Tell us about Randy recording Pat Boone to cover it and why he would be doing that.

Well, ah, you can see that, ah, in the early Fifties, there was only a certain amount of records that a black artist could sell. Now the movement had begun in Chicago and in Memphis and Atlanta and New Orleans and New York. But still there were only so many records even though whites were buying records, they weren't buying them in the tremendous amounts that were later to come. So Randy felt it in his mail order. I mean he had calls from people who would give him the devil about this devil's music that he was playing on WLAC at night, he, being the sponsor. And, ah, their children bringing this, this really low down gut bucket blues into the house and they didn't like it and so forth and so on. So, ah, he, ah, he, he got the idea, actually there was a disc jockey here in town that had nothing to do with WLAC a guy who worked for another station altogether, WMAK with the name of Noel Ball, he worked for a couple of stations in town, WSIX And Noel was, was a, ah, just a pop disc jockey here in town but he recorded a little bit on the side and he'd had some luck and he found this kid, ah, Pat Boone who was going to David Lipscomb College out here which was a Church of Christ school which allows no dancing and no nothing, tell me the truth. But, ah, it was a funny thing but Pat was a very religious young man. But Noel took him to, to, he knew he could sing and he took him to Randy and he said, - I think maybe, you know, we could cover some of these tunes. And so that's how Randy came in and, and covered Little Richard initially with Tootie Fruity and then, ah, then Fats Domino with "Love Letters In The Sand". Eventually he covered everything Richard did and everything Fats Domino did. And this opened up a tremendous amount of sales as far as R and B product was concerned. Then Randy went on to get Gale Storm and the Fountaine Sisters, Tab Hunter, people like that. And, ah, other record companies tried but weren't quite so successful as, as Randy was early on in the Fifties with, with covering black product with white artists and, of course, being a mail order operation.

Tell me a little bit about how a lot of the audience thought that you were black.

Well when, ah, when I, ah, got here, I, I was really brought in to, to do an audience participation show in the Hermitage Hotel but all I wanted to do was to play black music and, and to work for Gene. I, I, Randy Wood who of course had Randy Record Shop in Gallatin and I had been working in the little radio station in Gallatin, WHIN, ah, Randy had taken a liking to me and we, we were, were close and he was a big help in my getting a job down here. My job was to, to do the one, as I said, this audience participation show staff work and to sit in for Gene Nobles when Gene left because, ah, Gene was prone to leave. He, he loved the horses and he would go to a track if there was one operating, I don't care where it was. And, ah, this happened maybe once every six weeks and he'd be gone depending on his luck from one to two to three weeks but nobody was going to fire him because he'd started this whole big thing. So, ah, I, ah, got on the air and, ah, I had a natural southern accent, I guess you might say, but having grown up playing with black kids most of my life, for some reason, things just came back to me - sayings, you know. I, I, I, I'd, I'd play a record and I'd say, - man, that is tight like it. And it would just come out, you know, something would come out and, and people would call and they'd say, - are you black or white? Or, are you black or white? Or, man are you black? And I'd say, does it make any difference? And I never said one way or the other. And, ah, you know just things that, ah, that I had heard as a kid, various things. Some with, some with double entendre, I mean you, you could say on the air and but generally I just talked sort of like I talk now. And I had a deep voice and it was easy to believe that maybe I was black. Now John R, ah, who was from Charleston, South Carolina and, ah, could go back and call on his roots, ah, sort of worked at it. I never really worked at it. But John had been in New York for years as a Shakespearean actor and, ah, and he'd been a newsman. And so when he was pressed into service to do this black, had this big, big voice, he, ah, he would use things and he'd always say, - don't you, you know, say something. You understand? And, you know what I'm talking about? And all that sort of stuff. Which was sort of, sort of pushed, I don't know. But he was very popular and, ah, people thought he was black. And they thought I was black but then they, they never thought about, Gene never sounded black at all.

Was this a big phenomenon around the country, white disc jockeys sounding black?

Well there were a lot of guys playing black music but I don't know of any guys that were particularly sounding black. Now, there was Dewey Phillips in Memphis who was very popular, white playing black music. There was Zenna Sears, Daddy O Sears in Atlanta who was black and, I mean who was white playing black music but he didn't work at sounding black. He just was playing black music. Then, ah, you had, ah, Doctor Daddy O down in New Orleans, ah, Clarence, oh, I can't think of his, Clarence last name but, but he had a guy named Vernon Wins., Vernon Winslow sitting there who was black, telling him

Tell me about how in New Orleans, how there was so much demand.

