HELLO TO BULGARIA and POLAND !

Just looking at our statistical information to see where our readership is coming from over the last day or so as we slide into 2012, and are reminded that we've been making new friends all around the world who are united in our interest in early rock and roll, the cover tune era, the singer-songwriter scene, and the American Invasion of Britain!


We were happy to post this blog back in 2007 when we were thrilled if we had 50 or 100 readers a month and now we have so many more readers.
Our readership numbers go up and down but just so you know, about 1750 people hit on posts in the last 30 days, not so bad for the holiday season which is usually a down time.


Over that period, the countries that checked in with us the most were the United States, followed by Russia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, Poland, Australia, Germany, and Bulgaria, with Bulgaria and Poland showing the greatest increase in interest. The greatest interest has been over this time, not surprisingly, in James Dean and Elvis Presley, followed by any link we make on Wes Bryan, but we can tell that fans of Johnny Rivers and other musical artists of are checking in too.

If you have any helpful suggestions for us (and we are still open to videos and information on rockabilly artists circa 2012) please leave a comment or email us! We want to keep this blog interesting, on topic, and open minded.
We'll be on one of our "technology update" vacations for the next week or two, working behind the scenes to meet our blogging goals and keep up the archives and will be back to you for our celebration of Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and Buddy Holly!

Christine and Wes

THE GUY MITCHELL APPRECIATION SOCIETY : LES PECKHAM and FRIENDS : GREAT BRITAIN

We're updating the link to this club, in Great Britain, which celebrates the music of American Guy Mitchell, who was one of my early favorites growing up. Early in our blogging, we contacted the club because there's a bit about Guy Mitchell in the book we've been writing! They run an official site for the Guy Mitchell estate as well. As usual, feel free to search this blog for our post on Guy!

TERRY GORDON (AND VOLUNTEERS) AT ROCKIN COUNTRY STYLE DISCOGRAPHY : ONE OF OUR LONG TIME FAVORITE SITES

Terry Gordon and a great group of volunteers started Rockin Country Style a few years ago, and they have posted the equivalent of a music encyclopedia. THE FOCUS HERE IS ROCKABILLY!

You can search by artist or by label, and sound sample all you like. We believe this is still an ongoing project that you may be able to contribute to.

Linking to RCS once again!

TED STAUTON'S LABEL COLLECTION IS EVER MORE OUTSTANDING! HIS 1950-1960 RECORD LABEL PAGE

Another friend we made over the Internet who has a passion for music is TED STAUTON, who has a record label collection that's like a museum of record labels. The collection is ever growing as he's open to you sending him pictures of labels to possibly enter into his collection. We posted on Ted and his collection before, and we're linking to his 1950-1960 page.

Ted asked if anything I recorded was on a 78 RPM label. I believe Lonesome Love and Tiny Spaceman were put on a 78 by United Artists and that possibly these songs were also on a 78 RPM on American London Recordings, which were pressed in England, though the master came from the United States.

GEORGE ELIOT : Friendship Quote

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel
trust and reverence." - George Eliot

BEAR OUTDID HIMSELF WITH THIS ELVIS TRIBUTE AT HIS BLOG BEARLY RAMBLING!

We made some new friends since we started this blog, and Bear is one of them.

You have to see - and hear - his Elvis tribute! It's terrific!

He's posted videos of the following Elvis Presley songs: A MESS OF BLUES, I WILL BE HOME AGAIN, MAKE ME KNOW IT, THRILL OF YOUR LOVE. Songs we haven't heard in a while but love.

Thanks for sharing this with us all Bear!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELVIS PRESLEY!

As millions of fans know, today is the birthday of the great Elvis Presley. And when I say he was great, I don't just mean that he was a great entertainer. I mean that Elvis was a great human being. So much has been said and written about Elvis, who was a friend of mine from when I met him in 1957 while on my first tour for United Artists, and performing live on the Wink Martindale show in Memphis, Tennessee. I'll never forget the one time years into our friendship when I was feeling stalled out in my career, and this is what Elvis said to me;

"You're successful as a human being and that's all that counts in my book."

