FROM OUR ARCHIVES : (24) HOW I MET THE FAMOUS YOUNG ELVIS PRESLEY & WINK MARTINDALE

(24) HOW I MET THE FAMOUS YOUNG ELVIS PRESLEY and WINK MARTINDALE
 from September 11, 2007

United Artists had me touring around the country, playing live on television, radio, and at record hops on a promotional tour for my launch with "Lonesome Love," and "Tiny Spaceman." On my first tour of the Mid South in 1957, I went to Memphis, Tennessee to perform on a couple shows.

One of them was Wink Martindale's version of a dance party show.

At this point I was beginning to become used to the adoration of my fans. I was a teen idol. My name was mentioned in the columns and pictures of me and magazine articles about me were out there. The girls chased me around and even tried to tear my clothes off. Wink had the kids in the audience ready to give me a hearty welcome, but as I sang, I realized I had never caused so much commotion before... HA!

Elvis Presley and his early entourage had burst into the station to see me!

That's what all the commotion was about! Even Elvis wanted to see what "The Next James Dean" really looked like. I was so excited that Mr. Elvis Presley was out there in the audience. Elvis Presley had achieved stardom and had become a millionaire. I was a fan of his and he was an inspiration! But I never dreamed Elvis would be coming round to see me!

After my performance, Elvis asked me to come back to Graceland TM with him to meet his parents, Gladys and Vernon Presley. He had just purchased his own stretch limo and, after I piled in with the guys, Elvis drove us home in it himself. His family was much like mine because of our southern upbringing, and his father Vernon and especially his mother Gladys were welcoming. Gladys had the table spread with food and asked about my family. She said they had relatives in the Smokey Mountains.

That night I met Elvis's best friend from Humes High School in Memphis, George Klein, and funny-man ex-DJ, and recording artist Cliff Gleaves too.

That evening was the beginning of a friendship with Elvis Presley that lasted the 20 years until his death.

ELVIS PRESLEY 500 MILES

Listening to this song reminded me of being at Elvis' parties when the guests started singing along with Elvis. Elvis loved to sing. He's known for the massive audiences he performed in front of at the end of his life, but he loved singing to one or a few people too.

Members of The Entourage were also musical and so many of us - me, Johnny Rivers, P.J. Proby, and so many other people also brought our guitars and our own songs as well as songs we covered with us as part of the entertainment. And on the piano - Cliff Gleaves!

One of the most wonderful memories I have of Elvis and his parties in Los Angeles is the outbreaks of performance that happened spontaneously.

We want to thank the Youtuber "Jackiej61too" who posted this! What a find! Jackie told us that IT WOULD BE AN HONOR TO HAVE HER VIDEO POSTED ON OUR BLOG and says "ELVIS FOREVER!"

(332) PLACES TO GO THINGS TO DO : ELVIS & HIS GUYS

I was a frequent guest at Elvis' when he lived in Los Angeles which was during his movie making years. I had some of the best times of my life in those years! I was also a staff song writer at American Music and involved in the demo making process for American Music and Pat Boone's company, Cooga-Mooga. Seems my whole life had become about music by then!

When Elvis' guys came down into town from Bel Air, we'd meet up to watch a show, have a meal, sit around a talk or play music after work. The guys were called "His Guys" or "The Entourage" then. These guys were a lot of fun to be with, and some of them had active interest in songwriting or acting, though most of them lived their lives around their working for Elvis. They were living the life of a millionaire, but once in a while they would take a break and get away.

We had favorite clubs and restaurants where we met up with my songwriter colleagues. We liked the Palomino Club in the Valley, which became one of our hang outs. Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood was where we hung out. Cliff Gleaves prefered it and Trini Lopez would come in. We liked the Carolina Pines restaurant. We liked the Whisky A Go Go on Sunset.

Elvis was now too famous to just stop into a diner or a club, though there were a few he still went to. Sometimes he would just drive Sunset in his Rolls Royce.

