My View from 1958

Becoming Hound Dog

Part 1: The Music and the Passion

Typically, on Sunday afternoons after church, dad would break out his guitar and start strumming and singing.  He would sing what I would call country music classics such as:

Johnny Cash- “Folsom Prison Blues”.

Hank Williams: Your Cheating Heart, Hey Good Looking, Jambalaya, I’m So Lonesome I Could Crtand of Course White Lightnin’.

Ernest Tubb: “Walking the Floor Over You”.

Elvis Pressley: “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog’”

Johnny Horton: “The Battle of New Orleans”.

These songs that are still etched in my mind. I know all the words.

If you have not heard these songs before or if it has been a while, take a moment and listen. These were true classics of that era and survive today. I just watched a recent video of the band White Zombie remake of Folsom Prison Blues. This music lives!

On occasion my brother and I would sing along with him. My favorite song was the “Battle of New Orleans”. I sang that song to my kids when they were young, and now my grandkids. Funny how that works.

Dad was a bit of a character. He loved to talk, play music, tease and joke around. He had a wonderful, but dry sense of humor. Bottom line he was always up for a good time. Below is a picture I would guess from about 1964 or so. I think.  You might be able to tell by his expression that he was ornery.

My dad loved to play and sing. I believe it was an escape from his work and related stress.  Perhaps he imagined himself on stage with ole Hank or singing backup to Johnny. Dad owned and operated a DX service station and delivered fuel to farmers (see previous Blog post, “Ralph’s Peach Schnaps”).

He worked 6 days a week about 11 or 12 hours a day so music was his hobby or relief from the day to day.  At the service station he would pump gas, change oil in cars, fix tires and wash cars. This was back in the day of full-service gas stations. Customers didn’t pump their own gas back then. A car would drive up to the gas pumps and activate a bell. My dad or one of his employees would rush out to the customer and say “filler ‘er up”?  And of course, they would probably check the oil, wash the windshield and check tire pressure.  In later years, I too would work at the DX service station. I can still remember gas being about 31 cents a gallon. Imagine.

Owning and operating a gas station or more appropriately a service station was hard physical labor…crawling under cars to replace brakes, mufflers, fixing truck tires or, when he delivered fuel to farmers, dragging a heavy hose from the fuel truck to the fuel barrel.  He typically had to climb a ladder to get to the top of the barrel and I remember a couple of time he fell. This work took a heavy toll on my dad later in life.

When it came to the guitar, Dad was self-taught. He could not read music, never took a lesson that I recall.  He would say “I play it by ear” and of course learned at some of the future jam sessions. He figured out the cords and away he would go. He developed his love for music from my grandmother. She could play a mean harmonica, wrote poetry, sang and she even wrote songs. Dad would often bring his guitar to grandma’s house and the music would flow.

Grandma had one song published called, “There is only One Star Out Tonight”.  She wrote it for her daughter (my late Aunt Iva Lee). During WWII my aunt married my late uncle Jerry just before he went off to war like so many men of that time. Jerry was an officer in the Navy serving on a battle ship. My grandmother said Iva Lee would sit outside at night and stare at the stars wondering if Jerry would see the same night sky and think of her. My grandmother was very touched by this, so she wrote this song and even had a recording made (not a top 40, but kinda a neat story).

Over time, dad got a bit of a reputation around town for loving to play and sing. This led to his first big break. A few of his buddies suggested getting some other musicians together and maybe having some jam sessions. Nothing fancy. His best friend Bill owned a trucking company and he had a large shed. They could practice in there. Plenty of room, heat, good lighting, electricity for the amplifiers and of course a refrigerator full of beer.  And so, it began.

The musicians would come and go. Whoever was available on Thursday night would stop by and the music would take off. Dad on lead guitar and singing, and typically Charlie on bass and Don on rhythm guitar. Sometimes a drummer, and once I remember a keyboard player although the name escapes me. Many locals came by as this became a social event as much as a music event, and of course a refrigerator full of beer. It was an interesting mix of men at the jams. A bank VP, the owner of a large trucking firm, a CPA, an auctioneer, owner of a grain elevator, laborers and farmers. Music does not discriminate. I got to attend once in a while. My big reward of the night (if I wasn’t being an asshole) was I got to take a sip of dad’s beer. Hamm’s. Tasted like shit as I recall, but man was I cool. I told the kids and school and of course I was a celebrity.

These jam sessions went on for a while, but I think my dad longed for something more.  He wanted a band and stability in regard to band members. He wanted to perform. He wanted to be on stage.

Part II Coming Soon.