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What kind of music did you grow
up with?
A lot of pop music from the 1930s
and 1940s (grandparents) and 1950s
and 1960s (parents). Also
remember hearing a lot of
symphonic music, particularly
from the early 20th century. I
heard country and bluegrass on
the radio once in a while. My dad’s
parents were children of Finnish
immigrants, and they were active
members of singing groups in
Michigan. My grandma enjoyed big
band music and Bill Haley and the
Comets. I was always taking some
kind of music lessons while
growing up — piano, trombone
(school band). Funny thing was,
no one could make me understand
the importance of scales and keys
until I was older. Finally
learned how to play rhythm guitar
from Eddie Jackson and Marv Weyer.
You once said the “Sin
Alley” album had a big
impact on you …
Getting my driver’s license
when I turned 16 was a big deal.
I grew up in a small town outside
of Detroit, so when I was old
enough to drive a car, I started
making weekly rounds of record
shops around the suburbs. Sam’s
Jams in Ferndale was one of the
coolest, wildest record stores. I
remember seeing the Ronnie Dawson
“Rockin’ Bones” LP
when I bought “Sin Alley Vol.
1” -- who knew that 5 years
later I’d meet the man
himself! When I heard the “Sin
Alley” album, I realized
that you couldn’t call that
music “oldies but goodies”
because they were completely
unknown to me or my parents. So I
took a leap of faith and decided
that the album had music that
could be appreciated and
celebrated as if it had been
recorded last week! It wasn’t
until a few years later that I
discovered that other people felt
likewise about rock’n’roll
in the pages of Kicks magazine.
If I had to choose one LP to take
to a desert island, that would be
it, daddy-o!
What did appeal to you in
rock’n’roll and
rockabilly?
I was too young to know about
1970s punk rock when it came out.
But when I was a teen-ager,
hearing punk remakes of 1950s
songs led me to track down the
originals. I liked the energy in
punk music, but as a red-blooded
American boy growing up at the
edge of farm country, I
identified more with the delivery
of the original 1950s records.
There was something about the mix
of blues and country music that
got to me — especially after
hitting my teens. Suddenly I
understood rock’n’roll
in a primal, emotional way. In
high school I got interested in
James Dean’s movies and
traveled to Fairmount a few times
(long before the Rockabilly Rebel
Weekenders started). It was
during James Dean Days that I
found my first Eddie Cochran LP.
In high school my friends and I
listened to my mom and dad’s
“Oldies But Goodies”
albums, surf rock (Jan and Dean,
early Beach Boys), Chuck Berry,
Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran
and Detroit’s “Oldies”
AM radio station. At that time (without
the Internet!) we were a little
isolated in our village.
Tell us about your radio
show …
The last show that really took
off was the “Rock-Billy Roll
Call” at WDTR-FM in Detroit.
From 1995 to 1999 I was on the
air for 2 hours every week, and
it was a blast. I announced and
engineered every show and took
phone calls live in the studio. I
felt very connected to the
listeners, and the feeling kept
me going every week. I received
calls and letters from people of
all ages, which I took to mean
that the music had some kind of
timeless appeal. I sent lots of
tapes of the programs to record
companies in the US and Europe,
and most responded by sending
records to play on the show. It
was a real thrill to hear from
the kats overseas, telling me
that they dug the tapes I mailed,
because I knew that they had more
access to the old music than I
did!
And you also had this
newsletter you did with Dave
Stuckey. What was in it and did
you ever think about putting it
online?
When I discovered that the radio
station would pay postage costs
for mailing a newsletter, I
assembled a crude layout on one
side of an 8.5x11-inch sheet of
paper and solicited addresses
from my listeners. Over 100
people wrote in to receive it
monthly. I also sent one to Dave
Stuckey, who I met through the
mail by becoming a genuine member
of the Dave & Deke Combo’s
Stump-Jumpers Club. Dave
surprised me by offering to fill
the back of my newsletter page
with crazy hillbilly cartoons and
Pappy’s musings about West
Coast happenings. I folded the
sheets in their envelopes so that
people would see Dave’s side
first — I preferred his work
to mine! My side of the
newsletter kept listeners up-to-date
with Detroit-area show listings,
history lessons, local music
features, and record reviews.
How did you evolve from a
rockabilly fan to a rockabilly
musician?
It wasn’t easy! When I was
in high school, I sang a few rock’n’roll
tunes with a band of some older
guys I knew. Two guitars and
drums. When they graduated, they
quit playing together. We had a
decent sound, but no name and no
gigs. I finally bought myself an
acoustic guitar a few years later
and started fooling around with
it. After Shaun Young heard me
sing at an informal barbecue in
Texas, he encouraged me to keep
at it. Then I met Eddie Jackson
and Marv Weyer, and they taught
me how to chord like old western
swing and jazz rhythm players (although
I’m no jazz player). In the
meantime, I met some musicians
who listened to my radio shows
and eventually talked them into
letting me jam with them. At the
end of the first session, I was
told “You’re in the
band!” That was the start of
the Big Barn Combo (1995).
The state of Michigan has
a rich musical history with many
small labels. Did it have an
influence on you. I mean when you
started digging, did you favour
Michigan’s label rather
than, say, King or Sun?
Yes, records on Fortune were a
big inspiration. They still are.
