A CELEBRATION of THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

In honor of the Big Bopper - J.P. Richardson, Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens, we're posting videos on our YouTube station (to the left in the sidebar) as well as a great number of posts on February 3, 2010.

You can also use the Google search feature to read past posts on these artists!

We want to thank the YOUTUBE CONTRIBUTORS who make such historical music/video posts possible!

As we see it the MUSIC of the 1950's never really died. Not with artists such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones covering tunes!

WE LOVE RCS DISCOGRAPHY

Had a little communication with Terry Gordon over at RCS Discography and we wanted to give you the NEW LINK here!

Been some changes. The university server will no longer carry RCS, which has been a volunteer project for some time. This means Terry and his associates and contributors will take the site to a more independent situation.

Terry keep us posted!

We'll be posting on the SUNSET STRIP RECORD LABELS

Friends, we've been reading some of the comments come our way and we're going to write about some of the smaller labels that dotted the Sunset Strip in the early 1960's coming up...

Christine Trzyna and Wes Bryan

I FEEL LIKE CRYING : PAT BOONE ON LONDON AMERICAN RECORDINGS

(291) PAT BOONE records I FEEL LIKE CRYING

When I was first in New York there had been a comparison of my voice with Pat Boone's. Then, while in Los Angeles, I was recruited by Pat to work for his company as a demo maker and songwriter. Pat recording this song (and "Wishing Again") which was written by Red West and me. (Today I Feel Like Crying is on Pat's album "The Fifties - Complete.")
So I was working for Pat's publishing company, Cooga Mooga, and Pat was not only recording, but producing, and interested in presenting songs to other singers. Guess who I wanted to record this song? Perry Como!

As you may know from reading my blog, when it came to the crooners Perry Como was one of my favorites. And while working for Pat, I was introduced to Perry through Jack Spena.

(290) HOW DID ELVIS FEEL WHILE HE WAS ALIVE ABOUT IMITATORS ?

The truth is Elvis was very aware of competition. He had to be.

Elvis educated himself about the music business. He sent one of the entourage out to buy all the Top 40 records for his juke box at the house. He watched movies and television performances. He had his preferences of course, and he had a recording contract to fulfill, so of course he wanted his songs to be the best selling and shortly he would, like most musical artists of our generation, have more competition than ever.

But 1963 would prove to be a very good year for Elvis Presley...

Often, as had happened to me, a regional market artist would quickly record a version of the song, and the result was split sales and no one having a hit that could pull in the big money.

Because Elvis thought of his closest friends as brothers, he expected none of us to directly compete with him when it came to recording the SAME SONG. At the same time he seemed complimented when someone tried to sound like him.

PJ Proby FORUM and PETER JAMES

We just picked up a link here from the P.J. Proby Forum about the Peter James Controversy.

We don't think there should be any controversy any more. The controversy was stirred by speculation because Peter James was not locatable. P.J. Proby knows he isn't Peter James. P.J. is alive and well, still touring, playing the music that made his life. We owe it to P.J. to believe him when he says he is not Peter James. He knows who he is. He knows what he recorded.

The story lies in the independent labels and small labels on big labels that made for the music business in that era and the fact that people who made demos for other artists sometimes launched careers of their own. It was not at all uncommon for a person with a song or two to approach a label and make a deal. This is something Cliff Gleaves did with Snuffy Garret over at Liberty.

At the time I don't recall anyone else I was around the studios in LOS ANGELES wearing an eye patch! I don't know why Peter wore one or for how long he wore on. It could have been a short term temporary eye-patch. The main thing is that Peter James was a real person and, it's my feeling, that like Jerry Capeheart and a lot of other people who worked in those studios at that time, most likely he has passed away. We remain open to hearing from the real Peter James or his family.

DENNIS STOCK (Who Took That Photo of James Dean Walking Down the Street in New York)

We're linking to the Los Angeles Times news article, from yesterday, January 14, 2009, which starts on today's front page and goes into the Obituaries about DENNIS STOCK, who took that great photo of James Dean in 1954, walking in Times Square in New York City..."

"Stock didn't know Dean was an actor until he'd finished talking to him." It wasn't apparent in his appearance," he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2005. "He was not a neat dresser per se. He looked tired, but he was pleasant and interesting."Stock went with Dean to a sneak preview of "East of Eden" in Santa Monica, but the actor stayed outside with his motorcycle while Stock watched the movie. Overwhelmed by Dean's performance, Stock proposed doing a "visual biography" on Dean. "I knew this guy would take off," he recalled. The famous Times Square photo of Dean was just part of Stock's photo essay that appeared in Life magazine in 1955..." Dennis McLellan reporting, January 14, 2010

I met and talked to Dennis briefly while out with my friend who had been James Dean's friend, Christine White

LA TIMES : JERRY SHILLINGS FULL STORY ON THE DAY ELVIS MET NIXON

The LA Times today ran a Column One article called "GETTING THE FULL PICTURE" and it's the story of when Elvis met Nixon. You can get to the picture of the two shaking hands and the story by clicking on our title above.

