Interviewer: Can you tell us about Roy Brown recording "Good Rocking Tonight" and what that record started.
Matassa: Yeah, well a, a lot of people feel like it's kind of a, a marker in history where rock and roll started.
Interviewer: Use the name.
Matassa: "Good Rocking Tonight", Roy Brown's best effort in, in, of several, ah, really is a place in people use as a marker in history for the start of, of rock and roll or whatever.
Matassa: It had a lot of elements going for it.
Matassa: It, it was big band, it had gospel, it was a shouting, bluesy.
Matassa: And Roy himself was, you know, he's a 24 carat extravert.
Matassa: I mean so it was the kind of thing he, he could, he could do well.
Matassa: And, ah, and he, successfully got him on the road, you know, got him a couple of big black Cadillacs and that sort of stuff.
Interviewer: Do you hear Roy Brown influence in Elvis's singing, not just on "Good Rocking Tonight" but in general?
Matassa: Well, I don't know if it's Roy but it's gospel, it's, you know, it's, it's church.
Matassa: And, and Elvis had some, and, of, of that in his own background.
Matassa: So where, where he pulled it from, I wouldn't know for sure.
Matassa: But it, it's all cut from the same piece of wood.
Interviewer: What do you remember first about Little Richard, first time he came in the studio?
Matassa: Well, a, a real, Little Richard was a total extravert.
Matassa: I mean if, if Roy Brown was an extravert he, he was shy compared to Little Richard.
Matassa: Little Richard was the, the ultimate, ah, on type, you know, all the time.
Matassa: And, ah, he, ah, he really worked real hard at, at doing his very best.
Matassa: Ah, he's, he's gay and I guess it was part of a kind of Queen of the May complex but he really wanted to be the very best and if you talk to him even till today, he'll tell you he's the best.
Matassa: And sometimes he's right.
Matassa: He, ah, he always wanted to do more takes.
Matassa: They had a nickname for Art Rupe the gentleman that owned the Specialty Record Company, his nickname was Pappy.
Matassa: And I kept hearing, - one more for Pappy.
Matassa: We'd have five great takes and it was one more for Pappy.
Matassa: And, ah, ah, it, it, it worked.
Matassa: I mean the guy had all this drive and you can hear it in the records, which is, it, it takes talent to get it out in the groove and back out of the groove toward people 'cause I, I always felt that's why people buy records anyhow is because they get that vicarious excitement and thrill that they don't get unless they buy your record.
Interviewer: Dave was telling us that the first time he heard Little Richard and even after he heard him do "Tootie Fruitie" he thought that's too wild, that will never sell.
Interviewer: Do you remember when "Tootie Fruitie" first got put together what your reaction to it was in the studio?
Matassa: Well, ah, some of us didn't worry too much about what would sell.
Matassa: Ah, you know we let the producers pretty much worry about that.
Matassa: I, I tried not to do anything, let anything happen that was just plain dumb, you know, but other than that, the, the more emotion the better 'cause I, I, I've always believed that that's what you're selling, you know, and so, yeah, we, we didn't think it was too wild.
Matassa: We didn't know if it would sell or not but we didn't give that a lot of thought.
Matassa: I'm sure the producers do but we were fortunate in not having to have that parameter.
Interviewer: What are some of the first things that you remember seeing happen that showed you that this music may be bringing the races together when it started attracting this large white audience? Were there local things that happened that indicated that was going to happen?
Matassa: Well in, in my world everything was local and by local I mean from, you know, like Alexandria, Louisiana, south.
Matassa: Today you might say from the Interstate 10 what, what the, what the, the, ah, red necks if you will and north of that call the white boot line because all of the shrimpers wear short white boots.
Matassa: But, ah, yeah, white kids loved that music and they picked it up and did their own things with it and you can hear it, you know.
Matassa: We even had a couple of guys that when the records first went out the people elsewhere didn't know whether they were white or black anyhow, you know, because of the, the, ah, the, the drive and, and the push in, in their, in the deliveries that pop singers till today don't have.
Matassa: So, ah, it, it was, you know, it was exciting music.
Interviewer: Did you ever feel that the music that you were working on was actually changing the society at that time?