Well there was, ah, so much demand for black music and, ah, black stations, ah, hadn't, hadn't come on the air as yet so you, you had a guy, ah, who called himself Poppa Stoppa, his real name was Clarence Heyman who was white but, ah, they had a, also at the same time he was saying they had a black guy by the name of Vernon Winslow who was giving him expressions, telling him what would sound black and what to say on the air and he would just sit there more or less whispering in his ear, Clarence would play the tunes and talk jive and Vernon was sitting over there giving him the poop all along. There were a lot of guys, I mean you had Moon Dog in New York, you had, ah, ah, George Lorenz up in, in Buffalo and, who, ah, went by, I guess he called himself Moon Dog to tell you the truth for a while. And he, he could be heard all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. And then Alan Freed of course came in from Cleveland to, ah, New York. I don't think he ever tried to sound black. He, he took the name Moon Dog originally when he hit town but then he dropped it and, and just became Alan Freed. And, of course, he was the big force in New York and up and down the Eastern Seaboard for a long time. But now when he was in Cleveland, Alan Freed used to call Gene Nobles at night and ask him what to play. He didn't know what, what was going down. And he didn't either particularly, Gene had no, it was a funny thing, it was all a job to Gene Nobles, he could have care less but because he had this tremendous power behind him and he was the first, the, the guys, the young guys in the business, the Leonard Chess's and the How Weiss's and the Jerry Wexlers at Atlantic, ah, and the Sam Phillips in Memphis, came to Gene with the records. He was just a genuinely nice guy and he didn't mind playing, they'd bring the records in, he was especially close to Leonard Chess and, ah, Chess busted his, everything, I mean he made Chess, WLAC made Chess. And if you ask Hymie Weiss at Old Town, it made him too. But of course I had, had good contacts in, in, ah, in New York, I mean.

Tell me about when you first heard Elvis and how you didn't play it and why.

Well there was this big talk going around town about this new kid, Elvis Presley and "Heartbreak Hotel". One night I was working for John R and, ah, that was from 1 until 3. He had this program called - Program 10 - where he played nothing but new music, just dubs primarily. And then we had a country show from 3 to 6 in the morning, Bob Jennings was the jock on that. So I was finishing up working for John and in the studio walks Bob with this young, nice looking young guy. And so he says to me, Hoss, he says, you know Elvis Presley, he just, I said, oh, I certainly have heard of you. And he had a record with him. So it was "Heartbreak Hotel". And, ah, he while, while, while Bob was pulling his show to go on the air I still had records playing.

Without using extra names, tell me that Elvis story.

Well one night I was working late for John R and he had a program, ah, a second program at night that ran from 1 till 3 called - Program 10 - where he played nothing but dubs and, and, ah, new music, brand new music. And, ah, so as I was finishing up, this young guy came in to see our country jock. And, ah, the, the jock introduced me to him. He said, Hoss, you know Elvis Presley. And I had heard of him. I mean and I'd heard of "Heartbreak Hotel" and that's what he was in to promote that particular record. And I listened to it and I told him I said, you, you're in the wrong place at a country show man, you ought to be going to R and B stations. But we didn't, we didn't play the record. We didn't play any white artists, not for any particular reason except that we'd gotten into, ah, the black groove and we just stayed there. Now, until Randy started Dot records and came up with Pat Boone. So on Randy's show, he told you what to play every night. So we played Pat Boone and we played Gale Storm and we played the Fountaine Sisters. But other than that, we didn't play any white artists.

Okay.

Well, ah, payola and pay for play on a record became a part of the rhythm and blues or the rock and roll movement. Now we always considered ourselves rhythm and blues or a blues station we never, never considered ourselves rock and roll for because we didn't, we didn't play white artists for one thing. And I always thought, I associated rock and roll with, with white artists but, ah, there was amount of money passed around when it got started because, ah, ah, we had, you got to figure that the guys that got into the record business were not the fellows that started Dec or Columbia and Victor. I mean the Leonard Chess's that had Chess Records and the Armit Arigans and, and the Jerry Wexlers who had Atlantic and Hy Weiss who had Old Town. I, I can go on and on the guys, Vivian and Jimmy Bracket that had BJ Records. They, they didn't have any way, any power. I mean they would just show up at a station and they had maybe Leonard Chess would walk in with a Muddy Waters record in Gene Amans record which was a tenor, Gene Amans playing tenor sax "My Foolish Heart" which was Gene's, was, was on Aristocrat which was Chess's original label, was his first hit. Well he walked into Gene Nobles and gave him that record. Gene probably played it. He liked Leonard, he was a nice enough guy but maybe didn't play it as much as he liked so he came back to see him and he said, look, you know, hey, and he'd have a hundred bucks in his hand. Sort of lay on that record for me, you know. Gene was probably getting 65 bucks a week, a hundred dollars was, ah, was a nice little gesture. And so he, this, this became a part of the game. I mean guys would bring records in, in the old 78s or even the 45s and didn't say anything. You know you'd shake the shucks. Nothing in there man, you know, you, you really don't care much about this piece. But then you got on the payroll. I mean when I first took over for Gene Nobles I went to see the companies that he was in, in business with: Atlantic and Chess and BJ. And they sent me a check for 100 dollars every month with a W-11. I mean they took withholding out, paid the government with withholding and I was known as, ah, ah, - oh God, stop. What's the word?

