I ALWAYS LOVED THE COWBOYS

(434) MARTY ROBBINS : COUNTRY SINGER TURNED WESTERN ACTOR

Those of us who grew up with cowboy heros loved watching television Westerns that were so popular in the 1960's and when they were hiring actors, they liked the ones who could play a guitar and sing.

So while Johnny Crawford worked on shows like the Rifleman, Marty Robbins, famous for his recording of El Paso, which sold something like 10 million copies, one of my favorites (not to be confused with Trini Lopez who was also a friend and who we've blogged about before) got a job on a show called The Drifter.




Linking to Marty Robbins Official Site!

(433) SINGING ACTING SENSATION JOHNNY CRAWFORD : SANDY 1965 : HOLLYWOOD A GO GO

Besides the successful Shindig show, there was also the Hollywood A Go Go show. (The Go Go dance, I believe started at the Whisky - A Go Go which had girls in cages dancing.)

Johnny Crawford had a successful acting career, especially in Westerns. Then he was recorded at Delfi records by Bob Keane and in the mid sixties he has some hit singles and albums, a compilation is out on Delfi. He's most remembered for the acting role on a cowboy TV show that was popular called The Rifleman with actor Chuck Conners, one of the shows I watched. I've always loved the cowboys.

Linking to his full resume at a Rifleman - Conners site which has a bit about Delfi.

(432) JOHNNY RIVERS : 1965 : YEARS OF HARD WORK BROUGHT LUCK TO HIS SIDE

Johnny's one of those people who started working hard in the music business at sixteen in New York and just would not quit. He still hasn't. We're linking to his site!

He worked so hard luck was right by his side, and by the mid 1960's he was going stong, making public performances and became known at the famous Whisky A Go Go, appearing on television, and recording cover tunes, many which we still think of as Johnny River's songs.

In 1966 he started Soul City Records, his own record company. Maybe that's because Johnny moved from one label to the next over the years (not so unusual in those days and often a means to career survival) and recorded on United Artists, Imperial, Capitol, Crown, Sunset, and Liberty, and maybe then some.

Here's a recorded Live at the Whisky Youtube presentation that captures the fun that we enjoyed going there to hear him perform.

JOHNNY RIVERS : BABY I NEED YOUR LOVING

SHEL SILVERSTEIN Quotation on Friendship

“How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give 'em.” - Shel Silverstein

37th ANNUAL JAMES DEAN FESTIVAL : SEPTEMBER 27th – 30th, 2012

This festival is always a lot of James Dean themed fun and testifies to the lasting popularity of the actor, who back in the 1950's I was being promoted by United Artists to replace. We're linking to one of the pages of the Fairmount Historical Museum which has more information about the festival. Gas prices are high but this might be the time to get in your car and take a drive across this great United States for a vacation.

THE NEXT JAMES DEAN FAN PHOTO - THAT'S ME!

I was based in New York in the late 1950's though I spent more time on the road when my career went from acting to performing music. I took private acting lessons at Actor's Studio and made the rounds. This was a fan photo used by United Artists, where I was signed, to show my James Dean-like appearance. My looks were not identical to Jimmy's but even his family thought I could play him in a bio-pic about his life.

(431) AFTER 1965 I WROTE MUSIC FOR TELEVISION AND FILM

After 1965 and the closure of American Music, the music publishing house where my five year song writing contact ended early with the death of the owner, Sylvester Cross, I decided to go independent, and like so many other American songwriters in that time when British Bands with their own singer-songwriters in the band were dominating the charts, I decided to try also writing music for television shows and films.

Honoring my contract that I'd left New York to move to Los Angeles for, I'd let offers to perform again and other opportunities go by the wayside. You can't live your life over, but sometimes you can't help wondering what might have been if you took a different road.

While many of my songwriter peers also took their chances at opening their own publishing houses and recording studios, many of my singer-actor peers were trying to move their singing into acting, like Elvis had been doing, but on television.

I watched a lot of television just like Elvis did and I was eager to place songs on some of them.

Very few have the lasting career of an Elvis Presley and even Elvis, despite all the movies he made that kept him in the public eye, was feeling the effects of the changes in music, what was selling, a different sound.

My friend always kept up on the latest music. He had records that were popular in the states sent to him when he was in the army in Germany, and he had the guys go down to the record stores in Hollywood and bring back records for his home juke boxes. In just a few years he'd need a "come back." But I don't want to go too far in my story yet.

(430) SONGWRITERS LEIBER AND STOLLER : OFFICIAL SITE

As they relate in their interesting book called HOUND DOG, songwriters Jerry Leiber (who passed away August 2011) and Mike Stoller had their beginnings in the rock and roll song writing business in New York, and over the years their songwriting included dozens of memorable hits that made it into the top 100, songs performed by Elvis Presley, The Coasters, The Drifters, Hank Snow, and so many others.

They were, like most American song-writers in the mid 1960's finding themselves in competition with British Invasion songwriters who also had bands. Over time they grew less interested in rock and roll and moved into writing other music.

Linking to their official site, which mentions that Mike's Music will be used at the Democratic National Convention.

(429) HOUND DOG : THE LEIBER and STOLLER AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Christine here!


I've been wanting to read this book for a long time and finished it over the Labor Day weekend. It was edited wonderfully so that the conversational - story-telling quality was preserved and so the story moved at a good pace.


Of interest to the readers of WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC is the material on Elvis Presley, the effects of the British Invasion on songwriters in the mid 1960's, and the Brill Building New York scene and their LA-New York bicoastal music business. Of course the title HOUND DOG is also the name of their song that was recorded by Big Mama Thornton but which Elvis Presley broke out with, and which put this song writing due into early fame.

An excerpt from the book from pages 93 and 94!


Leiber: ..."As for the amazing fact that Elvis had recorded "Hound Dog," well, I had different feelings. The first feeling is the one that washes over any songwriter when he learns he has a hit: He hears the cash register ring and the Sale! sign come up. That's a good feeling. But when I heard Elvis' version, I had a bad feeling. I didn't like the way he did it. Somebody changed the lyrics. I had written:


You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Quit snooping 'round my door
You can wag your tail,
But I ain't gonna feed you no more

But Elvis sang:

You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Crying all the time
You ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine


To this day I have no idea what the rabbit business is all about. The song is not about a dog; it's about a man, a freeloading gigolo. Elvis's version makes no sense to me, and even more irritatingly, it is not the song that Mike and I wrote. Of course, the fact that it sold more than seven million copies took the sting our of what seemed to be a capricious chance of lyrics. But, lick for lick, there's no comparison between the Presley version and the Big Mama original. Elvis played with the song; Bib Mama nailed it."


HOUND DOG : THE LEIBER and STOLLER AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with David Ritz Copyright 2009
Simon and Shuster Publishers

LABOR DAY

SONNY AND CHER ON SHINDIG : 1965

Shindig was in it's second hot season, and by 1965 the careers of Sonny and Cher had taken off. The duo had one of the most successful careers in the business that year, considering they were Americans. Sonny had worked for Phil Spector as a record promoter.