(318) CLIFF GLEAVES : SOUNDS OF AN ELVIS PRESLEY HOUSE PARTY - CLIFF GLEAVES

CLIFF GLEAVES, an old friend (by then) of Elvis' wasn't just a guest at the parties, he was the hired piano player. That's right. Elvis paid Cliff to ENTERTAIN! He was like a mad man on the piano. So as you listen to this Cliff Gleaves recording, think PIANO. Cliff had a whole repetoire beyond what he had recorded on Liberty Records.


None of the guys who worked for Elvis at the time could keep up with Cliff, his energy: he was one of a kind.

(294) SUNSET STRIP RECORD COMPANIES : LIBERTY RECORDS

This is the record company that Cliff Gleaves walked into and made his own deal with Snuffy Garret ! Cliff was a friend of mine and Elvis' and yes he's is in our book. One of the main reasons Cliff headed over to Liberty was that this was the label that made Eddie Cochran famous. Eddie had "Summertime Blues" and "Come on Everybody," on Liberty. As you may know Eddie died young in a cab accident while in England and so, like too many of my peers, his career was cut short by an accident.

We're linking here to Mike Callahan and Dave Edwards (and a couple other new writers) who do a great job of profiling the history of Liberty on their non-profit site!

Now in '62 Buddy Knox, who I went on a road tour with, had an album out on Liberty and he recorded a song we wrote called "ALL BY MYSELF." Here's the RCS Discography link to hear a few bars of that song!

http://rcs-discography.com/rcs/ss/29/ss29390.mp3

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.

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...

CLIFF GLEAVES - THE LONG BLACK HEARSE

RCS DISCOGRAPHY - WE LOVE THIS SITE!

We are so lucky to have a great resource like RCS discography on the Internet.

This volunteer project is a real labor of love and ROCKIN COUNTRY STYLE DISCOGRAPHY was probably the first Internet site to list me, WES BRYAN, which got us interested and then hooked.

We're talking here about early Rock and Roll - Rockabilly- Rockin Country Style and one of the most fascinating things about that era was that it was the time of small regional labels.

So using the LABEL search feature we can go right to them and see who they were recording, hear sound samples, get profiles and pictures in some cases.Now folks, RCS can't take donations as things are set up, but you can always express your appreciation in other ways.

Using the GEOGRAPHICAL search is a fascinating way to see what SMALL LABELS existed and who recorded on them. Elvis Presley and so many others walked into Sun Records in Memphis to produce a recording - vanity or low budget. Other Rockabilly and Country artists to be were doing so all over America in smaller towns and markets. Go to the state and the town/label and give a listen to a local hopeful giving it their all! You can also use the RCS LABEL search to see who was recording at Sun besides Elvis and get a feel for the body of work from a particular studio.

CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE TO GET TOTHE RCS MAIN PAGE ! AND MAYBE DO A SEARCH FOR AN ARTIST, like CLIFF GLEAVES!

(We'll be looking at the 1962 Rockabilly Chart soon!)

(176) WEST TEXAS WALK OF FAME

This is probably a good place to mention that in September of 1994 Buddy Knox was inducted into the WEST TEXAS WALK OF FAME in Lubbock, joining Buddy Holly and other West Texas Talent like the great song writer Mac Davis, whose songs Elvis Presley loved and recorded.

Also from Lubbock and inducted in the WEST TEXAS WALK OF FAME, amazingly enough, Snuffy Garret, the record producer who while with LIBERTY RECORDS, worked with my friend, and Elvis', Cliff Gleaves. Cliff wrote his own contract with Snuffy.

I don't know what it is about West Texas that makes it the fertile ground for so much musical talent, singing, song-writing, entertainment but maybe it has a lot to do with the area being a lot like the Smokey Mountains where I was raised up and people having to make their own fun!

Click on the title above to go right to the West Texas Walk of Fame website!

(112) PERSONALITY DJ'S : CLIFF GLEAVES TO WOLFMAN JACK

Today most people have heard of Wolfman Jack. He seems to have been the personality D.J. who made his show last a long long time. He became a spokesman.

But in the late 1950's the Personality D.J. - usually a man - but sometimes a woman - was a Disk Jockey who not only had to be fast and witty and knowledgeable but they ran their own show. THEY SELECTED THE RECORDS THEY WOULD PLAY, and in what order, and how many times, so they could "break" a record that they sort of discovered, and they could "make" a record by giving it a lot of air time, while other records sat. D.J. Dewey Phillips (who we blogged on earlier and provided a LINK to) broke Elvis' first record, a demo.