An excerpt: "Then it's time for gifts. Elvis pulls out the commemorative Colt 45 he had taken from his wall and carried into the White House, to the dismay of the Secret Service. ("We've got a little problem here; Elvis has brought a gun.") He presents it to Nixon. The president moves over to a drawer of presents he keeps on the left side of his desk, its contents organized in order of increasing value: golf balls, pens, paperweights in front, and way in the back, 16-karat gold pendants, lapel pins and brooches. Nixon peruses the drawer with Elvis peeking over his shoulder. He pulls out gifts for Schilling and West." ... Faye Fiore

The gun is on display at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. The badge (federal agent at-large for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs), specially prepared by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs with Elvis' name on it, hangs in his home in Graceland, on the Wall of Gold.

WES and I are working on our blog right now but...

though we have postings coming up on DENNIS STOCK, the photographer most known for the iconic 1954 pre-fame photo of James Dean in New York, and the article on when ELVIS PRESLEY met President Richard Nixon, both in the LA TIMES, we are, perhaps like billions of other people in the world, in shock about the earthquake destruction in HAITI.

Since the news hit, the appraisals of the situation there seem to be getting worse and worse.

3rd world nations do not seem to be up to the earthquake safety features of buildings built here in California. Though our economy is almost Great Depression Era here, we are filled with pride that our great United States of America is sending aid. According to the latest LA Time articles, it's estimated that there are 40,000 to 55,000 dead and 3 million effected - about 1/3rd the population of Haiti. A rare phone works. Water needs to be made pure to drink. Dead bodies line the roads, another health endangerment. Natural disasters like these really make you think about your own life, how precious it is, and how it ought to be lived.

Christine Trzyna

LONESOME LOVE ON LONDON

To provide my record for distribution in England, a master was taken to England where it was pressed on LONDON label as a 45 RPM... That's George Stravo Orchestra and Chorus behind me. On radio and television programs I played the guitar and sang, unplugged as they would say now.

LONESOME LOVE - THE SONG I WAS SINGING WHEN I MET ELVIS PRESLEY !

Lonesome Love became my first Gold Record. I was singing it on the Wink Martindale show in Memphis when Elvis and some of his friends - some of whom became mine too - came bursting into the station. Elvis insisted that I come back to the house - Graceland TM with them that very night. It was the start of a friendship that lasted the 20 years till his death. When I think of Elvis as I met him, I think of a man vibrant, fun, full of life, with not a worry in the world.

E-MAIL MAILING LIST STARTED

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CLIFF GLEAVES RCS and YOUTUBE

Thinking about Elvis, I've also been thinking about our friend Cliff Gleaves. Cliff was the funniest man around Elvis, a real madcap with high energy, a personality, once a D.J. with aspirations of a singing career of his own. How great an entertainer was Cliff Gleaves? Great enough to be expected to perform at Elvis' house parties in LA. He sometimes played the piano and sang for hours! When I listen to this song "The Long Black Hearse" I'm reminded of his sense of humor...

HAPPY 75th BIRTHDAY to my friend ELVIS PRESLEY

Today would be Elvis' 75th birthday. Of course I can't imagine Elvis old.

I remember Elvis the man, the man who was a star, but the man who became my friend when I was having my own taste of stardom, and who I met when he had just become famous.

We were in our early twenties. So much of life was ahead of us. We wanted success and worked hard at it. We met the night I performed on Wink Martindale's television show in Memphis in 1957.

Our lives crossed paths again and again. Especially in his Los Angeles years.

Elvis inspired me and probably my whole generation of upstart singers, especially those of us from the South.

I will always be an Elvis fan because he was a true friend to me.

Wes Bryan

KAHIL GIBRAN Quote on Friendship

"That which you love must in him (a friend) may be clearer in his absence"
- Kahil Gibran

ELVIS PAPER DOLL : VEGAS STAR

This paper doll comes from Dover - the publishing people - from a book of Vegas Star paper dolls. Dover has their own web site and you can purchase this book and so many other interesting titles, many art oriented. We get
to use this image for free because ours is a noncommercial
site.

There are so very many Elvis products for purchase out there, many owned by die-hard fans. (I have a few items myself, given to me by Elvis, which I will never sell!)

Once Elvis started performing in Vegas and later at big stadium shows, he had all his
costumes custom made. Off stage he wore fashionable but ordinary clothing.
People seem to think he walked around in his show clothes...

HAPPY NEW YEAR from WES BRYAN and CHRISTINE TRZYNA at WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC

We want to thank all our readers, all the people who have contacted us this year, with interesting questions and ideas, and all those who have given us encouragement on our project.

We know this has been a difficult year for so many of you, hard times for the United States of America. Here is Southern California the unemployment rate is something like 12.7 percent officially, we think more like 25%, a Great Depression.

We know that many of you who have stopped by to visit us at this blog are in libraries looking for employment, just taking a break, remembering better days, and with an ear for early rock and roll.

We'll see you all on Elvis' birthday!

Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna