House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music)

by Andy Bradley, Roger Wood

  As for Daily’s work with Starday, it lasted through the end of 1957 or early 1958. Pierce had also independently purchased Hollywood Records of Los Angeles, and shortly after joining Starday, he consolidated the two label of-fi ces there. With Pierce running the company in California and Daily working the studio in Houston, the Beaumont-based Starnes became a less active partner, and in 1955 he sold out his interest to the other two. In 1957 Pierce moved the Starday-Hollywood offi

  ces to Nashville. Meanwhile, Daily, riding

  on the heels of the early hit singles, had produced the fi rst Starday LP, Grand Ole Opry’s New Star by George Jones (#101), in 1956. Daily’s proven capacity for commercial success led to a 1957 Starday distribution agreement with the larger Nashville-based branch of Mercury Records.

  John Tynan, writing about that merger in the March 1957 issue of Country and Western Jamboree magazine, refers to Houston as “Hillbilly Heaven” due to the number of “down home” country singers it was introducing to the world via Starday Records—artists such as George Jones, Hank Locklin, Leon Payne, Benny Barnes, James O’Gwynn, Tibby Edwards, Jeanette Hicks, Eddie Noack, and many others. This article also quotes Pierce explaining the company’s approach to recording at Gold Star Studios:

  At the session we try for a relaxed atmosphere so the artist and the musicians can create with feeling. In this connection we are pleased with the results we have obtained through Bill Quinn and his studio in Houston. . . . We try not to duplicate sounds from other records. We prefer musicians who play well and who have a style and sound that is fresh and new—but it must be country.

  Suddenly this little upstart label from Southeast Texas was positioning itself as a major player in the Nashville-centric country music business. More to the point, its savvy A&R man—the guy everyone called “Pappy”—was gaining fame. And they were doing it as a result of recordings created at Gold Star Studios. Within another year Pierce bought out Daily’s share of the Starday company, and Daily began producing for Mercury in Nashville and for his own new label, D Records, down in Houston.

  4 4

  h o u s e o f h i t s

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 44

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  “Pappy was a great man, and he done a lot for me. He carried me a long way, and I stayed with him for nearly four years,” said the singer O’Gwynn in 2004.

  “Pappy’s publishing company still is my publishing company, Glad Music.”

  O’Gwynn’s rise to country star status was fueled in large part by the Daily magic, which propelled him straight from Starday to the higher-profi le Mercury Records. As O’Gwynn relates,

  We cut “Losing Game” and “If I Never Get to Heaven” [#266]. I cut that in 1956, and it was the only one that I did for Starday itself. I was voted “Most Promising [Country] Artist” in Billboard magazine on [the basis of ] that record, and it also got me on the Louisiana Hayride [radio program]. Then Pappy made a deal with Mercury Records, and he put me and George Jones out on Mercury/Starday. . . .

  Though O’Gwynn soon found himself recording for a prestigious Nashville label, he was still making those records at Gold Star Studios. He continues, I cut a whole bunch of sides, nearly twenty, for Pappy over there at Quinn’s studio. In early 1957 I cut “Who’ll Be the Next One” and “Mule Skinner Blues” [Mercury #71066]. In the middle of that year we cut “I Cry” and “Do You Miss Me” [#71127]. And near the end of the year we did “Two Little Hearts” and “You’ve Always Won” [#71234] . . . among others.

  Likewise, country singer Glenn Barber (1935–2008) credits Daily with transforming his career. After doing session work at Gold Star Studios as a teenage guitarist, his virgin attempt at recording under his own name was not for Starday, but it quickly landed him there. He recounts the evolution: I cut my fi rst session as an artist with a song called “Ring around the Moon”

  and “You Took the Twinkle out of My Stars.” It was also the song that got me on Starday Records with Pappy Daily. I fi rst did this recording with some gentlemen by the name of Curt Peeples and Willie Jones, and we went over to Quinn’s to record it.