Matassa: Absolutely not.
Matassa: If, if anybody had a sense of history, it wasn't me, I'll tell you that.
Matassa: I, I was just enjoying life and, and making a living and, and, you know, listening to all this good music.
Matassa: No, there was never in my mind any kind of sense of history, nothing.
Interviewer: Did that seem like a particularly significant record to you? It was certainly one of the first one from here that really seemed to cross over into pop.
Interviewer: Was there any particular kind of excitement about it at the time of the session? I know that Fats came in and played piano on it.
Matassa: Yeah, the, "Lordy Miss Claudie" you have to remember is, is, is in a couple of ways a formula record.
Matassa: It, it's built on a, on a blues platform that lots of things are built on.
Matassa: And, ah, I, I think everybody was real comfortable with it and the guys were playing a real pounding driving kind of rhythmic thing to it, you know.
Matassa: It, it's got a built in hook in the rhythm, you can't avoid almost.
Matassa: You know it's, it's good even if you just don't play it bad.
Matassa: And, ah, ah, his, his delivery was good.
Matassa: And he sounds a little country too.
Matassa: And, ah, but a lot of enthusiasm and, ah, and directness, you know, that if you hear it the way he sings those words he, he sound like he really means it, you know, and that's a big part of it.
Interviewer: Do you remember that as being one of the major things in popularizing that whole triplet piano kind of thing too?
Matassa: Well I, I, I'm sure every time he did another one it helped because it sort of made that a part of, of what was happening at the time.
Matassa: And without, without it being the thing it was in it all the time, almost all the time.
Matassa: So I'm, I'm sure and, and a few guys who were playing it on the records were really good at it which helps.
Matassa: And so, yeah.
Interviewer: Did you have any sessions during this period that looked like they were going to be turned into total wipeout disasters?
Matassa: Well generally the disasters were when whoever the, the featured singer was didn't, couldn't settle down into, into playing.
Matassa: And all of us I think developed a, a way to, to make people feel at home usually it was by taking your time more than anything else.
Matassa: It was kind of letting them not feel like if they messed up the world was coming to an end.
Matassa: But, ah, Dave Bartholomew was good about keeping sessions going even when we were trying to let people relax and get into what they were doing.
Matassa: And, ah, in fact on, on "Lordy Miss Claudie" for instance when we did that it wasn't for our record company.
Matassa: We did it sort of on spec and then, ah, Art Rube bought it and it turned out to be quite a record.
Interviewer: Maybe you can tell us how extreme the situation in those days that a black person couldn't have his own show on the radio and how he wrote the script for the white disc jockey.
Matassa: Well Vernon Winslow, ah, who, who is known as Doctor Daddy O.
Interviewer: Could you give us a reference in time, etc..
Matassa: Yeah, alright, alright, well in, in the late Forties, ah, ah, I think, ah, Vernon Winslow who later became known as Doctor Daddy O was a writer producer of the best R and B show in town that had a white deejay.
Matassa: The show was Poppa Stoppa.
Matassa: And Vernon created the persona in the scripts he wrote and the, and the patter for the guy to use.
Matassa: And, ah, he was the best show in, in town partly because of Vernon's writing and partly because they played a lot of, of good local records even before anybody had picked them up anywhere else.
Matassa: And of course some of them never were picked up but, but, ah, at least you got a great variety of local stuff on that show.
Interviewer: Tell more, etc.
Matassa: Well, ah, the whole reason for him being the writer and someone else, a white guy being the, the actual performer, if you will, to, to his script was because they, they wouldn't have a black guy on the white station.
Matassa: And, but they wanted him to sound black.
Matassa: And Vernon did that amazingly well.
Matassa: It's kind of unfortunate he had to do it that way but it was at least a start of something.
Matassa: And later when they wanted him to do the show, they had first wanted him because he was black to go up the freight elevator in the Jung Hotel.
Interviewer: Have to change magazines.
Interviewer: Tell me about that.
Matassa: Okay, well you know back in, in the late Forties when the independent radio station here was looking to, to increase its, it's listnership it wanted a, a black sound but they wouldn't let a black guy on the radio so they got Vernon Winslow to, to produce and, and write a show for a white Deejay who was going to be known as Poppa Stoppa.