Personality D.J. were respected by their own audiences and fans in the way that some movie critics are today. If you seem to agree with a critic when he or she hates a film, you'll respect their ideas and go see the films they love. Well, when a Personality D.J., loved a record, his or her fans ran out to the record stores to buy a copy of it. When Cliff Gleaves got the invitation from Elvis personally to travel with him, he abruptly left his job as a well respected D.J. on a high powered station. He took his witt with him...

By the early 1960's the era of the Personality D.J. was fading out, being replaced by what was called THE TOP FORTY format. In this case record sales were to propel the record to airplay and what would be played over and over again were the TOP FORTY sellers. The Power of the Personality D.J. waned and marketing changed the way a record was sold.

We'll be talking about this significant change in radio play and the Personality DJ's in our next few blocks.

(108) CLIFF GLEAVES, ELVIS, and THE EARLY ENTOURAGE

JAMES V. ROY's PHOTOS... linked above!

Photographer James V. Roy captured some of Elvis' early entourage including Cliff Gleaves, in these black and white photos taken around the filming of Elvis' film "Jail House Rock." The names you see listed here under photographs are important to the Elvis story. Some of them you've read about in Wes Bryan - My Life In Music, and others we haven't mentioned yet.

UPDATE: AUGUST 2008 We note that this particular photo gallery is not offered on James V. Roy's web site. However photos from an Elvis 2002 celebration are... still worth seeing!

UPDATE: MARCH 2011 And they are still linked!

(107) CLIFF GLEAVES - THE PIANO MAN AT ELVIS' PARTIES

Funny man Cliff Gleaves, who had been with Elvis since he quit his personality DJing and traveled to Germany to be with Elvis, was the piano man at Elvis' Los Angeles parties. He played a mad piano and had a quick sense of humor. To be the entertainer at the parties of one of the most famous entertainers in the world was a honor, and Cliff took to it, and received about a hundred dollars an evening from Elvis.

Cliff never played pool with us. He was usually off somewhere with a starlet.

If there's a hereafter and there's a Cliff Gleaves, here he is and you know what he's after! He was one of a kind - in an arena all by himself. Everyone - even Colonel Parker - stole his lines. Everyone tried to copy his quick witted comedy.

Cliff, like a lot of people who surrounded Elvis, moved to Los Angeles to be near him, but never lived with Elvis. He was not a member of the entourage but was a long term friend.

Cliff spoke his mind and never changed his opinions to please Elvis, which Elvis respected. He often asked Cliff for advice - and got it! Cliff answered to no man but himself.

RCS Discography CLIFF GLEAVES link above!

New update 2011: Cliff Gleaves on Youtube !

(88) RED WEST / MUSICAL TALENT and THE ENTOURAGE

Recently I overheard a slew of slander against Elvis' men - The Entourage. Since The Entourage was an ever changing group of men, this character didn't know who - or what he was talking about.

Characterized with that prejudice against Southerns as rude, crude, overgrown frat boys, and a bunch of "dummies," the man went on and on.

There was a time when I decked a guy at a news stand for making fun of Elvis - the Elvis who was once called "The Hillbilly Hepcat." Prejudice!

I can tell you that Elvis respected intelligence and that a few men in the entourage where college educated. He wasn't an education snob though. He was successful without higher education and he never judged a person by it.

Elvis also loved to be surrounded by musical people. Besides Cliff Gleaves, the funny man, entourage member Red West, best known as one of Elvis' bodyguards, also had recorded and had musical talent and songwriting ability.

Red West and I wrote a couple songs together, one called "I Feel Like Crying," and another called "Don't You Cry." We pitched them and sold them to Pat Boone, who still owns the publishing on it, at his publishing house Cooga Mooga.

NEW LINK 2011 Above : Rockabilly RED WEST on Rockin' Country Style.

(72) CLIFF GLEAVES - FUNNY MAN ON CALL!

