock.com Anyone may make
copies of this one article or post it on any web site. Thanks to Chris Oglesby
and Larry Holley. Johnny Hughes, author of Texas Poker Wisdom, a novel.
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