Matassa: And, ah, give him that flavor and it was an enormously successful show because Winslow was, was talented and, and Duke Thea who started it was a, a good mimic.
Matassa: And, ah, Vernon, Vernon kind of spoon fed him what he needed to know.
Matassa: It, it's too bad that Vernon couldn't do the show.
Matassa: Many years later he did have a show of his own, he was known as Doctor Daddy O but it wasn't unique then like it would have been at the beginning when it really was unique.
Matassa: Later when he was going to be on the air himself as a personality, the, the radio station wanted him to, ah, because it was in a hotel, wanted him to go up the freight elevator because he was black.
Matassa: And we all decided he, he wasn't going to do that.
Matassa: So, so, I built a little production console for the show and we did it from my studio because, ah, it's just, was the only way it would have been tolerable, you know.
Interviewer: Tell me about your father's place and how the races were still so separate in those days.
Interviewer: Give me some examples of that.
Matassa: Sure, ah, well you know I, I, I lived in what was called a mixed neighborhood because the white and black families lived cheek by jowl practically in, in the neighborhood.
Matassa: But my father had two bars side by side, one was a white bar and one was a black bar because that's the way the law was and you certainly couldn't do it any other way.
Matassa: He did have an integrated phone booth though, it was kind of between the two with a door on each side and usually the doors were open and, and two juke boxes with two kind of different sets of music.
Matassa: But people from each side played the other side because, strangely enough, a lot of black people played country music that they liked and, and of course white guys played, ah, a lot of blues and rhythm and blues things that, that were really good, really good things.
Interviewer: When you started your studio, people coming in to record, were you recording exclusively black artists?
Matassa: Oh no when I started, well, the focus of the, of the original studio was just that somebody off the street could come in and record.
Matassa: The, the, the ultimate commercial activity was sort of a, a, a lucky byproduct, if you will.
Matassa: We, ah, held ourselves out to anybody and, and everybody.
Matassa: And so we had a mixture of all kinds of people who came in, people who did talking records, mementos.
Matassa: We had one guy brought in a little girl to, to record piano and he said, at the beginning, she'd say, - well children this is your mother at 8, age 8 playing the piano and things like, all kinds of wild things we did.
Matassa: But, but pretty soon it started to focus on, on, on local music.
Matassa: I guess it just couldn't help itself, you know, ah, but it wasn't by design, it just sort of happened that way, beautifully, but it happened.
Interviewer: So in those days when you were recording people like Fats and Roy Brown and Lloyd Price, you didn't have multi-track machines.
Matassa: Well, at first I didn't even have a single-track machine.
Matassa: At first I was recording directly on to the disc which, which, ah, had a, had a, you know, a blessing and a curse all wrapped into one.
Matassa: The, the, the blessing was, it forced people to perform from beginning to end whatever they were going to do and, and be ready to do it all.
Matassa: Ah, the curse of course was you couldn't edit it and if you got everything but a, but a bad ending, it was, it was really a shame.
Matassa: But, ah, then I finally went to single, you know, mono tape and that was a real revelation to be able to, if you needed to, to pick up an ending off of something or pull a bad verse out or swap it with a good verse from another take.
Matassa: It was just, ah, a whole new way of living.
Matassa: But it was still nothing like the multi-track and dubbing and tracking and all the things we do today because the facility, you know, the technology just wasn't there.
Matassa: And, and it, it's left its mark on me.
Matassa: I still don't like tracking and over dubbing and all that.
Matassa: I love live recording where everybody is playing, you know.
Matassa: I, I'm convinced it's better but maybe, you know.
Interviewer: Was that a unique and special group of musicians that Bartholomew had put together, that clique of Palmer and Lee Allen?
Matassa: Oh, absolutely.
Matassa: These, these were, these were…
Interviewer: The whole ...
Matassa: Yeah, oh, well the, the, the band, the, the, the group that did the bulk of the studio work primarily from Dave Bartholomew's original band and, and primarily in many of the things that he did but, they also were going to be used almost by everyone were a phenomenal group of people.
