ily were from the same town I was from, Bemis. I’d met ‘em, and I knew Carl’s brother Clayton that played upright bass. I’d go to some of the places they were playing, and here’s another fluke thing, I don’t know why I’d do this, but for some reason, when Carl would be doin’ an up-tempo song like Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin,” I would walk up and stand beside Clayton, and keep time with my hands [tapping the tabletop and singing to illustrate] on the side of his upright bass. So one night I was there at the Hilltop Inn and they had just gotten through. Carl came up to me and said, “W.S., we have got an appointment with Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis next Thursday. Borrow some drums and go with us.” I said, “Carl. What would I do with drums? I don’t know how to play drums.” He said, “Well, you keep time on that bass, you can play drums.”
So I found a guy who had some drums, and I told him what was happening. He said, “But W.S., you can’t play drums!” I said, “Yes, I know. But if you let me borrow them, I’ll be playing them by Thursday,” Okay. I had never seen how to set up a drum set, but I knew I was gonna be playing the high hat, the sock cymbal with my right hand. So I sat it on the right. I found out later that I was wrong - or everybody else was wrong and I was right. (Laughs) I sat ‘em up at my Mother’s house and practiced, then I went down and played with some friends at this little club on a Tues- day night. For some reason, I was able to keep time. I always say I wasn’t very smart but I could count to four, I’d say that’s all you have to do to play drums, just count to four over and over again.(Laughs)
But we got in my car Thursday morning and went over to Memphis and met Sam Phillips, then we went in and played an old song called “Movie Mag.” It was a song Carl wrote about
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taking a girl his girl friend named Maggie to the movies on a horse named Becky. That’s the first thing we recorded and Sam liked what he heard, and we got a recording con- tract that day. That was in 1954. And in ‘55, here came all of the rest of the Sun group - Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Sonny Burgess, Billy Riley. We started tour- ing in ‘55. In those days you’d go into Sun Records and make a record, then you’d send it up to Dewey Phillips who did the Red, Hot and Blue Radio Show. After he played it a couple of times on his show, you could play the National Guard Armory anywhere within a 75 mile radius of Memphis and have a big crowd. That’s how easy it was to get into the music business back then.
I kept working that year at the Lawrence Company and playing whenever we could. In 1955 we recorded “Blue Suede Shoes,”and that was our third record. It was released in early ‘56 and it was a big hit. Then it came time to make a decision - was I going to keep the job working on air conditioners or play in a band. So I decided to play in a band. I fig- ured out later that playing in a band is cooler than working on air conditioners. (Laughs) So that’s how I got started. I didn’t really think nothing about it back then, but now that it’s history, I just love telling people like you all about it.
How did you go from playing with Carl to playing with Johnny Cash? Okay, another fluke thing. (Laughs) At the end of the ‘50’s it seemed like it was all over. Sam wasn’t as interested in recording, he’d bought radio stations and he made all the money he needed to make. Carl had had a hard time. His older brother had passed away and he wasn’t doing very good. So I decided to get another real job. I’d just met Joyce, and we were planning on getting married - which
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