LONDON AMERICA RECORDS DEMO OF HONEY BABY BY WES BRYAN

Here's a recording I originally did on Clock Records appearing as a demo for radio play, I believe, made in England on London - American Records. At the time, I didn't know how I got airplay in England, but I knew that American Rock and Rollers, including the Everly Brothers, were popular there. Cliff Richard was the "English Elvis."

(30) LONDON RECORDS puts out "Lonesome Love"

From time to time something related to me or my career - a magazine, a record, a signed photograph, something shows up on the e-Bay auctions or at a record collector's on the Internet. Once in a while I'm suprised to see what's out there on the market and I admit I watch the prices...

A few years ago I had no idea I had any web presence at all, and as I mentioned in a previous post, now there are a lot of Wes Bryan's to sort through to find me, the one born in Murphy, North Carolina in the late 1930's. So Christine Trzyna, my writing partner, and me decided to blog and take a bit of responsibility for what you might read about me.

When I was twenty and launched my career with United Artists Records I trusted my management to do right by me. I was living a planes, trains, and automobiles kind of existence, traveling constantly, touring all over the country, particularly in the markets that seemed to enjoy me - a country boy at heart - the best. I always wanted to go to England, like the Everly Brothers had.

Well LONDON RECORDS put out "Lonesome Love" and "Tiny Spaceman," in the British Isles in 1958, testifying, I think to how long a hit took to get across the Big Pond. I think the one sided "demo" version for radio play that came up on e-Bay recently of another of my songs may be a collectors item because even I don't have a copy!

LINKING HERE TO GLOBAL DOG PRODUCTIONS LONDON RECORDS DISCOGRAPHY which shows my record came out in April 1958.

(29) The Next James Dean (ME) and the Hound Dog (ELVIS)

That night that I met Elvis and we went to the Rainbow Rink, he came over to me at one point in the evening and told me that he was up for the role of James Dean himself, but having seen me and met me, he wanted me to have it.

"I'll just have to stick with my "Hound Dog," Elvis said.

"Hound Dog" was probably Elvis' most famous song and the one that most people at the time associated with him. It too was a cover of a song that had been recorded by other artists, women and men. The words and music are by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, a song writing team that some say became so influential that they wrote the sound of an entire generation.

That night Elvis had not a care in the world. He was clearly in love with Anita Wood, he had just bought Graceland TM in recent months, and he had his friends and family around him. Nothing about his demeaner that night indicated to me that he had any idea he would soon get a draft notice and be inducted into the United States Army.

In the wee hours of the morning, I asked Elvis to take me back to the hotel, as I had some traveling and shows to perform on the next day. He drove me back in the limo, and before he took off we waved at each other.

"See you on the coast, Wes!"

"Elvis, See you on the coast!"

LINK EXPIRED: Original text:
This is a fantastic presentation by the British Broadcasting Corp about Elvis and "Hound Dog" that features sound clip interviews including songwriter Mike Stoller, radio pioneer Steve Allan, and Elvis' original guitarist Scotty Moore. Click on "covers" to hear my friend Elvis in his ORIGINAL Rock-a-billy VERSION OF "HOUND DOG!"


Video by Jackie one of our YOUTUBER FRIENDS!

(28) GUY MITCHELL - WISE MAN OR FOOL; THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT

As the youngest son I helped my mom with her chores in and around our house on the mountainside in Murphy, North Carolina and continued to do so when we moved to Cottage Grove, Oregon as I was a young teenager.

Mom and I liked to sing songs along with the radio as we worked. We never did get a television.

When I was about fifteen I bought the first record I ever bought, as a gift for my mother. It was a record by Guy Mitchell, called "Wise Man or Fool?" My mom died when I was about 16 and I carried that record with me throughout my career as a kind of talisman, even when it got broken into a thousand pieces and all I had was the label.