Matassa: Each, each unique, each star quality of what they did and yet they had this gorgeous way of working together and, and working on songs.
Matassa: They were all contributors.
Matassa: They, they really, they became part of the production.
Matassa: They, they, ah, ah, they wanted it to be good and, and you can tell.
Matassa: You can hear in their playing that they're not just good musicians but they're really part of what's going on.
Interviewer: What about Earl Palmer specifically, was he a really unique?
Matassa: Phenomenal, yeah, of course he's a fantastic drummer.
Matassa: He, there's nothing he can't do.
Matassa: But, ah, he had this amazing sense of timing.
Matassa: Back in those days the, a major part of the market for records was juke boxes and juke box operators like them short.
Matassa: And so Earl was the kind of person a producer would say, that, that ran, ah, 240, can you make it 220, 218? And Earl would make this mark, winding up the key on his foot kind of thing, you know, and, and whatever you wanted, he had it, you know.
Matassa: He, he had that sense and, and but you can hear him and every, everything he plays you can hear him driving and pushing and moving things together and all that.
Matassa: All the solos you can hear Earl playing, here's comes, you know, and when it's over you can hear him picking up after it to keep whatever excitement took place in the solo going.
Matassa: He's a phenomenal musician.
Matassa: Doesn't get nearly the credit for, for what impact he must have had.
Matassa: And, ah, that's kind of a shame too.
Interviewer: Talk about Little Richard.
Interviewer: Was he a performer that blew people away, especially with "Tootie Fruitie".
Matassa: Well, everything he did was dynamic.
Interviewer: Use his name.
Matassa: Well, well, everything Little Richard did was, was dynamic, ah, ah, exciting.
Matassa: He's an exciting performer.
Matassa: He, he, ah, he performs as one of the best and, and he believes he's the best and, and he plays that way and he sings that way.
Matassa: he, he, ah, it's a, it's a case of, I'm really great and, and don't miss anything, you know, that, that kind of thing.
Matassa: And yet he's, he's cocky but he's not conceited because conceit means you, you're talking about something you don't have so he's cocky because he's got it, you know.
Matassa: So, you know, I think that's the way to look at, at Little Richard.
Matassa: He's, he's correctly proud of what he does.
Interviewer: What is rock and roll? Where did it come from as opposed to other forms?
Matassa: Well, we didn't give it the name, you know, that's a, that's a commercial name that, that one particular disk jockey invented.
Matassa: And, and he invented it, I think, because the, the growing white audience didn't want to say rhythm and blues or anything like that.
Matassa: So rock and roll was a good way to, to first recognize the, the confluence of white artists with it but also to kind of pretty it up a little bit, clean it up a little bit, make it more acceptable to, to people.
Matassa: In those days you still had to work at making things acceptable like you don't have to today you can just go ahead and do your thing and who likes it, fine.
Matassa: Who doesn't, to hell with them, you know.
Matassa: But in those days you had to, to think in those terms.
Matassa: And so it was a very successful choice of, of name.
Matassa: Ah, it also is double entendre, if, if for those people who understand, it's double entendre.
Matassa: But luckily a lot of people just didn't grasp that it was double entendre, that it had this other meaning.
Interviewer: Tell us what that is?
Matassa: Well, ah, you know, when, when you talk about, ah, sex and dancing, you can't say, certainly in those days you couldn't say, sexy dancing.
Matassa: But rocking and rolling was okay and it said the same thing.
Matassa: And, ah, when, when Roy Brown said, there's good rocking tonight, there was some people thought he was talking about dancing and some people that didn't.
Interviewer: Was that the appeal to white teenagers in those days, started listening to rhythm and blues but this music and something.
Matassa: I'm, I'm sure, to, to the audience, that it did ultimately attracted, it was because it was exciting and because, ah, the subject matter was, it was interesting and, ah, and yet, ah, it was, ah, clean enough and, and straightforward enough that it didn't get just totally wiped out and, ah, I, I don't know that, that, ah, it's ultimate growth into something today is, is good but then it's probably because now I'm one of the old crabby types and younger people are per., perfectly happy with everything that goes on, you know.
Matassa: But, ah, then they had nice ways to talk about the really important topics: love, money, drinking, dancing.