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Authors: Waylon Jennings, Lenny Kaye
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station, named Mr. Sunshine. An old hypocrite was what he was. He’d be talking
sweet to these old ladies and shut-in women on the phone, trying to put the make on them while he was playing some gospel
music on the air, and we’d be fixin’ to get his ass. He had a disc of “Give the World a Smile Each Day,” and it was Mr. Sunshine’s
theme. We duplicated the sticker and put Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire” on it. “It’s time now for the Sunshine Hour,”
he said, and turned it loose.
“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain …”
He sat there and watched it go around until it played completely through, acting like nothing happened.
I usually was on the radio in the afternoons. They tried me on the morning shift, but that didn’t work out too well. I was
still living in Littlefield, and I’d oversleep. I’d have to listen to the
sshhhh
of dead air for thirty-three miles as I raced down 84, late again. Once I was coming along and there was a tornado watch
out. I was driving a ’56 DeSoto convertible, and I had the flap down. Suddenly it got real calm, and I thought, well, I’m
out of it. I kicked into gear and was up to seventy miles an hour when all of a sudden the tail end of the tornado whipped
that car right off the highway into the grader ditch alongside. The suction just pulled me over and off the road.
No matter how successful I was on the air, being a disc jockey for me was still a stepping-stone. All I ever wanted to be
was a singer. I was pretty funny on the air, but I kept writing songs. We had an eight-by-five-foot studio in the station,
with a tape machine that could run fifteen ips. That’s where I learned to overdub and sing harmony with myself. It was a really
good experience for me to get used to recording.
The Cotton Club helped hone my live skills, not to mention my ability to take care of myself. It was a rough joint and earned
its reputation as the Bloody Bucket. On a typical Saturday night it was like an orchestrated fistfight, and they used to have
to put chicken wire up to protect the band. I don’t suppose it was very civilized. Somebody in the crowd would want to hear
“Temptation,” and if you didn’t play it that song or the next, you’d be liable to see a beer bottle sailing through the air.
It was a good place to get your chops right, though. You learned to dodge and sing, and never miss a note.
Artists would usually play the Coliseum, and later that night they’d play a dance at the Cotton Club. It could get really
drunk and mean. One night Hi Pockets Duncan was promoting a show there, and he saw a guy start beating up his wife. Hi Pockets,
being the gentleman that he was, pulled the guy off and hit him, and then the guy and the woman both turned on him. It was
that kind of place. Buddy Holly played there a lot before he signed with Decca, and then after, when he started recording
the demos that would make him a legend.
Buddy’s success gave us all hope. He had traveled the world with his music, appeared at the New York Paramount with Alan Freed
and a “Caravan” of teen idols, and was one of the first rock and rollers to write his own songs. Though he may have been inspired
by Elvis, he knew that there was an Elvis already. Buddy sounded like himself. His experiences in Nashville, where they tried
to change his unique style, had helped to mature him, make him more sure of what he was doing as an artist, and when he took
the Crickets, J.I. and Joe B. Mauldin, over to Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, New Mexico, he knew pretty much what he wanted
from his music. He was ready for international stardom.
Buddy wrote “That’ll Be the Day” after seeing John Wayne use the phrase all the time in
The Searchers,
and he and Jerry had “Peggy Sue” as “Cindy Lou” for a year or two before he recorded it. Guitarist Niki Sullivan, who was
the fourth Cricket, never really fit in the group, though
sweet to these old ladies and shut-in women on the phone, trying to put the make on them while he was playing some gospel
music on the air, and we’d be fixin’ to get his ass. He had a disc of “Give the World a Smile Each Day,” and it was Mr. Sunshine’s
theme. We duplicated the sticker and put Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire” on it. “It’s time now for the Sunshine Hour,”
he said, and turned it loose.
“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain …”
He sat there and watched it go around until it played completely through, acting like nothing happened.
I usually was on the radio in the afternoons. They tried me on the morning shift, but that didn’t work out too well. I was
still living in Littlefield, and I’d oversleep. I’d have to listen to the
sshhhh
of dead air for thirty-three miles as I raced down 84, late again. Once I was coming along and there was a tornado watch
out. I was driving a ’56 DeSoto convertible, and I had the flap down. Suddenly it got real calm, and I thought, well, I’m
out of it. I kicked into gear and was up to seventy miles an hour when all of a sudden the tail end of the tornado whipped
that car right off the highway into the grader ditch alongside. The suction just pulled me over and off the road.
No matter how successful I was on the air, being a disc jockey for me was still a stepping-stone. All I ever wanted to be
was a singer. I was pretty funny on the air, but I kept writing songs. We had an eight-by-five-foot studio in the station,
with a tape machine that could run fifteen ips. That’s where I learned to overdub and sing harmony with myself. It was a really
good experience for me to get used to recording.
The Cotton Club helped hone my live skills, not to mention my ability to take care of myself. It was a rough joint and earned
its reputation as the Bloody Bucket. On a typical Saturday night it was like an orchestrated fistfight, and they used to have
to put chicken wire up to protect the band. I don’t suppose it was very civilized. Somebody in the crowd would want to hear
“Temptation,” and if you didn’t play it that song or the next, you’d be liable to see a beer bottle sailing through the air.
It was a good place to get your chops right, though. You learned to dodge and sing, and never miss a note.
Artists would usually play the Coliseum, and later that night they’d play a dance at the Cotton Club. It could get really
drunk and mean. One night Hi Pockets Duncan was promoting a show there, and he saw a guy start beating up his wife. Hi Pockets,
being the gentleman that he was, pulled the guy off and hit him, and then the guy and the woman both turned on him. It was
that kind of place. Buddy Holly played there a lot before he signed with Decca, and then after, when he started recording
the demos that would make him a legend.
Buddy’s success gave us all hope. He had traveled the world with his music, appeared at the New York Paramount with Alan Freed
and a “Caravan” of teen idols, and was one of the first rock and rollers to write his own songs. Though he may have been inspired
by Elvis, he knew that there was an Elvis already. Buddy sounded like himself. His experiences in Nashville, where they tried
to change his unique style, had helped to mature him, make him more sure of what he was doing as an artist, and when he took
the Crickets, J.I. and Joe B. Mauldin, over to Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, New Mexico, he knew pretty much what he wanted
from his music. He was ready for international stardom.
Buddy wrote “That’ll Be the Day” after seeing John Wayne use the phrase all the time in
The Searchers,
and he and Jerry had “Peggy Sue” as “Cindy Lou” for a year or two before he recorded it. Guitarist Niki Sullivan, who was
the fourth Cricket, never really fit in the group, though
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