A couple years into my career with United Artists, when I was home to New York City for a respite, I walked into the Turf Restaurant and there was Guy Mitchell in the flesh! He patted the seat next to him, bought me coffee, and we talked about singing and the music business. He was fascinated that I had met Elvis Presley and expressed admiration for him. Guy was a gentleman, and when I told him his was the first record I ever bought and that I carried that label around with me as a talisman, he said, "I have a lot of fans but none quite like you!"

OFFICIAL GUY MITCHELL SITE (Be sure to listen to the music clips!) link here!

Click on the title above!

Folks, there is a group over in England that's called the Guy Mitchell Appreciation Society and they are doing a fine job of appreciating Guy! A nice guy named Jim Smith was our original contact with the Society, and Les Peckham is over there now, taking care of things since Jim passed away.

LINK TO GUY MITCHELL APPRECIATION SOCIETY IN GREAT BRITAIN !http://www.belle49.freeserve.co.uk/guy/guyhome.htm LINK UPDATED JANUARY 2012

GUY MITCHELL ON Ed Sullivan Show - A You-Tube presentation

(Les Peckham confirms this is Ed Sullivan show, Thanks Les!)

EMILY DICKENSON Quote on Friendship

"My friends are my estate." - Emily Dickinson

WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC :Rights Information

Every once in a while we'll be posting a notice like this one that reminds readers that the content of this blog is Copyright Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna, with all rights including international rights reserved.

If interested in speaking to me,Wes Bryan, please contact us at the e-mail address we've provided. We are linking to a good many web sites, favoring the official web sites of various famous and important people as well as reference sites. If we link to your web site and you don't want us to, please let us know, and we'll take down the link. The content of other people's web sites remains theirs. Thanks for your consideration and courtesy! - Wes

WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC

Thank You to Google - BLOGSPOT for providing free blog templates and access.

(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!

ARSA RADIO SURVEY SITE : Preserving the Impact of RADIO on music!

ARSA (The AIRHEADS RADIO SURVEY) is a new Internet Web Site that I found that can help you see how songs were charted and follow songs that were released by various artists about the same time, in different regions.

Here is their page on me, Wes Bryan, and my first hit "Tiny Spaceman." (Thanks!)

Have FUN with this one folks! It's an education!

(25) THE SINGER SONGWRITER SCENE IN NEW YORK IN THE LATE 1950's

It doesn't seem too long ago to me that I was walking down Broadway singing to myself, when the Brill Building and the Turf Restaurant and Hanson's Drugstore were my hangouts between record promotional tours, and I was meeting just about anyone who wanted to become someone in the acting business or the music business wherever I went.

Today the term Singer-Songwriter means a person who composes and writes and sings their own songs. Then it was more common that someone who sang, sang some of their own songs, as well as those of their friends - who happened to sing and write songs too. We were all presenting our original tunes to each other, making demo's, trying to get a hit. We were in the Cover Tune Era. Recording a cover of a song that was going to be a hit for someone else was more common than it is today.

One of the main reasons was that records were made on small labels or for distribution in a certain region that a small record company had captured rather than national or international distribution. So, if a song for one artist was a hit in, say, New York City, an artist that was well received in another region, say the South, would record the same song, with perhaps a more of a Southern feel. The songwriter had everything to gain in terms of their residuals if the song hit in two or more territories. The singer brought their unique voice and popular appeal to the song, in a region, and producers produced the song in different ways. But sometimes there were "Chart Wars," between singers.

Sometimes having a number of artists record the same song backfired on smaller labels financially and the overall sales weren't good. But when a song became an artist's own, like Bobby Darin's "Splish Splash," did, then no one else tried to compete with it. Besides live promotional tours, radio, television, record hop and club appearances, getting your song played on the radio could make all the difference!

(24) HOW I MET THE FAMOUS YOUNG ELVIS PRESLEY & WINK MARTINDALE

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.

Link to WINK MARTINDALE'S OFFICIAL SITE above!

