THE GREAT MUSICAL RIDE OF THE SIXTIES WAS OVER, BUT...
by Stan Hitchcock
| Tell the World That We Tried, But we called it a day, We took love for a ride....At Least Part Of The Way...Stan Hitchcock 1970, GRT Records (Bill Rice-Jerry Foster) |
My recording career with Columbia’s Epic Records came to a close in 1969 when the President of the Company, Len Levy, left to take over the reins at GRT Records. He asked me to go with him, and since my contract was drawing to a close with Epic anyway I felt it would be a good move. I loved Len Levy.....he had been my mentor at Epic and as fine and honorable a man as I ever met...and a man that really knew the business of the recording world. GRT hired Tommy Allsup to head up the Nashville office and he became my producer.
Tommy Allsup has a great history in our business....from working with Bob Wills, Buddy Holly, Asleep at the Wheel and playing bass and guitar on gazillion records in Nashville, Texas, California and anywhere else they have a recording machine. He is a good friend and a man that knows how to handle artists, because he is one.
I loved to hear Tommy’s stories about Bob Wills who was quite a character while he was on his way to being a legend...with that big white hat and ever present cigar..a smile that could capture a whole crowd and a capacity for whiskey that is still bragged about in Texas and Oklahoma. Anyone that could come up with Faded Love and San Antonio Rose gets my vote any day...man, what music
Tommy got to produce a tribute album to Bob Wills, while Bob was still alive and able to appreciate it, and they brought Bob to the session in his wheel chair, rolled him in front of a mike and he was able once more to give his trademark Ah-Haaaa while the original members of his old band played the old songs once more, misty eyed and choked up, but playing it the way it was supposed to be played.....Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys style. Bob had another stroke and passed away just a few days later to close out that chapter of musical history.
Tommy loved twin fiddles and a lot of my records from that period, under his production, featured two of the greatest fiddlers to ever pick up a bow, Buddy Spicher and Johnny Gimble. What great musicians, and what fine guys to work with. They just had a style of playing together that was unmistakable.....when you heard it you knew it was Spicher and Gimble. Johnny finally got tired of the rat race and moved back to Texas just outside of Austin, but he still plays as good as ever and is in demand as much as he wants to work.
Anyone who lived the life of a musician in the sixties will always say, "Yeah, buddy, those were the days Al right...the days when the music business was like a family, when something new was always coming down the pike and the excitement level was just unbelievable....Uh-huh son, those were the days." Well, if that sounds like something any old man would say when looking back to his youth, maybe that explains it......but, y’know I believe there really was something special going on in those early years. I sometimes dig through my record collection (yeah, records, you remember those little round black pieces of vinyl that had music on them.....before CD’s?) anyway, I listen to the music of the sixties and realize we really were making it up as we went along....playing it from the heart....inventing new licks, new ways to phrase a word, to bend your voice a different way for emotional effect. They were good years, with good people leading the charge, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. Yeah, I sure miss those days.
The great musical ride of the sixties was over, but what memories it left those who had lived it, loved it and survived it. The next generation had a heck of an act to follow.
Your friend, Stan!
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