My cup runneth over! This was to be the final installment of that 1980 Petty interview, but it runs so long, and covers so much interesting ground, that Im going to have to add one more part to this. Lets just call the upcoming fourth chapter Norman Petty, Post-Buddy Holly! I really do not want to slight any part of Pettys contributions to the music, so sit tight and I promise to have the last installment posted by this Friday! An aside: I think its worth noting, whatever your feelings are on Norman Petty, his kind words in regards to John Beecher and all of the hard work John has put into Buddy Holly over the years. His thoughts on that magnificent booklet included in the superlative six record British box set, The Complete Buddy Holly ring home like truth to this writer and it makes me want to crack open my set that I bought personally from Bill Griggs many moons ago and leaf through that great booklet that Beecher and Jones assembled. Hope everyone enjoys! A reminder: I have abbreviated the interviewers name - Brandon L. Harris - as BLH, and Norms name as simply NP. This has been done for the sake of sparing ye olde transcribers withered and tired old hands! Merry Christmas! BLH: What technique did you use for Buddy Hollys Words Of Love? NP: That was multi-dubbed. Lets go back to Thatll Be The Day. Since that was intended as a demo, we didnt strive for isolation. Jerry wasnt really playing that loud, but when we did Peggy Sue, he was playing very loud and we moved him into the reception room and left Buddy and Joe B. in the studio. BLH: Could they see one another? NP: Oh, yes, they could see each other through a little glass window between the studio and the reception room. BLH: I think you once told me that when you tried to record Buddy and the drums in the same room, all you heard was drums? NP: Right, he would sing quietly and sometimes Jerrys drums would overpower his vocals and, of course we were using a stand-up bass for Joe B. and stand-up pickups. BLH: Buddy Knox, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Jimmy Bowen all succeeded as artists. But you recorded several other people who succeeded as song writers or had only minor success as recording artists. Are there any of them, Terry Nolan, Sonny West, Sonny Curtis, youd care to comment on? NP: Of course we did a lot of what we call custom dates. Some people came in to record and who knows what they did with their tapes? Sonny West had a brother-in-law who backed him on some of his early releases. I did sell one of Sonny Wests records to Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler at Atlantic when they came to see me in Clovis. Trini Lopez was part of a group called the Big Beats that came in from Dallas. As a matter of fact Mr. Holley (Buddys father) had some relations in Dallas and suggested that the Big Beats come to Clovis to record. BLH: Was this before Buddy died? NP: Oh, yes, Buddy was still alive. And, so, they came in and recorded but there was quite a bit of dissention within the group itself. Actually the group pulled away from Trini, who later worked as a single, sort of a roving mobile troubadour. BLH: Wasnt Terry Nolan an artist you produced? NP: As a matter of fact the Terry Nolan thing was during the Big Beat period because Terrys records featured the Big Beats as backing musicians! BLH: Did you feel a sense of frustration that Terry Nolan, and some of the other artists you believed in, didnt sell as well as Knox, Bowen or Holly? And in retrospect, do you understand why they didnt succeed? NP: Well, Terry Nolan did start getting some action. It was a strange story that related to Rick Tucker, a guy from Amarillo whod written a song wed recorded called Patty Baby. By then, we were well entrenched with the Columbia people and Mitch Miller had found out that rock and roll would sell. They actually gave us a contract for Rick, but then, because of various things I wont go into, Rick lost his Columbia contract. Patty Baby had really started doing well. And Terry Nolan had started coming over to do some demos. We played him the Patty Baby record and he decided that he would like to give it a shot. The Big Beats happened to be there, so we used their music and recorded Patty Baby with Terry. We sold it to the Coral/Decca people. It started selling in Detroit, Chicago and the Great Lakes area. It became what I would call a minor hit for its day. But then the people in charge of Coral/Decca in New York decided they wanted to record Terry themselves. So, Terry did some things in New York that didnt pan out. BLH: How many people were you producing by this time? NP: Terry and Buddy and the group, about half a dozen. BLH: Is there anyone in particular whom you really felt frustrated over, who had the ability to get across but never did? NP: Well, I was very disappointed that we didnt have more happen for the Big Beats, the whole group, because they had some outstanding musicians and some excellent stuff. We did get them out on Columbia but evidently I had made the wrong choice of material or something because they really were excellent, a hit group. BLH: Back to the Holly records for a moment. There seems to be some confusion as to how the back-up voices were put on these records. A lot of people arent aware that the Crickets never sang. NP: Right, they were done in New York and, of course, that was done intentionally. It was all done at the same time as the Pythian Temple. It wasnt a multi-track. We were doing everything on a mono-machine and would get