(22) JIMMY BOWEN : HIS LIFE AND MINE INTERTWINE

Jimmy Bowen of Buddy Knox's group, called The Rhythm Orchids, was passing though Akron, Ohio when I first met him at a record hop where I'd taken a demo I made in a kitchen in Winston-Salem to the local DJ Art Roberts. It was against the radio station policy to play a demo, so the key was to get it into the man's hands at the hop.

Art Roberts loved my demo record and so did Jimmy, who'd already had a hit. So I met Jimmy Bowen before I was discovered off the Akron Beacon Journal-Roto cover or had signed my contracts with United Artists.

Jimmy Bowen's life and mine would intertwine for years. We would perform together as solo artists signed to Roulette Records, after I left United Artists, and would work together as staff song writers at American Music in Los Angeles a few years later in the early 1960's. He went on to be a well respected music producer.

I'm getting a bit ahead of my story here, though.

ROCKIN COUNTRY STYLE DISCOGRAPHY - JIMMY BOWEN
Click on the title to get to the new link!

Here's Jimmy Bowen from a You-Tube presentation circa 1957

doing his song "Cross Over."

New Youtube Video January 20, 2011

MARK TWAIN Quote on Friendship

"The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong.
Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right. " -Mark Twain

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL ?

Are you a singer - songwriter? Where are you living?
Are musicians and singers and songwriters in your area helpful to each other ?

One of the most fantastic parts about being part of that whole New York scene in the late 1950's was the way we were united to succeed!

(21) ERSEL HICKEY - A GREAT GUY WITH A CLASSIC ROCK N ROLL POSE!

Ersel Hickey was a great friend of mine in New York. He had one of the most frequently screwed up names and was often called Edsel, like the Ford car. He taught our friend Johnny Rivers a few cords and Johnny helped Ersel get work around town. Ersel was very much a part of what was a united drive to succeed. He never stepped on anyone's toes.

We guys were always writing songs, presenting songs or demo records to other artists that we thought could do a song justice. WE WERE IN THE COVER TUNE ERA! Ersel's song "Crooked Little Man" was one of the first songs he ever sold.

ROCKIN COUNTRY STYLE DISCOGRAPHY - ERSEL HICKEY!

http://rcs-discography.com/rcs/artist.php?key=hick1000 new link!

ROCKABILLY HALL OF FAME - ERSEL HICKEY link click on title above!

Ersel Hickey singing his famous "Blue Birds Over The Mountain"

Video updated January 20 2011

(20) DION, THE BELMONTS, BUDDY KNOX and ME at HANSON's DRUGSTORE - NEW YORK CITY

DION DIMUCCI and THE BELMONTS liked to sit with Buddy Knox and me at Hanson's Drug Store, where we goofed off and drank lots of coffee.

They had a hit with "Run Around Sue." After the group broke up in the early 1960's Dion scored a hit with the wonderful tribute to civil rights leaders, with his "Abraham, Martin, and John."

HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL - Dion DiMucci and the Belmonts link above!

Here's Dion and the Belmonts performing their hit "Run Around Sue"

thanks to one of the many You Tube video aficionados!

And here they are on Dick Clark's American Bandstand

performing "Teenager In Love"

(19) BOBBY DARIN - DEMO RECORD SINGER EXTRAORDINAIRE!

Bobby Darin and I hung out at Hansons Drug store with a number of other friends like Rock-A-Billy Superstar Buddy Knox, and Dion and the Bellmonts. There was a real old man Hanson and he was always trying to run us out of there for going on too long on one coffee. (I think he actually enjoyed the ritual, as we wouldn't budge!)

Bobby spent years making demos for other artist and specialized in sounding as much like them as possible to sell the record to them. He could sound like Elvis Presley if he wanted to but Bobby was after his idol Frank Sinatra's crown.

After years of paying his dues as the demo record singer extraordinaire, Bobby Darin signed with a label and gave making his own records his all. He soon hit with "Splish Splash!" It's a fun song with a sexy saxophone rift.

***********

You Tube presentation - Bobby singing "Splish Splash."