We love you, Elvis!

Wes

ELVIS CELL PHONE SCREENSAVER : FOR ALL YOU ELVIS FANS

"ELVIS" SCREEN SAVER FOR YOUR CELL PHONE. Sent to us from a fan from a free image site on the Internet! A fun way to celebrate the birthday of a wonderful person and great talent, and someone who helped change popular music forever! ELVIS PRESLEY!

ELVIS PRESLEY : LOVE ME TENDER

ROY ORBISON QUOTE ON ELVIS

"He was the firstest with the mostest." - Roy Orbison

ELVIS PRESLEY ANITA WOOD and FRIENDS : 1958

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY...

DICK CLARKS 40th ANNIVERSARY NEW YEARS EVE in NEW YORK : HIGHEST RATING IN 11 YEARS

DICK CLARK ; they call him America's Oldest Teenager. I can testify that he is one of the hardest working men in the business but a couple years ago Dick had a stroke. He's been working hard at recovering from that stroke too, rebuilding his strength and his speech. Some people say they are sad to see Dick. I say let's give him a standing ovation.

You can link to our blog posts about Dick Clark and American Bandstand, a show I performed on twice, to read more about what we have to say about him and his show. Just use the Search This Blog feature!

We're linking to an article from the Hollywood Reporter that gives the amazing stats. With the help of Jenny McCarthy and Fergie, and Ryan Seacrest, Dick's show gave ABC the stats a network can only dream for. There were over 22 million viewers.

IT'S THE HOLIDAYS and WE WILL SEE YOU IN 2012!

It's that time, time to take a break, think back on this past year, and plan for 2012. Couple of the things we'll be talking about is posting days and times, if we want to give up on our embedded player or not and perhaps substitute links to our three playlists on Youtube. We have enjoyed working on this blog and hope to continue to do so. If you have any suggestions for us, please leave a comment!

Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna

ELVIS PRESLEY : IF EVERY DAY WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS

This YouTube poster did a great job of giving the history of this song, written by Red West, and performed by Elvis, and the Youtube video is original and of excellent sound quality!

To quote him, "Elvis Presley - If Every Day Was Like Christmas (1966), the last holiday single Elvis ever released, was written by a childhood friend, Red West. The Imperials Quartet and the Jordanaires are providing the backing vocals. Elvis recorded it on June 10, 1966 at RCAs Nashville studios. The single release in November 15, 1966 (If Every Day Was Like Christmas - How Would You Like To Be), it has been credited for selling over 1,000,000 copies. Red West wrote "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" in 1965 and recorded his own version on the Brent label, which was his own label, named after his son. Although the writing credits on the label show Red West's own name, the artist is shown as Bobby West. 2,000 copies were pressed and sold locally in the Memphis area around Christmas 1965."

DECEMBER 21 1970 ELVIS DELIVERED THIS LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

National Archives link above. Elvis documents are their most popular. Here's a copy of the letter Elvis handwrote to the President and delivered to the White House.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES : ELVIS INTO THE HOLIDAYS : POST 208

(206) ELVIS INTO THE HOLIDAYS

My friend Elvis Presley lived in Los Angeles during the years he was making movies. His houses in the early 1960's were party houses he rented in Bel Air. I was a frequent guest there, welcome to stay entire weekends if it suited me and often it did. I had some of the best times of my life there.

Of course Elvis loved his family a great deal and when he was feeling sentimental for the South, he would head for Graceland TM for the holidays. Perhaps for that reason there is no better time of the year to see the house than decorated for the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The Elvis I knew was a dichotomy in his way. He was a famous Rock and Roller and a sensualist, but also a Gospel Singer, a devout believer in Christ, with great loyalty to family and his family of friends. To be part of his musical Rock and Roll family at the house was a honor.

BLUE CHRISTMAS : 1964 : BRIAN WILSON OF THE BEACH BOYS SINGING

Thanks to one of our YouTube friends we decided to post this music video, singer-songwriter, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys covering a Christmas classic. (Brian recorded Ersel Hickey's Blue Birds Over the Mountains.)