a balance with Buddy, Jerry Allison and Joe B. providing the musicianship. The same was the case later with Tommy Allsup and George Atwood and Bo Clark and some of the other musicians who werent Crickets. If we wanted vocal parts, we would have either the Roses or the Picks, we used two different groups. BLH: But Buddy wasnt in the studio? NP: No, Buddy wasnt in the studio at the time the vocals were dubbed in. BLH: He was out watching cartoons... NP: Or he was chasing the girls or something like that. But on things we did in Oklahoma at Tinker Air Force Base: Oh Boy, for instance, we would take the tapes back to Clovis. They would originally be recorded dry, with no echo or anything, and later wed dub the voices. Wed put the original tape on one machine and go through the board and add the voices and the echo on the final tape. But never under Buddys supervision or when Buddy was there. BLH: A lot has been made of the financial arrangements, that is, the way songwriter royalties have been divided up, ect. And many times the facts appear to have been distorted somewhat... NP: Well, thats been misunderstood all along. At the time we WERE the copyright owners, that much is true. A company called Melody Lane, one of the of shoots of Southern Music, had sub-publishing deals or, I should say, agency arrangements, with lots of publishers. They had one with Ivory Joe Hunter and other musicians of that era, whereby the company itself owned the copyrights and Southern or Melody Lane would actually collect and disperse all the money, and they would take care of the promotion end of the music publishing operation. Consequently, each writer received a check from NorVaJak, but if they looked closely it really was from Southern Music, the mother bank was theirs. All the accounting really came out of New York and not from me. BLH: So, if Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, Joe B. Mauldin or anyone got shortchanged, you got shortchanged right along with them! NP: Right! BLH: In fact, many times, you yourself werent satisfied in the way these things were handled, correct? NP: Definitely. We actually had many arguments with the people at Southern, although to this day I think I have one or two very good friends up there. But, the overall atmosphere with the top echelon was one of disagreement. BLH: Is this what led to the formation of Dundee Music, your next publishing company? NP: Right, because we were at wits end. Many of the writers were calling us, complaining about their statements not being correct, about not getting money, about... BLH: But they never complained about it being over! NP: No, they never did! Even when Buddy wanted money it was like...pulling teeth. It got to where they were hesitant to advance money to people like Buddy against money they already had coming. So, it got to be a problem of convincing them that they should make advances. If a statement or a royalty payment was due in September, I should say August 15, it might come in as late as September 2, things like that. BLH: Youve mentioned to me previously that an accounting was actually done from a management point of view. Who conducted it? NP: Arthur Fishkind and Maxwell Oaken. It has been said that Buddy and later his wife started legal proceedings against me. That was not so. After Buddys death, they did hire the attorneys to come down and close out, examine the books, the moneys earned and so forth. Max and Arthur were probably used because they were Southerns attorneys at the time, and Marias Aunt was at Southern. BLH: And did the gentlemen give you a quote after looking at the books? NP: They said that the only thing that had happened was that I was too generous with the boys and that I had not earned what I should have, considering all the baby sitting that I had more or less done. BLH: Why then do you suppose that, over the years, you have been taken over the coals on this matter? NP: I think an awful lot of it has come from people not really associated with it whatsoever. They have taken some part of the truth, some part of whatever rumor theyve heard and amplified it, distorted it completely out of context. And then there was quite a bit of abrasion between Jerry Allison and myself, even when Buddy was still alive. I thought that Jerry was a very smart boy, and a very good drummer, but basically very lazy. He never did what he was capable of doing, being a better drummer than he was. He didnt like to set-up his own drums, little things that he and I would bicker back and forth on. I think that Jerrys been hot and cold on what he has thought of me, probably part of thats forgotten by now. BLH: Whenever Ive discussed it over the phone with Jerry, hes always been very favorable towards you. So, it surprises me when I read some of the statements that supposedly are attributed to him. NP: I think that probably depends on how Jerry feels at the time. I dont think he knowingly throws bricks at me but sometimes he might let other people do it while sitting back quietly. I know that Jerry and I have had differences but I really wasnt aware that Jerry felt as harshly and as coldly towards me as Ive read in some accounts since our parting of the ways. That has surprised me quite a bit. BLH: Lets turn to Buddy Holly and the oft-criticized string sessions. NP: That was approached sort of selfishly. Some of the sessions went very slowly due to Joe B. not learning the parts, or Jerry not being in complete agreement with what Buddy wanted to do, or dropping a stick, or