  I had been at Quinn’s earlier as a session guitar player. I was sixteen years old at the time we recorded that song with Bill. My brother was one year younger than me and was playing bass. It was a teenage band of guys in high school, and that’s who played on the record. . . . The original was on Stampede Records, and we recorded that in late 1951 or early 1952. We recut the song later for Starday [“Ring around the Moon,” #166, released in 1954].

  I recorded a song for Pappy called “Washed My Face in Ice Cold Water,” which was the B-Side to “Ring around the Moon.” . . . Starday p a p py d a i ly a n d s t a r d ay r e c o r d s

  4 5

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 45

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  #249—“Shadow My Baby”/“Feeling No Pain”—received a Billboard mention on the 28th of July, 1956. Those two sides were my attempt at rockabilly for Starday. . . . The backup band on the record was some of my western swing band with Link Davis [sax] as a guest. Bucky Meadows, who played piano and guitar for many years for Willie Nelson, played piano on the song—and was only fourteen years old at the time. The drummer was Bill Kimbrough, and bass was Zane Compton. . . . Leon Thomas played steel. . . . Starday #214—

  “Ain’t It Funny”/“Livin’ High and Wide”—was also recorded with Bucky and the same guys.

  Many Texas musicians laid the late-1950s foundation for the undiluted country music of Starday Records. It was a pure sound based on raw emo-tions and simple arrangements, and it was soon drawing fans nationwide—

  as well as the attention of the Nashville recording establishment. But one Southeast Texas singer in particular would uniquely personify it.

  george jones was born in 1931 in Saratoga, a hamlet nestled in the Big Thicket region of the Lone Star State. When he was eleven years old, his family moved approximately thirty miles to the industrial boomtown of Beaumont. By 1943 Jones was strumming guitar and singing for tips on its streets, and from 1947 through 1951 he played various gigs in local honky-tonks. After a two-year stint in the marines, he returned to Beaumont and its nightclubs, one of which happened to be owned by the Starday cofounder Starnes, who signed him to the label.

  Prior to the success Starday would fi nd with Jones, it had already scored a hit with the seminal version of the classic country anthem “Y’All Come,”

  written and performed by a Beaumont-area English teacher named Arlie Duff (1924–1996). Originally identifi ed on the label as “You All Come” (#104, backed with “Poor Old Teacher”), that record unexpectedly rose to number seven on the country charts and won a 1953 BMI Music Award. Over the years so many country artists would cover this upbeat song that most fans today would never associate it with Arlie Duff or Starday. But those are the forces that collaboratively introduced this crowd-pleaser to the world. And in so doing, they had perhaps inspired Jones.

  A story from promoter Slick Norris illustrates the point: “On March 9th, 1954, I went to Cook’s Hoedown, which was the number one club in Houston, right downtown at Capitol and Smith. Me and my buddy went in there, and they had this little old band from Beaumont. It was George Jones.”

  After setting the scene, Norris describes an epiphany: “There was something commercial about the way George picked that guitar. The fi rst Starday hit was

  ‘Y’All Come’ by Arlie Duff . George picked guitar on the second turn-around on [his live performance of ] that record, and I just said, ‘Oh gosh!’”

  4 6

  h o u s e o f h i t s

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 46

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  By late 1954 Jones had recorded four Starday singles, all produced in the Starnes house in Beaumont. His fi rst was “No Money in This Deal” backed with “You’re in My Heart” (#130). However, neither it nor its sequel, “Play It Cool Man, Play It Cool” (#146), garnered much notice.

  Sometime in 1955 Daily brought Jon
es to Houston for his fi rst Gold Star Studios session. The result was a runaway hit called “Why Baby Why” (#202), cowritten by Jones and his boyhood pal Darrell Edwards. The record fi rst entered the Billboard charts on October 29, 1955, and it stayed there for eighteen weeks, peaking at the number four spot. In the process it also revived the hit-making tradition at Gold Star Studios.

  By the way, as writer Rich Kienzle makes clear in his liner notes essay for The Essential George Jones, “the song broke George out of obscurity, though not totally the way he (or Starday) would have liked.” As sometimes happened in those days, this surprise hit by a newcomer was quickly seized upon, rerecorded, and rushed to release by someone else. In this case, “Red Sovine and Webb Pierce, both established stars, covered the song as a duet for Decca Records. Given their star status, their version became the Number 1 record.”