Then I started meeting the
musicians who actually made the
records, and I jammed with some
of them ... Plus Jack Earls, a
Sun artist of the highest
caliber, also lives here. So if
you cross the Fortune sound with
the Sun sound ... Well, that’s
what I was looking for with the
Big Barn Combo. I decided to go
with the drumless Sun Dodgers
after a period of listening to a
lot of bluegrass, western swing
and Eddie Jackson.One
important person in your musical
development was Eddie Jackson.
Tell us a bit about your relation
and how did you meet him?
Eddie could be called a mentor to
me. He was a mentor to a lot of
musicians who worked with him
during the 50 years of his career.
I met Eddie over the telephone,
after he heard that I was playing
his old records on the radio. I
met him face to face at a bar on
8 Mile Road in 1995, along with
several of his friends, where
they were playing music. After
that, he invited me to a lot of
parties where he and his buddies,
including guitarist Marv Weyer,
jammed all afternoon, or all
night long. Those parties were
more fun than I can describe. You
can’t imagine the music,
stories and booze that flowed!
Anyway, when I assembled his LP
on Woodward Records, he thought I
was joking ... Until I brought
him test pressings! He couldn’t
believe how well the record sold,
and it was a thrill for me to
help him make new recordings.
Eddie was amazed by, and thankful
for, the crowds that came to the
shows that I helped to book for
him. He showed me how he led his
bands, coached me on my singing
and showed me the secrets of his
guitar playing. A man who lived
to laugh, Eddie Jackson was one
of the kindest, most joyful human
beings I ever met, and everyone
who knew him misses him very much.
And his music lives on: My
daughter’s number one
request when I get my guitar is
“Rock And Roll Baby.”
You even made him to
record again. How did it happen?
Eddie pulled an unfinished song
out of his hat during one
afternoon, along with some lesser-known
and forgotten songs he borrowed
from others. The unfinished
number turned into “A
Musician’s Life.” Eddie
had a hard time remembering the
words during the taping, so when
he finally got through it without
making a mistake, he grinned at
me, and you can hear him singing
through that grin at the end of
the song. The recording sessions
were done live in Eddie’s
basement, and we had a ball from
start to finish.
Tell us more about Marv
Weyer who is present on some of
those recordings …
Marv grew up in Pontiac. He
admitted that he was a teen-aged
hoodlum during the late 1950s
— he surrounded himself in
sharp clothes, sharp cars, and
with sharp girls. The only thing
he took seriously was playing the
guitar. And by the time he was in
high school, Marv was working on
playing Django Reinhardt tunes.
At the same time, he performed
every week with Nick & the
Jaguars for a few years. They cut
an instrumental record for Tamla
with two guitars and drums that
could have nearly scared Link
Wray off stage. Marv joined the
Marines and went through a few
tours of duty in Vietnam before
ending his military service in
California. He played with the
Mandrell family band out there,
and jammed with Joe Maphis and
Merle Travis during some of those
shows. He found his way to
Nashville during the late 1960s
and played with Barbara Mandrell,
Ray Price and others. When he
left Nashville in the 1970s, Marv
returned to Michigan and played
with Eddie Jackson, off and on,
until Eddie died in 2002. Marv is
also a very friendly, outgoing
person who helped me quite a bit
with the guitar.
Another “key figure”
is Willie Lewis. You even wrote a
song called “Willie”…
Willie was a good friend who
hipped me to a lot of things, and
introduced me to a lot of great
people. He was another mentor/advisor
figure in my life, teaching me
about the state of the music
business and how rockabilly fit
into the scheme of the 1990s;
besides record collecting, and
how to appreciate a good-looking
label on a 45 rpm disk. It
fascinated me to hear all about
the Rock-A-Billy Record Company’s
trials and tribulations. I’ve
heard people try to discredit
Willie, but knowing both sides of
some stories, I think Willie had
the clearest, most logical mind.
And more often than not, he
sought to promote rockabilly
music in general, before his own
music. He wasn’t above
changing his perspective, to
analyze things from several
angles. He seemed open to
communicating and talking things
through. Besides that, I dug his
taste in offbeat music. Willie
wasn’t just a musician/promoter/record
company businessman — he
always made sure to let people
know that he was a fan of
rockabilly music. He told me
several times that it saved his
life.
Rockabilly is a very
codified type of music. How much
of a problem is it to “respect”
the genre when you write a song?
I mean : did you ever think
“No, that’s too modern”
or “Oh! Looks like I’m
writing Baby Let’s Play
House”…
I’ve written some things
that I thought might be too
modern, but I don’t worry
about it. I try to find a sound
that feels natural to me. I’ve
been listening to old music all
my life, and rockabilly music for
about half of it. And I’ve
been immersed in Michigan country
and rock’n’roll music
for 15 years. If I find a song
starting to sound like another
that I’ve heard before, I
shift gears and try to change it.
I try to make my songs sound
different from each other.
Will there be more
recordings from The Sun Dodgers
soon?
Hope so!
One last word?
Thanks very much to everyone I’ve
met and talked with over the
years. I’ve been lucky to
accomplish some dreams of mine,
and it wouldn’t have been
possible without y’all. I
learned a long time ago that I’m
most comfortable around people
who enjoy music, so I’ll be
around. Have a ball!
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