Buddy Killen: 1932 -2006

Buddy Killen, born Nov 13th 1932, Florence, Alabama; died Nov 1st 2006.

William Doyce Killen, born in Florence, not far from Muscle Shoals, moved to Nashville in 1950 aged 18 to start a career as a double bass player in the country music capital. It was here that he became involved in Tree Music, a song publishing company. In 1953, the manager of the radio station, Jack Stapp, asked him to work at his new publishing company. He would assess would-be songwriters and offer potential hits to performers. Buddy proved to be a great success.

In 1956 he was captivated when a schoolteacher, Mae Boren Axton showed him a song, Heartbreak Hotel, which he considered suitable for Elvis Presley. It established Tree Music as a major player and a grateful Stapp made Killen an executive vice-president. In the early 1960s, he discovered and recorded 15 year old Dolly Parton, before letting her leave her contract in 1964.

Killen was also a successful songwriter. In 1960, Killen wrote the US Top Ten hit Forever for the Little Dippers (an offshoot of the Anita Kerr Singers), and his compositions would include several country hits: Open Up Your Heart (for Buck Owens, 1966), I Can't Wait Any Longer (Bill Anderson, 1978), I May Never Get to Heaven (Conway Twitty, 1979), Watchin' the Girls Go By (Ronnie McDowell, 1981) and All Tied Up (Ronnie McDowell, 1986).

In 1960 he was introduced to Joe Tex. Buddy decided to move into rhythm and blues music. He admitted that he knew nothing about it when he made the decision, but it was his belief in the talent of Joe which confirmed his choice. Buddy Killen formed Dial Records in 1963, to promote Joe Tex as a recording artist. Four years of struggling to come up with a hit formula led Killen to look towards his Alabama home, and to book the Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, to work with Rick Hall and his band. The session produced Hold What You've Got, which after Buddy had taken the reels for splicing and post-production, started a trail of hits up until Joe's retirment in 1970. They remained close friends up until Joe's death. Buddy Killen wrote Joe's comeback disco hit Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman) in 1977.

Buddy and Tree Music continued to thrive, becoming the President and owner on Stapp's death in 1980. Eventually, in 1989, he sold the company, and set up his own agency called Killen Enterprises. He continued to work successfully with new artists such as OutKast up until his death.



Buddy Killen & Bill Anderson - I May Never Get To Heaven (Sample)

The Commanders of The Beat!!!

Many of the Nashville r&b clubs featured house acts who might play on a weekly basis for months or years on end, when not performing out of town. Indeed there's is a street-level story of fame and musical impact rarely reflected in the charts and record sales to which music history is often reduced. Earl Gaines held forth at Nashville's Sugar Hill; Johnny Jones and the Imperial 7, or a jobbing Jimmy Hendrix with the King Kasuals, would be playing at the very popular Club Del Morocco (once frequented by Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis when they were in town.); while at Club Stealaway, Frank Howard and the Commanders, vocal trio, sang Wednesday nights from 9 until 1 in the morning.

"I never saw any of the money we made off of our records, but I made a lot of money from personal appearances. Pee Wee Johnson ran a club called the House On the Hill. We would play at the Seal-A-Way or the New Era or with Hendrix at the Del Morocco, then we would leave during the intermission and go to Pee Wee's and play there..."







Charlie Fite, Frank Howard, Herschel Carter at Club Stealaway, in 1964, celebrating their release of their first single, Just Like Him.

Originally known as The Marquees, and originally including Frank's older brother Bruce, they had been singing around Nashville since 1957, but Frank, Charlie and Hershel grouped up in 1961. It was DJ and manager 'Hoss' Allen who renamed them The Commanders in early 1964, ready to promote their first 45, recorded at Fame Studios.


Bill "Hoss" Allen, WLAC DJ

Frank Howard had a great friendship with legendary WLAC DJ and promoter Bill ''Hoss'' Allen, who was to hire The Commanders to be regulars alongside the band of Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Johnny Jones on his r&b TV show The!!!!Beat, made in Texas but featuring Nashville musicians. However he was less happy when Allen decided to change The Commanders into Frank Howard & The Commanders...