I don't know what show this was on, and I think it's from the early 1960's but this video shows just how talented Bobby was, playing his own piano and harmonica, and what a true Rock and Roller he was, before he decided to be a crooner!

Video replaced 2009 with this great one below!

***************************

BOBBY DARIN'S OFFICIAL WEB SITE link above!

(18) New York, NEW YORK, It's A Wonderful Town! & NEIL SEDAKA

In New York the Brill Building became the epicenter of my existence. I became part of the vital music scene. I used the rehearsal studios and recording studios in the Brill and I carried tunes in my head to the Turf restaurant, which was the scene to make. I met countless stars from the world of music and the theatre there, all having coffee, talking into the wee hours.

One day when I was in the Brill, Neil Sedaka ran downstairs to bring Bobby Darin up to meet me. Bobby was recording demos for other people then. It was the begining of my friendship with Bobby.

Link to NEIL SEDAKA's OFFICIAL WEB SITE above!HISTORY OF THE BRILL BUILDING

THE BRILL BUILDING from THE HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL!

WES BRYAN : TINY SPACEMAN ON UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS

This is a blurry photo, but well, I wanted you to see what the record label itself looked like - red and black - which was repeated on the cover, a collage of photos of me, looking moody, red background. The other side of the sleeve has me looking up a tree in Central Park, a photo taken by my manager, but which has been incorrectly credited in at least one published book I know about as James Dean himself and as taken by his photographer, Dennis Stock.

THOMAS EDISON Quote on Friendship

"I have friends in overhalls whose friendships I would not swap
for the favor of the Kings of the world."

-Thomas Edison

LONESOME LOVE - WES BRYAN LOOKING VERY JAMES DEAN LIKE!

LONESOME LOVE COVER: THAT's ME LOOKING LIKE JAMES DEAN. The photo was taken by my manager in Central Park, New York City. I was about 20 years old. It was 1957.

(17) My First Record Goes GOLD! FIRST COLOR RECORD SLEEVE!

While the publicity drums at United Artists beat for me, I began to tour all over, appearing on radio and television - dance party type shows - and record hops, to promote my new record. "Lonesome Love" was on one side and the novelty tune, "Tiny Spaceman," on the other. Sometimes I performed other Rock-a-Billy or Rock-n-Roll hits that other artists made as well and after appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand I lost my shyness.

My 45 RPM had a full color picture of me on one side, taken in New York near a tree (which has been identified erroneously as being, not me, but James Dean!) and on the other side there's a collage of black and white photos against a red background. (I see it on the e-bay auctions and at on-line record stores today.)

Not only did my first record have the VERY FIRST COLOR RECORD SLEEVE (Elvis Presley's "Don't" had the very next color sleeve!) but it WENT GOLD!

To this day I'm excited about it!

Video added January 19, 2011

FRIENDSHIP - AN IRISH BLESSING

May there always be work for your hands to do,
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine on your windowpane,
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you,
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Irish Blessing

(16) AND THE COMPARISONS CONTINUED ... Some said I sounded like PAT BOONE!

So, I looked like James Dean, but meanwhile my voice was being compared to the successful singer (and clean-living Christian) Pat Boone's!

Link toPAT BOONE's OFFICIAL SITE above!

Pat's a successful author with his book out this year called "Pat Boone's America," and you can vote for him to be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at this link:

www.backpat.org Petition to get Pat into The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame

VIDEO ADDED January 19, 2011

(15) I APPEAR ON DICK CLARK'S AMERICAN BANDSTAND

I moved to New York City officially, but United Artists put me on the road to success in the music business - a record promo tour. One of my first appearances was on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I performed a novelty song called "Tiny Spaceman." Clark's set designer had a little spaceship whirling around my head.

Futuristic notions of traveling in space were popular then and so were novelty songs. But I have to admit, I couldn't imagine James Dean singing it.

Dick Clark American Bandstand at the Museum of Broadcast Communications link above.

LINK BONUS

http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/dick-clark
Dick Clark - Inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame