Roy was beginning to realise how exceptional his voice was and it was so well suited to performing Heartbreak songs. One big hit was "Only the Lonely" and another was Running Scared about a man who was afraid of his girlfriend leaving him. He toured in the UK and was somewhat surprised and annoyed to find that the Beatles were now famous yet at a concert he performed 14 encores and the Beatles would not let him go out on the stage again. During that time however he got to know George Harrison and they would later become close friends.
Wednesday 30 September 2020
Roy Orbison Part III
Monday 28 September 2020
Roy Orbison Part II
In the late 50s Roy gave up singing for a time and concentrated on song writing. He married Claudette and they had 2 sons. However they were not very well off but Roy had always been ambivalent about performing. He loved music - particularly country, rock and roll and rockabilly...but he suffered badly from stage fright and was shy about his unusual looks and his wearing thick glasses. He liked performing in some ways but did not like the PR aspects of the music business.
Thursday 24 September 2020
Roy Orbison Part I
Roy Orbison was born in Texas in 1936 and became known as a singer whose subject was heartbreak. He was the son of an oil driller and in his childhood the family moved around Texas to various jobs. He grew up mainly in Wink, Texas but disliked the town, seeing it as "football, oil and sand". He was a sensitive shy boy. He did not want to work in the oil business but tried to study enough to get a start in the field if necessary. however his heart was in music. He had poor eyesight and had to wear thick glasses and he was also embarrassed that his hair was almost white as a boy and died in jet black. He wanted to performed but did suffer badly from stage fright....
As a boy, Orbison began to sing on the radio and played with a band in high school. They played country music and one of his favourite artists in that genre was Hank Williams... Roy knew that he wanted to play music but his shyness was a problem... He enrolled in college after high school so as to have a back up if he did not succeed in the music business, but he kept on playing with his band, at local gigs and studying during the day. He met Johnny Cash who suggested that he apply to Sam Phillips of Sun Records. Phillips at first rejected him but then he did record "Ooby Dooby" which was his first big hit. He and his band now known as the Teen Kings began to write songs in rockabilly style. He became friendly with Elvis Presley who also had gotten his start at Sun Records and he wrote a song called Claudette, named after his girlfriend Claudette which became popular. However although he would become famous for his voice, at the time, he was not sure if he should go on performing or if he should concentrate on song writing.
Noel Streatfeild Part II
Noel trained as an actress, and spent 10 years in the business, working for various theatre companies. So she got a good grounding in the world of the stage. In 1936, she wrote Ballet Shoes which was a children's story about 3 children who are left badly off by a neglectful old guardian, and who go on the stage to make money. The novel was very popular and was illustrated by Noel's sister. She went on to write other "showbusiness" novels for children while also writing some romances under a different name. Her children's books are the most popular and many were adapted for film and TV.
She wrote about circus children, and also about skating.. and since she knew a good deal about the life of the professional theatre, and how children worked in it, they were very popular. She emphasised the need for stage children to have grit and determination and also to be disciplined and work hard. She criticised her characters who allowed success in the world of performance to make them spoiled and selfish. In later life she wrote the Gemma books which were about Gemma Bow, who had had success as a child actress in films but then found that she was too old for children's parts. Gemma has to live for a couple of years with her cousins, the Robinsons who are all talented amateurs, who spend a lot of time, performing in charity and school productions. Gemma finds that in an ordinary school, she does not do well, as her education on movie sets was sketchy and she learns to adapt to "normal" life.. becoming less selfish and realising that her cousins are also talented..
Noel never married, and died in 1986.
Saturday 19 September 2020
Noel Streatfeild author Part I
Noel Streatfeild is famous as the author of numerous children's novels which are set in the world of the theatre and performance. She was born in 1895 to a middle class family, in Sussex. Her father was a clergyman who later became a bishop. She was eager to have a career, since she was considered the plain daughter of the family and she was lucky enough to be born at a time when middle class girls were beginning to go to University and to earn their own livings. She started out acting in charity shows, and decided to go on the stage herself. Her older sister Ruth was a nurse during World War One, which was one of the ways that middle class girls emancipated themselves in the Georgian era. Ruth was also interested in the theatre and was a talented artist. She worked as an illustrator and did the illustrations for some of Noel's books. Noel joined an acting company, and trained as a professional actress. It was just becoming a respectable profession for a young woman of genteel background but it was still rather unusual for a clergyman's daughter. Dorothy Sayers, who was born around the same time as Noel and who was also a clergyman's daughter, was passionately fond of the theatre but became a playwright and novelist.
Tuesday 15 September 2020
Lucy Walter Part II
Lucy and Charles were the same age and within a year, she had produced a son, James who would become Duke of Monmouth. He was Charles' first son and his father was devoted to him. However he was trying to regain his throne, and soon after James' birth he had to go to Scotland. During his time in Scotland Lucy had an affair with Lord Taafe, and became pregnant again.. She had a daughter Mary. Charles refused to acknowledge this child as his..
Saturday 12 September 2020
Lucy Walter Royal mistress Part I
Lucy Walter is an obscure historical figure but she has some fame as one of the first significant mistresses of Charles II.. and as the mother of James Duke of Monmouth who rebelled against his uncle James II...
Friday 11 September 2020
Dave Dudley Truck driving singer
Dave Dudley was a country singer whose specialty was trucking songs. Country music has traditionally focused on occupations that were common among the American working men (and women). Some of the favourite ones were train songs. In the 1920s and 30s, working men rode around the country on trains, looking for work.. or worked building and repairing trains and rail roads.. In spite of poverty and hardship, there was an excitement about travelling, and hearing songs about it appealed to the listening public....Boxcar Willie sang about hoboes who travelled and lived rough and poor... and most of his songs were train songs.
Wednesday 9 September 2020
Laura Ingalls Wilder Part II
Monday 7 September 2020
Laura Ingalls Wilder Part I
Friday 4 September 2020
Rough Music by Nadine Sutton
Another stohyr of mine that’s available on Amazon is Rough Music. It is not a love story, but a novella about music and a band. Set in the 1970s and 1980s it is about a small rock band that’s trying to make it big, and the conflicts between doing real music and commericalism, marriage versus life on the road.
Thursday 3 September 2020
Beds and Blue Jeans, on Amazon by Nadine Sutton
Beds and Blue Jeans is a light heated story, about a young couple in present day America, and how they start living together and learn to love each other.... Its available on Amazon.,
Wednesday 2 September 2020
Merle Kilgore Songwriter
Merle Kilgore was a country singer and songwriter, who was also the manager of Hank Williams Junior for a time. He is buried in Hendersonville, Tennessee near to Johnny and June Carter Cash. He was born in Oklahoma in 1934, but was brought up in Louisiana.
He met Hank Williams at the Louisiana Hayride, when he was a teenager and became friendly with the family… After attending college, he began a career as a singer but became beter known as a song writer. He was a distant cousin of the Carter family and through them he met Johnny Cash. He and June Carter co-wrote “Ring of Fire” which was recorded by Anita Carter, June’s sister but then Johnny Cash recorded it and had a much bigger hit with it. It was a song about forbidden love, inspired by June’s affair with Johnny…Merle also co-wrote another famous song, Wolverton Mountain which was a big hit for Claude King.
During the 1960s he worked with Johnny Cash, as part of his touring act...
When June married Johnny at the end of the 1960s, Merle was his best man. By the 1980s he had moved more into the
business side of country music, and was managing Hank Williams junior and other
artists.
He was married with 5 children.
In later years he developed lung cancer and went to Mexico for treatment...
where he died of a heart attack…