'''Horse [Hoss] was like my brother....[but] I was very upset with my name out front. . . . But Horse said 'I want you to be out there by yourself.' Horse wanted me to be a Johnny Mathis-type singer. . . . I guess it all worked out.''

Hoss had connections and the means to promote acts like The Commanders onto a bigger stage. R&B star Earl Gaines had formed a partnership with 'Hoss' Allen in 1965. They recorded an LP, Best Of Luck To You in late 1965 to early 1966. The album featured Johnny Jones & The Imperial Seven and Frank Howard & The Commanders, and was released by HBR Records in 1966. While Earl Gaines gained the most publicity from the album, with his name prominent and scoring a No.28 r&b hit, it convinced Hoss and his backers to hire the Commanders and the Imperial Seven for the musical backbone of Allen’s syndicated television show The !!! Beat.

The cream of the Nashville r&b scene continued to flourish for a few years thanks to Night Train and The!!!!Beat, but the death of a blues club scene made it harder in the city itself. In 1967, Frank recorded a solo record, Judy, which was later covered by Al Green. After that, Frank Howard left music to pursue careers as a banker (eventually rising to senior vice president), repo man and car dealership owner.

Frank Howard helped the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum researchers with their work on the Night Train To Nashville exhibit, providing videotapes, records and reminiscences of the period. Such eyewitnesses and their oral history are all the more valuable in a rapidly changing society and urban environment, where Interstate 40 altered the landscape of north Nashville forever in the mid 1960s. Frank used to go to see Joe Tex at the Legion Club, which once stood next to the current NES headquarters:

''We would always go hear Joe when he was in town because he was a top-notch entertainer. . . . We were there when he did his first split. His pants split. We had to lend him a pair of pants so he could get back on the stage.''

Michael Gray, curator at the Country Music Hall Of Fame:

''Museums count on people like Frank. We couldn't tell the story without someone like him stepping forward and loaning us photos and artifacts.''

''I never throw anything out,'' Howard admits!

Frank Howard is now a minister at Patterson Memorial United Methodist Church in Nashville's Flat Rock, and he puts his soul into the gospel music. But he still looks back with fondness on his younger self, and was persuaded to participate in a number of r&b reunion concerts for the Night Train exhibition, which, while the participants are a little older and the audience younger, have given Nashvillians a reprise of how things used to be. Watching The Commanders slip and slide and perform flying splits while singing (You Make Me Wanna) Shout on a video, Frank says:

''Man, I was about 300 pounds lighter back then! Look at that guy!''



Watch The Commanders on The!!!!Beat singing I'm So Glad:

Listen to Frank Howard & The Commanders sing their first record Just Like Him:

Frank Howard & The Commanders - Just Like Him (Hermitage 870) 1964



Information and quotes taken from a fascinating interview with Frank Howard in March 2004 by Tim Ghianni at The Tennessean website. The interview is far, far longer than these excerpts, and includes lots more personal details and insights...

Other information from the Night Train To Nashville exhibit booklet. Photographs from the personal collection of Frank Howard. Archive of The!!!!Beat provided by innercalm. Mp3 link hosted by Commotion PR, Night Train To Nashville public relations. You can buy the CD Night Train To Nashville at this link...

Red Kelly Rides The Night Train To Nashville!

Red Kelly's the b side...



In case you haven't come from there, Red Kelly at soul blog the b side has been featuring some amazing soul artists who recorded in Nashville, from Joe Tex to Slim Harpo to Joe Simon, with extensive histories the way I would like to be able to write them! The Joe Simon article in particular goes into the career of WLAC and of DJs such as John Richbourg.

Required reading (and listening!) for anyone intrigued by Nashville soul!

Red Kelly on Joe Tex
Red Kelly on Ted Taylor
Red Kelly on Slim Harpo
Red Kelly on Joe Simon, John Richbourg and WLAC Radio

Night Train Memories...

WLAC and the Night Train! have reentered the collective consciousness of soul fans around the world in the last two years thanks to the Night Train To Nashville phenomenon. However, for some Nashvillians, they found it a memory that endured.