whatever else it would be. So, I figured we needed Buddy to do something with some strings. I approached Buddy with the idea and he said no, he really didnt want to do it because it wouldnt include Jerry or Joe B. and because he was very much a person who was all for his friends. So, I just dropped the idea. At the time, Buddy and I were in California doing a promotion thing on his Now Were One and Early In The Morning record. BLH: Wasnt that done without Jerry Allison? NP: Right, it was done here (NYC). That was when we really got acquainted with Dick Jacobs, who had done the same orchestration and the session at Pythian Temple to cover the Bobby Darin record. I mentioned strings to him and I didnt think hed want to do it. But he said, Well, it might really be a pretty keen idea. Since he played guitar on our Trio record Moon Dreams, he said, I like that song, which surprised me. So, that was going to be one of the songs wed cut. He said hed like to do True Love Ways and one Boudleaux and Felice Bryant had played for us in Nashville, called Raining In My Heart. The fourth tune for the session was held open because hed worked with Paul Anka on an Australian tour, and Paul was writing some songs and wanted to know if Buddy wanted to do any of them. Buddy and Paul got together and decided that theyd do the one called It Doesnt Matter Anymore. Dick had already done all the other arrangements, so It Doesnt Matter Anymore was the last thing we did. BLH: I believe Dick once told me that he did those simple staccato type arrangements on the song because there wasnt enough time? NP: Thats correct. But the strings were done prior to Buddy leaving, although the way most books and the movie reported it, Buddy had come to New York and did all the string things himself, wrote the arrangements, ect. In fact, the recordings were done while Buddy was still with me, before our break, and Dick Jacobs did all the arrangements before anything was done in New York City. BLH: You once mentioned that King Curtis flew into Lubbock and Buddy Holly picked him up at the airport. NP: Buddy picked him up and brought him to Clovis. BLH: King Curtis had to play on a session that night, is that correct? NP: He had played in New York before he got on the plane to fly to Lubbock. Buddy picked him up, brought him over and did Reminiscing, Come Back Baby and a separate session with Waylon Jennings. Buddy actually brought him in for the two Waylon Jennings things and his own, it wasnt just for Waylon. Its been said he brought him in just for Waylon, but he really brought him in to do all four songs. We recorded all night, well into the early morning. King Curtis had to be back in New York to play that night, so Buddy rushed him to Lubbock to get him back to New York in time. BLH: Youve mentioned the movie, so lets briefly touch upon that. I would think its obvious to anyone whos familiar with Hollys life that the movie was highly inaccurate and, though it was well acted by Gary Busey, there were many things which would anger any true Buddy Holly enthusiast. NP: Well, it might anger some people, but above all I think its rather disappointing that the movie made Buddy look like the kind of person it did. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Holley were diametrically opposite from the way they were depicted. They really supported Buddy and, strangely enough, many people who actually were part of Buddys life were not depicted in the movie whatsoever. BLH: How about Bob Montgomery and yourself being totally left out? NP: Bob and I being written out, thats not as bad as Jerry and Joe B. A lot of the things written out were very important. Buddys English and Australian trips. BLH: The film wasnt exactly kind to Echo McGuire! NP: Echo was a very lovely young lady, and there were other girls that figured into Buddys early life, as well as his friends and his family. So, I think it could have been called anything but The Buddy Holly Story, that might be the simplest way to put it. BLH: There have been several books on Buddy: the Peer-Southern book which I assume is no longer available in this country (The Buddy Holly Biography In Words and Music), the Dave Laing book titled Buddy Holly and John Goldrosens book, originally titled Buddy Holly: His Life And Music and reissued as The Buddy Holly Story. Plus, a German nine album set and now a British... NP: Well, there were two British sets available prior to the German records. BLH: In any event, these have all covered Buddys life, some better than others. Would you care to comment on any of these? NP: Well, regarding the British record package put together by John Beecher and Malcolm Jones: John, for a long time now, has been the real ramrod and power behind the Buddy Holly fan club in England. Probably the little booklet that he has put together with this package is, in my estimation, the easiest to follow, more accurate and fair to everyone involved in Buddys real life than anything thats been put together. Its very well done; there are photos that have not been released before and itd be my guess that John and Malcolm put the thing together with lots of tender loving care, without trying to step on anyones toes, by not throwing any bricks at anybody. In my estimation, its the fairest representation of all the things that we did with Buddy, for Buddy and that Buddy did during his entire recording career.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 19:04:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015