But Sahm had been, as described by James Head in The Handbook of Texas Music, “a musical prodigy who . . . was singing on the radio by the age of fi ve, and was so gifted that he could play the fi ddle, steel guitar, and mandolin by the time he was eight years old.” With that background, Sahm made his studio debut at age thirteen on a Sarg single (#113) issued under the name Little Doug. That 1955 track, like much of the Sarg catalogue, was also recorded at ACA Studios.
Of the Sarg-controlled tracks recorded by Quinn at Gold Star Studios, some had actually been leased as fi nished masters from Nucraft Records, whose owner Boyd Leisy was in the process of shutting down. Among those were recordings by Link Davis, Floyd Tillman, Johnny Nelms, James O’Gwynn, Coye Wilcox, and Sonny Burns. From that bulk acquisition, Sarg actually issued only two records as new singles: Link Davis’s “Cockroach” backed with
“Big Houston” (#136) and Floyd Tillman’s “Baby, I Just Want You” and “Save a Little for Me” (#137). Unbeknownst to Fitch, however, two of those four 8 8
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tracks had already been released on Western Records: “Big Houston” (#1073) and “Save a Little for Me” (#1072)—a surprise that perhaps prompted him to withhold the other titles.
Apart from those Leisy recordings, Sarg staged its own Gold Star sessions that led to several releases in 1956, including three discs by Al Parsons and the Country Store Boys (#140, 147, and 154), plus others by Johnny Carroll (#144), Al Urban (#148), and Dick Fagan (#155). In 1958 and 1960 Al Urban returned to Gold Star Studios to record additional sides for Sarg (#158 and 174).
Though the Sarg label never scored a hit record, it produced sonic documents of historical value. Moreover, the fact that the majority of the Sarg sessions occurred in Houston speaks again to the professional reputations of those two important early Texas recording engineers, Holford and Quinn, and their respective studios, ACA and Gold Star.
For Quinn, such renown meant that he was regularly dealing with musically minded entrepreneurs such as Fitch or Henry Hayes, men with big ideas and minimal funding who nonetheless wanted quality sound engineering on the recordings they produced.
On the other hand, there were also guys such as Dan Mechura, the owner of Houston-based Allstar Records. That label operated from 1953 to 1966, issuing many legitimate recordings but also perhaps dabbling in the less than reputable business known in common music business parlance as “song (or song-poem) sharking.”
That practice involved advertising for and otherwise recruiting gullibly op-timistic amateurs who believed they had scripted words (as lyrics or poetry) worthy of being set to music and immortalized on record. The typical scam required the fl attered victim (whose ego had been pumped up by repeated declarations that his work was simply brilliant) to pay an exorbitant amount of money in advance to the shark-producer. These funds ostensibly went to hire a composer/arranger to create the musical setting for the words, as well as to pay studio musicians and one or more singers to perform the song at a recording session arranged by the shark-producer—and to cover the costs (all of which were infl ated) of renting the studio and engineering, mastering, pressing, distributing, and promoting the record.
Of course, most of the money actually ended up in the shark’s pockets.
To cover himself he not only overcharged the naïve client but pressed only a small number of copies of the disc (just enough to appease the customer’s desire for some complimentary samples and to have a few to send out). He then mailed copies to a trade magazine for possible review and to a local radio station or two—the better to foster the illusion that the record was truly being promoted. Meanwhile, he claimed to be distributing it widely and shopping it to major labels in hopes of a lease agreement and national hit. In reality, of l i t t l e l a b e l s
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course, he would sit on his client’s investment, feigning surprise and regret that demand for the record never materialized.
The most notorious song-sharks were the blatant criminals who made no attempt at legitimacy, seeking only to victimize. However, historically there has been another class of song-sharks comprising producers who earnestly may have sought to record good talent and cultivate hits—but who also occasionally made some easy money by taking advantage of would-be writers who possessed more cash than common sense.