Rodney Jones, a jazz guitarist who has performed with James Brown and now teaches music in a Manhattan conservatory, thinks back to his early childhood in the 60s:

"As a kid growing up in Nashville, TN you would probably think that I was exposed to a lot of country music and I do remember some, like Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”. My father used to really play a lot of Negro Spirituals in the house and I remember hearing them and really feeling something from that music. There was a heart and soul, a resonance that I really felt. My parents used to watch a TV show that came on late at night called, “Night Train”. It featured many of the southern Rhythm and Blues stars of the day like ”Dyke and the Blazers” and “Ironing Board Sam”. I used to sneak out of bed to watch and listen to them. "

Elaine Speed Neeley, a artist who grew up in Nashville, has created a comprehensive site of local histories and collective memories of the 50s and 60s in Nashville. Night Train! defined Friday nights for a teenager like her:

"Friday night with Night Train and host Noble Blackwell, featuring artists like: Ironing Board Sam, James Brown, The Van Trease Trio, Good Rockin' Hoppy and a very young Jimmy Hendrix. Friday night also featured Shock Theatre where the creepy organ intro music was usually more scary than the movie. Shock, Jr. came on Sunday afternoons."

And when she wasn't waiting for Noble's TV show, it seems Elaine was staying up late to listen to WLAC on the radio...:

"WLAC-AM had late night DJs "John R" (John Richbourg), Hoss Allen, Herman Grizzard and Gene Nobles who played rhythm & blues for an audience all over the Southeast, sponsored by Ernie's Record Mart or Randy's Records in Gallatin. "

Elaine isn't the only person to want to celebrate her memories of the music and DJs travelling the 50,000 watt signal beaming WLAC out across the continent to over 15 million listeners in 38 states and overseas. Independent screenwriter/director Nashvillian Don Boner and screenwriter Chera Federle have written a screenplay called WLAC Nashville, and have picked up the praise and endorsement of numerous local r&b artists and music historians.

WLAC NASHVILLE is said to be a fictional dramatization of the late night WLAC disc jockeys who played rhythm & blues during the 50’s through the early 1970’s. These deejays influenced a new generation of young men and women, black and white and launched the careers of many R & B legends, paving the way for Rock and Roll. Sounds like an interesting project.

It will never play even on TV in the UK, so if anyone sees it appear in the US, shout out!

Information and quotes found at Nashville Memories, a webpage run by Elaine Neeley, and from RodneyJones.com. Information about the screenplay WLAC Nashville from various sites including IndianapolisFilm.net.

Night Train With The Neptunes!

Among the other clips being hosted by innercalm at the moment is this one featuring Hal Hardy of vocal group The Neptunes.






The Neptunes began in the 1950s, founded by Tom Holbert and Paul Hendricks, to whom they added Hal as the lead singer, with Robert 'Dickey' Dixon (a professional boxer), Joe Wade (nephew of singer Johnny Bragg), James Porter Box and Henry 'Sonny' Short. On this episode of Night Train!, Hal sang his version of the Ray Charles song What'd I Say?, with his own local Tennessean adlib:

"Tell your momma! tell your brother!
I'm gonna take you back to Murfreesboro'!"

Watch Hal Hardy on Night Train!

Paul Hendricks may be the guitarist playing the distinctive opening riff, and Joe Wade is centre of the backing trio. Later, Hal had a solo hit with House Of Broken Hearts b/w Love Man.

Information from the Night Train To Nashville liner notes. Neptunes photo courtesy of Carissa Dixon-Malone. Video clip of Hal Hardy archived by innercalm. One website that offers the NIght Train! shows on DVD or video (NTSC-VHS?) is The Video Beat. Leave me a copy, I don't get paid 'til the end of the month!...

Night Train To Nashville!: Avons Calling!

Yes, I've spent the last few days obsessed with this new-fangled youtube thingy...

I'm watching these shows from Night Train! and The Beat!!! for the first time, and its mesmerising to see great artists who I've heard on my speakers since I was small, up on the screen. If only we'd had shows like these in the UK, Craig David would never have existed...

I'm going to keep posting some more of this stuff!