Consultant.

Consultant.

Pick it up, I was sent a check every month, start from there.

I would send a check every month and, and we were, were known as consultants. Bear in mind this was not against the law at the time. I mean they'd never been anything like this anyhow. So, ah, you, you could pick up a, a, you know, it was much heavier in New York or Chicago or Detroit or LA than it was with us even though we had this tremendous coverage. And, ah, the, as I say, it was not against the law and, and we took it and we weren't paid very much so it, just part of the game. And when it did, in 1959, when the government lowered the boom then we had to cease and desist. I mean Dick Clark was one of the biggest guys in the business. Dick had two record labels, two, he was part owner of two or three publishing companies, part owner of pressing and he was one of the first to go before congress and say, okay, I'll, I'll quit all of this because up until then there had been no rule against it.

How do you think rock and roll began? Who started rock and roll?

Well, ah, the guys in, ah, Memphis, ah, were the Bill Dogitch Trio, I, I think, ah, came up with this first sound. They were, actually white guys trying to play rhythm and blues and they couldn't quite cut it and they came up with a completely different sound which became rock and roll. They just didn't have the feel for blues. They didn't have the feel for bending a, a guitar note and, ah, and, and you, you, you have guys like Conway Twitty, you have the Elvis Presleys, the Carl Perkins, all these guys were influenced by country music but they, then they started hearing black music on WLAC. They started trying to play the same chords that, that, ah, the guitars, I mean the Sonny Boy Williamsons or the Lightening Hopkins or the Lightening Slims, the guys, Mississippi guitar or East Texas guitar, they couldn't quite do it, they just didn't have it somewhere inside. The Lord didn't put it there so they came up with rock and roll, and, ah.

Fats is an unlikely rock and roller if you want to call him that. What was it about Fats Domino?

Well Fats just had a sound all of his own. He had a, he had a great beat and, ah, he, he had great baritone sound that, that laid this bottom down for him. And then, then he was a very imaginative vocalist. I mean but he, he sang with, ah, ah, with so much feeling, I mean, ah, the, the, the tunes he did were all New Orleans and there's nothing like a New Orleans' sound. This is, is different from, from the Little Richards and some of the screaming Jay Hawkins type things, ah. I played those records but they were never as close to my heart as, as, as playing a, a Flamingos or a Moon Glows or, I guess I was influenced when I was a kid by the Ink Spots. And then I heard a record when I was in college by the Ravens "Write Me A Letter" Write me a letter, I have never forgotten that thing, never, ever. And it, that was one of the things and any time I hear the Moon Glows do "Blue Velvet" you can tell Bobby Vinton to go home. And, ah, it, it, it's ___.

You mentioned, there's nothing like the New Orleans' sound. What was it about the New Orleans' sound that was unique and different?

Well, ah, the New Orleans' sound was just a sound all of its own, ah. Of course it all came out of New Orleans to begin with, ah, both, both gospel and, ah, and Dixieland music and, ah, the, ah, African chants and everything else of the slaves. But, ah, I don't, I, I guess I'm not good enough of a musician to explain it to you there's just something, there's something about the beat, there is, is something about the, the bottom. They, they use a lot of baritone and it's woo wop, woo wop, you know, and, and, ah, it, it just moves. I mean you, you can, I mean I used to be able to, you put a record on and you say, ah, that's got to be cut in New Orleans, Cosmo's or somewhere like that, you know. And they turned out such, such great, great, I mean of course, what Tussant, Alan Tussant and, and, and Fats Domino and then the Neville Brothers and all of these people, they're all, they were all playing back there in the Fifties and Sixties when they were kids, you know.

What about Chuck Berry when Chess came out with "Maybelline" was that a new kind of sound?

Yeah, "Maybelline" was now, that was rock and roll, that was pop all the way. But, ah, it was, it was, of course R and B and it, it, it was a, ah, it was a happy tune, you know. Maybelline, and, ah, actually, it's a funny thing is, is, I, you understand the song, he was, just walked, he walked into Chess's, studios in those days, office which is down in South Cottage in Chicago and played them a little tune and it sounded like "Ida Red". Ida Red, Ida Red, you know, it sounded sort of country. And, ah, he'd come up from St. Louis. And, ah, so Leonard told him to go work on it or something and he went out and came back in a couple of days, Maybelline, Maybelline, why don't you be true? And, ah, but changed it around and, and of course, they cut it and, ah, and the little old bitty studio that they cut it in, it's amazing those first Chess records that came out.