Others have made well-documented allegations that the founder of Allstar Records, Mechura, may have been involved in such operations. We turn again to Andrew Brown—this time to his essay about Allstar published on the American Song-Poem Music Archives website. Brown writes,
Allstar Records, a quasi-song-poem label with a slightly more plausible claim to legitimacy than most of its song-sharking peers, was the brainchild of Houston country musician/“singer” Daniel James Mechura. The ambitious Mechura started out as the front man of a local outfi t, the Sun Valley Playboys, enjoying one release on the Starday label (which they paid for themselves) in 1955. By that time, Dan had discovered the seedy underworld of songwriters’ clubs and, sensing an opportunity ripe for exploitation, soon began doing business as president of “The Folk Writers Co-Operative Association,” generously off ering “every songwriter the help which is necessary to succeed in this competitive fi eld,” as stated in one sales pitch. A record label of their own was the logical outgrowth of this “co-op.”
That label turned out to be Allstar, which issued many records credited to a variety of obscure fi gures, such as Cowboy Blair (whose Allstar recording of “Top of Your List” actually includes the credit “A Gold Star Recording” on the printed label). But Brown makes it clear that Mechura’s company did actually operate, at least in part, like a genuine record label. That is, regardless of whether he engaged in song-sharking or not, Mechura actively did seek to record and promote true musical talent. Brown continues,
Allstar issued “legitimate” commercially-oriented records right alongside their song-poem eff orts. . . . Throughout the label’s life, Mechura was able to recruit established, professional country singers well-known in Texas—not faceless studio hacks, but guys with proven track records and recording careers.
Among the respected musicians who made records with Allstar were Eddie Noack, Link Davis, Johnny Bush, and local favorite Smilin’ Jerry Jericho, to name a few.
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Another was Wiley Barkdull, a seasoned piano player and singer who had fi rst recorded elsewhere for the Hickory label in 1956 but who also was long familiar with Gold Star Studios. He recalls the scene at a couple of Allstar sessions, with special emphasis on Quinn’s eff orts to adapt to get the best possible sound:
The records I did for Allstar were done in that big room in ’61 and ’62. . . .
[Quinn] set us up in a circle over by the piano, with it just over to the side of us. The recordings had quite a bit of echo in that big room. We cut “Tear Down This Wall” and “These Old Arms” [#7222]. . . .
I did a session after that with Link Davis. . . . Bill had made some changes and had these partitions that he put around us. He created these phony walls on wheels, kind of like baffl
es. He was using those partitions to cut down on
the amount of natural echo that was being recorded.
The Allstar catalogue contains hundred of titles, some of which may well have been only amateurish song-poem product of little merit. But because it also includes eff orts by serious musicians such as Barkdull (who ultimately recorded at least fi ve singles for the label), it too is part of the Gold Star legacy in Texas music history.
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10
Into the ’60s and
Quinn�
��s Last Sessions
umerous other noteworthy young artists recorded at Gold Star Studios in the early 1960s—an era when popular music
was rapidly changing and Bill Quinn was in the fi nal phase of his remarkable career.
Gene Thomas (b. 1938) scored a hit with the product of his very fi rst session. That song, “Sometime,” recorded and mastered by Quinn, was released on Venus Records (#1439) in 1961. After proving itself fi rst regionally, the soulful ballad was leased and reissued by the major label United Artists (#338).
“Sometime” debuted nationally in late October 1961 and peaked at number fi fty-three on the Billboard pop charts. Thomas returned to Gold Star Studios in 1962 to cut the tracks “Mysteries of Love” and “That’s What You Are to Me” for Venus (#1443). Later the Texas native moved to Nashville, where he worked as a songwriter and recorded successfully for other labels.