Today on the show, we get a call from The Avons. Not the Bobby Byrd and James Brown group, later to become the Famous Flames. Nor the Suffolk/Jersey duo from Blighty's swinging 60s. Instead a female group who met at Pearl High School in Nashville, who recorded the song Tell Me Baby at Sound Stage 7 and Since I Met You Baby on Excello. Paula Hester, Beverley Bard and Fran Bard were managed by Bob Holmes, who also wrote and produced their songs. In the UK, the single was released as by The Novas, so as not to confuse with the British group. On todays clip from Night Train! in 1966, The Avons sing Everybody Loves A Lover. A happy song, catchy and upbeat.


Watch The Avons on Night Train!

Thanks to innercalm for posting so many great clips from Night Train! and The Beat!!! He is also posting some more info about some of the the clips on the Soul Source forums (under Pete-S) Why not also visit his website at Planet Records! A record dealer who loves soul AND the VU is all right by me!

22.10.06: This post was edited to add a little more information :)

Highway Chile Takes The Night Train!

From the same episode of Night Train!, on WLAC-TV Channel 5, we have the opening credits for that episode in June/July 1965, listing the evening's performers, and then a rendition of Shotgun by Buddy and Stacey, supported by the show's backing band, The Royal Company, here with a young James Hendrix.

It was not the first visit to Nashville for Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix had been demobbed from Fort Campbell, an army base in Kentucky in July 1962 after breaking his ankle in parachute training. After wasting his money, Jimi hung around in Clarksville and then, with an army friend Billy Cox, later came to Nashville to find some work in clubs with their band, now called the King Kasuals. After travelling to New York City and winning the Apollo Amateur Night, but failing to make any bigger impression, he returned. Nashville would become one of several regular places to which Jimi would return in times of need.

Eventually getting a break, he toured with the Isley Brothers in 1963/4, before quitting their band on a stop in Nashville once more. This time he hung around for a while, before joining several mid-western tours organised by DJ Georgeous George Odell:

"So then I quit, I quit them [The Isleys] in Nashville somewhere. And eh, ??? this guy, he was on a tour with B.B.King, Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke, and all these people Chuck Jackson. So I played, eh, I was playing guitar behind a lot of the acts on the tour."

Jimi worked like this for over a year, basing himself in Atlanta this time when his money ran out and Georgeous George couldn't get enough bookings, offering to work as a valet for acts if they didn't need musicians. Here, he was spotted by Little Richard who hired him for his band:

"I guess about, I guess I played with him for about 6 months, I guess. About 5 or 6 months. And I got tired of all that, played some shows with Ike and Tina Turner, and I went back to New York and played with King Curtis and Joey Dee"

Jimi was being a little reticent. Many people credit his time with Little Richard as an important influence for Jimi, giving him the chance to experiment with his stage persona and play with seasoned musicians. Richard told him once:

"Look. Don't be ashamed to do whatever you feel. The people can tell if your a phony. They can feel it out in the audience. I don't care if you're wild, I don't care if you're quiet. They'll know if your putting yourself into it, whatever it is."

Others remember Jimi on that tour:

"Richard didn't hide Jimi. He used to allow him to do that playing with his teeth onstage and take solos. It became a part of the act, all that playing behind his back and stuff."

However, it became clear that Jimi was not comfortable with the tough life on the road, travelling by bus on a gruelling schedule. He was unnerved by some of the racially-charged scenes he saw in towns and venues in the South, and while he continued to develop his playing, his moodiness led to lateness for shows and rehearsals.

Returning to Nashville once more to regroup and earn some money, Jimi got work on the Night Train! with the backing band. Also around June - July 1965, at the Starday Studio, on Dickerson Road in Nashville, Jimi played rhythm guitar on Frank Howard & the Commanders' record I'm So Glad. Frank Howard and The Commanders were also regular performers on Night Train and on its successor The Beat !!!!

Soon after, Jimi left Nashville and returned to New York, and began to think about how he could break out on his own...

Watch:
Buddy & Stacey with The Royal Company - Shotgun

Information found from Early Hendrix website, and the Life And Times of Little Richard: Quasar Of Rock by Charles White. The most detailed biography of the early career of Jimi Hendrix on the internet that I've found can be read at the Soul-Patrol, titled Jimi Hendrix And The Chitlin' Circuit by Oscar J Jordan III.

