AL SHELTON Designer of RICK NELSON'S HAND TOOLED GUITAR COVER

FROM OUR ARCHIVES ORIGINAL POST FROM 2008

Christine here.

The other day I stopped into a storefront art gallery and workshop of an artist named AL SHELTON. Al is famous for having designed and cast the statue of Gene Autry at the museum that cowboy star Gene Autry funded, once called the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum but now called the Autry National Center of the American West.
AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER
He is also a renown designer of hand tooled guitar covers and other items and a painter and his life has been entwined with real and movie cowboys and cowgirls.
Al showed me a photo of Rick Nelson with a hand tooled guitar cover on his guitar that Al designed and worked years ago. He told me it went down on the plane that Rick was on when he died. He also did a lot of work that Nudie, a cowboy star costume designer subcontracted, including clothes for stars like Elvis.

Here's a NPR broadcast about Al...
NPR ON AL

Here is a link that shows Al with Matthew Nelson, one of Rick's sons, and some of the hand tooled work and art he's done.
ARTISANS LINK

This post updated September 2012

(364) DONNIE BROOKS RECORDED UNDER SEVERAL NAMES BEFORE HE HIT IT BIG

I first met DONNIE BROOKS in the late 1950's - early 1960's in New York City. Then, since he also moved out to LA, I saw him on this coast.

He became a very good friend of mine, as well as Dorsey Burnett's and P.J. Probys.

We're linking to the DONNIE BROOKS ROCKABILLY HALL OF FAME LINK ABOVE!

Donnie, like many others who moved between studio work - making demos - and entertainment, recorded under different names and on different record labels before he settled on Donnie Brooks and had that hit. In 1964 he moved on to Frank Sinatra's label, Reprise (where Jimmy Bowen had become a producer), and eventually Gene Autry's Challenge, continuing his career into the 1970's.



And sadly, an article from the United Kingdown, Independent newspaper, his obit...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/donnie-brooks-439032.html

(215) NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME

This link takes you to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame honors list.

http://www.nndb.com/honors/545/000129158/

Among the honorees mentioned in this blog are Ernest Tubb, Marty Robbins, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Mac Davies, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, and Gene Autry.

Use the Google search feature above to read what we have to say about these talented people and the music!

(187) JOHN FOGERTY'S EARLY ROCK N ROLL - THE BLUE VELVETS

John Fogerty? Well friends, I loved what John did with his band Creedence Clearwater Revival, but I want to tell you about John as an early rock and roller. Earlier in this blog I talked about Jimmy Seals of Seals and Crofts being a member of the "Tequila" song band, the Champs, a band that was named after Gene Autry's horse when they were on his lable. John had a band called The Blue Velvets. They had a career that spanned from about 1959 to the early 1960's.Here is "Have You Ever Been Lonely" on a YouTube video presentation. I'll be talking about John Fogerty again later in this blog.  (Video removed 2012)

VIDEO REPLACED SEPTEMBER 2013 with different song.  Tommy is John's Brother who eventually left Creedence.

(78) CHALLENGE RECORDS : COWBOY STAR GENE AUTRY'S LABEL

Jerry Cole, Jerry Fuller, and a number of other talents, had been recorded on Challenge Records which was owned by cowboy star-entrepreneur Gene Autry, before they came to American Music to be songwriters more or less full time.

Through the early 1960's this was still an era in which many small labels managed to succeed, though perhaps only a very few of their artists are known today. If a song was a hit in a regional market for one of the regional market favorites, another company in another region might try the same song with one of their singers. It was the cover tune era. Sometimes this worked for the songwriter, because the song was being recorded repeatedly and got a lot of regional airplay on the radio. Sometimes though it was a matter of chart wars just diluting the overall success of the song.

To those of us who grew up admiring the cowboys, the way me and Elvis and Tommy Smothers loved Lash LaRue, men like Gene Autry, who diversified and built empires, were important role models.

Gene went on to own radio stations as well and today he's behind a hugely successful museum in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. Once called the Gene Autry Western Heritage, it just goes by "The Autry National Center" now. It's the place where you can take in Westerns and silent films and check the movie version of Cowboys and Indians against reality, and attend Native American events.

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

RCS DISCOGRAPHY FOR CHALLENGE RECORDS, Gene's label, linked above!

GENE AUTRY's MUSEUM has grown to be THE AUTRY NATION CENTER and is collaborating with other museums that document Native American life.

http://www.autrynationalcenter.org/

(76) JERRY COLE - A CHAMP OF A CO-WORKER

One of my co-workers at American Music was Jerry Cole, who was once with the Champs, famous for their "Tequila" song." The musicians who made up the Champs were studio musicians - then we said "session men" - who had a first single that made it to the number one spot on the charts and won a Grammy for the best Rhythm and Blues record of 1958. It sold more than six million copies throughout the world. So like me Jerry had an early and unexpected success of a bit of a novelty tune that went to Gold. We wrote about fifteen songs together. He was a great musician too.

Here's a You Tube presentation of the Champs. Bob Morris, Dash Crofts, Jerry Cole, Jimmy Seals. Their music was called "instrumental rock" meaning no lyrics, but this song has a definite "south of the border" - Mexican - flavor.

Yes, Dash Crofts and Jimmy Seals - of the future Seals and Crofts - were in the Champs!

Now here's a Tequila Song which was recorded on Challenge Records, owned by Gene Autry, the cowboy star, about 1959. The name The Champs came from Gene Autry's horse, named Champ.

And then there's this snappier version of The Tequila Song. That's Jerry yelling "Tequila!

What music production in the recording studio can do!