Just heard that the Beach Boys are regrouping to do a 50th Anniversary Tour! So we're linking to a news article that gives the details! Brian Wilson is well enough to tour and we're glad to hear it!

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL : HIS VOICE FROM RECORDINGS IN THE 1880'S THRILL SMITHSONIAN SCIENTISTS

Breaking Yahoo news here! Recordings made in the 1880's by Alexander Graham Bell on green wax, and stored at the Smithsonian (carefully wrapped by Bell himself to be preserved) can now be listened to with new computer technology. The full story by Associated Press writer Brett Zonger should appear if you'll click on the link title above!

FROM OUR ARCHIVES (286) FRANKIE AVALON : YOU'RE ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

FROM OUR ARCHIVES (286) FRANKIE AVALON : YOU'RE ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS


Frankie came out with a Christmas album in 1962, after acting in a film called Panic In The Year Zero, a war picture. This smooth romantic song was one of the songs he recorded for the album along with classics. Frankie and his wife have eight children and are still together after all these years.

FERLIN HUSKY and PATSY CLINE LET IT SNOW

Use the Google Search feature embedded in this blog to find past posts about Ferlin Husky!

FROM OUR ARCHIVES : (344) END OF THE YEAR HOLIDAY MUSIC MEMORIES

(344) END OF THE YEAR HOLIDAY MUSIC MEMORIES

Christine remembers that her family brought live trees that waited outside until Christmas eve to be brought indoors and decorated, which is, she tells me, the custom in Central and Eastern Europe, and I was thinking about living surrounded by evergreen trees in the Smokey Mountains where my family lived when I was growing up and I still have so many well loved relatives and friends who I don't get to talking to near enough.

We don't want to rush into Christmas here, but at the same time, as we blogged a while back, CHRISTMAS was the COVER TUNE ERA way back and ever since and that is on topic!

So we looked back upon some of our older posts, discovered that many of the videos we attached were, as happens, expired, and decided we would go ahead and replace those as well as update our Youtube station and represent some of the finest memory music in the Western World!

We hope you'll enjoy listening and remembering with us!

Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna

PSYCHIC JOHN EDWARD ON CARL PERKINS, PAUL MCCARTNEY and JOHN LENNON : DECEMBER 8 1980 JOHN LENNON'S DEATH

page 151 of CROSSING OVER by John Edward

(CT: It's 1981 and Paul McCartney has sent Carl Perkins a ticket to fly to the Caribbean where he and George Martin have a recording studio. Carl plays guitar on the "Tug of War" album and spends eight days with Paul and Linda McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Beatles' producer George Martin.)

"As the time was drawing near for me to go home, I was sitting out on the patio, Carl told Dominic Ambrosio and his camera, his guitar sitting on his lap and looking like a part of him.

(Carl speaking)... "Sometimes I can sing it but I can't say it, and that night before, I wrote a song. And in the morning, I went down to the studio and said to Paul and Linda, 'I'm not good at saying good-bye, but I wrote this song last night, and I want to play it for you.' It was called 'My Old Friend'..."

Carl sang it now for Dominic with the extra emotional emphasis on the refrain: My old friend, won't you think about me every now and then...

"Well halfway through the song, I see Paul is really crying, tears flowing down his face," Carl said. "And he stepped outside. I said to Linda, 'Linda, I didn't mean to upset him.' She says, 'Carl Perkins, how did you know?' I said, 'Darlin', I don't know what yer talkin' about. How did I know what?"

John Lennon had been killed only months before outside his apart met building, the Dakota in New York. Linda explained that, although it wasn't publicly known, only days before his death, she and Paul had visited John and Yoga at the Dakota. At the end of the visit, as they were saying good-bye, John said to Paul, "Think of me every now and then, my old friend."

"Linda put her arms around me, :" Carl said now on a cold January day in Tennessee sixteen years later, "and she said, "Thank you, Carl, he needed that."

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Quotation on Friendship

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion." - Simone de Beauvoir