  Nevertheless, “Why Baby Why” signaled the arrival of Jones, and he subsequently recorded several other singles at the Gold Star facility engineered by Quinn. The biggest seller came in 1956 with the Jones-penned song “Just One More” (#264), peaking at number three. Among the others were “What Am I Worth” (#216, which went to number seven), “Ragged But Right,” “Seasons of the Heart,” “You Gotta Be My Baby” (#247), and a duet with Jeanette Hicks entitled “Yearning” (#279). At least two of those original Starday recordings were later released also on Mercury: “Just One More” (#71049) and

  “Yearning” (#71061). Moreover, a few other songs, such as “Don’t Stop the Music” (#71029), were recorded at Gold Star and issued only on Mercury.

  Jones and Daily thereafter staged sessions in Nashville. As an artist-producer team, they continued to collaborate through 1971, creating many other hit recordings. Supposedly it was the singer’s 1969 marriage to Tammy Wynette that eventually led Jones away from Daily, for within a year Jones was making records with her producer, Billy Sherrill. Nevertheless, Daily and Jones had experienced a productive partnership for fi fteen years, and they likely had a fairly close personal relationship. Sleepy LaBeef, a fellow musician, says: Pappy was great to all of us, but his main deal, you know, was “Thumper”

  [Jones]. Yeah, well back then he like adopted George and treated him almost like he was his son, you know. George always came fi rst with Pappy. The rest of us had to line up, but George was quite a talent, and he still is. We all knew that George was the main man. Just like in Memphis, Carl Perkins and the others knew that Elvis was the main man there.

  p a p py d a i ly a n d s t a r d ay r e c o r d s

  4 7

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 47

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  Jones, who has continued performing and recording in the twenty-fi rst century, is now generally acknowledged (despite some highly publicized personal foibles) as one of the greatest singers in country music history. But back when nobody could have predicted that he would ever achieve that rarefi ed cultural status, he began establishing himself during those Gold Star sessions.

  Perhaps Daily’s nurturing had something to do with that. Jones had found his own distinctive voice, and he had let it sing with a naturally fl owing intensity of spirit. Though his style was still infl uenced by that of his idol Hank Williams, he was no longer merely imitating but creating something new.

  However, sometimes a sequence of seemingly random circumstances can unexpectedly coalesce into a life-changing experience. Such was the case with the momentous recording session that yielded “Why Baby Why,” as the memories of several studio insiders reveal.

  In

  his

  New Kommotion interview, fellow Starday recording artist Eddie Noack explains the situation that led to the then-rare phenomenon of the featured singer double-voicing the song all by himself.

  George Jones wasn’t selling anything on Starday to begin with. So they were cutting George [singing] with Sonny Burns to help him—stuff like

  “Heartbroken Me” [#165] and “What’s Wrong [with] You” [#188]. And they were going to do a third one, and this was the biggest break George ever had

  [because] Sonny liked to drink, and he didn’t show up for a Burns/Jones session, and you know, it was “Why Baby Why.” Because Sonny did not turn up, George had to cut it on his own, and he overdubbed his own voice over it.

  Thus, whether fans realized it or not, they were hearing the Jones voice har-monizing with itself on the catchy chorus of the song. Given that it was 1955, this technique was unusual, requiring some studio innovation.

  Generally speaking, the technology that enables a singer to record a second vocal track, while wearing a pair of headphones and listening to prerecorded tracks of both the instrumentation and his own lead vocal, did not become common until the 1960s. To enable Jones to sing the background vocal part with himself on “Why Baby Why,” Quinn would have had to set up a small speaker in the studio. He could then play the track back to Jones at a very low volume while the singer added his second vocalization. Meanwhile, Quinn could then record the original track plus the more recently performed second vocalization to a second tape recorder. Because the editing technology of “punch-ins” (or “drop-ins”) was not yet established, Jones would have had to do all of his second vocal parts in a straight run-through of the song—after he and the band had already performed the complete song live in the studio as fl awlessly as possible. Given the double-voicing eff ect achieved on “Why 4 8

  h o u s e o f h i t s

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 48

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  Pappy Daily and George Jones,

  publicity photo, 1963

  Baby Why,” its fi nished sound depended not only on Jones’s fl awless singing with himself but also on innovative studio engineering by Quinn.