When Elvis was in the army he asked Cliff Gleaves, most recently a joke crackin' DJ with a successful radio program to travel with him. This was on Elvis' dime. Cliff was ready to leave DJing behind and short noticed his bosses. "I'm going with with the great Elvis Presley!" he said.

So Cliff went to Germany and while Elvis was busy with the army, Cliff, who was hyper, went off touring Europe. There was only so much sitting around the villa he could do. He was there with Elvis when Elvis had his one and only leave in Paris.

When Elvis went to LA to make movies, Cliff went with him. Cliff had married while in Europe and he and is wife lived separate of Elvis. But he was there on the sets with him, and as Elvis liked to do, he often got movie "extra" work or bit parts for his friends and entourage. Cliff was in "King Creole" with Elvis as an extra.

In Los Angeles Cliff proved to be the comedic genious whose energy and spirit pulled Elvis Presley out of a depression. "Where's Cliff?" Elvis would ask when he wanted to come out of it.

Elvis wanted Cliff on the piano entertaining at his house parties. It was an honor that Cliff wasn't about to give up. So there he was banging on the keys - with talent to spare.

As an insider for some years Cliff Gleaves was there in Elvis' life, as a friend, confidant, advisor (Cliff was a no bullshit person, someone who Elvis actually asked for advice from, and when Cliff gave advice Elvis listened!), and as the Jester of the King's Court, there wasn't a man who could compete with Cliff.

Cliff made people laugh, he made them roll, he made them laugh till no sound came out of their mouths. He made Elvis roll!

If you can judge a man's greatness by how much he is missed as Will Rogers said, then Cliff Gleaves was one of the greatest.

Above link to Rockin Country Style Discography - Cliff Gleaves page!

King Creole on the IMBd database

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051818/

And a YouTube presentation of Elvis singing the title song of the movie, "King Creole."

(71) JOHNNY RIVERS WOULD NOT QUIT

The one person I invited out to LA and to stay with me who just wouldn't was Ersel Hickey. Ersel remained true to New York. Johnny Rivers once said to me years later "Ersel was the first punk rocker."

Johnny Rivers came out to LA from New York to live and moved in with me. He was looking for a record contract and he worked his tail. Johnny stayed with me, and he stayed with a few other friends of his in the business, including Lindsey Crosby's, Bing's son.

He had a little sports car and we went all around in it. Johnny and me drove up to Elvis' that first house party I attended there. Elvis was making the movie "Flaming Star," at the time.

Elvis had a juke box on one end of the room and a record player on the other. The juke box usually was stocked with the latest Top 40. Parties at Elvis' were alive with personality and music.

Johnny Rivers was one of many talented people who made Elvis' parties special. Elvis entertained us. Cliff Gleaves was usually there on piano at Elvis' request. Johnny would strap on his guitar and go through a series of hit songs - other people's hit songs.

He was on his way to becoming Mr. Whisky A - Go-Go but not quite yet.
Jam sessions often erupted at these parties. And when it came to music at Elvis' the talents of Red West, who was one of Elvis' entourage, were part of those jams.

(50) WELCOME HOME ELVIS! THE PARTY AT GRACELAND

Well, we can't leave you hanging on the cliff too long can we?

The day finally came that we got word that the U.S. Army had all the service it would get from Elvis Presley.

It was time for him to come home.

Today, hundreds of people who were not there claim to have met the train that day that it arrived in Memphis. Some of these people are even celebrities in their own right, eager to claim a close personal friendship with Elvis that never was.

Yes, there was a bit of a crowd - fans! Just as there had been a crowd saying goodbye to Elvis in Germany. He was a star after all. That was to be expected. And it made for good news footage and photographs. It was exciting!

March 24th 1958 Elivis was inducted into the army and March 5, 1960 was the official date of return to the United States. Elvis hated to fly at that time in his life, which is why once he got to the states he elected to take a train to Memphis.

Here came the train down the tracks, the whistle blowing to a stop. There is something to the power of a train, the wheels on the tracks. The train stopped and Elvis came off wearing his full army uniform and looked terrific. You could sense a new maturity about him. You could see the genuine happiness in his face to be home.

