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.