Rock and Roll; Renegades

The music is what it like. Yes worst is when you play like this and you could dance to the story. OK. Yeah yeah yeah yeah about rising first before you play so we'll be listening. All right. Rolling. Yeah right. OK. It was playing cuts music back and the note early in 40s and 50s but of people activism they had songs that are lacking over time but you just couldn't you can back to good so well logic UBL spaces like this are stuff music was God. Like that so then yeah I don't know but you all but I know how I feel lucky that's the kind of music myself. So then I started listening to this guy right here and you can just tell them to do this just and just done it. So the other guitar would take a ride.

And so it had a feel to it it had a feel and you could a stood you can move you body used in a dance with the girls you moved and you could movement and you had love feeling to that. So I guess that's why I like so good and most people that I've run around with like a rug. And but we can play it at home. Yeah. Thank you. We always come out of a depression in the 40s and there with nobody had the money really

was till after the war other people had money would go and I'll go to war and World War Two which started 90 voted one Arab I was Bush the oppression was was bad and the only people that really had is they know better than what they lived on farms that had grown food and cows and hogs and stuff and the people lived in Memphis I mean really brilliant towns and cities was just really bad off they didn't have any jobs and the brain was working and trying to make ends meet it was just just a real tough situation and some of the kids if you get my first get off paid $2 for my first get down a little recorder Saget I would straighten up and they go about that I thought up Empire State my mother gave me $2 go up above it pay shoes I had a whole machine and I went up and. To to get to all we had a little bit but I had to get over it you go to work good then I get to play it. And and but it would just have was just covered up in all the projects that we lived in subsidized housing projects that we lived in a lot of dough comin in a marked

areas and there was a Bill Black and Jimmy Lee Denson that had was own big represented she knew shoes he would they lived over there and allowed to cool it and it was subsidized it was all subsidized housing never by was most back in those days that I do is limit of subsidized housing is one some some some top type of subsidized housing. Now the people who had money cause I lived out in a town around the known different places but what was it lived in in Sadr City the downtown areas of the city. They didn't know but I had him on it I knew I needed to know about it and money you know the parents work all week in the bowl man drank would he go out and spend most of money on fries and ice and you do without the wrestling you know what what you have left over you mama worked. Mom had to work to do we should write home a grocer's nomad rank up there. So it's just tough it was just tough to have back in those days you know and I guess to kids it's all we had to do for you to get out and have street bikes a good you get to

play it so I don't get trouble so I get to get dosed up you can get on and all my friends most my friends Dick I guess we all came out same old same like oh yeah but I knew John Byrne It was Bill black sky. They all came out of same type environment so I guess that's why would the blues benefit us just as much the did the blacks because we would go as yours have you so much they were you know it just I guess it's just a feeling at that time it's a feeling you had you didn't have the blues everybody had the blues right along but that then I don't know my dad tell me when they would just the way moved to Memphis he said they want revenue and one day he said he was he said he shot a rabbit or six of the paper cited save. So you know you know the days of good bad when it was six people that would read it so I was ducked that. Great story.

Reaction the audience I mean. Well actually the first time I heard him play I was on record going for going to work one morning. Lester overuses name. KELLEY Yeah right OK. The first time I heard the first time literally. For the first time I heard Elvis own ire. Well I was going to work one morning and and I was planned That's All Right Mama. Do pullups planted on his program and. And you know you know I worked a crown at same time but you know I didn't even know his name at the time I seen him round up its crown elected come on I worked the ground like come sometimes go to work on Monday said this boy is from Memphis boy to Elvis Presley you know I seen him up there and but I heard that song and I said Gosh what a Cylon you know I was going to work I was driving I had a radio on us and wow and knocked me out you know and he called it out Alice Prescott immobile Black

Acid I said Jesus like Christian I said he's not electrician yet cause he works and shot me just a material boy and I sit here and yet I know I said I know the way they talk about I said well works done in a shop you know. So he worked out a put up material SWIP load and put up material and brought material on jobs electricians like conduit and stuff like this he would bring on one job to people but the music just not me out you know in the neck top. But that's not going to knock me out. That song going to knock me out. That's Alright Mama just like you can hear each instrument each one was compliment each other on that song you can hear the bass slap BP has got a ball you could plan the rhythm you saying it and it just caught me out and I did a sample of Elvis Presley audience the other for a few weeks after the song came out and I saw him one day out of a job but I really liked his record you know as a man it's

not a great you know any kind of drop disease diets. Thank you. Thanks love man you know. You know he's kind of shy. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU AND THANK YOU KNOW YOU GET IT. Chikezie Did you know he's always cheeky showed a little bit you know he's called turned up a little bit you know but have well it was back back there like that you know he thought that you know you turn the car about half way up down like that you know you walk like this. So we had our clothes off you know. So so in a way. Next time I seen him I went to one of the shows the first I guess my first really put on in Memphis was added to shale over the pond shale of Memphis. Lot of country stars on their wits and not there. In fact I think Hank Snow on bunch of people Van Riper was on the same show and so it was was only show Bob Neil booked my book and I thought the Memphis books people and the DA member when we was backstage was