Country singer Mel Douglas launched his career with a Gold Star Studios–
produced record. Though he would go on to cut other tunes, he would never top the acclaim directed at his 1961 track called “Cadillac Boogie,” issued on SAN Records (#1506). Douglas recalls how that hit came to be:
Troy Caldwell, he had the lyrics for “Cadillac Boogie” and “Since You Walked Away.” I straightened up the lyrics and added the music. Man, I was nineteen, maybe twenty, at the time. . . . We came over to Gold Star and laid them down. That was back in 1961, and it was my fi rst recording ever. . . . We put the single on Troy Caldwell’s label, SAN Records. The record then got taken over to the Dailys. . . . They distributed it, and I got to meet Pappy and Don Daily, and Gabe Tucker and his wife Sunshine [all of D Records]. They were all great people. They helped make that record take off regionally. KNUZ
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[radio station] played that record every hour on the hour. I joined with Gene Thomas, Roy Head, and others who were making the circuit playing the teen shows.
In 1962 Douglas returned to make his second single, “Dream Girl” backed with “Forever My Darling,” for the Gulf label (#1630/1631), which Quinn had briefl y revived around this time. He continues,
“There Must Be a Way” and “Pounding Heart” . . . was my third single and was recorded right here at Gold Star. It was done on the 19th of January 1963. That single was my fi rst real big session because we had fi ve horns on it. I also wrote both of those songs, and the record was released on the Tamel label [#11]. . . . J. L. Patterson was the engineer who recorded and mixed that single.
In late 1964 or early 1965 I cut my fourth single here at Gold Star. The songs were “My Lonely Girl” and “Box Lunch.” They were released on the Dream label (#101).
One of the relatively few female singers to record at Gold Star in this era was Mary McCoy, who worked with producer Huey Meaux. In 1960, Mary McCoy and the Cyclones recorded two songs there: “Deep Elem Blues” and
“Breaking Up Is the Thing to Do.” The resulting single on JIN Records (#140), a South Louisiana–based label, was a minor hit on the local scene.
Louisiana artists had long fi gured into the facility’s history. But under Meaux’s infl uence, a new breed of Louisiana singer, performing a style called swamp pop, came to Gold Star to record. Involving a fusion of New Orleans R&B with country, early rock, and certain Cajun or Creole infl uences, this music was intensely popular during its heyday along the upper Gulf Coast.
One of the swamp-pop stars to record at Gold Star was Rod Bernard, who had previously scored a 1959 national hit with “This Should Go On Forever”
on the Argo label (#5327). Then, after a stall in his career, he attempted a comeback on Meaux’s Teardrop label. He says,
I was a success and a failure by the time I was twenty. After a while when nobody wanted me, I called Huey, and he said, “Come to Houston and let’s record.” . . . It was like ’63 or ’64. And he would have a band record the track before I even got there, and then I would go to Gold Star and cut the vocal, often late at night.
Although Bernard never replicated his earlier success, his swamp pop added another spice to the rich musical gumbo percolating at Gold Star i n t o t h e ’ 6 0 s a n d q u i n n ’ s l a s t s e s s i o n s 9 3
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Studios. Along with the roots music sounds that Quinn already knew well, new styles of popular music were taking shape. Whatever Quinn may have thought of them, Gold Star played a key role in documenting them for poster-ity. And one rare album cut there in 1963 provides an especially remarkable example of how the times truly were changing.
in early-1960s houston, there was an unusually fecund scene for independent singer-songwriters. It comprised a subculture of young Texans who identifi ed both with the old-style blues and traditional country music, as well as with certain aesthetics of the gradually emerging folk-rock movement.
Some of the fi gures who cultivated their talents there were Mickey Newbury (1940–2002), Guy Clark (b. 1940), K. T. Oslin (b. 1941), and Townes Van Zandt (1944–1997)—soon followed by Rodney Crowell (b. 1950), Lucinda Williams (b. 1953), Nanci Griffi
th (b. 1954), Steve Earle (b. 1955), and Lyle Lovett (b.