I was among a group of Elvis' friends and employees and family members who were there to meet him when the train pulled into the station, those there by invitation. That meant that I was part of a relatively small group of people who got Elvis in a car, and then packed into other cars, and followed him in a caravan to Graceland TM where a "Welcome Home Elvis!" party was waiting.

Graceland TM had not been home long to Elvis and the Presley's when he left the country and it was missing the one thing that makes a home a Home Sweet Home.

If a wash of sadness or a moment of thoughtfulness dressed his face during those first days when Elvis was back in Memphis, it was because there was one person he could never come to again, his mother, Gladys.

Here's a video of Elvis from a You Tube presenter that has some footage of Elvis leaving the army and arriving home at Graceland. (Where do people get the footage?) This one has Elvis singing "It's Now Or Never." Towards the end there, is Colonel Tom Parker, who I first met at this party, and who was in and out of the house. He and Elvis never did take to socializing with each other much.

Now, the party lasted for days. There was Southern food. Food, food, and more food. Cake and more cake. We talked and we ate. We danced to the jukebox and ate some more. Elvis demonstrated karate moves he'd learned while in Germany. I didn't see anyone get drunk. Everyone was too busy catching up with Elvis and each other. It was a true "house party," with people making themselves at home. And it was during a moment in the kitchen at this party that Elvis and I talked the two of us, and I told him that I had left United Artists.

The early entourage wasn't called "The Memphis Mafia" TM then. They were called "his guys" or "his crew," and at first it was men who were friends who were then asked to work, be on payroll, people Elvis wanted around to make his life easier, to take care of things that needed to be done around the house, people he liked personally. Elvis liked talented people, musical people, particularly those who were tied to the music business, around him. People like ex-DJ and hep cat comedian Cliff Gleaves, who would one day be the entertainer at Elvis' parties in Hollywood.

(46) DEWEY PHILLIPS : THE DJ WHO PLAYED BLACK AND WHITE MUSIC on RED HOT and BLUE !

So, George Klein sent me the money for the ticket and I flew to Memphis before Elvis was due to return. There I was greeted by George Klein and introduced to another person who had been very important to Elvis' early success, yet another DJ (That's 3 in Elvis' personal collection of friends at the time - Cliff Gleaves, George Klein, and Dewey Phillips.) Dewey was the first DJ to ever play an Elvis Presley record, and when I say played it, I mean over and over again without another record in between. It was a copy of the song Elvis had recorded over at Sun Records with Sam Phillips (no relation to Dewey) "That's All Right, Mama."

Dewey Phillips, like Cliff Gleaves, was one of the Personality DJ's of the era, and shortly, when radio stations stripped Dj's of much of their power to discover talent and play whatever they wanted to, Dewey would find himself trying to hold on to his style and ultimately find himself out of work. But Elvis appreciated him and he was an informal member of the group of friends Elvis surrounded himself in those early years, and into his early years in Hollywood. (Since this is going to come up sooner or later, the term "Memphis Mafia" which is now a TM, never referred to Dewey, or me, or people who were friends of Elvis' rather than employees!)

After sleeping on the sofa at George Klein's for a while, Dewey Phillips invited me to stay at his house with his wife and children. During this time before Elvis returned from the Army I went to the radio station to hear George Klein on the air and went around quite a bit with Dewey. I liked him a lot, and I felt privileged to have been accepted by so many of the "insiders," who surrounded Elvis.

I also began to realize that it wasn't just Elvis friends' idea that I be there to meet the train. Those parting words the night I met him in the fall of 1957 "See you on the coast!" really had meant something.

Here is Jim Dickenson speaking on Dewey at a terrific Internet site, the Experience Music Project... Jim says Dewey's impact on Memphis Tennessee was incredible and I have to agree. Red, Hot and Blue was a program on which both Black and White artists' music was played - an integrated program at a time when Segregation was still the law in the South. (Jim was the last artist to release a single on Sun Records, the label Elvis first recorded on, then owned by Sam Phillips - no relation to Dewey. His song was "Cadillac Man."

Be sure to hear the audio of Dewey Broadcasting at the Cruisin the 50's link here and remember, this is the personality, the voice, that launched the great Elvis Presley!

http://www.empsfm.org/programs/index.asp?articleID=895

And to get to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame presentation on Dewey Phillips click on the title above!