him talking to him. Facts are facts backstage back to talk to you when you mention oh you're OK. All right you say the first time you saw him alive. OK. Right. I knew from. Reading the first time I actually saw him and Blau in LA performance was at the sheltie shale with over the park and it was just a lot a lot of the people on the same show it was him out there and. But it was before the show we was we were backstage back to talk as good as to Scotty because I know Bill if this was just a little kids. Bill Black was all set like that talking you know and. And so you know it was really scared he was really scared because nobody likes to play that hold out hope to have too much vote. You know a lot about it I know you know little boys that jealous of you know what the debate is that you know

so he was really nervous but you know this guy was bored or was a bit of that Elvis was what I would i was staged. He would plan to get out it was that up and his leg was just shaking like we was going to lose a kid of you know ribbit of everything you know. But we were backstage looking at I thought that the hand of God and the curtain and so I actually did that's all right mama. Yeah it. Was Dan backstage and when I was it's got to be when I was stationed so we would stand back to watch him. And he went out and sing a couple songs that he sang. That's all right mama. So he's dot in a d d d d d dd dd shaking his leg and all the girls said to me that whole ahead you know as they and hollered go it out so he went off the stage you know and so they

just kept all plowed have I just kept the ball real hard we're going wow you see that Johnny bird it was out it was Mendoza burn it was there was then it was love it was almost and I watch the minnows in my hand look at their you know and I called him back about three times he went back and he go right back up to me go back out to go write it that that dd dd you do that right that it go from their own you know phase a song out you know and now they just scream and holler You know he came up stable and he just all tickled tickled you know yes real happy and everything and he got in a big game when his face Bill was real satisfied. So gradually to me known was talking to them actually moves things so he was all that he was he was then he would just kind of seemed like he just blew me into it. So if you got ideas come right out of the shell right there that night it just came out on that show right out of it. Shelly I just want to say a person after that so and him from their own he has got to be a jot because I don't know I don't think people miss really how big it was to have to die. People are coming out of the world and cards and

letters and everything. How do you think he was doing and maybe it just made him so. Well I think the teenager people is looking for something subs and guy like him cause Jamie Dana to get killed and and I think he was doing some kind of a. It's not really a rebellious thing it's just something different than their parents did and their older brothers and sisters did nothing teaches generation came along at that then just they just want a leader or somebody that that was daring to do be different. That's what I think. Great guy. It was all right then after I was there. That's Alright Mama than his style was guarded kind of kitchen Oh was all the bands around Memphis and stuff because we kind of got in on it too but we did a lot of stuff.

Kind of up tempo about a couple type stuff most of the real slow country type stuff just are going to the up tempo type stuff in the country music and we started going to stuff lacked is. That art. Then we started going back and still we would watch the dance floor and we would do put more stuff into through the thing into the into the song and they would dance more and I would put more feeling into it so we started going into a thing like this will when we call it it's what we call rock and it will work. So if they had abate as the country fiber but still have a toilet so people who come out to jitterbug into the bup at that time as well from you to bugger to forward it to

50 and Bob with your bug big band jitterbug into the BOP so they could do the same thing with the BOP. They used inside the girls to the legs and do all that stuff like that but they could still get back and go through the same mood was well with the movements of the feet and still get the same flavor by doing that type that type of stuff like that. You can slow it down or you can feed a speeded up is gone and if you want you watch the audience not on the floor and you see which one when a dad fil a backflow up you know that they lacked it. If you could just tell the tempo but watch that audience the people dancing out there you could just watch if you started slow and half on that and there is then the next time you play it speeded up a little bit as if the whole dreadful was full of people you know they liked it better so we just kind of set the tempo but it was people guys so uh that's was so the past Party that. They want to dance class just go back and you go back to slow it down just go back to slow par.

Thank you.

If.

We. Do. Are you morally influence even though I was raised around country music and

listen to a lot of country music was primarily Dixieland because the country bands at that time if you'll remember didn't have a drum. The Grand Ole Opry people yes they buy and drums on the Grand Ole Opry But so I listen a lot of Dixieland in big band things to influence me. And then as the string dust much came along with Elvis in the beat that he was putting down we came in with that with you know with the drums and a heavier backbeat and this type of thing. And I think one of the things that maybe separated me from the from the shuffle rhythms that they were playing on country music when they did start to put the drummer to it was that they would play a lick that would go something like this. To do the shuffle which never was my thing and I would play one that. Which wound up I guess get me a lot of session jobs and also

create an adding to what was already happening here in Memphis. So from there you know I guess we came to the studio and that's when I met Roland and I was still in high school. We were we were coming down and doing a few things and I think Roland was playing with Billy Riley. And I'd been down auditioned with with a group that I was playing with and that's really how we got to know each other. So. From their own. Yeah yeah. But I would have to say that my early influence really came from Dixieland and the big bands even though I was raised with and listening to country music they just didn't have the cushions of drums you know the Grand Ole Opry would not let a drummer own their show. So a lot of the country

bands didn't have a drummer and they can let a drummer show off a little bit you know in the big bands did to and that's one of the things that influenced me. And then as we started coming to the studio and trying to get into some recordings we experimented with some different beats the shuffle beat that was on a lot of country music which will probably show you something like this you know.