  Glenn Barber, a regular Gold Star house musician at the time, off ers other details about the session that yielded this breakthrough record: One recording I remember was “Why Baby Why” by George Jones. When we did that session my little boy was in diapers, and my wife had him on her lap and was patting him on his butt to keep him quiet because there was no-p a p py d a i ly a n d s t a r d ay r e c o r d s

  4 9

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 49

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  where to sit except in the studio itself. Herbie [Remington] was on steel and Tony Sepolio on fi ddle. Doc Lewis played piano. . . . I also played on “Seasons of My Heart” [by Jones], and it was the same band as “Why Baby Why.” We pretty much always had the same band on these sessions.

  Despite the ultimate success of those fi rst Jones recording sessions in Houston, musician Tony Sepolio reveals that it did not come easily. In an interview published by Andrew Brown in Taking Off , Sepolio recalls his role in and exasperated impressions of trying to collaborate with Jones:

  “Why Baby Why.” I got the band for him. He called me. It took him all day to make it. I’m not used to that. . . . Man, it took him all day to make the darn thing. He’d get drunk. . . . He went through a fi fth of whiskey. He’d say, “Wait a minute, I forgot the chords,” stop right in the middle of it. We’d start again, and then he’d say. “Ah, that’s not the words.” And I mean, I was up to here with him. Because when I was with [Jerry] Irby [bandleader of the Texas Ranchers], we’d make ’em boom-boom-boom. In one day, we made fi ve 15-minute radio programs [transcriptions]. We might miss a note here or word there—we didn’t care; we’d just keep going. And [on the “Why Baby Why” session] here’s this idiot, man. Toward the end he’d say, “I forgot the words.” We took a break about lunchtime. And [Jones] was going through his fi fth of whiskey. And I told Lew [Frisby, bass player], “Hey, if we can’t whip him, let’s join him.” So we went down to the corner and got us a six-pack of beer.

  I got frustrated with him. I swore that I’d never record with him again—

  and I never have. I told Jones, “Man, don’t ever call me again.” We got paid union wages, but it wasn’t worth it.

  As such testimony makes clear, even in the early days, a Jones recordin
g session could be a challenge for all involved. Steel guitar player Frank Juricek has his own recollections. “I remember a George session that took all night, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and we got only two songs done,” he claims.

  Yet, even in the midst of such proceedings, the Gold Star Studios founder Quinn tended to maintain his composure and eventually get the desired results. Consider this anecdote from musician Glenn Barber:

  Bill was a great guy with a good sense of humor. I remember one early session with George Jones that wasn’t going so well because he’d been drinking a bit too much. Bill fi nally came out and had a conference with all of us. He said, “Do you boys think we can do this on the next take?”

  We all said, “Sure, we can do it.”

  5 0

  h o u s e o f h i t s

  Bradley_4319_BK.indd 50

  1/26/10 1:12:12 PM

  George said, “I can sing it perfect. Let’s do it and get out of here.”

  Bill said, “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but I only have one acetate dub left.” So we cut it.

  Building on Quinn’s ability to achieve successful resolution of in-studio diffi

  culties, Jones recorded several more tracks at Gold Star even after he had made the jump from Starday to Mercury Records. At least two of those tracks became 1957 hits: “Don’t Stop the Music” (#71029) crested on the Billboard country charts at number ten, and “Too Much Water” (#71096) climbed as high as number thirteen.

  It was not until Daily moved Jones’s sessions to Nashville and made the 1959 Mercury recording of “White Lightning” (#71406), which rose all the way to number one on the charts, that the initial success of “Why Baby Why” and