(45) ELVIS IN THE ARMY : THE LOSS OF HIS MOTHER GLADYS

Before Elvis Presley was actually sent to Germany, while he was in basic training at Fort Hood, his mother, Gladys Love Presley died. Her condition seems to have come on suddenly, but maybe she was hiding it from her son. Elvis, who was afraid to fly at this point in his life, actually got leave and flew home to see his mother. She died soon after and his grief was profound.

Elvis has been called a Southern Mamma's Boy, and maybe it's true, but no Southern boy (me included) was ever ashamed of loving his mother! As an only child, the bond between Elvis and his mother was special.

The night I met Elvis, when I met Gladys and his father, Vernon Elvis Presley, and various members of his early entourage, his girlfriend Anita Wood, and George Klein and Cliff Gleaves, Gladys had asked me about my family. She said they also had kin in the Smokey Mountains. Showing interest in someones family and heritage was the Southern way. That night I told Gladys, Vernon, Elvis - everyone sitting at that dinner table - that my own mother had died when I was 16. The Presleys were sympathetic. So Elvis knew that I'd already lost my mother when he lost his. The understanding we had about that kind of loss is one of the things that bonded our friendship.

Maybe it was good that Elvis had so much to do in Germany, to divert his attention from his loss. Because he was already famous before he left the United States, he was given special consideration and allowed to live off base in a house where his father and grandmother joined him. Also along were a few of his employees who came from the states to be with him. Funny man Cliff Gleaves was one of the men who made a trip over at Elvis' request and on his dime to provide him company. While German fans lined up for autographs outside the house, Elvis was not too lonely when it came to women either. He had a few lovers there in Germany, some in relationships, some without. Some of his employees served to screen women or bring home ones they thought would meet with his approval. There was an understanding that Elvis had a type he liked, and any man who managed to introduce Elvis to a woman he would marry would have a feather in his cap.

The thing was, before he left several of us were under the impression that when he returned he would be marrying Anita, and well, things had changed for Elvis while he was in Germany, though they kept up a correspondence and she would be with us waiting for him in Memphis, just as she was there to see him off.

As a famous star who didn't shirk his duty, Elvis became the best advertisement for joining the army there was.

(26) CLIFF GLEAVES, ANITA WOOD, and SUN RECORDS

That night that Elvis and his guys burst into the Wink Martindale's dance party show, Elvis drove us to Graceland in his new stretch limo. Riding next to Elvis as he drove was his girlfriend Anita Wood. Gladys Presley, Elvis' mother, thought Anita was the perfect girlfriend for him. She ran her own radio show, (Anita Wood was one of the early women in radio broadcasting), and she had recorded songs herself. Perhaps more than all that, Anita Wood was all for Elvis' success. She was familiar with the music business and touring, and she knew the lifestyle he lead. Anita Wood, as a recording artist, was known as one of the "Memphis Belles."

Cliff Gleaves, a once hotter than hot hep cat disc jockey, who had given it up to travel with Elvis - by Elvis' invitation, kept clicking his fingers. He kept saying "We have James Dean in the car with us!" The guys put me through the James Dean poses and I was glad to oblige.

Cliff Gleaves and Anita Wood had something in common with Elvis in that they had both recorded on Sun, the small label that Sam Phillips had in Memphis, where local talent paid for vanity recordings and small budget records were recorded. Most of these recordings were not hits in terms of the way we think of hits now, but small labels did provide local and regional music, and the special flavor of music emerging in Memphis, with local musicians and local talent, is preserved in Sun recordings. Anita recorded a song called "I'll Wait Forever," at Sun and as things turned out, she didn't exactly wait for Elvis, but she did date him for years.

ROCKIN COUNTRY STYLE DISCOGRAPHY - CLIFF CLEAVES link -click title!


Anita Wood's songs are included on Sun Recordscompilation disks.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wdd/sun.htm

New Link! SUN RECORDS DISCOGRAPHY includes Anita

NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO of her hit "I'll Wait Forever"

UPDATE April 2012 A New Music Video!