All Aboard The Night Train!

This week's post is a brief introduction into a radio station, WLAC, and a TV show, Night Train, that helped to promote and sustain the r&b scene in Nashville, Tennessee during the 1960s. Then sit back to watch the show!...



Two Nashville radio stations played a huge role in establishing Nashville's reputation. With WSM broadcasting the Grand Ole Opry and WLAC's late night disc jockeys such as the legendary John Richbourg (better known as John R) and Hoss Allen catering to R&B fans, the two stations blasted 50,000-watt nighttime signals to music fans throughout the U.S. Micael Gray, curator at the Country Music hall Of Fame, comments:

"In a lot of ways, WLAC is to R&B music what WSM was to country music. WLAC started playing R&B at night in 1946. The deejays who were playing the music were white, so there's another example of how the race barriers were tested... Just about every R&B star came through Nashville. There's all kinds of stories about people like James Brown and Little Richard stopping by WLAC. Just like today, artists were wanting to know the deejays who were playing the records."

Night Train premiered in 1964 as one of the first music series to feature an all-black cast, presented by WVOL executive Noble Blackwell, and a house band led by musical director Bob Holmes. Produced in Nashville at WLAC-TV, Night Train predates the Chicago-based Soul Train by five years. Jimi Hendrix, swaggering in a backing band called the King Kasuals, is believed to have made his very first TV appearance. Noble Blackwell was particularly proud of the contribution he feels the show made reaching out to and working with local people:

"It was a period of the 60s, you had demonstrations going on in Nashville, but Night Train offered ... [more than] ... a good entertainment vehicle. We had very good artists, and of course it highlighted the local artists, who were very talented, and a lot of hard work went into it because we would practise at various community centers in Nashville. The Nashville Housing Authority allowed us to use the community centers where we would practise..."


In 1966, Nashville's TV studios still didn't have the equipment needed to produce programs in color. As a result, Show Biz Inc., which syndicated the Wilburn Brothers and Porter Wagoner's country TV shows, took WLAC disc jockey Hoss Allen and an entire cast of Nashville musicians to Houston to produce The!!!! Beat, an all-too-brief series that featured all the national acts such as Otis Redding, Freddy King and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.

Watch a clip of The Spidells performing Lookin' For Love (a hit for the Valentinos) on Night Train!



Wait! The Train's not stoppin'!!!!

Watch Freddie North performing Good Times, introduced by host Noble Blackwell,
and Pamela Releford perform He's All Right With Me here on Night Train in 1966!


Information from an article from CMT.com, and the Night Train To Nashville booklet. Videos posted on youtube by innercalm. Photos from Frank Howard and Billy Lockridge.

Night Train To Nashville: Arthur Gunter

Arthur Gunter was born on the 23rd May 1926 in Nashville, Tennessee. Gunter was a musician from an early age; as a child, he was in a gospel group with his brothers and cousins called the Gunter Brothers Quartet. In the early 1950s he played guitar in various blues groups around Nashville. Gunter was a regular at the record shop owned by Excello chief Ernie Young and the association led to a recording contract in 1954. In 1955, Gunter recorded Baby Let's Play House for Excello, which became a local hit. It became nationally known later that year when Elvis Presley recorded a version for Sun Records. His first royalty check, received that same year, was for $6500. Gunter was less than impressed, however, with the attitude of the rock n'roll kid and his management:

"Elvis got that number and made it famous. But I didn't get a chance to shake his hand."

Arthur Gunter continued to record for Excello until 1961. His regular band broke up in 1966 and he moved to Pontiac, Michigan, performing only occasionally thereafter. He died of pneumonia on March 16th 1976 at his home in Port Huron, Michigan.





Arthur Gunter - Baby, Let's Play House (Excello) 1955

Buy the CDs Night Train To Nashville Vols 1 & 2 here:






Information from articles by Steve Kurutz, All Music Guide, and Fred Reif, from his liner notes to Baby Let's Play House: the Best of Arthur Gunter (Excello 1995). Thanks to Kay Clary and Donica Christensen of Commotion PR for allowing links to downloads from the CD.