1957). But scores of other local enthusiasts were also syncretizing variant strands of music and laboring poetically for the sake of the song.
One of the most popular places where Houston singer-songwriters would congregate and perform was a folk club called the Jester Lounge, located on the corner of Bammel Lane and Philfall Street. Jon Jones, a regular at the now-defunct establishment, provides this orientation:
The Jester itself was kind of the fi rst folk venue in Houston. . . . It was a little tiny club with a small stage and no sound system at the beginning. Then Mac Webster, the owner, expanded the club after it became a hot venue. But there were still lines of people, through the parking lot onto Westheimer [Road], waiting to get in to the club. . . . It was the place to play back in those days.
Even the Kingston Trio played there after their shows at the Shamrock. Also the [New] Christy Minstrels played the Jester quite a bit. Janis Joplin often came to the club, but somehow she never got to perform on that stage.
Though the vibrant scene at the Jester Lounge nurtured itself with nationally touring acts, it was more likely, on any given night, to feature homegrown talent. It also held Sunday-afternoon hootenannies, off ering an open mic to anyone who wanted to perform a song. In part, what made this place special was its policy of readily booking older African American players such as Lightnin’ Hopkins right along with younger white folks such as Van Zandt.
But what made the Jester absolutely unique was the fact that its management and some of its regular performers decided in 1963 to self-produce a record album showcasing its potent racially integrated mix of local performers. To do so, they went to Gold Star Studios.
Thanks to that LP album project, several important artists got their fi rst 9 4
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professional recording experience, including Clark, who performed “Cotton Mill Girls.” Another rookie who would go on to a major career was Oslin (though she was credited in those days simply as Kay, not K. T.). Including the iconic Hopkins (who delivered the blues standard “Trouble in Mind”), fourteen diff erent artists were featured. Among those were Vivian and Scott Holtzman, who performed solo on separate tracks. Other highlighted singers were Arthur Hodges (who contributed two tracks), Frank Davis (who performed also on a duet with Oslin), Sarah Wiggins, Alex Martin, Jim Gunn, Jenny Bell Dean (backed on one of her two contributions by the Dradeaux Sisters), and the duo billed as Ken and Judy.
Though it is most commonly referred to as simply “the Jester album,”
the actual title is Look, It’s Us! On the cover, beneath that exclamation, is an arrow pointing down to a group photograph (credited to Gary Wallace) of the participants. Judging from the h
eavy black drapes in the background of the interior space where this assemblage is posed, it seems probable that the shot was taken in the big room at Gold Star Studios. Nationally renowned folklorist John A. Lomax Jr. contributed the liner notes, in which he describes the Jester Lounge as a “folk music mecca.”
Frank Davis, a regular performer at the Jester Lounge, made his recording debut on Look, It’s Us! He later became a successful recording engineer himself. Davis off ers these recollections:
[Gold Star engineer] Dan Puskar was a really neat guy of Polish descent. He had all kinds of wonderful innovations for recording. We were recording on a three-track half-inch tape machine made by Ampex. . . . Bill Quinn was not around for these sessions. Dan pretty much did it all by himself. And of course, the sessions were all pretty late at night. There were lots of little sessions recorded over a couple of weeks. . . .
The sessions were orchestrated very well. There were several large groups and a bunch of individuals, and everybody got equal time. Everyone accompanied themselves, and there were no extra musicians on the gig. . . .
There was a neat thing that Dan did while he was recording me. When I performed on stages around town, most of them were thin plywood, and I would tap my foot near the base of the mic stand and get some extra percussion. Dan set up a board for me to sit on and play and to tap my foot on—
and put a mic underneath it. It was really great and added a nice touch to the sound of the recording. Basically he built a small platform for me to sit on—a foot or so above the fl oor of the studio.
Clark, one of the most revered Texas-born songwriters of our time, worked in the early 1960s as art director for Houston’s CBS-affi
House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) Page 14