Night Train To Nashville: Christine Kittrell

This week I'm going to post on a few artists to be found on the compilation Night Train To Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues 1945-1970 - Vols 1& 2, from Lost Highway/Universal. This compilation was devised to accompany an exhibition at the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 2004-5, and brings together songs recorded at 25 Nashville labels, by dozens of artists, some of whom were regularly featured on the TV shows Night Train and The!!!!Beat, which featured Nashville r&b. You can actually hear a stream of all the tracks on the Commotion PR website - who promote Night Train To Nashville , and buy the CDs (or vinyl!) at the Night Train to Nashville website.

Christine Kittrell is featured several times on the CDs. Christine Kittrell was born on August 11, 1929, into a musical family in Nashville, and decided that singing would be her life's work after singing in church, and listening to records by Vela Johnson, Dinah Washington, Billie Holliday and Bessie Smith. Ann Bishop, a friend, remembers when she first heard her sing:

"When I met her she was singing at Tony Morone's Cadillac Club on North 20th Street. She had stage presence, personality and an unforgettable voice."

During the 1940s and early 50s, Kittrell toured extensively, and recorded for Tennessee, Republic, Federal, King and Vee-Jay Records over her career. During the summer of 1952, a little independent label based in Nashville called Tennessee Records released a blues recording called Sittin' Here Drinkin' /I Ain't Nothing But A Fool (Tennessee 128). In 1952, Little Richard played piano on one of her songs, Lord Have Mercy. In 1953, Christine moved to Republic Records, also in Nashville, and recorded with the Gay Crosse Band, who had in their number a young tenor player called John Cole Trane. Christine was starting to rack up sales of over 20,000 per single.

In 1954, she toured regularly. DJ Gene Norman organised a show with The Robins, Christine Kittrell, Earl Bostic, and The Flairs at the Embassy Ballroom in LA, and to tour California in March. Other West Coast tours would follow, with "Fats" Domino, Earl Bostic, Paul Williams, John Coltrane and more. She did other shows with Johnny Otis, The Lamplighters, Ruth Brown and Count Basie. Success as a national r&b artist seemed imminent.

At this point in 1954, Christine decided to return to gospel music. She moved to Columbus Ohio in 1962, to make a new home. Around this time, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller sought her out and wrote the song I'm a Woman for her, which she recorded on Vee-Jay along with some other, but none of them sold well, and she returned to her gospel once more.

In the early 60s, she toured Japan performing with Louis Armstrong and Paul Williams. Then, in the mid 1960s, promoter David Moore, who knew her from her r&b shows on the West Coast, booked her on a Southeast Asian tour where she sang for the troops in Vietnam. She stayed on tour in Vietnam for 8 1/2 months, intending to stay longer. The tour was terminated, almost literally, when Christine was wounded by shrapnel in a Viet-Cong incident.

In 1986 a fan of Kittrells' called Bruce Bastian, suggested recording an album, titled Krazy Kat, returning to the blues. Continuing to perform with local Columbus blues group The Night Owlz, she became a mentor for Ohio artist Teeny Tucker (daughter of Tommy 'High Heel Sneakers' Tucker), and sang on Tucker's album First Class Woman.

Kittrell spent her remaining few years working with a beautification group, the Linden Community in Action, and was inducted into the Columbus Senior Musicians Hall of Fame in 1998. Christine Kitrell died on 19th December 2001 from emphysema, aged 72.

You can hear an interview with Christine Kittrell, on Ohio University Radio in 1994, and hear her sing a number of her songs with the Night Owlz, including Evil Eyed Woman and Mr Big Wheel. In addition, this track below is being offered by Commotion PR, who run promotion for the Night Train To Nashville CDs.

Christine Kittrell - L&N Special (Republic) (June 1953)

Information from an article by Ann Bishop, the Night Train To Nashville exhibition, Bad Dog Blues, and the most comprehensive article by J C Marion, which contains a detailed discography. Link to free promotional download provided by Commotion PR.